[1] She made her academic reputation with her insights into classical themes in Victorian art, beginning with her involvement in the exhibition of the work of the Dutch-born painter Lawrence Alma-Tadema at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

[5] In 2010, Barrow contributed an essay on classicizing themes in the toga plays and tableaux vivants of London's late-Victorian and Edwardian popular stage shows to the Theatre Journal.

An edited extract from the book, ‘Wagner and the Classical Tradition: Ideas and Action’, won the 2013 AGPRD Ars Longa Prize.

[7] When diagnosed with cancer in 2015, she had recently begun work on her fourth book, Gender and the Body in Greek and Roman Art.

She was known for her individual sense of style which The Times attributed to her punk rock-influenced teenage years and which was evident in the videos she prepared for her students,[1] some of which can be seen on the 'Athena Roehampton' YouTube channel.