The Project Gutenberg eBook of Greek Women, by Mitchell Carroll

ASPASIA
After the painting by Henry Holiday.

Aspasia was born in Miletus. At an early age, accompanied
by another young girl, Thargelia, she went to Athens.
Their beauty and talents soon won them
distinction--Thargelia married a king of Thessaly, and Aspasia
married Pericles, "more than a king," says Plutarch.
The home of Aspasia in Athens was frequentrd by the élite
of the city and state, attracted by her beauty, her art
of speaking, and her influence. Socrates valued her great
mind, and even called himself one of her disciples. Plato
speaks of her great reputation. She was born in the fifth
century before Christ. The date of her death is not known.

WOMAN

In all ages and in all countries

VOLUME I

GREEK WOMEN

MITCHELL CARROLL, Ph.D.

Professor of Classical Philology in the George Washington University

Illustrated

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

The history of woman is the history of the world. Strait orthodoxy may remind us that man preceded woman in the scheme of creation and that therefore history does not begin with woman; but this is a specious plea. The first historical information that we gain regarding Adam is concerned with the creation of woman, and there is nothing to show us that prior to that time Adam was more active in mind or even in body than a mollusc. It was not until the coming of woman that history began to exist; and if the first recorded act of the woman was disastrous in its consequences, at least it possesses the distinction of making history. So that it may well be said that all that we are we owe to woman. Whether or not the story of the Garden of Eden is to be implicitly accepted, there can be no doubt that from the moment of the first appearance of mankind on the scene woman has been the ruling cause of all effect.

The record of woman is one of extremes. There is an average woman, but she has not been found except in theory. The typical woman, as she is seen in the pages of history, is either very good or very bad. We find women saints and we find women demons; but we rarely find a mean. Herein is a cardinal distinction between the sexes. The man of history is rarely altogether good or evil; he has a distinct middle ground, in which we are most apt to find him in his truest aspect. There are exceptions, and many; but this may be taken as a rule. Even in the instances of the best and noblest men of whom we have record this rule will hold. Saint Peter was bold and cautious, brave and cowardly, loving and a traitor; Saint Paul was boastful and meek, tender and severe; Saint John cognized beyond all others the power of love, and wished to call down fire from heaven upon a village which refused to hear the Gospel; and it is most probable that the true Peter and Paul and John lived between these extremes. Not so with the women of the same story. They were throughout consistent with themselves; they were utterly pure and holy, as Mary Magdalene,--to whose character great wrong has been done in the past by careless commentary,--or utterly vile, as Herodias. Extremism is a chief feminine characteristic. Extremist though she be, woman is always consistent in her extremes; hence her power for good and for evil.

It is a mistaken idea which places the "emancipation" of woman at a late date in the world's history. From time immemorial, woman has been actively engaged in guiding the destinies of mankind. It is true that the advent of Christianity undoubtedly broadened the sphere of woman and that she was then given her true place as the companion and helper rather than the toy of man; but long before this period woman had asserted her right to be heard in the councils of the wise, and the right seems to have been conceded in the cases where the demand was made. Those who look upon the present as the emancipation period in the history of woman have surely forgotten Deborah, whose chant of triumph was sung in the congregation of the people and was considered worthy of preservation for all future ages to read; Semiramis, who led her armies to battle when the Great King, Ninus, had let fall the sceptre from his weary hand, and who ruled her people with wisdom and justice; and others whose fame, even if legendary in its details, has come down to us. Through all the ages there was opportunity for woman, when she chose to seize it; and in many cases it was thus seized. Rarely indeed do we find the history of any age unconcerned with its women. Though their part may at times seem but minor, yet do they stand out to the observant eye as the prime causes of many of the great events which make or mark epochs. When we think of the Trojan War, it is Agamemnon and Priam, Achilles and Hector, who rise up before our mental vision as the protagonists in that great struggle; but if there had been no Helen, there would have been no war, and therefore no Iliad or Odyssey. We read Macaulay's stirring ballad of Horatius at the Bridge, and we thrill at the recital of strength and daring; but if it had not been for the virtue of Lucretia, there would have been no combat for the bridge, and the Tarquins might have ended their days in peace in the Eternal City. And, in later times, though Mirabeau and Robespierre and Danton and Marat fill the eye of the student of the cataclysmic events of the French Revolution, it was the folly of Marie Antoinette that gave these men their opportunity and even paved the way for the rise and meteoric career of a greater than them all.

These are instances of mediate influence upon great events; but there have been many women who ham exerted immediate influence upon the story of mankind. That which is usually mistermed weakness is generally held to be a feminine attribute; and if we replace the term by the truer word,--gentleness,--the statement may be conceded. But there have been many women who have been strong in the general sense; and these have usually been terribly strong. Look at Catherine of Russia, vicious to the core, but powerful in intellect and will above the standard of masculine rulers. Look at Elizabeth of England, crafty and false, full of a ridiculous vanity, yet strong with a strength before which even such men as Burleigh and Essex and Leicester were compelled to bow. Look at Margaret of Lancaster, fighting in her husband's stead for the crown of England and by her undaunted spirit plucking victory again and again from the jaws of defeat, and yielding at last only when deserted by every adherent. Look at Clytemmstra and Lady Macbeth, creatures of the poet's fancy if you will, yet true types of a class of femininity. They have had prototypes and antitypes, and many.

Women have achieved their most decisive and remarkable effects upon the history of mankind by reaching and clinging to extremes. Extremism is always a mark of enthusiasm, and enthusiasm accomplishes effects which must have been left forever unattained by mere regulated and conscientious effort. The stories of the Christian martyrs show in golden letters the devotion of women to a cause; and I have no doubt whatever that it was in the deaths of young maidens, in their hideous sufferings borne with resignation and even joy, that there came the conviction of truth which is known as the seed which was sown in the blood of the martyrs. The high enthusiasm which supported a Catherine and a Cecilia in their hours of trial was strong to persuade where the death of a man for his convictions would have been looked upon as a matter of course. It is from this enthusiasm and extremism that there sounds one of the key-notes of woman's nature--her loyalty. Loyalty is one of the blending traits of the sexes; yet, if I were compelled to attribute it distinctively to one sex, I should class it as feminine in its nature.

Loyalty to one idea, to one ideal, has been a predominant characteristic of woman from time immemorial. Sometimes this loyalty takes the form of patriotism, sometimes of altruism, sometimes of piety in true sense; but always it has its origin and life in love. The love may be diffused or concentrated, general or particular, but it is always the soul of the true woman, and without it she cannot live. Love for her God, love for her race, love for her country, love for the man whom she delights to honor--these may exist separately or as one, but exist for her they must, or her life is barren and her soul but a dead thing. Love, in the true sense of the word, is the essence of the woman-soul; it is the soul itself. She must love, or she is dead, however she may seem to live. That she does not always ask whether the object of her love, be it abstract or concrete, be worthy of her devotion is not to be attributed to her as a fault, but rather as a virtue, since the love itself expands and vivifies her soul if itself be worthy. It is at once the expression and the expenditure of the unsounded depths of her soul; it is through its power over her that she recognises her own nature, that she knows herself for what she is. The woman who has not loved, even in the ordinary human and limited meaning of the word, has no conception of her own soul.

Thus far I have spoken of love in its broad sense, as the highest impulse of the human soul. But there is another and a lower aspect of love, and this is the one most usually meant when we use the word,--the attraction of sex. Even thus, though in this aspect love becomes a far lesser thing, it possesses no less power. The passion of man for woman has been the underlying cause of all history in its phenomenal aspects. The favorite example of this power has always been that of Cleopatra and Mark Antony; but history is full of equally convincing instances.

To love and to be loved; such is the ultimate lot of woman. It matters not what accessories of existence fate may have to offer; this is the supreme meaning of life to woman, and it is here that she finds her true value in the world. She may read that meaning in divers manners; she may make of her place in life a curse or a blessing to mankind. It matters not; all returns to the same cause, the same source of power. The strongest woman is weak if she be not loved, for she lacks her chief weapon with which to conquer; the weakest is strong if she truly have won love, for through this she can work miracles. Her strength is more than doubled; heart and brain and hand are in equal measure, for that with which the heart inspires the brain will be transmitted by the heart to the hand, and the message will be too imperative to fear failure.

It is a strange thing--though not inexplicable--that your ambitious woman is far more ruthless, far more unscrupulous, far more determined to win at any cost, than is the most ambitious of men. Again comes the law of extreme to show cause that this should be; but the fact is so sure that cause is of less interest. Not Machiavelli was so false, not Caligula was so cruel, not Cæsar was so careless of right, as the woman whose political ambition has taken form and strength. That which bars her path must be swept aside, be it man or notion or principle. She sees but the one object, her goal, looming large before her; and she moves on with her eyes fixed, crushing beneath her feet all that would turn her steps.

I have spoken of the cruelty of an ambitious woman; and it is worth while to pause a moment to consider this trait as displayed in women--not as a means, but as an end. There have been men who loved cruelty for its own sake; but they are few, and their methods crude, compared with the woman who have felt this strange passion. In the days of human sacrifices, it was the women who most thronged to the spectacles, who most eagerly fastened their eyes upon the expiring victims. In the gladiatorial combats, it was the women who greeted each mortal thrust with applause, and whose reversed thumbs won the majority for the signal of death to the vanquished. In the days of terror in France, it was the woman who led the mob that threatened the king and queen, and hanged Foulard to a lamp post after almost tearing him to pieces; it was the women who sat in rows around the guillotine, day after day, and placidly knit their terrible records of death; it was the women who cried for more victims, even after the legal murderers of the tribunals grew weary of their hideous task of condemnation.

Not only thus--not only under the influence of excitement and passion--but in cold blood, there are instances among women of such ghastly cruelty that men recoil from the contemplation of such deeds. There is record of a Slavonic countess whose favorite amusement was to sit in the garden of her country palace, in the rigors of a Russian winter, while young girls were stripped by her attendants and water poured slowly over their bodies, thus giving them a death of enduring agony and providing the countess with new, though unsubstantial, statues for her grounds. This not more than two centuries ago, and in the atmosphere of so-termed Christianity. The annals of the Spanish Inquisition would be ransacked in vain for such ingenuity of torture; and though the Inquisitors may have grown to love cruelty for its own sake, they at least alleged reason for their deeds; the Russian countess frankly sought amusement alone.

Yet in these things there is to be found no general accusation of women. That cruelty should be carried by them to its extreme, that they should love it for its own sake, is but the development of extremism, and is isolated in examples, at least by periods. The Russian countess was not cruel because she was a woman, but, being cruel of nature, she was the more so because of her sex. The ladies of imperial Rome did not love the sight of flowing blood because they were women, but, being women, they carried their acquired taste to bounds unknown to the less impulsive and less ardent nature of men.

Yet there comes a question. Is this lust for blood, this love of cruelty; latent in every woman and but restrained, by the gentler teachings and promptings of her more developed nature in its highest presentation? So some psychists would have us believe; but they have only slight ground for their sweeping assertion. That civilisation is but restrained savagery may perhaps be conceded; but if the restraint has grown to be the ever-dominant impulse, then has the savage been slain. It is not, as some teach, that such isolated idiosyncrasies as we have considered are glimpses of the tiger that sleeps in every human heart and sometimes breaks its chain and runs riot. As a rule, these things are matters of atmosphere. Setting aside such pure isolations as that of the Russian countess, it will almost invariably be found that the display of feminine cruelty, or of any vice, is of a time and place. There has never been a universal rule of feminine depravity in any age. Babylon, Carthage, Greece, Rome, and all the olden civilisations have had their periods when female virtue was a matter of laughter, when women outvied men in their moral degradation, when evil seemed triumphant everywhere; but there always remained a few to "redeem the time," and salvation always came from those few. Moreover, the sphere of immorality and crime was always limited. The Roman world, when it was the world indeed, might be given up to vice and sin, displayed in their most atrocious forms by the women of the Empire; but there still stood the North, calm, virtuous, patient, awaiting its opportunity to "root out the evil thing" and to give the world once more a standard of purity and righteousness. The leaven of Christianity was effective in its work upon the moral degradation of the Roman Empire; but it was not until the scourge of the Northmen was sent to the aid of the principle that success was fully won. So the North was not of the same day with Rome in civilised vice, and the reign of evil in the Latin Empire was but the effect of conditions, not the instincts of humanity. Rome was taught evil by long and steadfast evolution; it did not spring up in a day with its deadly blight, but was the result of progressive causation.

It may be doubted if the feminine intellect has increased since the dawn of civilisation. To-day woman stands on a different plane of recognition, but by reason of assertiveness, not because of increased mental ability. As with that of man, the possibilities of woman's intellect were long latent; but they existed, and the result is development, not creation of fibre. I repeat that I do not believe that the feminine intellect has grown in power. I doubt if the present age can show a mind superior in natural strength to that of Sappho; I do not believe that the present Empress of China, strong woman as she is, is greater than Semiramis, or that even Elizabeth of England was the equal of the warrior-queen of Babylon. But there can be no doubt that there exists a broader culture to-day than ever before and that thus the intellectual sum of women is always growing, though there comes no increase in the mental powers of the individual. It has been so with man. We boast of the mighty achievements of our age; but we have not yet built such a structure as that of the Temple of the Sun at Baalbec, or the Pyramid of Cheops at Ghizeh. We pride ourselves upon our letters; but the grandest poem ever written by man was also the first of which we have record--the Book of Job, and we do not even know the name of the poet who thus set a standard which has never since been reached. We may claim Shakespeare as the equal of Homer in expression; but it requires true hero worship among his admirers to place the Elizabethan singer upon an equality with the old Greek in any other respect. There has been no growth of individual intellect in either sex since the days of which we first find record; but there has been an increase of average and a definition of tendency which are productive of higher general result. And the natural consequence of this state of things is found in the fact that even a Sappho in the world of letters would not stand out so prominently, would not be considered such a prodigy, were she to come in these days. We should admire her genius and her powers without feeling the sensation of wonder that these should be possessed by a woman. It is in the recognition of this fact that we are better enabled to understand the changing aspect in the relations of women to men during these latter years. There has been no alteration in the possibilities within the grasp of the individual, but great change within those which can be claimed by the sex at large. Women can do no more now than in the olden days when they were considered as almost inferior to animals; but woman has profited by the opportunities of her time, and is every day developing powers until now unsuspected.

The whole value of history is in teaching us to understand our own time and to prognosticate the future with some degree of correctness. More especially is this true of all class history, and the story of sex development may be so rated. It is to find the reason of what is and the nature of what is to come that we turn to the records of the past and ask them concerning their message to us of these things. In our retrospective view of woman, we shall, if we are alive to suggestion, find steadfast tendencies of development. It is true that these tendencies do not always remain in the light; like rivers, they sometimes plunge underground and for a time find their paths in subterranean channels where they are lost to sight; but they always reëmerge, and at last they find their way to the central sea of the present. Future ages will doubtless mark the course of those tendencies not only up to but through our own age; for though I have spoken of a central sea, the simile is hardly correct, inasmuch as the true ocean which is the goal of these rivers is not yet in the sight of humanity. But we at least find promise of that ocean in the steadfast and determined course of the streams which flow toward it; progress has always a goal, though it may be one long undiscerned by the abettors of that progress. So it is with the story of woman. We know what she has been; we see what she is; and it is possible dimly to forecast what she will be. Yet I dare to assert that there will be no radical change; there may be new direction for effort, new lines of development, but the essential nature will remain unaltered. It is not, however, with this informing spirit that we have to do in such a work as this. There have been many misconceptions regarding woman; I would not venture to claim that none now exist. Yet there is a general consensus of agreement concerning her dominating and effective characteristics, and the probability is that in these general laws so laid down the common opinion is of truth.

Of course, I would not dare to make such an absurd claim that there exists, or has ever existed, a man who could truthfully say that he knew woman in the abstract; but that does not necessarily mean that knowledge of the tendencies and characteristics of the sex is impossible. The reason of the dense ignorance which prevails among men concerning women is that the men attempt to apply general laws to particular cases; and that is fatal. It is absolutely necessary, if we are to gather wisdom and not merely knowledge from our researches in history, that we should take into account the result of combination of traits. Otherwise we should not only find nothing but inconsistency as a consequence of our study, but we should utterly fail to understand the tendencies of that which we learn. We must be broad in our judgments if we are to judge truly. When we read of the Spartan women sending forth their sons to die for their country, we must not believe that they were lacking in the depth of maternal affection which is one of the most beautiful characteristics of the feminine nature. Doubtless they suffered as keenly as does the modern mother at the death of her son; but they were trained to subordinate their feelings in this wise, and their training stood them in stead of stoicism. Nay, even when we read of the profligacy of the women of imperial Rome, we must not look upon these women as by nature imbruted and degraded, but we must understand that they but yielded to the spirit of their environment and their schooling. They were not different at heart, those reckless Mænads and votaries of Venus, from the chaste Lucretias or holy Catherines of another day; they simply lacked direction of impulse in right method, and so missed the culmination of their highest possibilities.

There is an old saying which tells us that women are what men make them. Thus generally stated, the saying may be summed up as a slander; but it has an application in history. There can be no doubt that for millenniums of the world's adolescence women were controlled and their bearing and place in society modified by the thought of their times, which thought was of masculine origin and formation. This state of affairs has long since passed away, and it may be said that for at least a thousand years, in adaptation of the saying which I have quoted, the times have been what women have made them. It was the influence of women which brought about the outgrowths of civilisation in the dawn of Christianity that have survived until now. It was the influence, if not the actual activity, of women that was responsible for the birth of chivalry and the rise of the spirit of purity. It was the influence of women that made possible such characters as those of Bayard and Sir Philip Sydney. It was the influence of women that softened the roughness and licentiousness of a past day into the refinement and virtue which are the possessions of the present age.

There has always, in the worst days, been an undercurrent of good, and its source and strength are to be found in the eternal feminine spirit, which in its true aspects always makes for righteousness.

The world's statues have, with few exceptions, been raised to men, the world's elegies have been sung of men, the world's acclamations have been given to men. This is world justice, blind as well as with bandaged eyes. Were true justice done--were the best results, the results which live, commemorated in stone, the world itself, to adapt the hyperbole of the Evangelist, could hardly contain the statues which would be reared to women. But it is precisely in the cause for this neglect that there lies the value of the work which has been done by woman for the welfare of mankind. It is one of the truths of history that the greatest and most enduring effects have always been accomplished in the least conspicuous manner.

The man who searches effect for cause must find his goal most often in the influence of a woman. Not always for good; that could not be. But it would seem that all that has endured has been for good, and that the evil which has been wrought by woman--and it has not been slight--has been ephemeral in all respects. I know of no enduring evil that can be traced to a woman as its source; but I know of no constant good which did not find either its beginning or its fostering in a woman's thought or work. Poppæa leaves but a name; Agrippina leaves an example. It may be true of men that the evil that they do lives after them, while the good is oft interred with their bones; but it is not true of women. Of course, there is a sense in which it is true--in the descent from mother to son of the spirit of the unrighteous mother; but even this would not seem to hold as a rule, and the effects are often modified by the influence of a love for a higher nature. The sum of woman's influence upon the destinies of the world is good, the balance inclines steadily toward the best. Woman is the hope of the world.

It is to find the persistence of this influence that we search her history. Sometimes we shall find strange factors in the equation that gives the sum, strange methods of attaining the result; but the result itself is always plain. Nor is there ever entire lack of contemporary influence of good, even when the evil seems predominant. If we read of an Argive Helen bringing war and desolation upon a nation, we shall find in those same pages record of a Penelope teaching the world the beauty of faith and constancy. If we trace the story of a Cleopatra ruining men with a smile, we shall find in the same day an Octavia and a Portia. If we hear of the Capitol betrayed by a Tarpeia, we have not far to seek for a Cornelia, known to all time as the Mother of the Gracchi. And it is those who made for good whose names have come down to us as incentives and examples. The more closely we read our history, the more surely are we convinced that the tendency has always been upward; the progress has been steadfast from the beginning, and it has carried the world with it.

As I began with the statement that the history of woman is the history of the world, so I end. This truth at least is sure. The earth is very old; it has seen the coming and the going of many races, it has witnessed the rise and fall of uncounted dynasties, it has survived physical and social cataclysms innumerable; and it still holds on its way, serenely awaiting its end in the purpose of its Creator. What that end shall be no man may know; but it is the end to which woman shall lead it.G.C.L.

Johns Hopkins University.

PREFACE

It is the purpose of this volume to give a simple sketch of the history of Greek womanhood from the Heroic Age down to Roman times, so far as it can be gathered from ancient Greek literature and from other available sources for a knowledge of antique life. Greek civilization was essentially a masculine one; and it is really remarkable how scant are the references to feminine life in Greek writers, and how few books have been written by modern scholars on this subject. In the preparation of this work, the author has consulted all the authorities bearing on old Greek life, acknowledgment of which can only be made in general terms. He feels, however, particularly indebted to the following works: Mlle. Clarisse Bader, La Femme Grecque, Paris, 1872; Jos. Cal. Poestion, Griechische Philosophinnen, Norden, 1885; ibid., Griechische Dichterinnen, Leipzig, 1876; E. Notor, La Femme dans l'Antiquité Grecque, Paris, 1901; R. Lallier, De la Condition de la Femme Athénienne au Veme et au IVeme Siècle, Paris, 1875; Ivo Bruns, Frauenemancipation in Athen, Kiel, 1900; Walter Copeland Perry, The Women of Homer, New York, 1898; Albert Galloway Keller, Homeric Society, London, 1902; and Mahaffy's various works, especially Social Life in Greece from Homer to Menander, and Greek Life and Thought. In making quotations from Greek authors, standard translations have been used, of which especial acknowledgment cannot always be given, but Lang, Leaf and Myers' Iliad, Butcher's and Lang's Odyssey, Wharton's Sappho, and Way's Euripides, call for particular mention.

In the spelling of Greek proper names the author has endeavored to adapt himself to the convenience of his readers by being consistently Roman, and has used in most cases the Latin forms. He has retained, however, the Greek forms where usage has made them current, as Poseidon, Lesbos, Samos, etc., and has invariably adopted forms, neither Greek nor Latin, which have become universal, as Athens, Constantinople, Rhodes, and the like. The Greek names of Greek divinities have been preferred to their Roman equivalents.

To conclude, my thanks are due to the publishers for their uniform courtesy and help, and to Mr. J.A. Burgan for the careful reading of the proof; nor could I have undertaken and carried through the work without the sympathetic aid and encouragement of my wife.
MITCHELL CARROLL.

The George Washington University.

GREEK WOMEN

Whenever culture or art or beauty is theme for thought, the fancy at once wanders back to the Ancient Greeks, whom we regard as the ultimate source of all the æsthetic influences which surround us. To them we look for instruction in philosophy, in poetry, in oratory, in many of the problems of science. But it is in their arts that the Greeks have left us their richest and most beneficent legacy; and when we consider how much they have contributed to the world's civilization, we wonder what manner of men and women they must have been to attain such achievements.

Though woman's influence is exercised silently and unobtrusively, it is none the less potent in determining the character and destiny of a people. Historians do not take note of it, men overlook and undervalue it, and yet it is ever present; and in a civilization like that of the Greeks, where the feminine element manifests itself in all its higher activities,--in its literature, its art, its religion,--it becomes an interesting problem to inquire into the character and status of woman among the Greek peoples. We do not desire to know merely the purely external features of feminine life among the Greeks, such as their dress, their ornaments, their home surroundings; we would, above all, investigate the subjective side of their life--how they regarded themselves, and were regarded by men; how they reasoned, and felt, and loved; how they experienced the joys and sorrows of life; what part they took in the social life of the times; how their conduct influenced the actions of men and determined the course of history; what were their moral and spiritual endowments;--in short, we should like to know the Greek woman in all those phases of life which make the modern woman interesting and influential and the conserving force in human society. Yet, when we estimate our sources of information, we find that there is no problem in the whole range of Greek life so difficult of solution as that concerning the status and character of Greek women.

The first condition of a successful study of Greek women is to familiarize one's self with the milieu in which they lived and moved. To do this we must adapt ourselves to a manner of life and to conceptions and feelings widely different from our own. The Greek spirit of the fifth century before the Christian era has but little in common with the spirit of the twentieth century; and unless we gain some insight into the spirit of the Greeks, we cannot understand the fundamental differences between the life of the Greek woman and that of the modern woman. Let us note a few respects in which this difference shows itself.

The Greek attitude toward nature was that of reverent children who saw everywhere therein manifestations of the divine. To them everything was what we call supernatural. If wine gladdened the heart of man, it was the influence of a god. If love stirred the breast, a god was inspiring man with a sweet influence, and the divine power must not be resisted. The gods themselves yielded to the impulses of love; why should not men? Furthermore, Greek thought conceived of the human being as the noblest creation of nature. Christian theology conceives of the body as the prison house of the soul, from which the soul must escape to attain its highest development; the Greeks, on the other hand, regarded body and soul as forming a complete, inseparable, and harmonious unit. There was no impulse toward distinguishing between the two, no restless reaching out toward something regarded as higher and nobler; seeing infinite possibilities in man as man, the Greek sought only the idealization of the human being as such, the completion and realization of the highest type of humanity, physical and spiritual. Because of this peculiar conception of man, the gods of the Greeks rose out of nature and did not transcend it. Some of them were personifications of the forces of nature; others were merely, according to Greek ideas, the highest conceptions of what was admirable in man and woman. When we consider the goddesses of the Olympian Pantheon, we see that this conception of the ideal in woman must have been very high, manifesting itself in the characters of Hera, the goddess of marriage and of the birth of children; Athena, "intellect unmoved by fleshly lust, the perfection of serene, unclouded wisdom;" Demeter, goddess of agriculture and of the domestic life; Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty and the idealization of feminine graces and charm; Artemis, the maiden divinity never conquered by love, and the protectress of maidens; and Hestia, goddess of the hearth and preserver of the sanctity of the home.

It is difficult for us to appreciate the passionate love of beauty which animated the Greeks.

This immortal burden from the stanzas of Theognis, sung by the Muses and Graces at the wedding of Cadmus and Harmonia, "strikes," says Symonds, "the keynote to the music of the Greek genius." This innate love of beauty, fostered by natural surroundings and held in restraint by a sense of measure, was the most salient characteristic of the Greek people. It is impossible for us to realize the intensity of the Greek feeling for beauty; and to them the human body was the noblest form of earthly loveliness. To illustrate, we may recall the incident of Phryne's trial before the judges. Hyperides, her advocate, failing in his other arguments, drew aside her tunic and revealed to them a bosom perfectly marvellous in its beauty. Phryne was at once acquitted, not from any prurient motives, but because "the judges beheld in such an exquisite form not an ordinary mortal, but a priestess and prophetess of the divine Aphrodite. They were inspired with awe, and would have deemed it sacrilege to mar or destroy such a perfect masterpiece of creative power." Nor was the Greek conception of beauty purely sensual. Through the perfection of human loveliness they had glimpses of divine beauty, and "the fleshly vehicle was but the means to lead on the soul to what is eternally and imperishably beautiful." Thus the lesson of the Phædrus and Symposium of Plato is that "the passion which grovels in the filth of sensual grossness may be transformed into a glorious enthusiasm, a winged splendor, capable of rising to the contemplation of eternal verities and reuniting the soul of man to God."

This last reflection leads us to the most important difference between ancient and modern conceptions, that in regard to the relations between the sexes. We of the Christian era have a clear doctrine of right and wrong to guide us, a law given from without ourselves, the result of revelation. The Greeks, on the other hand, "had to interrogate nature and their own hearts for the mode of action to be pursued. They did not feel or think that one definite course of action was right and the others wrong; but they had to judge in each case whether the action was becoming, whether it was in harmony with the nobler side of human nature, whether it was beautiful or useful. Utility, appropriateness, and the sense of the beautiful were the only guides which the Greeks could find to direct them in the relations of the sexes to each other." Hence we find that the Greeks deemed permissible much which offends the modern sense of propriety; for example, when maidens captured in war became for a time the concubines of the victors, as Chryseis in the Iliad, and were afterward restored to their homes, they were not thought in the least disgraced by their misfortune; "for if such a stain happen to a woman by force of circumstances," says Xenophon, "men honor her none the less if her affection seems to them to remain untainted."

How, then, are we to bridge over the gulf which separates us from the Greeks? What are our sources of knowledge of Greek woman and her manner of life?

We must first of all know the country of the Greeks. The influence of country and climate on the Greek nationality has been frequently emphasized, and the physical phenomena which moulded the characters of the men must also have affected the women. A climate so mild that, as Euripides says, "the cold of winter is without rigor, and the shafts of Phoebus do not wound;" a soil midway between harsh sterility and luxurious vegetation; a system of fertile plains and rugged plateaus and varied mountain chains; a coast indented with innumerable inlets and gulfs and bays--these were the physical characteristics which moulded the destinies of Greek women. Furthermore, the modern Greek people trace the threads of their history unbroken back to ancient times, in spite of the incursions of alien peoples and years of subjugation to the Turk. Many ancient customs survive, such as the giving of a dowry and the bathing of the bride before the wedding ceremony. On the islands of the Ægean, where there has been but little intercourse with foreigners, the type of features so familiar to us from Greek sculpture still prevails, and the visitor can see beautiful maidens who might have served as models for Phidias and Praxiteles. The configuration of the land led to the Greek conception of the city-state--the feature of internal polity which had most to do with the seclusion of women.

Greek literature, however, is our chief source of knowledge in this regard, yet even the information afforded by that literature is inadequate and unsatisfactory in the glimpses it gives of the life of woman. All that we know about Greek women, with the exception of the fragments of Sappho's poems, is derived from chronicles written by men. Now, men never write dispassionately about women. They either love or hate them; they either idealize or caricature them. Furthermore, Greek literature was not only written by men, but also by men for men. The Greek reading public, the audience at the theatre, the gathering in the Assembly and in the law courts, were almost exclusively masculine. Remarks indicating the inferiority of the frailer but more fascinating sex are even in our day not altogether displeasing to the average man, and constitute one of the stock motifs of humor; hence it is not to be taken too seriously that on the Greek stage there was much abuse of woman--though this is offset by passages in which the sex is extravagantly praised. Euripides was once called a woman hater in the presence of Sophocles. "Yes," was the clever response, "in his tragedies."

Then, aside from the point of view of the writer, only meagre facts can be gleaned here and there from Greek literature regarding the life of Greek women. Only by gathering and comparing disparate passages collected from writers of different views, of different States, and of different periods, can we get anything like a systematic presentation of the outward aspect of feminine life. We are more fortunate, however, when we consider the subjective side; for the Greek epos and drama present feminine portraitures which necessarily reflect, more or less clearly, the thought and feelings of woman in the age in which the poet flourished. Homer gives an accurate portrayal of the Heroic Age, on the borderland of which his own life was passed, while memories of it were still fresh in the minds of men. The Athenian tragedians also locate their plots in the Heroic Age, but they endow their characters with a depth of thought, with a power of reflection, with an insight into the problems of life, which were altogether foreign to men and women in the childhood of the world, and were characteristic of Athens in its brilliant intellectual epoch. Hence a history of Greek womanhood must draw largely from the works of the poets, and must endeavor to give a picture of the women who figure in the Iliad and the Odyssey and in the dramas of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The lyric poets of Greece are also of unique importance in the study of ancient humanity, for they reveal the hearts of men and women and make known the conflicts of the soul. The historical women of Hellas are few in number, and are known to us only through meagre passages in the historians, orators, and philosophers.

A third source of information is Greek art. When woman figures so largely in the few relics of antiquity which have come down to us intact, what a commentary on ancient womanhood must the art of the Greeks have been, before the ruthless hands of Romans and barbarians and the tooth of time effaced her most precious treasures! The vase paintings of the Greeks illustrate every phase of private life, and abound in representations of the maiden and the matron, in the home, at the loom, in the bridal procession, at the wedding. And Greek sculpture presents ideal types of woman, perfect physically and highly endowed with every intellectual and sensuous charm. From these works of plastic art, abounding in the museums of Europe, we know that the Greek woman was beautiful, the peer of man in physical excellence. In form, the Greek woman was so perfect as to be still taken as the type of her sex. "Her beauty, from whatever cause, bordered closely upon the ideal, or rather was that which, because now only found in works of art, we call the ideal. But our conceptions of form never transcend what is found in nature. She bounds our ideas by a circle over which we cannot step. The sculptors of Greece represented nothing but what they saw; and even when the cunning of their hand was most felicitous, even when love and grace and all the poetry of womanhood appeared to breathe from their marbles, the inferiority of their imitation to the creations of God, in properties belonging to form, in mere contour, in the grouping and development of features, must have sufficed to impress even upon Phidias, that high priest of art, how childish it was to rise above nature." But it is not merely physical perfection which appeals to us in these masterpieces of plastic art. Love and tenderness and every womanly charm find expression in every feature of the countenance; and there is, above all, a moral dignity, an elevation of soul, a spiritual fervor, which lift us from things of earth and impart aspirations toward the eternal. The women who gave insight and inspiration to the sculptor in his portrayal of Hera and of Athena and of Aphrodite must have possessed in some measure the qualities imparted by the artist to his works. The status of woman among the Greeks differs according to the period, tribe, and form of government, and all the various phases of life and civilization arising from these must be taken into consideration in reaching our conclusions. Greek history falls into certain well-defined periods which are distinct in culture and civilization. There is first the Heroic Age, portrayed in Greek mythology and in the Homeric poems, the age of demigods and valiant warriors and noble women. This is the monarchical period in Greek history. Kings presided over the destinies of men, and about them were gathered the nobles. Society was aristocratic; the life portrayed was the life of courts. A court made a queen necessary; and where there is a queen, woman is always a source of influence and power for good or evil, and wins either the deference and regard, or the fear and resentment of men. Succeeding the Heroic Age, there followed the "storm and stress" period in Greek life, when monarchies were overturned and gave place to oligarchies, and they, in turn, to tyrannies; when commerce was developing, colonies were being sent out to distant parts of the Mediterranean, and the aristocratic classes were enjoying the results of wealth and travel and the interchange of social courtesies. In this period, epic poetry declined, and lyric poetry took its place in the three forms of elegiac, iambic, and melic; the arts, too, were beginning to be cultivated. This is the Transition Age of Greece. In aristocratic circles, among the families of the oligarchs and in the courts of tyrants, woman continued to hold a prominent place; but among the poorer classes, who were ground down by the aristocrats, life was hard and bitter, and woman was censured as the source of many of the ills of mankind.

The Transition Age constitutes the portal admitting to Historical Greece proper. In most communities, the levelling process has gone on, and democracies have taken the place of oligarchies and tyrannies. The people have asserted themselves and are regnant. It is a noteworthy fact in Greek history that where democracy prevailed woman was least highly regarded and had fewest privileges. In Athens, where democracy was all-controlling, feminine activities were confined largely to the women's apartments of the house. In other cities, oligarchies continued to have power, and an aristocracy was still recognized, as at Sparta; and here the privileges and freedom of woman were very great.

The early tribal divisions among the Greeks must also be taken into consideration. The Achæans are closely identified with the Heroic Age; they built up the powerful States in the Peloponnesus, and undertook the first great national expedition of Hellas. Thus the Achæans are the representative Homeric people, with its monarchical life and the prominent social status of its women. The Achæan civilization gave way before the Dorian migration, and ceased to be a factor in Greek history. Of the three remaining divisions, the Æolians inhabited parts of Thessaly, Boeotia, and especially the island of Lesbos, and the Greek colonies of Asia Minor along the shores of the North Ægean. Their most brilliant period was during the Transition Age, when Lesbos was ruled by a wealthy and powerful aristocracy and later by a tyranny, and when lyric poetry reached its perfect bloom in the verses of Sappho. Æolian culture was marked by its devotion to music and poetry and by its richness and voluptuousness. At no other time and place in the whole history of Hellas did woman possess so much freedom and enjoy all the benefits of wealth and culture in so marked a degree as among the Æolian people of Lesbos.

The Dorian and the Ionian peoples occupied the arena during the historical period; and, representing as they did opposing tendencies, they were continually in conflict. The Dorians mainly occupied the Southern and Western Peloponnesus, Argos, Corinth, Megara, Ægina, Magna Græcia, and the southern coast of Asia Minor; the Ionians inhabited Attica, Euboea, most of the islands of the Ægean, and the famous twelve Ionian cities along the coast of Asia Minor. The chief city of the Dorians was Sparta; but Sparta had a form of government peculiar to itself, which must not be taken as representing all the Dorian States. Yet among the Dorian States in general there was much the same degree of freedom enjoyed by women as in Sparta, though they were not subjected to the same harsh discipline.

The Ionian cities of Asia Minor were greatly influenced by Asiatic love of ease and luxury, and they introduced into Greece many aspects of the civilization and art of Asia. There is a tradition that when the Ionians migrated from Hellas to Asia Minor they did not take their wives with them, as did the Dorians and Æolians, and, consequently, they were compelled to wed the native women of the conquered districts. As they looked upon the wives thus acquired as inferior, they were glad to shut them up in the women's apartments, following the Oriental custom, and to treat them as domestics rather than as companions. Thus is supposed to have arisen the custom of secluding the women of the household, which rapidly spread among Ionian peoples, even in Continental Greece.

Athens was the chief city among the Ionian peoples, but it developed a civilization peculiarly its own, known as the Attic-Ionian, combining much of the rugged strength and vigor of the Dorians with the refinement, delicacy, and versatility of the Ionians. Yet the status of woman in the city of the violet crown was a reproach to its otherwise unapproachable preeminence. Nowhere else in entire Hellas were Greek women in like measure repressed and excluded from the higher life of the men as among the Athenians. Consequently, the name of no great Athenian woman is known to us. But the Ionian repression of women of honorable station led to the rise of a class of "emancipated" women, who threw off the shackles that had bound their sex and united their fortunes with men in unlawful relations as hetæræ, or "companions." Owing to their pursuit of the higher learning of the times and their cultivation of all the feminine arts and graces, the hetæræ constituted a most interesting phenomenon in the social life of Greece, and played an important role in Greek culture, especially in Athens. As the centre of culture for Hellas, and as the exponent of literature and art for the civilized world, Athens demands especial attention in its treatment of women.

The classical period of Greek history was succeeded by the Hellenistic Age, an epoch introduced by the spread of the Greek language and culture over the vast empire of Alexander the Great. The theory of the city-state had been one of the chief causes of the seclusion of women; and as Alexander broke down the barriers between the Greek cities and introduced uniformity of life and manners throughout his empire, from this time on the status of woman is gradually elevated, her attention to the higher education becomes more general, and she takes a more prominent part in culture and politics and all the living interests of the day. Alexandria usurps the place of Athens as the chief centre of Greek life and thought, and here the Greek woman plays a conspicuous and prominent role. Then, as Rome spread her conquests over the Orient, the Græco-Roman period succeeds the Hellenistic, and through the intermingling of alien civilizations a womanhood of purely Greek culture is merged into the cosmopolitan womanhood of the Roman world. Christianity rapidly becomes the leaven that permeates the lump of the Roman Empire, and, appealing as it did to all that was highest and best in feminine character, finds ready acceptance among the women of Hellenic lands. The woman of Greek culture, with rare exceptions, ceases to exist, and our subject reaches its natural termination.

WOMANHOOD IN THE HEROIC AGE

The life of the earliest Greeks is mirrored in their legends. Though not exact history, the heroic epics of Greece are of great value as pictures of life and manners. Hence we may turn to them as valuable memorials of that state of society which must be for us the starting point of the history of the Greek woman.

The evidence of Homer regarding the Heroic Age is comprehensive and accurate. The discoveries of recent years are making Troy and Mycenæ and other cities of Homeric life very real to us. We find that Homer accurately described the material surroundings of his heroes and heroines--their houses and clothing and weapons and jewels. The royal palaces at Troy and Tiryns and Mycenæ have been unearthed, and we know that their human occupants must have been persons of the character described by Homer, for only such could have made proper use of the objects of utility and adornment found in these palaces and now to be studied in the museums of Europe. Hence we are driven to the conclusion that though Agamemnon be a myth and Helen a poet's fancy, yet men and women like Agamemnon and Helen must once have lived and loved and suffered on Greek soil.

Furthermore, great movements in the world's history are brought about only by great men and great women. The great epics of the world tell the stories of national heroes, not as they actually were, but idealized and deified by generations of admiring descendants. Hence, behind all the marvellous stories in myth and legend were doubtless actual figures of men and women who influenced the course of events and left behind them reputations of sufficient magnitude to give at least a basis for the heroic figures of epic poetry.

To appreciate the elements from which the immortal types of Greek Epic were composed, a comparison with the Book of Judges is apposite. In Judges we have represented, though in disconnected narrative, the heroic age of Ancient Israel, and from material such as this the national epic of the Hebrew people might have been written. In such an epic, women like Deborah and Jephthah's Daughter and Delilah would be the idealized heroines, as are Penelope and Andromache and Helen in Homeric poems. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to suppose that in the Achæan Age there lived actual women, of heroic qualities, who were the prototypes of the idealized figures presented by Homer and the dramatic poets.

Woman must have played a prominent role in the childhood of the Greek world, for much of the romantic interest which Greek legend inspires is derived from the mention of the women. Helen and Penelope, Clytemnestra and Andromache, and the other celebrated dames of heroic times, stand in the foreground of the picture, and are noted for their beauty, their virtues, their crimes, or their sufferings. Thus, a study of the history of woman in Ancient Greece properly begins with a contemplation of feminine life as it is presented in the poems of Homer.

Homer's portrayal of the Achæan Age is complete and satisfactory, largely because he devotes so much attention to woman and the conditions of her life. His chivalrous spirit manifests itself in his attitude toward the weaker sex. Homer's men are frequently childish and impulsive; Homer's women present the characteristics universally regarded as essential to true womanhood. They even seem strangely modern; the general tone of culture, the relation of the sexes, the motives that govern men and women, present striking parallels to what we find in modern times.

Homer has presented to us eternal types of womanhood, which are in consequence worthy of the immortality they have acquired. At present, we shall merely seek to learn from these works as much as possible about the life of woman as seen in the customs of society, and in archæological and ethnographic details.

That which strikes us as most noticeable in the organization of society in heroic times is its patriarchal simplicity. Monarchy is the prevailing form of government. "Basileus," "leader of the people," is the title of the sovereign, and every Basileus rules by right hereditary and divine: the sceptre of his house is derived from Zeus. The king is leader in war, head of the Council and of the Assembly of the people, and supreme judge in all matters involving equity. The "elders" constitute the Council, and the people are gathered together in Assembly to endorse the actions of their chiefs. The Iliad describes the life of a Greek camp; but Agamemnon, the suzerain, has under him men who are kings at home. The Odyssey describes civil life in the centres where the chieftains at Ilium are royal rulers. The two epics are chiefly concerned with the lives of these kings and their families. It is the life of courts and kings, of the aristocracy, with which Homer makes us familiar; and in the monarchies of Homer the status of woman is always elevated and her influence great. The wife shares the position of her husband, and his family are treated with all the deference due the head. As the king derives his authority by divine right, the people live peaceably under the government of their chief as under the authority and protection of the gods. Such are the salient features of the Homeric polity.

With what inimitable grace does the poet initiate us even into the life of the little girl at her mother's side. Achilles is chiding Patroclus for his tears: "Wherefore weepest thou, Patroclus, like a fond little maid that runs by her mother's side and bids her mother take her up, and tearfully looks at her till the mother takes her up?" Now, let us note the maiden at the dawn of womanhood. The mother had prayed that her daughter might grow up like Aphrodite in beauty and charm, and like Athena in wisdom and skill in handiwork. Father and mother observe with happiness her radiant youth; and her brothers care tenderly for her. Her pastimes consist in singing and dancing and playing ball and the various forms of outdoor recreation. Young men and maidens join together in these sports. Homer represented such scenes on the Shield of Achilles: "Also did the lame god devise a dancing place like unto that which once in wide Cnossos Dædalus wrought for Ariadne of the lovely tresses. There were youths dancing and maidens of costly wooing, their hands upon one another's wrists. Fine linen the maidens had on, and the youths well-woven doublets, faintly glistening with oil. Fair wreaths had the maidens, and the youths daggers of gold hanging from silver baldrics. And now they would run round with deft feet exceeding lightly, as when a potter sitting by his wheel that fitteth between his hands maketh trial of it whether it will run: and now anon they would run in line to meet each other." Such were their pastimes, and equally joyous were their occupations. To the maidens seem to have been chiefly assigned the outdoor tasks of the household, which would contribute to their physical development. Thus the Princess Nausicaa and her girl friends wash in the river the garments of fathers and brothers; and the Shield of Achilles represented a vintage scene where "maidens and striplings in childish glee bear the sweet fruit in plaited baskets, and in the midst of them a boy made pleasant music on a clear-toned viol, and sang thereto a sweet Linus-song, while the rest with feet falling together kept time with the music and the song."

The education of the girls was of the simplest character. They grew up in the apartment of the mother, and learned from her simple piety toward the gods a modest bearing, skill in needlework, and efficiency in the management of a household.

While enjoying a freedom far greater than that allowed to maidens in the classical period, the Homeric girls did not take part in the feasts and pastimes of court life. Thus the poet tells us that Nausicaa, who is a perfect picture of the Greek girl in the springtime of her youth and beauty, "retired to her chamber upon her return to the palace, and supper was served to her by a nurse in her apartments," while Odysseus was being graciously entertained by her father and mother in the court below. Strict attention to the convenances of their sex and station was required of these primitive women; and the high-minded maiden Nausicaa feared evil report should the stranger, Odysseus, be seen with her in the streets of the city, as such intimacy would be a "shame" to her, a maiden; while it was also a "shame" for a married woman to go alone into the presence of men, even when in her own house, though she could enter their presence when attended by her handmaidens. Thus Penelope is followed by her maidens when she goes to the hall of the men to hear the minstrel Phemius. "Bid Antinoë and Hippodamia," says she, "come to stand by my side in the halls, for alone I will not go among men, for I am ashamed." Nor did Helen and Andromache ever appear in public without their handmaidens. In seeming opposition to this excessive modesty was that office of hospitality which ofttimes required young women to bathe and anoint the distinguished strangers who were guests in the house. Thus Polycaste, the beautiful daughter of Nestor, bathed and anointed Telemachus, and put on him a cloak and vest. Helen performed like offices for Odysseus when he came in disguise into Troy, and Circe later for the same hero. Though the poet's statements may at times, in matters of outward appearance, do violence to modern social rules, yet, because life in heroic times was simpler and less conventional, there could innocently be greater freedom of expression between the sexes regarding many matters which are tabooed in good society in this very conventional age. Hence such passages as those cited are to be taken rather as an evidence of the innocence and ingenuousness of Homer's maidens than as an imputation of lack of modesty.

There are many indications pointing to the universal beauty of Homeric women. Thus a favorite epithet of the country is "Hellas, famed for fair women." There are also numerous epithets applied to Homeric characters significant of beauty, as "fair in form," "with beautiful cheeks," "with beautiful locks," "with beautiful breasts," and the like, demonstrating the universal love of physical beauty as well as the prevalence of beautiful types.

Marriage was a highly honorable estate, and both young men and maidens looked forward to it as a natural and desirable step in the sequence of life. The preliminaries were of a distinctly patriarchal type. The marriage was usually a matter of arrangement between the suitor and his intended father-in-law. Sometimes a man might win his bride by heroic deed or personal merit; but usually the successful suitor was he who brought the most costly wedding gifts. Thus the characteristic feature was wife purchase. Usually these gifts were offered to the bride's father or family; but in the case of the (supposed) widow Penelope, they were presented to the woman herself. The gifts were added to the wealth of the bride's household. The idea of dower as such is foreign to the Homeric poems, though the poet occasionally represents the bride as receiving from parents rich gifts, which apparently were to be her personal property, in addition to the nuptial gifts from her family, consisting of herds or jewels or precious raiment.

From the eagerness with which suitors sought to win the regard of the maiden, it would seem that she had some choice in the selection of a husband; but in general the father decided whom he would have for his son-in-law, though at times the maiden was given her choice from a number of young men approved by her father. Widows were expected to remarry; and in their case considerable freedom of choice existed.

The marriage ceremonies were of a social rather than religious or civil character. The wedding day was celebrated by a feast provided by the groom in the house of the bride's father. All the guests were clad in their most costly raiment, and they brought presents to the young couple. In these patriarchal times, when the father was both chief and pontiff, so that his approval gave a sacred character to the union, the leading away of the bride from the house of her father seems to have constituted the most important act of the marriage ceremony. In the description of the Shield of Achilles, Homer gives us a glimpse of this solemnity. Under the glow of torches, surrounded by a joyous company, dancing and singing hymeneal songs, the bride was led to the house of her future husband. She was veiled, a custom that was a survival of the old attempt to avoid angering the ancestral spirits by withdrawing unceremoniously from their surveillance. The gods presided over marriage, but no priest or sacrifice was needed; no ceremonies have been recorded which confirm the theory of bride capture, so often said to be at the basis of Homeric marriages, nor is there mention of any ceremonial rites on the wedding night.

Marriage among the Homeric Greeks had primarily two distinct objects in view: the preservation of a pure line of descent, and the protection of the property rights of the family. Hence the wife and mother had in her hands all the sacred traditions of the family; if these were preserved by her, she added to their glory; if violated, the prestige of the family suffered untold loss. In consequence, there was no polygamy and no divorce. Monogamy could be the only sanctioned form of marriage where such conceptions of wedded life prevailed. Concubinage existed, especially when the husband was long absent from home; but it was looked upon with disfavor and frequently led to unfortunate consequences, as in the cases of Phoenix and Agamemnon. Hetairism and prostitution did not receive in the Homeric days the recognized place that was later accorded them in the social structure of the Greeks. The many instances of conjugal devotion in the Iliad and the Odyssey, as seen, for example, in Hector and Andromache, Odysseus and Penelope, Alcinous and Arete, show the high average of marital fidelity in heroic times. There are also many minor indications that the ties of the family were very sacred among the Achæans, and that conjugal affection was very strong. One of the lamented hardships of the long siege was separation from one's wife: "For he that stayeth away but one single month far from his wife in his benched ship fretteth himself when winter storms and the furious sea imprison him; but for us the ninth year of our stay here is upon us in its course." And the prayer of Odysseus for Nausicaa shows the Greek love of home and happy married life: "And may the gods grant thee all thy heart's desire: a husband and a home, and a mind at one with his may they give--a good gift; for there is nothing mightier and nobler than when man and wife are of one heart and mind in a house, a grief to their foes, and to their friends great joy, but their own hearts know it best."

The view taken of adultery is a good test of the position of woman in society. In Homeric times, adultery was regarded as the violation of a property right. There are few harsh words in the Iliad against Helen; all the anger of the Greeks was concentrated against Paris, who had violated the bond of guest friendship, and had alienated his host's property. Menelaus readily pardoned Helen, when material reparation had been exacted; there is no moral reprehension of the adultery itself. Clytemnestra was violently condemned, less because she yielded to the seductions of Ægisthus than because her crime led to the murder of her husband. There seems to have been also a natural perpetuity of the marriage contract. To the Greeks, Helen was always the wife of Menelaus. The ideal for the wife was single-hearted loyalty toward her husband; faithfulness and submission were the principal virtues of women. Moral lapses by men were frequent, and the same standard of marital rectitude was not required from them as from the women of the heroic days.

The social manners of the time, and especially the elevated position of the matron, may be gathered from Homer's account of Telemachus's reception at the palace of King Menelaus in Sparta. He and his friend Pisistratus are conducted into the great hall, where, after having bathed and anointed themselves and put on fresh raiment, they are received by their host, Menelaus. They are placed on chairs beside him, and a repast is brought, of which they are invited to partake. Menelaus does not yet know who his guests are, but he has observed that Telemachus weeps when Odysseus is mentioned in conversation.

While he is pondering on this, Helen comes forth into the hall from her "fragrant vaulted chamber" in the inner or woman's part of the house. With her are three handmaids, one of whom sets for her the well-wrought chair, a second brings a rug of soft wool, while the third places at her side a silver basket on wheels, across which is laid a golden distaff charged with wool of violet blue. Helen immediately takes a leading part in the entertainment of the guests, one of whom, with woman's intuition, she is the first to recognize, and they converse far into the night. Then good cheer is spread before them, and Helen casts into the wine whereof they drink "a drug to lull all pain and anger and bring forgetfulness to every sorrow." Presently Helen bids her handmaids show with torches the guests to their beds beneath the corridors, where bedsteads have been set with purple blankets and coverlets and thin mantles upon them.

Here, in her royal palace, Helen is in every sense a queen. Endowed with charms of intellect, as well as of person, she regulates the life and determines the tone of the society about her; and she is but an example of the high social position of the Homeric women.

The Homeric matron had as her regular duties the management of the household, and was trained in every domestic occupation. Spinning and weaving were her chief accomplishments, and all the Homeric heroines were highly skilled in the textile arts. The garments worn by the men were fashioned at home by handmaidens under the superintendence of their mistress, who herself engaged in the work. Penelope had fifty slave maidens to direct in the various duties of the household. The daughters of Celeus, like Rebecca of old, went to the well to draw water for household use; and the clothes washing of the Princess Nausicaa and her maidens has been already mentioned. So, by the side of the refinement and elegance of the Homeric Age we have a simplicity of manners that but adds to the charm.

In spite of these beautiful instances of domestic harmony and affection, the women of Homer had really no rights, in the modern sense of the term. Throughout the whole of life their position was subject to the will or the whims of men. At marriage, woman merely passed from the tutelage of her father to that of her husband, who had absolute power over her. But though the power of the husband was absolute, yet he was generally deferential toward the wife he loved, and was frequently guided by her opinions. Thus, the Phæacians say of Queen Arete: "Friends, this speech of our wise queen is not wide of the mark, nor far from our deeming, so hearken thereto. But on Alcinous here both word and work depend." With Arete lay the real seat of authority, though she could claim no rights, and doubtless the tactful and clever Homeric woman was, as a rule, the dominating influence in the palace.

When the husband died, the grown-up son succeeded to his rights, and it was in his power, if he saw fit, to give his widowed mother again in marriage. Penelope's obedience to her son Telemachus is one of the striking features of the Odyssey. He had it in his power to give her in marriage to any of the suitors, but he refrained, from filial affection and mercenary motives. "It can in no wise be that I thrust forth from the house, against her will, the woman that bare me and reared me," says Telemachus; and he continues: "Moreover, it is hard for me to make heavy restitution to Icarius, as needs I must if, of my own will, I send my mother away."

Far worse, however, was the lot of the widow whose husband had been slain in battle. She became at once the slave of the conqueror, to be dealt with as he wished. Hector draws a gloomy picture of the fate of Andromache in case he should be slain: "Yea, of a surety I know this in heart and soul; the day shall come for holy Ilium to be laid low, and Priam and the folk of Priam of the good ashen spear. Yet doth the anguish of the Trojans hereafter not so much trouble me, neither Hecuba's own, neither King Priam's, neither my brethren's, the many and brave that shall fall in the dust before their foemen, as doth thine anguish in the day when some mail-clad Achæan shall lead thee weeping and rob thee of the light of freedom. So shalt thou abide in Argos and ply the loom at another woman's bidding, and bear water from Fount Messeis or Hyperia, being grievously entreated, and sore constraint shall be laid upon thee. And then shall one say that beholdeth thee weep: 'This is the wife of Hector, that was foremost in battle of the horse-training Trojans, when men fought about Ilium.' Thus shall one say hereafter, and fresh grief will be thine for lack of such an husband as thou hadst to ward off the day of thraldom. But me in death may the heaped-up earth be covering, ere I hear thy crying and thy carrying into captivity." Similar lamentations over the harsh treatment of the widows and the sad lot of the orphans, when the natural protector had been slain, occur again and again. When taken captive, the noblest ladies became the concubines of the victor, and were disposed of at his pleasure. Briseis is a striking instance of this. She was a maiden of princely descent, whose husband and brother had been slain by Achilles. Yet she looked upon her position as a captive as quite in the natural order of things. She manifestly became much attached to her captor, and left "all unwillingly" when she was carried off to Agamemnon's tent. When she was restored to Achilles, she laments the fallen Patroclus, who had promised to make her godlike Achilles's wedded wife.

Many female slaves of noble descent are mentioned by Homer, and their positions in the households of their mistresses are frequently of importance. Thus Euryclea, who had nurtured Odysseus and reared Telemachus, was practically at the head of the domestic affairs of the palace, and her relations with Penelope were most affectionate. The other slaves were divided into several classes, according to their different qualities and abilities. To some were assigned the menial offices, such as turning the handmills, drawing the water, and preparing the food for their master; while others were engaged in spinning and weaving, under the direct oversight of their lady mistress.

It is but natural that the great ladies of heroic times, reared in the luxury of courts, attended by numerous slaves, and exercising an elevating influence over their husbands through their personal charms, should devote great attention to the elegancies of the costume and the toilet. The Greek love of beauty led to love of dress. Numerous epithets point to this characteristic of Homeric ladies; as "with beautiful peplus," "well-girdled," "with beautiful zone," "with beautiful veil," "with beautiful sandal," and the like; and care in dressing the hair is seen in such phrases as "with goodly locks," "with glossy locks."

The Homeric poems describe for us the dress of the Æolico-Ionians down to the ninth or eighth centuries before Christ, and it differs in many important particulars from that of the classical period as seen in the Parthenon marbles.

The women wore only one outer garment, the peplus, brought to Hellas from Asia by the Aryans, which garment the Dorian women continued to wear until a late period. The peplus in its simplest form consisted of an oblong piece of the primitive homemade woollen cloth, unshapen and unsewn, open at the sides, and fastened on the shoulders by fibulæ, and bound by a girdle; but, undoubtedly, as worn by Homeric princesses it assumed a much more regular pattern and was richly embroidered. The pharos was probably a linen garment of Egyptian origin, which was sometimes worn instead of the peplus. Thus the nymph Calypso "donned a great shining pharos, light of woof and gracious, and about her waist she cast a fair golden girdle, and a veil withal on her head." Both these garments left the arms bare, and, while frequently of some length behind, as seen in the epithet "the robe-trailing Trojan dames," were short enough in front to allow the feet to appear.

As the peplus was open at the sides, the girdle was the second most important article of feminine attire. This was frequently of gold, as in Calypso's case, and adorned with tassels, as was Hera's girdle with its hundred tassels "of pure gold, all deftly woven, and each one worth an hundred oxen." But the girdle of girdles was the magic cestus of golden Aphrodite, which Hera borrowed in order to captivate Zeus. The tightened girdle made the dress full over the bosom, so that the epithet "deep-bosomed"--that is, with full, swelling bosom--became frequent. Another characteristic article of dress was the kredemnon, a kind of veil, of linen or of silk, in color generally white, though at times dark blue. It was worn over the head, and allowed to fall down the back and the sides of the head, leaving the face uncovered. There was no garment, like a cloak, to be worn over the peplus. For freer movement women would cast off the mantle-like kredemnon, which answered all the purposes of a shawl. Thus Nausicaa and her companions, when preparing for the game of ball, "cast off their tires and began the song," and Hecuba, in her violent grief, "tore her hair and cast from her the shining veil." There were also metal ornaments for the head, the stephané, or coronal, and the ampyx, a headband or frontlet. The kekryphalos was probably a caplike net, bound by a woven band; Andromache "shook off from her head the bright attire thereof, the net, and woven band." Other feminine ornaments were: the isthmion, a necklace, fitting close to the neck; the hormos, a long chain, sometimes of gold and amber, hanging from the nape of the neck over the breast; and peronæ, or brooches, and ear-rings of various shapes, either globular, spiral, or in the form of a cup, Helen, for example, "set ear-rings in her pierced ear, ear-rings of three drops and glistening; therefrom shone grace abundant."

To embrace in one general description these various articles of feminine attire, "we may think of Helen as arrayed in a colored peplus, richly embroidered and perfumed, the corners of which were drawn tightly over the shoulders and fastened together by the perone. The waist was closely encircled by the zone, which was, no doubt, of rich material and design. Over her bosom hung the hormos of dark red amber set in gold. Her hair hung down in artificial plaits, and on her head was the high, stiff kekryphalos, of which we have spoken above, bound in the middle by the plekté anadesme. Over the forehead was the shining ampyx, or tiara, of gold; and from the top of the head fell the kredemnon, or veil, over the shoulders and back, affording a quiet foil to the glitter of gold and jewels."

Such is the picture of the Heroic Age as drawn for us by Homer. It is a bright picture in the main, though the treatment of the widows and the captive maidens throws on it dark shadows. But when we become acquainted with the heroines of this age, and study their characters in the environment in which Homer places them, we shall be all the more impressed with the high status maintained by the gentler sex at the dawn of Greek civilization.

Before treating of the heroines of Homer, however, let us briefly notice the maidens and matrons of Greek mythology who do not figure so conspicuously in the Chronicles of the Trojan War, but who have won a permanent place in art and in literature.

We should not fail to mention the mortal loves who became through Zeus the mothers of heroes,--Europa, whom he wooed in the form of a white bull, and carried away to Crete, where she became the mother of Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon; Semele, who was overcome with terror when Zeus appeared in all his godlike array, and who gave birth to Dionysus, god of the vine; Leda, wooed by Zeus in the guise of a snow-white swan, the mother of Helen, and of Castor and Pollux; Alcmene, mother of Heracles; Callisto, changed, with her little son Arcas, because of the jealousy of Hera, into the constellations known as the Great and the Little Bear; and, finally, Danaë, daughter of Acrisius, King of Argos, locked up by her tyrannical father in a brazen tower, but visited by Zeus as a golden shower. The offspring of this union was the hero Perseus. King Acrisius, in dread of a prophecy that he was destined to be slain by his grandson, had the mother and helpless infant enclosed in an empty cask, which was consigned to the fury of the sea. Terrified at the sound of the great waves beating over their heads, Danaë prayed to the gods to watch over them and bring them to some friendly shore. Her piteous prayers were answered, and mother and child were rescued and found a hospitable haven on the island of Seriphos,

"When rude around the high-wrought ark

The tempests raged, the waters dark

Around the mother tossed and swelled;

With not unmoistened cheek she held

Her Perseus in her arms and said:

'What sorrows bow this hapless head!

Thou sleepst the while, thy gentle breast

Is heaving in unbroken rest,

In this our dark, unjoyous home,

Clamped with the rugged brass, the gloom

Scarce broken by the doubtful light

That gleams from yon dim fires of night.

But thou, unwet thy clustering hair,

Heedst not the billows raging wild,

The moanings of the bitter air,

Wrapt in thy purple robe, my beauteous child!

Oh! seemed this peril perilous to thee,

How sadly to my words of fear

Wouldst thou bend down thy listening ear!

But now sleep on, my child! sleep thou, wide sea!

Sleep, my unutterable agony!

Oh! change thy counsels, Jove, our sorrows end!

And if my rash, intemperate zeal offend,

For my child's sake, his father, pardon me!'"

The god Apollo, too, had his mortal loves: the fair maiden Coronis, whom in a fit of jealousy he shot through the heart,--the mother of Æsculapius, the god of healing; Daphne, the beautiful nymph, who would not listen to his entreaties, and was finally changed into a laurel tree; and the muse Calliope, by whom he became the father of Orpheus, who inherited his parent's musical and poetical gifts. The story of the loves of Orpheus and his beautiful wife, Eurydice, is one of the most touching in all literature: how she died from the bite of a venomous serpent, and her spirit was conducted down to the gloomy realms of Hades, leaving Orpheus broken-hearted; how Zeus gave him permission to go down into the infernal regions to seek his wife; how he appeased even Cerberus's rage by his music, and Hades and Proserpina consented to restore Eurydice to life and to her husband's care, but on the one condition that he should leave the infernal regions without once turning to look into the face of his beloved wife; and how he observed the mandate until just before he reached the earth, when he turned, only to behold the vanishing form of the wife he had so nearly snatched from the grave. The rest of his days were passed in sadness, and finally some Bacchantes, enraged at his sad notes, tore him limb from limb, and cast his mangled remains into the river Hebrus. "As the poet-musician's head floated down the stream, the pallid lips still murmured 'Eurydice!' for even in death he could not forget his wife; and as his spirit floated on to join her, he incessantly called upon her name, until the brooks, trees, and fountains he had loved so well caught up the longing cry and repeated it again and again."

The story of Niobe is one of the best-known Greek legends, because of its exquisite portrayal in art. Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, the mother of fourteen children,--seven manly sons and seven beautiful daughters,--in her pride taunted the goddess Latona, mother of Apollo and Artemis, because her offspring numbered only two. She even went so far as to forbid her people to worship the two deities, and ordered that all the statues of them in her kingdom should be torn down and destroyed. Enraged at the insult, Latona called her children to her, and bade them slay all the children of Niobe. Apollo, therefore, coming upon the seven lads as they were hunting, slew them with his unfailing arrows; and while the mother was grieving for the loss of her sons, Artemis began to slay her daughters. In vain did the mother strive to protect them, and one by one they fell, never to rise again. Then the gods, touched by her woe, changed her into stone just as she stood, with upturned face, streaming eyes, and quivering lips.

Three other heroines of mythology deserve to be enrolled within this brief chronicle: Andromeda, Ariadne, and Atalanta. The Princess Andromeda, a lovely maiden, was being offered as a sacrifice to a terrible sea monster who was devastating the coast. She was chained fast to an overhanging rock, above the foaming billows that continually dashed their spray over her fair limbs. As the monster was about to carry her off as his prey, the hero Perseus, returning from his conquest of Medusa, suddenly appeared as a deliverer, slew the monster, freed Andromeda from her chains, restored her to the arms of her overjoyed parent, and thus won the princess as his bride.

Far more pathetic is the story of the Princess Ariadne, daughter of King Minos of Crete, who fell in love with the Athenian hero Theseus when he came to rescue the Athenian youths and maidens from the terrible Minotaur. She provided him with a sword and with a ball of twine, enabling him to slay the monster and to thread his way out of the inextricable mazes of the labyrinth. Theseus in gratitude carried her off as his bride; but on the island of Naxos he basely deserted her, and Ariadne was left disconsolate. Violent was her grief; but in the place of a fickle mortal lover, she became the fair bride of an immortal, the genial god Dionysus, who discovered her on the island and wooed and won her.

Atalanta, the third of this illustrious group, the daughter of Iasius, King of Arcadia, was a famous runner and sportswoman. She took part with Meleager in the grand hunt for the Calydonian boar, and it was she who at last brought the boar to bay and gave him a mortal wound. When Atalanta returned to her father's court, she had numberless suitors for her hand; but, anxious to preserve her freedom, she imposed the condition that every suitor should engage with her in a footrace: if he were beaten, his life was forfeited; if successful, she would become his bride. Many had thus lost their lives. Finally, Hippomenes, a youth under the protection of Aphrodite, who had bestowed on him three golden apples, desired to race with the princess. Atalanta soon passed her antagonist, but, as she did so, a golden apple fell at her feet. She stooped to pick it up, and Hippomenes regained the lead. Again she passed him, and again a golden apple caused her to pause, and Hippomenes shot ahead. Finally, just as she was about to reach the goal, the third golden apple tempted her to stop once more, and Hippomenes won the race and a peerless bride.

III

WOMEN OF THE ILIAD

The reader of the Iliad and the Odyssey finds himself in an atmosphere altogether human. As he peruses these pages, so rich in pictures of the life and manners of heroic times, it matters little to him whether the men and women of epic song had merely a mythical existence, or were, in fact, historical figures. The contemporaries of Homer and later Greeks had an unshaken belief in the reality of those men and women; and the poet has breathed into them the breath of genius, which gives life and immortality.

We have in these poems the most ancient expression of the national sentiment of the Greeks, and from them we can form a correct idea of the relations of men and women in prehistoric times, and of the character and status of woman in the childhood of the Greek world.

It is a noteworthy fact that the plots of both the Iliad and the Odyssey--as well as the most interesting episodes they contain--turn upon love for women; and a clear idea of the importance of woman in the Heroic Age could not be given better than by briefly reviewing the brilliant panorama of warlike and domestic scenes in which woman figures.

We are first introduced to a Greek camp in Troy land. During ten long years the hosts of the Achæans have been gathered before the walls of Ilium. What is the cause of this long struggle? A woman! Paris, son of King Priam, had carried off to his native city Queen Helen, wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta. Aided by the wiles of Aphrodite, to whom he had awarded the golden apple as the fairest in the contest of the three goddesses, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, Paris succeeded in winning the heart of this fairest of Greek women and in persuading her to desert husband and daughter to follow the fortunes of a handsome stranger. On the isle of Cranaë their nuptial rites were celebrated, and after much voyaging they reached their new home in Troy, where King Priam, fascinated with the beauty and grace of this new daughter, in spite of his dread of the consequences, graciously received the errant pair. The Greek chieftains bound themselves by an inviolable oath to assist the forsaken husband to recover his spouse, and, marshalling their forces, they entered upon the long and tedious war. Thus, a woman was the cause of the first great struggle between Orient and Occident, of the assembling of the mighty hosts of the Achæans under King Agamemnon, of ten years of siege and struggle and innumerable wars, of the hurling of many valiant souls to Hades, of the fall of Troy, and of the varied wanderings and dire fortunes of the surviving heroes and heroines of the epic story.

The Iliad does not tell the whole story of the Trojan War; Homer invites the muse to sing of but one episode thereof--the dire wrath of Achilles. The cause of that violent outburst is also a woman. The Greek chieftains are gathered in the place of assembly, along the banks of the Scamander. In their midst is an aged priest of the town of Chryse, bearing in his hand the fillets of Apollo, the Far-darter, upon a golden staff. He beseeches the Greeks to restore to him his dear child, the maiden Chryseis, their captive, and to accept in return the proffered ransom, reverencing the god. There is a sympathetic murmur among the chieftains, who urge the granting of the petition; but the thing pleases not the heart of Agamemnon, king of men, who had received the beautiful captive as his own share of the booty, and for love of her will not give her up. So he roughly sends the old man away, and lays stern charge upon him not to be seen again near the ships of the Achæans. Outraged in his dignity as a priest and in his tenderness as a father, the aged sire prays to Apollo, who at once sends dire pestilence upon the Greeks; and the pyres of the dead burn continually in multitude. Nine days speed the god's shafts throughout the host, and on the tenth the valiant warrior Achilles summons the folk to assembly, and bids Calchas, "most excellent of augurs," declare the cause of the pestilence. Calchas, after much hesitation, responds that the Far-darter has brought war upon the Greeks because Agamemnon has done despite to the priest, and has not set his daughter free and accepted the ransom.

Agamemnon is violently enraged at the seer; his dark heart within him is greatly filled with anger, and his eyes are like flashing fire. He charges the seer with never saying anything that is pleasant for him to hear. And as for Chryseis, he would fain keep her himself in his household; for he prefers her even before Clytemnestra, his wedded wife, to whom she is nowise inferior, neither in favor nor stature nor wit nor skill. Yet if she be taken away from him for the good of the people, he demands another prize forthwith, that alone of the Greeks he may not be without reward. Then is the valiant Achilles enraged at the covetousness of his chief, and a violent quarrel ensues. At last, Agamemnon asserts that he will send back Chryseis, but he will come and take in return Achilles's meed of honor, Briseis of the fair cheeks, that Achilles may know how far the mightier is he and that no other may hereafter dare to rival him to his face.

Then is the son of Peleus the more enraged, and, had not the goddess Athena appeared and restrained his wrath, he would have assailed Agamemnon on the spot. However, he speaks again with bitter words and declares that hereafter longing for Achilles will come upon the Achæans one and all; for no more will he fight with the Greeks against the Trojans. So the assembly breaks up, after this battle of violent words between the twain. Achilles returns to his huts and trim ships, with Patroclus and his company; and Agamemnon sends forth Odysseus and others on a fleet ship to bear back to her father the lovely Chryseis, and to offer a hecatomb to Apollo. Thus Chryseis is restored to her father's arms, and appears no more in the story.

But Atrides ceases not from the strife with which he has threatened Achilles. He summons straightway two heralds, and bids them go to the tent of Achilles and take Briseis of the fair cheeks by the hand and lead her to him. Unwillingly they go on their mission, and find the young warrior sitting sorrowfully beside his hut and black ship. He knows wherefore they come, and bids his friend Patroclus bring forth the damsel and give them her to lead away. And Patroclus hearkens to his dear companion, and leads forth from the hut Briseis of the fair cheeks, and gives her to the heralds. And the twain take their way back along the ships of the Achæans and with them goes the maiden, all unwilling.

In this moment of grief at the loss of the woman he loves, Achilles bethinks him of his dear mother, the Nereid Thetis, and, stretching forth his hand toward the sea, he prays to her to hearken to him. His lady mother hears him as she sits in the sea depths beside her aged sire, and with speed she arises from the gray sea, and sits down beside him and strokes him with her hand and inquires the cause of his sorrow. Into her sympathetic ear he tells all the story of his wrongs, and the goddess shows herself the tenderest and most loving of mothers. He bids her seek justice for him at the throne of mighty Zeus, with whom she is potent on account of favors she has done him. She bewails with her son that she has borne him to brief life and evil destiny; but she bids him continue wroth with the Achæans, and refrain utterly from battle, while she will early fare to Zeus's palace upon Mount Olympus, and she thinks to win him. True to her promise, she betakes herself to sunny Olympus and finds the father of gods and men sitting apart from all the rest upon the topmost peak. She clasps his knees with one hand as a suppliant and with the other strokes his chin, and prays him to do honor to her son and exalt him with recompense for the gross wrong he has suffered. And Zeus, though he knows that it will lead to strife with Lady Hera, his spouse, promises to heap just vengeance upon Agamemnon.

Thus, upon the very threshold of the Iliad, the chord of maternal affection is struck; and when the wild passions of early manhood have led to sorrow and humiliation, the mother appears, affording sympathy and comfort, and is ready to traverse sea and earth and heaven to intercede for her wronged and grief-stricken son.

Achilles remains away from battle, sulking beside the ships. The odds are now in favor of the Trojans in the conflict that is being waged. Both sides are weary of continual fighting, and a single combat is arranged between Menelaus and Paris, the wronged husband and the present lord of Helen. The meed of victory is to be Helen herself, with all her treasures, she now appearing for the first time in the Epos.

Helen is summoned from her palace to witness the combat. So she hastens from her chamber, attended by two handmaidens, and comes to the place of the Scæan gates, where are gathered King Priam and the elders of the city.

Homer nowhere attempts to describe Helen's beauty in detail, but impresses it upon the reader merely by showing the bewitching effect of her presence upon others. Even these sage old men fall under the spell of her divine beauty, and, when they see her coming upon the towers, softly speak winged words, one to the other:

"Small blame is it that Trojans and well-greaved Achæans should for such a woman long time suffer hardships; marvellously like is she to the immortal goddesses to look upon. Yet even so, though she be so goodly, let her go upon their ships and not stay to vex us and our children after us."

Priam, however, addresses his beautiful daughter-in-law with gentle words, laying the blame, not on her, but on the gods, for the dolorous war of the Achæans. Helen utters expressions of self-reproach, and then, at Priam's request, points out the famous warriors of the invading host.

Paris is vanquished in the single combat, and Menelaus would have slain his foe, and in that moment have regained Helen, had not the goddess Aphrodite snatched up Paris in a cloud and transported him to his chamber. Aphrodite then appears to Helen, in the form of an aged dame, and bids her return to her lord. Helen recognizes the goddess, and her scornful, bitter reply shows how the high-spirited lady rebelled at the chains with which Aphrodite bound her. The wrath and menace of Aphrodite, however, overcome her noble resolution, and she reluctantly returns. When she sees her husband, she chides him scornfully for his cowardice, and regrets that he had not perished at the hands of Menelaus. But Paris is unaffected by her reproaches. His thoughts, as ever, are not of war, but of love, and Helen, owing to the subtle power of Aphrodite, cannot long resist his caresses. Meanwhile, the injured husband rages through the host like a wild beast, if anywhere he might set his eyes on and slay the wanton Paris.

We are now approaching a series of domestic scenes, in which figure the three principal female characters of the Iliad. Owing to the abortive issue of the single combat, the truce between Greeks and Trojans is declared at an end, and the forces once more array themselves in conflict. The Trojans are being hard pressed. Hector returns to the city to command Hecuba, his mother, to assemble the aged dames of Troy, who should go to Athena's temple and supplicate the goddess to have compassion on them. At the gates the Trojans' wives and daughters gather about him, inquiring of their loved ones. As he enters the royal palace, his beautiful mother meets him and clasps him by the hand, and bids him, weary of battle, pause to take refreshments. But Hector resists her solicitous entreaties, urges her to gather the aged wives together, and, with the most beautiful robe in the palace as an offering, to go to the temple and supplicate Athena to have mercy. Hecuba does as he commands, and the solemn procession mounts the citadel and implores the goddess to have mercy on them and turn the tide of combat. The goddess, however, is inflexible: she denies their prayer.

Hector, meanwhile, stops at the palace of Paris. He finds Helen seated among her handmaidens, distributing to them their tasks, and Paris polishing his beautiful armor. Hector severely rebukes his brother; but words of scorn make but little impression on the smooth and courteous Paris. Helen now addresses Hector, for whom she has a sisterly love and admiration that contrasts painfully with her contempt for her cowardly lord; and her words reveal the bitterness of her heart, because of her evil destiny and because "even in days to come we may be a song in the ears of men that shall be hereafter." Hector responds with sympathetic regard to the sisterly confidence of Helen, and bids her rouse her husband once more to enter the combat, while in the meantime he will go to his own house to behold his dear wife and infant boy; for he knows not if he shall return home to them again, or if the gods will now overthrow him at the hands of the Achæans.

When Hector comes to his palace, he finds not his beautiful wife, white-armed Andromache, within; upon inquiry he learns that, through anxiety because of the battle, like one frenzied, she had gone in haste to the wall, and the nurse bearing the child was with her. Hector hastens to the Scæan gates, and as he approaches them there came his dear-won wife, running to meet him, and with her the handmaid bearing in her bosom the tender boy, Hector's loved son Astyanax. Hector smiles and gazes at the boy; while Andromache stands by his side weeping and clasps his hand in hers, and urges him to take thought for himself and to have pity on her, forlorn, and on their infant boy. Hector tells her that he takes thought of all this, that his greatest grief is the thought of her anguish in the day when some mail-clad Achæan shall lead her away and rob her of the light of freedom, but it is his part to fight in the forefront of the Trojans. He lays his son in his dear wife's bosom, and, as she smiles tearfully upon the lad, her husband has pity to see her, and gently caresses her with his hand and seeks to console her. He bids her return to her own tasks, the loom and distaff, while he provides for war. So part these heroic souls. Hector sets out for the battlefield; and his dear wife departs to her home, oft looking back and letting fall big tears. When she reaches her house, she gathers her handmaidens about her, and stirs lamentations in them all. "So bewailed they Hector, while yet he lived, within his house; for they deemed that he would no more come home to them from battle nor escape the fury of the hands of the Achæans."

The closing scenes of the dramatic recital time and again present these three women--Hecuba, Helen, and Andromache. Achilles continues to sulk away from battle, in spite of Agamemnon's attempt at reconciliation. The Trojans are winning victory after victory. Achilles's comrade Patroclus finally gets permission to don the great warrior's armor, and he enters the conflict. Hector, supposing him to be Achilles, engages with him in combat and finally slays him. Achilles is overwhelmed with grief at the death of Patroclus. His lady mother, Thetis, rises from the depths of the sea to console him, and provides him a suit of armor fashioned by Hephæstus. Agamemnon and Achilles are reconciled before the assembly of the Achæans, and fair-faced Briseis is restored to her lover. She utters shrill laments over the body of Patroclus, who had been ever kind to her. Achilles enters the combat, clad in the armor of Hephæstus. Hector alone dares to face him, and he is slain, and his lifeless body is dragged behind Achilles's chariot as he drives exultantly toward the ships. Piteous wailings are heard from the walls, wailings of the aged Priam, and of the sorrowful Hecuba, whose cry is the full bitterness of maternal grief.

Within the city, in the inner chamber of her palace, a young wife is engaged in weaving a double purple web and directing the work of her handmaidens. Her thoughts are all of her warrior husband, and she has had a servant set a great tripod upon the fire that Hector might have warm washing when he comes home out of the battle--fond heart all unaware how, far from all washings, bright-eyed Athena has slain him by the hand of Achilles! But suddenly she hears shrieks and groans from the battlements, and her limbs tremble and the shuttle falls from her hands to earth. She dreads terribly lest Hector has met his fate at the hand of Achilles. Accompanied by her handmaidens, she rushes to the battlements, and beholds his lifeless body dragged by swift horses toward the hollow ships. Then dark night comes on her eyes and shrouds her, and she falls backward and gasps forth her spirit; and when at last her soul returns into her breast, she bewails her own sad lot and that of her child, deprived of such a husband and father.

The succeeding days are spent in gloom and sorrow, each side bewailing the loss of a favorite warrior. King Priam finally recovers the body of Hector from Achilles, and brings it back to Hector's palace, where the women gather about the corpse--and among them white-armed Andromache leads the lamentation, while in her hands she holds the head of Hector, slayer of men. Hecuba, too, grieves for Hector, of all her children the dearest to her heart; and, lastly, Helen joins in the sore lament, sorrowing for the loss of the dearest of her brethren in Troy, who had never spoken despiteful word to her, but had always been kind and considerate. Here the long story reaches its natural conclusion. The Iliad opens with a scene of wrath occasioned by man's passion for woman, and closes with a scene of mourning--women grieving for the loss of a slain husband and son and friend--knightly Hector.

Before we bid farewell to the martial tableaux presented to us in the Iliad, and direct our attention to the domestic scenes of the Odyssey, let us take a final glance at the heroines who have appeared in the first Homeric epos.

Worthy of note is the atmosphere of beauty and delicacy and charm with which the poet has enveloped Helen of Troy. She has committed a grievous fault, but there is in the recital nothing which offends the moral sense. This is because the poet has portrayed her with none of the seductions of vice, but with all the allurements of penitence. She has sinned, but it has been because of the mysterious and irresistible bond which united her to the goddess of love; her moral nature has not been perverted, and she is filled with shame and remorse because of the reproach that has been cast upon her name. By a long and bitter expiation, she has atoned for her fault; and memories of the days long past abide with her in all their sweetness and purity. One can but contrast the difference of attitude with which she addresses Priam and Hector on the one hand, and Aphrodite and Paris on the other. For the former she has the utmost consideration and respect, and in their presence she feels most keenly how compromised is her position; for the latter, the causes of her fall, she has nothing but the scorn and contempt of a cultivated and high-spirited queen. In portraying the regret of Helen for her first husband, and her contempt toward her second; in representing Menelaus and the Greeks as fighting to avenge "the longings and the groans of Helen"; and in subtly suggesting how inevitable are the chains with which Aphrodite has bound her, the poet wins for her our sympathy and admiration. Homer nowhere tells us of the reconciliation of Menelaus and Helen, after the fall of Troy; but in the Odyssey he presents a beautiful picture of Helen in Sparta, a queen once more, beloved of husband and attendants, and presiding over her palace with courtly grace and dignity; and in the prophecy of Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea, the destiny of the fair queen is suggested in that of her faithful spouse: "But thou, Menelaus, son of Zeus, art not ordained to die and meet thy fate in Argos, the pasture land of horses; for the deathless gods will convey thee to the Elysian plains and to the world's end, where is Rhadamanthus of the fair hair, where life is easiest for men. No snow is there, nor yet great storm, nor any rain, but always ocean sendeth forth the breeze of the shrill blast to blow cool on men; yea, for thou hast Helen to wife, and thereby they deem thee son to Zeus."

Thus, because wedded to Zeus-begotten Helen, Menelaus himself is deathless and immortal, and Homer meant, no doubt, to picture the royal couple passing together in the Isles of the Blest the æons of eternity.

Homer provided the literary types for all succeeding Greek poets, and it is but natural that so bewitching a conception as Helen should be frequently portrayed and adopted. But with the change in form of government from monarchy to oligarchy, and from oligarchy to democracy, the old epic conception of heroes and heroines frequently suffers disparagement. In later periods, men began to meditate on moral questions, and poets who sought to weigh the problems of human life and destiny saw in Helen's career the old, old story of sin and sufering, and they could not with Homeric chivalry gloze over that fatal step which caused the wreck of empires and brought infinite woes to men.

Stesichorus was the first poet to charge Helen with all the guilt and suffering of Hellas and of Troy; but for this offence against the daughter of Zeus, says tradition, he was smitten with blindness, and did not recover his sight until he had written the recantation beginning: "Not true is that tale; nor didst thou journey in benched ships, nor come to town of Troy,"--in which he adopted the theory that the real Helen remained in Egypt, while a phantom accompanied Paris to Troy.

Æschylus searches into the dire consequences of Helen's sin, and on her shoulders lays all the sufferings of Agamemnon and his descendants. "Rightly is she called Helen," says he; "a hell of ships, hell of men, hell of cities." He regards her as the very incarnation of evil, the curse of two great nations. Yet even stern Æschylus yields due reverence to her all-conquering beauty:

He also represents her forsaken husband ever dreaming of her, enraptured of her beauty:

"Oft as short slumbers close his eyes,

His sad soul sooth'd to rest,

The dream-created visions rise

With all her charms imprest:

But vain th' ideal scene that smiles

With rapt'rous love and warm delight;

Vain his fond hopes; his eager arms

The fleeting form beguiles,

On sleep's quick pinions passing light."

Æschylus is not the only one of the early dramatists to whom Helen furnished a worthy theme; the titles of four lost plays show that Sophocles wrote of the Argive queen. There is no means of knowing, however, how this master dealt with the romance. Judging from his treatment of the Antigone legend, it is probable that Sophocles treated Helen as a woman of rare beauty and power, more sinned against than sinning, and subjected her character to the most profound analysis.

While Æschylus deprived Helen of something of the delicacy and charm with which Homer had invested her, Euripides, in a number of his plays, goes even further, and brings her down to the level of common life. Upon her beautiful head were heaped the reproaches of the unfortunate maidens and matrons of Greece and Troy for the woes they had to suffer, and we must not always take the sentiments of a Hecuba or a Clytemnestra as expressing the poet's own convictions. In the Daughters of Troy, he represents her in violent debate with her mother-in-law, Hecuba, before Menelaus, leaving with the reader the impression that she is a guilty, wilful woman of ignoble traits, and in other plays he lays on her the load of guilt for all the dire consequences of her act; yet in his treatment of Helen there is always an ethereal element, hard to define, but recognizable. She causes ruin and destruction, she is roundly abused and reproached, yet she herself does not deal in invective and is proof against all physical ill, being finally deified as the daughter of Zeus, while suffering is invariably the fate of those who abuse and censure her. And, like Stesichorus, Euripides in his old age makes a recantation. In the Helen, he follows the Stesichorean version, and dramatizes the legend that, after she was promised to Paris by Aphrodite, Hera in revenge fashioned like to Queen Helen a breathing phantom out of cloud land wrought for Priam's princely son; while Hermes caught her away and transferred her to the halls of Proteus, King of Egypt, to keep her pure for Menelaus. Thus it was for a phantom Helen that Greek and Trojan fought at Troy; while the real Helen passed her days amid the palm gardens of Egypt, eagerly awaiting the return of Menelaus, and bewailing her ill name, though she was clean of sin. After the war, she is happily reunited with her lord.

It is hard, however, to besmirch a conception of ideal beauty, and later writers, casting aside the imputations of the dramatists, returned to the Homeric type. The Greek rhetoricians found in Helen a fruitful subject for panegyric, and made her synonymous with the Greek ideal of beauty and feminine perfection. Isocrates praises her as the incarnation of ideal loveliness and grace; beauty is all powerful, he says, and the Helen legend shows how beauty is the most desirable of all human gifts. Theocritus, in his exquisite Epithalamium, pays an unalloyed tribute to her beauty and goodness. She is "peerless among all Achæan women that walk the earth;--rose-red Helen, the glory of Lacedæmon;--no one is so gifted as she in goodly handiwork;--yea, and of a truth, none other smites the lyre, hymning Artemis and broad-breasted Athena, with such skill as Helen, within whose eyes dwell all the Loves."

Quintus Smyrnæus, of the fourth century of our era, who wrote a Post-Homerica, emphasizes the demonic influence that controlled the fate of Helen, and lays her frailty to the charge of Aphrodite. He gives a beautiful picture of the queen as she is being led to the ships of the Achæans: "Now, Helen lamented not, but shame dwelt in her dark eyes and reddened her lovely cheeks ... while round her the people marvelled as they beheld the flawless grace and winsome beauty of the woman, and none dared upbraid her with secret taunt or open rebuke. Nay, as she had been a goddess, they beheld her gladly, for dear and desired was she in their sight."

Thus the Helen legend became the allegory of Greek beauty, and so exquisite an ideal, uplifting the spirit and satisfying one's longing for higher things, strikes a responsive chord in the hearts of lovers of beauty in every clime. The romance of Helen, after lying dormant for centuries, came to life again in the legend of Faust. Marlowe treated merely the external phases of the Faust legend; Goethe allegorized the whole, and in the loves of Faust and Helen symbolized the passion of the Renaissance for the Greek ideal of beauty; the fruit of the union of the two is Euphorion, the genius of romantic art. Nor has Helen exerted less influence on modern English poets. Landor, in numerous poems, portrays the sweetness of her character and the omnipotence of her beauty and charm; Swinburne dwells on the innocence and joyfulness of her childhood; Tennyson speaks of her as

and Andrew Lang has written a lengthy poem on the Helen legend, in which he ascribes her frailty to the irresistible power of Aphrodite. Thus Homer and the Homeric Age are inextricably entwined about the name of Helen. It is significant in the study of Greek women that at the very dawn of Greek civilization we should find such an ideal conception of womanhood--one that universally captivates the fancy and has exerted an influence through all succeeding ages.

Let us now pause a moment to contemplate the most lovable of all the women of Homer, Hector's spouse, white-armed Andromache. Homer does not devote much space to her--only the famous parting scene and the two lamentations which she utters over her fallen husband. Yet, as the ideal type of the soldier's wife, the loving mother, she has taken a hold on the modern imagination and is the best known of all the female characters of Greek epos. We know that she must have been beautiful, though Homer uses only one epithet to describe her; we know that she must have been brave and devoted and domestic, for Homer has painted for us an ideal picture which portrays her with all these and many other lovable attributes. Andromache is neither Trojan nor Greek; she is universal; and wherever there are scenes of husband parted from wife, of uncertainty as to the issue of the combat and the destiny of the children, Andromache will be the great prototype. Andromache feels in her heart that sacred Ilium is doomed, and, in those cruel times when might was right, she knew but too well what was to be the fate of herself and the lad Astyanax. Euripides tells us how the forebodings of Andromache came true, and dwells on those sad days for the daughters of Troy when the mailed hand of the Achæans carried them off captive after the fall of the city and determined their destiny by lot.

Andromache was apportioned to Neoptolemus, Achilles's valiant son, and in Euripides's Daughters of Troy she reappears, with her child in her arms, haled forth to her new bondage. Sadly she bewails her lost Hector, who could have warded off from her the curse of thraldom. The Greek herald, Talthybius, demands from her the lad Astyanax, whom the Greeks have decided to hurl from the battlements of Troy. The child is ruthlessly torn from his mother's embrace, and she is led off to the hollow ships. Neoptolemus takes her over sea to his home in Thessaly, and loves her and treats her with a kindness and consideration that are sweetly perfect. To him she bears a son in her captivity; but not of her own will does she share his couch, for her heart is true to the memory of Hector. After many years, Neoptolemus weds Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and Helen, a princess of Sparta. To them no child is born, and Hermione's heart is filled with anger and jealousy toward the thrall, whom her husband still treats tenderly. With her father, Menelaus, Hermione, during Neoptolemus's absence, plots the destruction of Andromache and her boy, but the aged Peleus protects the defenceless ones. Neoptolemus is slain at Delphi, and Thetis, who appears at the close of the Andromache, thus solves the problem of fate:

Readers of Virgil will recall how Æneas found Andromache in the Molossian land, and how her heart yearned for the lad Ascanius, who reminded her of the lost Astyanax. Euripides has been true, in the main, to the Homeric conception of Andromache, and endows her in her captivity with the same womanliness and domestic traits that won our hearts in the Iliad; nevertheless, there is about her the infinite sadness that is natural to one who has lost all that life holds dear. Yet Euripides falls so infinitely below the master that the picture which will abide longest in the memory is the parting scene in the Iliad.

Homer endows his minor characters with an interest that is no less real to us than that given to Helen and Andromache. Of these lesser characters, a few stand out insistent of our notice. At the threshold of the story, Chryseis and Briseis appear as the innocent causes of the quarrel of the chieftains. Chryseis is still a maiden, as far as can be inferred, and had not lost kindred and friends when taken captive; for her father, the priest of sacred Chryse, comes to beg her release, with boundless ransoms. Hence her day of captivity is brief, and the aged father joyously welcomes his beloved daughter. She must have been beautiful and clever, for Agamemnon prized her far above Clytemnestra.

The story of Briseis is a much sadder one, and graphically illustrates the fate of a gentlewoman who fell into the hands of the foe. She was a captive widow, husband and kindred having been slain by Achilles. But her captor loved her devotedly, and to him she was a wife in all but in name; and Patroclus had promised her that she should in time become the wedded wife of Achilles. The young warrior weeps bitterly when she is taken from him, but at the close of the Iliad we see them happily reunited. She is remembered because of the great passions that gathered about her.

Homer presents two pictures of heroic motherhood in sorrow,--Hecuba and Thetis; for the latter, though a goddess, is perfectly human in her devotion to her fated son, Achilles. To her he goes for comfort, and she is ever resourceful in responding to his wants. She weeps over his destiny, but, since he has chosen the better part, she nobly supports him in every struggle. Hecuba is truly the companion of her husband, King Priam, associated with him in his projects, and sharing his counsels. She has borne him nineteen children, and these she has seen slain, one after another, by the hand of the foe. Hector is her favorite son, in whose courage she recognizes the bulwark of Ilium. When she sees him exposed to certain death, her anxiety overcomes her pride and she beseeches him to come within the walls; and when at last her son has succumbed, we find in her the same mingling of grief and of pride. Her wild despair seems to be assuaged by the thought that her son died gloriously. This heroic sentiment sustains her before the corpse of Hector, and even in her lamentation she voices her calm courage.

WOMEN OF THE ODYSSEY

Ten years have passed since the fall of Ilium, and the various heroes of the Greeks have met with diverse fortunes. Agamemnon, king of men, has returned to his fatherland, but merely to find treason and death at the hands of Ægisthus, the new lord of Clytemnestra, his wife. Menelaus, after long wanderings, especially in Egypt, has reestablished his kingdom in Sparta, with Helen as his queen. Odysseus, King of Ithaca, had the longest and most perilous voyage homeward, and, after meeting with various misadventures, has been detained for nearly eight long years, consuming his own heart, in the island paradise of Calypso, Meanwhile, on his own island, Ithaca, things have begun to go amiss. The island chiefs, men of the younger generation, begin to woo Penelope and to harass her son, Telemachus. The wooers, after being rebuffed for years by the fair queen, are becoming insolent, quartering themselves upon her, and devouring her substance. At this time the action of the Odyssey begins.

The determined time has now arrived when, by the counsels of the gods, Odysseus is to be brought home to free his house, to avenge himself on the wooers, and to recover his kingdom, Pallas Athena is the chief agent in the restoration of Odysseus to his fatherland. She beseeches Zeus that he may be delivered, and in accordance with this prayer Hermes is sent to Calypso to bid her release Odysseus. Meanwhile, the goddess, in human form, visits Telemachus in Ithaca, and urges the young prince to withstand the suitors who are devastating his house, and to go in search of his father. Touched by the words of the goddess, youth rapidly gives way to manhood, and Telemachus determines to assert his rights and to find his father.

After the departure of the goddess, the prince enters the court where the suitors are gathered, listening to the singing of the renowned minstrel Phemius; and his song was of the pitiful return of the Achæans. We now have our first vision of discreet Penelope. From her upper chamber she hears the glorious strain, and she descends the high stairs from her apartments, accompanied by two of her handmaids. "Now, when the fair lady had come unto the wooers, she stood by the doorpost of the well-builded roof, holding up her glistening tire before her face; and a faithful maiden stood on either side of her." She begs Phemius to cease from this sorrowful strain, which wastes her heart within her breast, since to her, above all women, hath come a sorrow comfortless, because she holds in constant memory so dear a head,--even that man whose fame is noised abroad from Hellas to mid-Argos. Telemachus gently rebukes his mother for interrupting the song of the minstrel, and bids her return to her chamber and to her own housewiferies, the loom and distaff, and bid the handmaids ply their tasks. Then in amaze she goes back to her chamber, for she lays up the wise saying of her son in her heart. She ascends to the upper chamber with the women, her handmaids, and there bewails Odysseus, her dear lord, till gray-eyed Athena casts sweet sleep upon her eyelids.

Telemachus begins to assert himself before the violent suitors. When night falls and each goes to his own house to lie down to rest, the young prince is attended to his chamber by the aged Euryclea, who had nursed him when a little one. She bears the burning torches, and prepares the chamber for her young master; and when he takes off his soft doublet, she folds and smooths it and hangs it on a pin by the jointed bedstead. Then she goes forth from the room, and there, all night long, wrapped in a fleece of wool, Telemachus meditates in his heart upon the journey that Athena has shown him.

The next day, after a stormy meeting of the assembly, Telemachus secretly sets sail for Pylus, accompanied by the goddess Athena, in the form of Mentor. Only Euryclea, the youth's faithful nurse, knows of his journey, and she has taken a great oath not to reveal it to his mother till the eleventh or twelfth day. Nestor graciously receives Telemachus at Pylus, and, as he himself has no news of Odysseus, sends him on to Sparta, to King Menelaus, in the company of his own son, Pisistratus. The young men are graciously received by Menelaus and Helen, and Telemachus learns that Odysseus was a captive on an island of the deep in the halls of the nymph Calypso.

Meanwhile, the suitors in Ithaca learn of Telemachus's departure and lay an ambush to intercept him on his return. Discreet Penelope, too, learns by chance of his absence, and of the plots of the wooers, and her heart melts within her at the thought of danger to her child. The good nurse Euryclea tells her of Telemachus's plan, and lulls her queen's grief. Penelope returns to her chamber and prays to Athena to save her dear son and ward off from him the malice of the suitors. As she lies there in her upper chamber, fasting, and tasting neither meat nor drink, and musing over the fate of her dear son, gray-eyed Athena makes a phantom in the likeness of Penelope's sister, Iphthime, and sends her to comfort Penelope amid her sorrow and lamenting. Reassured by the phantom concerning her son, the devoted matron begs for news of her husband, pleading to know whether he be alive or dead, but this information is denied her. Yet the heart of the disconsolate wife and mother is cheered, so sweet was the vision that came to her in the dead of night.

Homer now transports us to an assembly of the gods. Athena tells the tale of the many woes of Odysseus, and Zeus commands Hermes, the messenger god, to bid Calypso release Odysseus and start him on his voyage to the Phæacians, who are destined to return the wanderer to his own dear country. Hermes quickly reaches the far-off isle of Ogygia, where was the grotto of the nymph of the braided tresses. The fair goddess at once knows him, and, after giving him entertainment, inquires his message. Calypso regretfully and well-nigh rebelliously receives the command of Zeus, and complains of the jealousy of the gods, who forbid goddesses openly to mate with men. Yet, as none can make void the purpose of Zeus, she will obey the command. Hermes departs, and the nymph goes on her way to the great-hearted Odysseus. She finds him sitting on the shore; his eyes were never dry of tears, his sweet life was ebbing away as he mourned for his return, and through his tears he looked wistfully over the unharvested deep. Calypso bids him sorrow no more, for she will send him away, and directs him how to prepare a barge on which to make the voyage. Four days are devoted to the making of the barge, and on the fifth the goddess sends him on his way, providing him with food and drink for his journey, and causing a gentle wind to blow.

Goodly Odysseus joyously sets his sail to the breeze, and keeps his eye on the star Orion, which the fair goddess had bidden him to keep ever on his left as he traverses the deep.

Seventeen days he sails placidly along, and on the eighteenth appear the shadowy hills of the land of the Phæacians, whither he is bound. Then spies him his old enemy, Poseidon, and the earth shaker gathers the clouds and rouses the storms, and down speeds night from heaven. The great waves smite down upon Odysseus, and he loses the helm from his hand and the mast is broken. He is thrown from his raft; but, again clutching it, clambers upon it, avoiding grim death. Woman is again destined to be the means of salvation for the hero. Ino of the fair ankles, daughter of Cadmus, in time past a mortal maiden, but now a sea nymph, Leucothea, marks his dire straits and takes pity upon him, and gives him her veil to wind about him when he throws himself into the deep. When his raft is at last broken asunder, he wraps the veil about him; and for two days and nights it bears him up until at length he makes the rugged shore. Throwing the veil into the stream, to be wafted back to fair-ankled Ino, Odysseus, bruised and battered, clambers among the reeds on the bank. He finds a resting place underneath two olive trees, and Athena sheds sweet sleep upon his eyelids.

That same night, the daughter of the king of the Phæacians, Nausicaa, beautiful like the goddesses, was sleeping in a sumptuous chamber. For it was to the island domain of King Alcinous, Scheria, land of the Phæacians, that Odysseus had come. To the palace of the king went Athena, devising a return for the great-hearted Odysseus.

"She betook her to the rich-wrought bower, wherein was sleeping a maiden like to the gods in form and comeliness, Nausicaa, the daughter of Alcinous, high of heart. Beside her, on each hand of the pillars of the door, were two handmaids, dowered with beauty from the Graces, and the shining doors were shut.

"But the goddess, fleet as the breath of the wind, swept toward the couch of the maiden, and stood above her head."

In the semblance of Nausicaa's favorite girl friend and comrade, the goddess addresses her:

"'Nausicaa, how hath thy mother so heedless a maiden to her daughter? Lo! thou hast shining raiment that lies by thee uncared for, and thy marriage day is near at hand, when thou thyself must needs go beautifully clad, and have garments to give to them who shall lead thee to the house of the bridegroom. And, behold, these are the things whence a good report goes abroad among men, wherein a father and lady mother take delight. But come, let us arise and go a-washing with the breaking of the day, and I will follow thee to be thy mate in the toil, that without delay thou mayst get thee ready, since truly thou art not long to be a maiden. Lo! already they are wooing thee, the noblest youths of all the Phæacians, among that people whence thou thyself dost draw thy lineage. So come, beseech thy noble father betimes in the morning to furnish thee with mules and a wain to carry the men's raiment, and the robes, and the shining coverlets. Yea, and for thyself it is seemlier far to go thus than on foot, for the places where we must wash are a great way from the town.'"

"Anon came the throned Dawn, and awakened Nausicaa of the fair robes, who straightway marvelled on the dream, and went through the halls to tell her parents, her father dear and her mother. And she found them within, her mother sitting by the hearth with the women, her handmaids, spinning yarn of sea-purple stain, but her father she met as he was going forth to the renowned kings in their council, whither the noble Phæacians called him. Standing close by her dear father, she spake, saying: 'Father, dear, couldst thou not lend me a high wagon with strong wheels, that I may take the goodly raiment to the river to wash, so much as I have lying soiled? Yea, and it is seemly that thou thyself, when thou art with the princes in council, shouldst have fresh raiment to wear. Also, there are five dear sons of thine in the halls, two married, but three are lusty bachelors, and these are always eager for new-washen garments wherein to go to the dances; for all these things have I taken thought.'

"This she said, because she was ashamed to speak of glad marriage to her father; but he saw all and answered, saying:

"'Neither the mules nor aught else do I grudge thee, my child. Go thy ways, and the thralls shall get thee ready a high wagon with good wheels, and fitted with an upper frame.'"

So, in obedience to the king's command, the mule team is made ready in the courtyard, and the maiden and her mother store in the wagon the raiment, a basket filled with all manner of food, and wine in a goatskin bottle, and olive oil in a golden cruse, that the princess and her maidens might anoint themselves after the bath. Then Nausicaa herself takes the whip and the reins, and she and her attendants start off for a joyous holiday. When they reach the stream of the river, the maidens unharness the mules and turn them loose to graze on the honey-sweet clover. Then they take out the garments, wash and cleanse them from all stains, and spread them out along the shore to dry. Work over, they bathe, anoint themselves with olive oil, and partake of their noonday meal on the river banks. Now for an afternoon of maidenly pastime. They indulge in the choral game of ball, laying aside their headdresses, and among them Nausicaa of the white arms, who outshone in beauty her maiden company, began the song.

But Athena is overruling this girlish frolic, for the rescue of her hero. The princess throws the ball at one of her companions, but it misses her and falls into the eddying river, whereat the maidens all raise a piercing scream, as only maidens can. Odysseus is awakened, and, sitting up, wonders into what sort of land he is come; surely it was the shrill cry of maidens, but whether of nymphs or of mortals he cannot tell. He will make essay, however; and, tearing a leafy bough from a tree to cover him, he sallies forth from the thicket like a mountain-bred lion. Loathsome and terrible, being disfigured by the brine of the sea, does he appear to the maidens, and they flee cowering here and there about the shore. Only Alcinous's daughter stands firm, for Athena gives her courage of heart and takes all trembling from her limbs. Odysseus does not venture to approach in the attitude of a suppliant, but, standing aloof, beseeches her compassion with sweet and cunning words:

"I supplicate thee, O queen, whether thou art a goddess or a mortal! If indeed thou art a goddess of them that keep the wide heaven, then to Artemis, the daughter of great Zeus, I mainly liken thee, for beauty and stature and shapeliness. But if thou art one of the daughters of men who dwell on earth, thrice blessed are thy father and thy lady mother, and thrice blessed thy brethren. Surely their souls ever glow with gladness for thy sake each time they see thee entering the dance, so fair a flower of maidens! But he is of heart the most blessed beyond all other who shall prevail with gifts of wooing, and lead thee to his home. Never have mine eyes beheld such an one among mortals, neither man nor woman; great awe comes upon me as I look on thee.

"But, queen, have pity on me; for, after many trials and sore, to thee first of all am I come, and of the other folk who hold this city and land I know no man. Nay, show me the town, give me an old garment to cast about me, if thou hadst, when thou camest here, any wrap for the linen. And may the gods grant thee all thy heart's desire: a husband and a home, and a mind at one with his may they give--a good gift; for there is nothing mightier and nobler than when man and wife are of one heart and mind in a house, a grief to their foes, and to their friends great joy, but their own hearts know it best."

Then Nausicaa of the white arms answered him, and said: "Stranger, forasmuch as thou seemest no evil man nor foolish--and it is Olympian Zeus himself that giveth weal to men, to the good and to the evil, to each one as he will, and this thy lot doubtless is of him, and so thou must in any wise endure it:--now, since thou hast come to our city and our land, thou shalt not lack raiment, nor aught else that is the due of a hapless suppliant, when he has met them who can befriend him. And I will show thee the town, and name the name of the people. The Phæacians hold this city and land, and I am the daughter of Alcinous, great of heart, on whom all the might and force of the Phæacians depend."

The princess then calls her maidens and bids them give the stranger meat and drink, and olive oil for his bath, and raiment to put on. And when he had bathed and anointed himself, and had put on the raiment, Athena "made him greater and more mighty to behold, and from his head caused deep, curling locks to flow, like the hyacinth flower," shedding grace about his head and shoulders.

"Then to the shore of the sea went Odysseus apart, and sat down, glowing in beauty and grace; and the princess marvelled at him, and spake among her fair-tressed maidens, saying:

"'Listen, my white-armed maidens, and I will say somewhat. Not without the will of all the gods who hold Olympus hath this man come among the godlike Phæacians. Erewhile he seemed to me uncomely, but now he is like the gods that keep the wide heaven. Would that such an one might be called my husband, dwelling here, and that it might please him here to abide! But come, my maidens, give the stranger meat and drink.'"

Food is set before the famishing Odysseus, and, after his hunger is appeased, Nausicaa prepares for the homeward return. She addresses the hero, and gives him full directions how to reach her father's palace; part of the way he may accompany her, but not when they approach a populous part of the city; for she dreads the unfriendly comments of loungers and passers-by.

"And some one of the baser sort might meet me and say: 'Who is this that goes with Nausicaa, this tall and goodly stranger? Where found she him? Her husband he will be, her very own. Either she has taken in some shipwrecked wanderer of strange men, for no men dwell near us; or some god has come in answer to her instant prayer; from heaven has he descended, and will have her to wife for evermore. Better so, if herself she has ranged abroad and found a lord from a strange land; for verily she holds in no regard the Phæacians here in this country, the many men and noble who are her wooers.' So will they speak, and this would turn to my reproach. Yea, and I myself would think it blame of another maiden who did such things in despite of her friends, her father and mother being still alive, and was conversant with men before the day of open wedlock. But, stranger, heed well what I say, that as soon as may be thou mayst gain at my father's hands an escort and a safe return. Thou shalt find a fair grove of Athena, a poplar grove near the road, and a spring wells forth therein, and a meadow lies all around. There is my father's demesne, and his fruitful close, within the sound of a man's shout from the city. Sit thee down there, and wait until such time as we may have come into the city and reached the house of my father. But when thou deemest that we are got to the palace, then go up to the city of the Phæacians, and ask for the house of my father Alcinous, high of heart. It is easily known, and a young child could be thy guide, for nowise like it are builded the houses of the Phæacians, so goodly is the palace of the hero Alcinous. But when thou art within the shadow of the halls and the court, pass quickly through the great chamber, till thou comest to my mother, who sits at the hearth in the light of the fire, weaving yarn of sea-purple stain, a wonder to behold. Her chair is leaned against a pillar, and her maidens sit behind her. And there my father's throne leans close to hers, wherein he sits and drinks his wine, like an immortal. Pass thou by him, and cast thy hands about my mother's knees, that thou mayst see quickly and with joy the day of thy returning, even if thou art from a very far country. If but her heart be kindly disposed toward thee, then is there hope that thou shalt see thy friends, and come to thy well-builded house and to thine own country." The clever maiden had already learned where lies the real seat of authority.

Soon stranger and maiden part, and Nausicaa drives to the gateway of the palace, and her brothers loose the mules from the car and carry the raiment within; then the maiden passes to her chamber, where her attendant Eurymedusa meets her and prepares her supper. And at this point Nausicaa slips out of the main thread of the story, for maidens were not allowed to take part in the public functions with which the king entertained his guest.

When Odysseus has met with a favorable reception from the royal pair, the queen recognizes the garments which he wears, and this leads to the story of his rescue, but as yet he withholds his name. Alcinous is inclined to censure his daughter for not bringing the rescued one to the house when she returned with her maidens, but Odysseus gallantly defends the blameless maiden. And Alcinous, moved by his princely bearing, expresses the wish that so goodly a man would wed his daughter, and be called his son, there abiding. But the king does not insist, and the invitation was probably merely a courteous form of expression customary in those early days.

Only one more glimpse do we have of the Princess Nausicaa. After a day of athletic contests and various entertainments, Odysseus has arrayed himself for the evening, and is going to join the chiefs at their wine.

"And Nausicaa, dowered with beauty by the gods, stood by the doorpost of the well-builded hall, and marvelled at Odysseus, beholding him before her eyes, and she uttered her voice and spake to him winged words:

"'Farewell, stranger, and even in thine own country bethink thee of me upon a time, for that to me first thou owest the ransom of life.'

"And Odysseus of many counsels answered her, saying: 'Nausicaa, daughter of great-hearted Alcinous, yea, may Zeus, the thunderer, the lord of Hera, grant me to reach my home and see the day of my returning; so would I, even there, do thee worship as to a god, all my days for evermore, for thou, lady, hast given me my life.'"

Thus delicately did Odysseus make a patron saint of the pure-hearted maiden, who had so innocently shown her fondness for him.

Royally was Odysseus entertained by King Alcinous and his noble-hearted queen, Arete, daughter of his brother, who "was honored by him as no other woman in the world is honored, of all that nowadays keep house under the hand of their lords. Thus she hath, and hath ever had, all worship heartily from her dear children and from her lord Alcinous and from all the folk, who look on her as on a goddess, and greet her with reverent speech when she goes about the town. Yea, for she, too, hath no lack of understanding. To whomsoever she shows favor, even if they be men, she ends their feuds."

After the feast, Demodocus the minstrel sang the story of the Wooden Horse; and at the memory of all he had suffered, the heart of Odysseus melted and the tears wet his cheeks beneath his eyelids. His host marked his grief, and begged him to tell the story of his adventures. Odysseus complied by giving an account of his wanderings, from the fall of Troy up to his arrival among the Phæacians. The hero had struggled time and again against men, against giants and monsters, against the forces of nature, and finally against an adversary yet more powerful--the love of goddesses.

Among his adventures was the story of his trip to the isle of Æa, where dwelt Circe, an awful goddess, of mortal speech, own sister of the wizard Æetes, and aunt of the more terrible enchantress Medea. She dwelt in a house of polished stone, and all round her palace mountain-bred wolves and lions were roaming, whom she herself had bewitched with evil drugs. As half his band approached the house, they heard Circe singing in a sweet voice as she passed to and fro before the great web, imperishable, such as is the handiwork of goddesses, fine of woof and full of grace and splendor; truly a fascinating goddess was she, though rather gruesome in her surroundings. When the comrades of Odysseus called to her, she graciously invited them in. "So she led them in and set them upon chairs and high seats, and made them a mess of cheese and barley meal and yellow honey with Pramnian wine, and mixed harmful drugs with the food to make them utterly forget their own country. Now, when she had given them the cup and they had drunk it off, presently she smote them with a wand, and in the sties of the swine she penned them. So they had the head and voice, the bristles and the shape, of swine, but their mind abode even as of old. Thus were they penned there weeping, and Circe flung them acorns and mast and fruit of the cornel tree to eat, whereon wallowing swine do always batten."

Only one had been wise enough not to enter, and he rushed back to tell the tale to his lord. Odysseus started off alone to rescue his comrades; and Hermes met him on the way, in the likeness of a young man, and gave him moly, a magic herb, and full directions for its use, to ward off enchantment.

Fair Circe receives him most graciously and prepares also for him the magic potion, but for once her charm fails. He draws his sword to slay her, and then she becomes the suppliant. She has found her match, and at once, as if she were a mortal, falls in love with him. Her bonhomie is now her greatest charm. She swears a great oath not to harm him or his companions, and restores to the natural form those whom she had already bewitched. Royal entertainment and gracious hospitality and words of counsel are now the order of the day--attendant nymphs, delicious baths, and sumptuous banquets. So there they remained for a full year, feasting on abundant flesh and sweetest wine.

Lady Circe proved herself to be the counsellor and friend of Odysseus, and showed him how to carry out his fond desire of visiting the realm of Hades, to seek the spirit of Theban Tiresias, that he might unfold to the wanderer his future. Then, clad in a great, shining robe, light of woof and gracious, with a fair golden girdle about her waist, and a veil upon her head, she bade farewell to Odysseus and his crew, and sent a favoring wind as a kindly escort to the dark-prowed ship.

During his descent into Hades, Odysseus discourses with the Theban seer, who makes known to him his destiny, and also with the wraith of his mother, who tells him that faithful Penelope abides with steadfast spirit in his halls, and wearily for her the nights wane always and the days in the shedding of tears; and how she herself was reft of sweet life through her sore longing for him.

And, after her, there appears a great company of the famous women of heroic times, wives and daughters of mighty men, who had been beloved of gods and illustrious mortals,--Tyro, ancestress of Nestor's house; and Antiope, mother of Amphion and Zethus, founders of seven-gated Thebes; and Alcmene, mother of Heracles; and Epicaste, mother of Oedipus, who was wedded to her own son; and lovely Chloris, wife of Neleus; and Leda, mother of Castor and Pollux; and Iphimedia, and Phædra, and Procris, and Mæra, and Clymene, and hateful Eriphyle, and innumerable other wives and daughters of heroes,--Homer's Catalogue of Famous Women, who had exerted mighty influence in heroic times.

Upon Odysseus's return to the island of Æa, Circe greets them, and once more they enjoy meat and bread in plenty and dark red wine. And our hero Circe leads apart and makes him sit down, and lays herself at his feet and asks all his tale. She then warns him of the dangers he has yet to encounter, and tells him how to meet them. Then, with words of farewell, she sends the travellers on their voyage with a favoring breeze. First, Odysseus encounters the Sirens, whose enchanting strains he enjoys while he is bound tight to the mast, and the ears of his companions are deafened with wax; he evades the Clashing Rocks, escapes Scylla and Charybdis; and at last, on the Isle of the Sun, his comrades slaughter and devour the sacred cattle of Helios--in violation of the warnings of Tiresias and Circe. All are in consequence lost in a shipwreck, save Odysseus, who, after floating about for ten days on a raft, reaches the island of Ogygia, abode of the fair nymph Calypso, who holds him as her beloved for eight long years and would make him immortal.

Thus the tale ended--all are spellbound throughout the shadowy halls at the story, and Alcinous and his courtiers offer all manner of gifts to Odysseus. The next day, a ship is got ready for its voyage to far-off Ithaca; the gifts are stored on board, a farewell feast is held, and Odysseus bids farewell to his gracious hosts:

"My lord Alcinous, most notable of all the people, pour ye the drink offering, and send me safe upon my way; and as for you, fare ye well. For now have I all that my heart desired, an escort and loving gifts. May the gods of heaven give me good fortune with them, and may I find my noble wife in my home with my friends unharmed, while ye, for your part, abide here and make glad your gentle wives and children; and may the gods vouchsafe all manner of good, and may no evil come nigh the people!"

Then, after a grateful farewell to Queen Arete, the hero is conducted to the waiting ship, and there left reclining upon the soft rugs that have been spread for him, and soon a sound sleep, very sweet, falls upon his eyelids.

When Odysseus awakes, he is in his dear native land, though he does not recognize it until the goddess Athena appears and tells him how he is to regain wife and kingdom. For us, the rest of the story centres about Queen Penelope, who for so many, m'any years has been awaiting the return of her lord.

Odysseus, disguised by the goddess in the form of an aged beggar, goes to the hut of the swineherd Eumæus, with whose aid the plot for the destruction of the wooers is to be carried out; and Athena summons Telemachus to return from Lacedæmon to meet his father and bear his part in the final scenes. When the young man returns to the palace, after his interview with his father, "the nurse Euryclea saw him far before the rest, as she was strewing skin coverlets upon the carven chairs; and straightway she drew near him, weeping, and all the other maidens of Odysseus, of the hardy heart, gathered about him, and kissed him lovingly on the head and shoulders. Now wise Penelope came forth from her chamber, like Artemis or golden Aphrodite, and cast her arms about her dear son, and fell a-weeping, and kissed his face and both his beautiful eyes, and wept aloud, and spake to him winged words:

"'Thou art come, Telemachus, sweet light of mine eyes; methought I should see thee never again, after thou hadst gone in thy ship to Pylus, secretly, and without my will, to seek tidings of thy dear father. Come now, tell me, what sign didst thou get of him?'"

Telemachus tells his mother of his journey, and his friend Theoclymenus, who has the gift of second-sight, prophesies the speedy return of Odysseus. Soon the hero himself appears as a beggar in his own halls, and is roughly treated by the haughty wooers. He soundly whips the braggart beggar Irus, and the story of his presence is noised throughout the house.

Constant Penelope is ever anxious to hear some word of her lord, and every wandering stranger with a tale to tell could win rich gifts from her by devising some story of Odysseus. She has heard of the beggar in her halls, and summons him to her presence and questions him, and tells him of her grief and her longing for more news of the absent one. When crafty Odysseus fashioned a story of his entertaining her lord in Crete, her tears flowed as she listened, and she wept for her own lord who was sitting by her. The disguised hero had compassion for his wife; but he craftily hid his tears, and described the appearance of Odysseus so fully that she could not deny the certain likeness.

Then the aged nurse Euryclea, who had tended him in his youth, is asked to wash the feet of the old man. As the crone makes ready the caldron, a sudden fear seizes Odysseus lest when she handles his foot she might know the scar of the wound that the boar had dealt him with its white tusk in his boyhood. When the old woman took the scarred limb, she knew it by the touch, and grief and joy seized her, and she called him Odysseus, her dear child. Then would she have revealed the glad news to Penelope, had Odysseus not seized her by the throat and made her swear to keep his presence secret until the slaying of the lordly wooers.

CIRCE
After the painting by Henri P. Motte.

The myth of Circe turning the companions of Ulysses
into swines shows the religious belief, in ancient Greece, in
magical transformation of human beings into animals.

Next day occurs the famous trial of the bow of Odysseus, which none of the suitors can draw; then Odysseus gets the bow into his hands, strings it, sends the arrow through the axheads, and finally, leaping on the stone threshold, deals his shafts among the wooers. The wretched company are all slaughtered, the faithless women of the household are hanged, and ominous silence reigns over the palace of Odysseus.

Euryclea hastens to the upper chamber to bring to Queen Penelope the good news that Odysseus has surely come and has slain the haughty wooers. The fair lady can with difficulty believe the tidings, but she is finally persuaded to go down to see the wooers dead and him that slew them.

"With the word, she went down from the upper chamber, and much her heart debated whether she should stand apart and question her dear lord or draw nigh and clasp his head and hands. But when she had come within and had crossed the threshold of stone, she sat down over against Odysseus, in the light of the fire, by the further wall. Now, he was sitting by the tall pillar, looking down and waiting to know if perchance his noble wife would speak to him, when her eyes beheld him. But she sat long in silence, and amazement came upon her soul, and now she would look upon him steadfastly with her eyes, and now again she knew him not, for that he was clad in vile raiment. And Telemachus rebuked her, and spake and hailed her:

"'Mother mine, ill mother, of an ungentle heart, why turnest thou thus away from my father, and dost not sit by him and question him and ask him all? No other woman in the world would harden her heart to stand thus aloof from her lord, who, after much travail and sore, had come to her in the twentieth year to his own country. But thy heart is ever harder than stone.'

"Then wise Penelope answered him, saying: 'Child, my mind is amazed within me, and I have no strength to speak, or to ask him aught, nay, or to look on him face to face. But if in truth this be Odysseus, and he hath indeed come home, verily we shall be aware of each other the more surely; for we have tokens that we twain know of, even we, secret from all others.'

"So she spake, and the steadfast, goodly Odysseus smiled, and quickly he spake to Telemachus winged words: 'Telemachus, leave now thy mother to make trial of me within the chambers; so shall she soon come to a better knowledge than heretofore.'

"Meanwhile, the housedame Eurynome had bathed the great-hearted Odysseus within his house, and anointed him with olive oil, and cast about him a goodly mantle and a doublet. Moreover, Athena shed great beauty from his head downwards, and made him greater and more mighty to behold, and from his head caused deep, curling locks to flow, like the hyacinth flower. And as when some skilful man overlays gold upon silver, one that Hephæstus and Pallas Athena have taught all manner of craft, and full of grace is his handiwork, even so did Athena shed grace about his head and shoulders; and forth from the bath he came, in form like to the immortals. Then he sat down again on the high seat, whence he had arisen, over against his wife, and spake to her, saying:

"'Strange lady, surely to thee, above all womankind, the Olympians have given a heart that cannot be softened. No other woman in the world would harden her heart to stand thus aloof from her husband, who, after much travail and sore, had come to her, in the twentieth year, to his own country.--Nay, come, nurse strew a bed for me to lie all alone, for assuredly her spirit within her is as iron.'

"Then wise Penelope answered him again: 'Strange man, I have no proud thoughts, nor do I think scorn of thee, nor am I too greatly astonished, but I know right well what manner of man thou wert when thou wentest forth out of Ithaca, on the long-oared galley.--But come, Euryclea, spread for him the good bedstead outside the stablished bridal chamber that he built himself. Thither bring ye forth the good bedstead, and cast bedding thereon, even fleeces and rugs and shining blankets.'

"So she spake and made trial of her lord, but Odysseus in sore displeasure spake to his true wife, saying: 'Verily, a bitter word is this, lady, that thou hast spoken. Who has set my bed otherwhere? Hard would it be for one, how skilled soever, unless a god were to come that might easily set it in another place, if so he would. But of men there is none living, howsoever strong in his youth, that could lightly upheave it; for a great marvel is wrought in the fashion of the bed, and it was I that made it, and none other. There was growing a bush of olive, long of leaf, and most goodly of growth, within the inner court, and the stem as large as a pillar. Round about this I built the chamber, till I had finished it, with stones close set, and I roofed it over well and added thereto compacted doors fitting well. Next I sheared off all the light wood of the long-leaved olive, and rough-hewed the trunk upwards from the root, and smoothed it around with the adze, well and skilfully, and made straight the line thereto and so fashioned it into the bedpost, and I bored it all with the auger. Beginning from this headpost, I wrought at the bedstead till I had finished it, and made it fair with inlaid work of gold and of silver and of ivory. Then I made fast therein a bright purple band of oxhide. Even so I declare to thee this token, and I know not, lady, if the bedstead be yet fast in its place, or if some man has cut away the stem of the olive tree and set the bedstead otherwhere.'

"So he spake, and at once her knees were loosened, and her heart melted within her, as she knew the sure tokens that Odysseus showed her. Then she fell a-weeping, and ran straight towards him and cast her hands about his neck, and kissed his head and spake, saying:

"'Murmur not against me, Odysseus, for thou wert ever at other times the wisest of men. It is the gods that gave us sorrow, the gods who were jealous that we should abide together and have joy of our youth and come to the threshold of old age. So now be not wroth with me hereat nor full of indignation because I did not welcome thee gladly as now, when I first saw thee. For always my heart within my breast shuddered for fear lest some man should come and deceive me with his words, for many there be that devise gainful schemes and evil. Nay, even Argive Helen, daughter of Zeus, would not have lain with a stranger, and taken him for a lover, had she known that the warlike sons of the Achæans would bring her home again to her own dear country. Howsoever, it was the god that set her upon this shameful deed; nor ever, ere that, did she lay up in her heart the thought of this folly, a bitter folly, whence on us, too, first came sorrow. But now that thou hast told all the sure tokens of our bed, which never was seen by mortal man, save by thee and me, and one maiden only, the daughter of Actor, that my father gave me ere yet I had come hither, she who kept the doors of our strong bridal chamber, even now dost thou bend my soul, all ungentle as it is.'

"Thus she spake, and in his heart she stirred yet a greater longing to lament, and he wept as he embraced his beloved wife and true. And even as when the sight of land is welcome to swimmers, whose well-wrought ship Poseidon hath smitten on the deep, all driven with the wind and swelling waves, and but a remnant hath escaped the gray sea water and swum to the shore, and their bodies are all crusted with the brine, and gladly have they set foot on land and escaped an evil end; so welcome to her was the sight of her lord, and her white arms she would never quite let go from his neck.

"Now when the twain had taken their fill of sweet love, they had delight in the tales which they told one to the other. The fair lady spake of all that she had endured in the halls at the sight of the ruinous throng of wooers, who for her sake slew many cattle, kine, and goodly sheep; and many a cask of wine was broached. And, in turn, Odysseus, of the seed of Zeus, recounted all the griefs he had wrought on men, and all his own travail and sorrow; and she was delighted with the story, and sweet sleep fell not upon her eyelids till the tale was ended."

Filled with incidents of domestic life in heroic times, the Odyssey presents us a galaxy of women, if not more impressive, at any rate more brilliant than that of the Iliad. Of these attractive figures, who should first merit our consideration, if not the heroine of the poem?

Queen, wife, mother, the sentiment which most characterizes Penelope is love of husband, child, and home; her chief intellectual trait is prudence. We find in her the rare combination of warmth of temperament and sanity of judgment. Her sense of prudence does not exclude depth of devotion, longings for the absent one, and outbursts of indignation at the wrongs inflicted on her son. Her love for Odysseus is intense and constant. There is a beautiful legend that when Odysseus came to carry off his bride, her father entreated her to remain with him in his old age. The chariot is ready to bear her away, and the maiden pauses just a moment, hesitating 'twixt love and duty. Odysseus gives her her choice; but, drawing down her veil, she signifies that where her lover goes there will she go. This intensity of affection marks the twenty long years of separation. Every night, she bewails Odysseus, her dear lord, till gray-eyed Athena casts sweet sleep upon her eyelids. She ever longs for, though at times despairs of, his return; and she inquires of every stranger, that she may learn something of the wanderer. Penelope is also a devoted mother. Ever anxious about her son, she grieves for him when absent, and when at home guards him as far as possible from the insolence of the wooers. In her obedience to her son, she seems to have followed the Greek custom expected of a widow.

In her relations with the wooers, Penelope adopted the only attitude which was possible for a woman who would wait indefinitely for the return of her lord. Parents and son, Greek custom and precedents, all expected that a widow should remarry after so long an interval. And the wooers were insolent, overwhelming the palace and rapidly making away with the patrimony of Telemachus. Hence, only by coquettish dallying could she postpone the evil day.

In all things Penelope was a model housewife, ever engaged in feminine tasks, overseeing her maidens at their work, watching over the younger servants with the solicitude of a mother, and observing toward the aged slave the deference of a daughter. But when the uncivil Melantho is deficient in respect, the queen calls her severely to a sense of her duty. When her husband returns, for whom she has waited during twenty long years of widowhood, she does not throw herself straightway into his arms. She fears a god may deceive her, and, the better to preserve for Odysseus the treasures of the tenderness stored up in her heart, she devises every cunning test to make sure it is really he. Never was there in woman's heart a more ardent flame of love and devotion; never in a woman's head intelligence so subtle, judgment so sure. When we fully appreciate the charm of Penelope's character, we better understand how the hero should sacrifice the devotion of a goddess for the love of such a woman.

"These two meet at last together, he after his long wanderings, and she after having suffered the insistence of suitors in her palace; and this is the pathos of the Odyssey. The woman, in spite of her withered youth and tearful years of widowhood, is still expectant of her lord. He, unconquered by the pleasures cast across his path, unterrified by all the dangers he endures, clings in thought to the bride whom he led forth, a blushing maiden, from her father's halls. O just, subtle, and mighty Homer! There is nothing of Greek here more than of Hebrew, or of Latin, or of German. It is pure humanity."

Closely interwoven with the plot of the Odyssey is the aged and touching figure of the faithful slave Euryclea, who by her devotion has become a member of the family she serves. Taken captive in her girlhood, she had nursed Odysseus in his childhood, and, later, his own son, Telemachus. Thus she is to both a second mother. She assists the queen in managing the house, in bringing up her son, in succoring the stranger. When she recognizes her master, how ravishing is her joy, how she longs to share it with her mistress! Yet she knows how to keep a secret.

Circe and Calypso are styled goddesses, yet they are brought down to earth in their love for Odysseus, and are thoroughly human in their traits. Calypso feeds on ambrosia and nectar, and lives in a mysterious grotto on an enchanted island; yet she loves like any mortal woman, and bitter is her wail when she receives the command of the gods to let Odysseus go. The enchantress Circe is much more dangerous, and takes a ghoulish delight in metamorphosing men into swine; yet, when she falls in love with Odysseus, she is the queenly lady, considerate of his comrades, and in every way his guide, philosopher, and friend. Unlike Calypso, she seeks not to detain Odysseus against the will of the gods, but after the expiration of a year sends him on his way.

To return to the domestic heroines: Queen Arete of Phæacia is, like Penelope, an example of the elevated position held by women in the royal houses of heroic times. She exerts over the subjects of her husband the same influence she exercises in the family circle. Her children share the reverence and affection she has from husband and people. To her Odysseus makes supplication; for if he win her favor, sure is his return to his native land; she bids her people prepare gifts for her guest friend at his departure, and to her Odysseus extends the pledging cup in saying farewell.

Where can one find phrases sufficiently subtle, expressions sufficiently delicate, to reproduce the sweet picture of Nausicaa? Of all the creations of poetic fancy, none equals her in perennial charm. "She is simply," says Symonds, "the most perfect maiden, the purest, freshest lightest-hearted girl of Greek romance." This immortal child of the poetic imagination will, with two real women,--Lesbian Sappho, and Mary, Queen of Scots,--have lovers in every age and in every clime. Though merely a poet's fancy, Nausicaa is absolutely human and full of life, and thus differs from the heroine of The Tempest, who of all poetic creations most resembles her. Note her naive grace and charm, her girlish vivacity and joy, at the beginning of the scene; and when the occasion demands it, the girl becomes the woman, and with unaffected simplicity and dignity she addresses the hero. No wonder that Odysseus should seem the Prince Charming for whom she had been waiting; and there may have been a slight chill of disappointment when, in expressing his gratitude for his deliverance, he made her his patron saint instead of his sweetheart. Yet, no doubt, she soon learned that the unknown hero was the great Odysseus, husband of faithful Penelope, and hers was too buoyant, too healthy a nature to pine away and die at the shattering of a dream. Then, even if he had been a widower, he was too old for this bright beauty. But what an ideal father-in-law he would make! And if the young Telemachus should only come to Scheria!--and how do we know that he did not later arrive there, sent a-courting by Odysseus after the restoration of his realm? Eustathius preserves a tradition, based on such good authorities as Hellanicus and Aristotle, that Telemachus actually did wed the Princess Nausicaa; and the Athenian orator Andocides claimed to be a descendant of this illustrious pair.

So beautiful a legend could not escape treatment by later poets. Alcman, one of the earliest lyric composers, describes in a poem the meeting of Odysseus and Nausicaa, and Sophocles wrote a drama entitled Nausicaa, or The Washers; and there is a tradition that, contrary to his usual custom, the poet himself "appeared as an actor, winning much applause by his beauty and grace in the dancing and rhythmic ball play, in the character of Nausicaa herself." Lucian names her among the heroines of mythical times who, through their goodness of heart, humanity, gentleness of demeanor, and compassion toward the needy, deserve to rank as patterns of womanly virtue.

With such brilliant pictures of domestic life--the queens Penelope, Helen, and Arete, exerting a womanly influence in the palaces, the goddess-lovers Circe and Calypso on their enchanted islands, the slave Euryclea tenderly caring for mistress and young master, and the maiden Nausicaa, engaged in occupation and in pastime with her girl friends--the Odyssey is a mirror reflecting the character of the Heroic Age of Greece.

THE LYRIC AGE

From the fascinating visions of the heroic past as they are presented in the Homeric poems, we must now prepare to descend to the actualities of life as they disclose themselves at the dawn of Greek history. Hesiod, the epic poet of Boeotia, constitutes the bridge, as regards social conditions, between the Heroic Age and the early historical periods of the various peoples and cities of Greece. He describes the actual conditions about him, and gives us glimpses of the life of the Greek people which prepare us for the great changes that have taken place through the overturning of monarchies, the spread of commerce and colonization, and the awakening of the common people to a sense of their rights and their power. Hence we may expect to find in his poetry much light on the status of woman in remote times.

Hesiod is usually ascribed to the second half of the ninth century before the Christian Era. He lived at Ascra, near Mount Helicon, in Boeotia, the original home of the Æolians. Amid agricultural surroundings the poet grew up. Defrauded by his brother Perses of part of his inheritance, he experienced hardships that quickened his sympathy for the plain people and led him to reflection on life and its problems. He was commissioned by the Muses, who appeared to him on Mount Helicon, to utter true things to men--a phrase which strikes the keynote to his poetry, for he dealt in realities and sought to alleviate the social conditions of his times. His principal works are the Works and Days and the Theogony; there was also a Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, attested by many allusions in classical writers, but, unfortunately for our purpose, altogether lost to us. Very probably in this work, Hesiod or his school told of the aristocratic women of Greek mythology, from whose union with gods had sprung heroes. Lacking this, Hesiod is to us "the poet of the Helots," and we gain from him only knowledge of the common people of Boeotia and their manner of life.

Hesiod's estimate of women is vastly inferior to that of Homer. Homer, who sang for aristocratic ladies at the court of kings, has introduced us into a society where women presided over their houses with grace and dignity, and softened and refined the rough, warlike manners of men. Hesiod, the poet of the plain people, is impressed with the hopelessness of the conditions about him. The people are oppressed by the nobles; it is impossible for them to obtain justice; the world seems all wrong. And in seeking the causes of existing evils, the poet traces them back to the one great evil which the gods have inflicted upon men; and that is--woman.

This indictment first finds expression in his version, of the myth of Pandora, the Mother Eve of Greek legend.

Hesiod tells us in this poem that in old days the human race had the use of fire, and in gratitude to the gods offered burnt sacrifice. But Prometheus had defrauded the gods of their just share of the sacrifices and had compelled Zeus to be content with merely the bones and fat; and, in return for this deception, Zeus devised grievous troubles for mortals by depriving them of fire. Prometheus then stole fire from heaven. Zeus, angered at being outwitted by the crafty Prometheus, determined to inflict on men a bane from which they would not quickly recover. He straightway commanded Hephæstus to mix earth and water, to endow the plastic form with human voice and powers, and to liken it to a heavenly goddess--virginal, winning, and fair. Athena was commanded to teach her the domestic virtues; Aphrodite, to endow her with beauty, eager desire, and passion that wastes the bodies of mortals; and Hermes, to bestow on her a shameless mind and a treacherous nature. All obeyed the command of Zeus, and in this manner was fashioned the first woman. Then Athena added a girdle and ornaments; the Graces and Persuasion hung their golden chains over her body, and the Hours wove for her garlands of spring flowers. The name given this fascinating creature was Pandora, because each of the gods had bestowed on her gifts to make her a fatal bane unto mortals.

Hermes then led her down to earth to present her to Epimetheus, whom his brother Prometheus had bidden never to receive any presents from Olympian Zeus. Epimetheus, however, was captivated by Pandora's beauty and received her, and only after the evil befell did he remember his brother's command. Until the advent of woman, men, it is said, had lived secure from trouble, free from wearisome labor, and safe from painful diseases that bring death to mankind. But now Pandora with her hands lifted the lid from the great jar with which the gods had dowered her, the great jar wherein these evils had been securely imprisoned, and let them loose upon the earth. With the sorrows, hope had been confined; but when they were loosed, hope flew not forth, for too soon Pandora closed the lid of the vessel. Hence, laments Hesiod, hopeless is the lot of humanity, while innumerable ills pass hither and thither among hopeless men. Such is the mythus of the fall of man, as imagined by the early Greeks. Man was punished for rebelling against the will of heaven. Woman is the instrument of his chastisement, thrust upon him by the angry deity. She possesses every charm, every allurement, but her very fascination is a chief cause of ill to man. He in his folly receives her, and thence befall him all the ills of life. The whole argument of Hesiod in this passage indicates that he regarded woman as "a necessary deduction from the happiness of life," as "the rift in the lute that spoils its music." Contrasted with the Hebrew story, the Greek represents woman as closing the door of hope to man; while the Hebrew version sees in her seed the hope of the salvation that is to overcome the evils of the fall. Even stronger is Hesiod's invective against the female sex in the Theogony, where he repeats the story of Pandora, and concludes with the following reflections:

"From her the sex of tender woman springs;

Pernicious is the race; the woman tribe

Dwells upon earth, a mighty bane to men;

No mates for wasting want but luxury;

And as within the close-roofed hive, the drones,

Helpers of sloth, are pampered by the bees;

These all the day, till sinks the ruddy sun,

Haste on the wing, 'their murmuring labors ply,'

And still cement the white and waxen comb;

Those lurk within the covered hive, and reap

With glutted maw the fruits of others' toil;

Such evil did the Thunderer send to man

In woman's form, and so he gave the sex,

Ill helpmates of intolerable toils.

Yet more of ill instead of good he gave:

The man who shunning wedlock thinks to shun

The vexing cares that haunt the woman-state,

And lonely waxes old, shall feel the want

Of one to foster his declining years;

Though not his life be needy, yet his death

Shall scatter his possessions to strange heirs,

And aliens from his blood. Or if his lot

Be marriage and his spouse of modest fame

Congenial to his heart, e'en then shall ill

Forever struggle with the partial good,

And cling to his condition. But the man

Who gains the woman of injurious kind

Lives bearing in his secret soul and heart

Inevitable sorrow: ills so deep

As all the balms of medicine cannot cure."

This passage contains in brief Hesiod's general ideas concerning woman. Pandora brought infinite ills to mortals, for from her sprang the tribe of woman, "a mighty bane to men." If a man marry, he will be sorry; and if he refrain from marriage, he will regret it. A wretched old age awaits the bachelor; and his possessions, at his death, are dissipated by indifferent kindred. Even if he marry, and get a good wife, sorrows and blessings are mingled in his lot; while if his wife be bad, ills so deep are his "as all the balms of medicine cannot cure." So woman is a being whose presence is a necessary evil; without her, man's destiny is not complete, but he must endure the ills she brings for the sake of the possible blessing that may come by sharing one's lot with her. A man, says the bard of Ascra, cannot be too cautious in choosing his helpmate, as the following sage counsel indicates:

"Take to thy house a woman for thy bride

When in the ripeness of thy manhood's pride;

Thrice ten thy sum of years, the nuptial prime;

Nor fall far short nor far exceed the time.

Four years the ripening virgin shall consume,

And wed the fifth of her expanding bloom.

A virgin choose: and mould her manners chaste;

Chief be some neighboring maid by thee embraced;

Look circumspect and long; lest thou be found

The merry mock of all the dwellers round.

No better lot has Providence assigned

Than a fair woman with a virtuous mind;

Nor can a worse befall than when thy fate

Allots a worthless, feast-contriving mate.

She with no torch of mere material flame

Shall burn to tinder thy care-wasted frame;

Shall send a fire thy vigorous bones within

And age unripe in bloom of years begin."

The vein of contempt for woman which runs through the verses of Hesiod finds many echoes in later writers, which indicates that in this transition period, especially in Ionian Greece, evil influences were at work, causing men to rebel against the shackles of wedded life and to fail to realize the happiness they desired in the home and in the family. It seems strange that Hesiod, in describing farm duties, should not tell us more of the important function of the housewife. Yet in one passage he merely emphasizes the importance of starting with "a house, a wife, and an ox to plow," and in other passages speaks disparagingly of woman and her work. So that even in lines where he might well have commended her virtues the words of praise are left unsaid.

The two centuries of Greek history following Hesiod are chiefly known to us through the lyric poets, as epic poetry declined and the writing of history had not yet begun. Lyric poetry is an index to the hearts of the people: for in lyric poetry are expressed the thoughts and feelings of reflective man. Woman is the great mainspring of existence; she it is who is the general cause of man's thoughts, emotions, passions, joys, and sorrows. Hence, as lyric poetry is the poetry of the heart, we find recorded in the verses of Grecian lyrists man's attitude toward woman in this period of "storm and stress" in the development of Greek nationality.

Archilochus is the father of iambic poetry, and he made it the medium of expression of personal passion and satire. With all the ardor of his nature, he loved Neobule, daughter of Lycambes, of the island of Paros, where the poet had made his home. Certain fragments of his poems, still extant, indicate the intensity of the flame with which he was consumed. Archilochus has left us an exquisite picture of his loved one, clad in all the beauty and grace a poetic lover could portray, with a rose and a myrtle branch in her hand, and her tresses falling caressingly over her shoulders. He sighed "were it to touch but her hand," and she seems at first to have returned his affection. The lovers were betrothed, but suddenly the father objected, and the match was broken off. Love immediately turned into hate, and passion changed into rage. Thereupon, as Horace says:

Archilochus used the iambic metre as his weapon of attack. As his love had been ardent, so, when betrayed, his rage was uncontrollable. Every possible taunt was cast at those who had deceived him. "Each verse he wrote was polished and pointed like an arrow head. Each line was steeped in the poison of hideous charges against his sweetheart, her sister, and her father. The set of poems which he produced, and, as it would appear, recited publicly at the festival of Demeter, was so charged with wit and fire that the country rang with them. The daughters of Lycambes, tradition avers, went straightway and hanged themselves--unable to endure the flight of fiery serpents that had fallen upon them; for, to quote the words of Browning, Archilochus had the art of writing verse that 'bit into the live man's flesh like parchment,' that sent him wandering, branded and forever shamed, about his native fields and streets."

Archilochus's verses indicate that, in the eighth century before our era, there was in Greece a certain freedom of intercourse between the sexes, and that love was, at times at least, the basis for betrothal; it also shows the absolute control of the father over the hand of his daughter. The poet's story is also the earliest we have of love betrayed, and the name of Neobule is inextricably intertwined with the rise of satiric verse.

A different note is struck by Archilochus's contemporary, Semonides of Amorgus, who takes up and continues the tradition of Hesiod in speaking of woman in tones of contempt and disparagement. He composed a celebrated satire on woman, in which her various temperaments are ascribed to a kinship with different domestic animals,--the hog, the fox, the dog, the ass, the mare, the ape,--or are compared to mud, sea water, and the bee.

Semonides first deals with the class of women of the hog variety: "God made the mind of woman in the beginning of different qualities; for one he fashioned like a bristly hog, in whose house everything tumbles about in disorder, bespattered with mud, and rolls upon the ground; she, dirty, with unwashed clothes, sits and grows fat on a dungheap."

The woman like mud is thus satirized: "This woman is ignorant of everything, both good and bad; her only accomplishment is eating: cold though the winters be, she is too stupid to draw near the fire."

Here is the poet's picture of the woman who resembles the sea: "She has two minds; when she laughs and is glad, the stranger seeing her at home will give her praise--there is nothing better than this on the earth, no, nor fairer; but another day she is unbearable, not to be looked at or approached, for she is raging mad. To friend and foe she is alike implacable and odious. Thus, as the sea is often calm and innocent, a great delight to sailors in summertime, and oftentimes again is frantic, tearing along with roaring billows, so is this woman in her temper."

The woman who resembles a mare offers other disagreeable qualities: She is "delicate and long-haired, unfit for drudgery or toil; she would not touch the mill, or lift the sieve, or clean the house out! She bathes twice or thrice a day, and anoints herself with myrrh; then she wears her hair combed out long and wavy, dressed with flowers. It follows that this woman is a rare sight to one's guests; but to her husband she is a curse, unless he be a tyrant who prides himself on such expensive luxuries."

The ape-like wife is perhaps the worst of the lot: "This one, above all, has Zeus given as the greatest evil to men. Her face is most hateful. Such a woman goes through the city a laughing-stock to all the men. Short of neck, with narrow hips, withered of limb, she moves about with difficulty. O wretched man, who weds such a woman! She knows every cunning art, just like an ape, nor is ridicule a concern to her. To no one would she do a kindness, but every day she schemes to this end,--how she may work some one the greatest injury."

But at last we reach the bee: "The man who gets her is lucky; to her alone belongs no censure; one's household goods thrive and increase under her management; loving, with a loving spouse, she grows old, the mother of a fair and famous race. She is preeminent among all women, and a heavenly grace attends her. She cares not to sit among the women when they indulge in lascivious chatter. Such wives are the best and wisest mates Zeus grants to men."

Only one woman in ten has been found in some measure desirable, and the poet concludes with a lengthy and comprehensive dunciad of the female sex, the gist of which is as follows: "Zeus made this supreme evil--woman: even though she seem to be a blessing, when a man has wedded one she becomes a plague."

How much truth is there in Semonides's views on the women of his time? The poet agrees with Hesiod in regarding woman as a necessary evil. Nine women out of ten he finds altogether bad, and the tenth is prized only for her domestic virtues. Industrious, quiet, economical, the mother of children, she is merely the good housewife, which seems to have been the primitive ideal of the perfect woman. The poem treats of women of the middle class, and is important in showing the freedom of movement, and appearance in public, of the married woman. She is not shut up in the harem; but in the use of her tongue, and in her capacity as a busybody, there seems to be no restraint upon her. Semonides's range of vision was narrow, and he probably knew not much beyond his own little island, but we may credit him with expressing the prevalent views of the honest burghers of Amorgus.

Phocylides of Miletus, a successor of Semonides by rather more than a century, composed in the same strain an epigrammatic satire on woman. It is manifestly an imitation of the tirade of Semonides.

"The tribe of women," says he, "is of these four kinds,--that of a dog, that of a bee, that of a burly sow, and that of a long-maned mare. This last is manageable, quick, fond of gadding about, fine of figure; the sow kind is neither good nor bad; that of the dog is difficult and snarling; but the bee-like woman is a good housekeeper, and knows how to work. This desirable marriage, pray to obtain, dear friend."

The bitterest of all the observations against woman by the iambic writers, however, is that of Hipponax, a brilliant satirist of the sixth century before Christ, He says:

"Two happy days a woman brings a man: the first, when he marries her; the second, when he bears her to the grave."

Theognis is another of the poets of Greece who took a gloomy view of life, and was not happy in his matrimonial ties. He laments that marriages in his native town of Megara are made for money, and avers that such marriages are the bane of the city. Says Theognis:

"Rams and asses, Cyrnus, and horses, we choose of good breed, and wish them to have good pedigrees; but a noble man does not hesitate to wed a baseborn girl if she bring him much money; nor does a noble woman refuse to be the wife of a base but wealthy man, but she chooses the rich instead of the noble. For they honor money; and the noble weds the baseborn, and the base the highborn; wealth has mixed the race. So, do not wonder, Polypaides, that the race of the citizens deteriorates, for the bad is mixed with the good."

To sum up this cursory survey of the iambic poets, we find that in their period woman is still regarded as the determining factor of man's weal or woe, but that there exists in the sex every variety of woman which lack of education and, especially, lack of appreciation can produce. Woman is prized by man only for her domestic virtues; and any endeavor she may make to step beyond the narrow circle of the home is resented by the lords of creation. Man looks down on her as his inferior, and gives her no share in his larger life. Among the aristocratic the bane of wealth has entered, and marriages of convenience are the prevailing custom.

When we pass from the iambic to the elegiac poets, we begin to note the causes why wedded life, especially among the Ionian Greeks, does not present the beautiful pictures of domestic bliss and conjugal comradeship so attractive in heroic times. The martial elegists show how woman could still inspire man to deeds of valor, but the erotic poets give us glimpses of the root of the evil that was undermining the very foundations of domestic life. The Greek woman did not develop under enlarged conditions with the same rapidity as the Greek man; the wife was expected to be merely the mother of her husband's children and the keeper of his house; for companionship and pleasure he looked elsewhere. The free woman, or the hetæra, has entered upon the stage. Poets were inspired by love, but romantic love between husband and wife is being replaced by the love of the beautiful and highly educated "companion," or the natural place of the highborn woman is being invaded by the baser passion for "those fair and stately youths, with their virgin looks and maiden modesty "--two classes that were to play so large a rôle in society in the greatest days of Greece, and who were to bring about its downfall.

In the fragments of Alcman are many allusions to his passion for his sweetheart Megalostrata; and many of the elegies of Mimnermus are said to have been addressed to a flute player, Nanno, who, according to one account, did not return his passion. The following, translated by Symonds, shows the intensity of his love:

"What's life or pleasure wanting Aphrodite?

When to the gold-haired goddess cold am I,

When love and love's soft gifts no more delight me,

Nor stolen dalliance, then I fain would die!

Ah! fair and lovely bloom the flowers of youth;

On man and maids they beautifully smile:

But soon comes doleful eld, who, void of ruth,

Indifferently afflicts the fair and vile.

Then cares wear out the heart; old eyes forlorn

Scarce serve the very sunshine to behold--

Unloved of youths, of every maid the scorn--

So hard a lot gods lay upon the old."

Even from Solon the Sage, maker of constitutions, we possess some amorous verses, of so questionable a character that it would hardly be fitting to present them in this volume. They are ascribed to his early youth. They afforded much comfort to the libertines of antiquity, who were glad to be able to cite so respectable an exemplar; but the good people were scandalized by these couplets.

Ibycus resembles Sappho in the intensity of his passion and in his conception of Eros as a concrete existence. "Love once again looking upon me from his cloud-black brows, with languishing glances drives me by enchantments of all kinds to the endless nets of Cypris. Verily, I tremble at his onset as a chariot horse, which hath won prizes, in old age goes grudgingly to try his speed in the swift race of cars."

Anacreon, to English readers the best known of the erotic poets of Greece, had as his mistress the golden-haired Eurypyle. He was very susceptible to the influence of love, and, owing to the grace and sweetness and ease of expression in his verses, has won an enduring fame. Many of his verses and numerous imitations of his poems are extant, and in these love is the constant theme.

Stesichorus was the composer of love poems with a plot, which were highly popular among the ladies of ancient days. As forerunners of the Greek Romance they possess unique literary importance, and as love stories of an early day they throw much light on the status and ideals of woman. Aristoxenus had preserved an outline of the plot of the Calyce: "The maiden Calyce having fallen madly in love with a youth, prays to Apollo that she may become his lawful wife; and when he continues to be indifferent to her, she commits suicide." Ancient critics favorably comment on the purity and modesty of the maiden, and the story indicates that marriages were not always a matter of arrangement, that love at times determined one's choice, and that to the ancient highborn maiden death was preferable to dishonor. Another of these romantic poems, called Rhadina, tells also a tale of unhappy love, how a Samian brother and sister were put to death by a cruel tyrant because the sister resisted his advances.

Yet we cannot hold that woman had in this period universally assumed a lower status than that accorded her in the Homeric poems. Among Ionian peoples, this was doubtless true; but among Æolians and Dorians, woman had not only attained a greater degree of freedom than was permitted her in the Heroic Age, but had also shown herself the equal of man in literary and æsthetic pursuits. In this transition age, the name of one woman--Sappho--presents itself as the bright morning star in the history of cultured womanhood.

SAPPHO

Toward the close of the seventh century before Christ, a singular phenomenon presented itself in the history of Greek womanhood. Heretofore Greek women have been beautiful; they have been fascinating; they have exerted great influence on the course of events; but it cannot be said that they have been intellectual. At the time mentioned, there occurred an unusual movement in the intellectual realm. This remarkable movement centres about the name of the first great historical woman of Greece--Lesbian Sappho, "the Tenth Muse." In the history of universal woman, Sappho holds a position altogether unique; for she is not only regarded as the greatest of lyric poets, but she was also the founder of the first woman's club of which we have any record. Sappho consecrated herself heart and soul to the elevation of her sex. As poetry and art constitute the natural channels for the aesthetic cultivation of woman, she trained her pupils to be poets like herself. The result of her lifelong devotion to the service of Aphrodite and the Muses was that she herself not only achieved an immortal reputation as a poet, but through her inspiring influence her pupils carried the love of poetry and of intellectual and artistic pursuits back to their distant homes. Hence, it is not surprising to learn that from this time there were to be found here and there in the Greek world women who in intellectual pursuits were the peers of their male compeers, and that there should be found among women the nine terrestrial Muses, so called as a counterpart to the celestial Nine.

Sappho's unique greatness is best appreciated when we consider how she has been regarded by the great men of antiquity and of modern times.

Among the Greeks, she possessed the unique renown of being called "The Poetess," just as Homer was "The Poet." Solon, hearing one of her poems, prayed that he might not see death until he had learned it. Plato numbered her among the wise. Aristotle quotes without reservation a judgment that placed her in the same rank as Homer and Archilochus. Plutarch likens her "to the heart of a volcano," and says that the grace of her poems acted on her listeners like an enchantment, and that when he read them he set aside the drinking cup in very shame. Strabo called her "a wonderful something," and says that "at no period within memory has any woman been known who, in any way, even the least degree, could be compared to her for poetry." Demetrius of Phaleron adds his word of praise: "Wherefore Sappho is eloquent and sweet when she sings of beauty and of love and spring, and of the kingfisher; and every beautiful expression is woven into her poetry besides what she herself invented."

Writers in the Greek Anthology continually sing her praises, calling her "the Tenth Muse," "pride of Hellas," "comrade of Apollo," "child of Aphrodite and Eros," "nursling of the Graces and Persuasion." Nor have modern critics been less restrained in their praises, notwithstanding the fact that they possess merely a handful of fragments by which to judge "The Poetess." Addison, for example, says: "Among the mutilated poets of antiquity there is none whose fragments are so beautiful as those of Sappho." John Addington Symonds is even more enthusiastic. "The world has suffered no greater literary loss," says he, "than the loss of Sappho's poems. So perfect are the smallest fragments preserved, that we muse in a sad rapture of astonishment to think what the complete poems must have been." And Swinburne, her best modern interpreter, calls Sappho "the unapproachable poetess," and says: "Her remaining verses are the supreme success, the final achievement, of the poetic art."

Sappho was at the zenith of her fame about the beginning of the sixth century before the Christian era. Her home was at Mytilene, on the island of Lesbos. The lapse of twenty-five centuries has left us few authentic records of her life. There is a tradition that she was born at Eresus, on the island of Lesbos, and later established herself in the capital city, Mytilene. She was of a wealthy and aristocratic family. Herodotus says that she was the daughter of Scamandronymus, and Suidas states that her mother's name was Cleis, that she was the wife of a rich citizen of Andros, Cercylas or Cercolas by name, and that she had a daughter named after her grandmother, Cleis. Sappho refers to a daughter by this name in one of the extant fragments, but none of these other statements are corroborated. She had two brothers, Larichus, a public cupbearer at Mytilene,--an office reserved for noble youths,--and Charaxus, a wine merchant, of whom we shall speak more fully later. From one source we learn that she went into exile to Sicily along with other aristocrats of Lesbos, but the date is a matter of conjecture. Pittacus was tyrant of Mytilene at this time, and Sappho probably returned to Lesbos at the time when he granted amnesty to political exiles. How long she lived we cannot tell, while how and when she died are also unknown. Judging from the allusions of the writers in the Anthology, her tomb, erected in the city of her adoption, was for centuries afterward regularly visited by her votaries.

These are the few facts we can positively state regarding the life of Sappho; but myth and legend have supplied what was lacking, and those scandalmongers, the Greek comic poets, have woven all sorts of stories about her manner of life. These stories centre chiefly about the names of three men,--Alcæus and Anacreon, the poets, and Phaon, the mythical boatman of Mytilene, endowed by Aphrodite with extraordinary and irresistible beauty.

Alcæus, the poet of love and wine and war, was a native of Mytilene, and a contemporary of Sappho, and the two poets no doubt knew each other well. The comic poets made them lovers. There is still extant the opening of a poem which Alcæus addressed to Sappho:

Anacreon, the lyric poet, was also represented as a lover of Sappho; and two poems are preserved, one of which he is said to have addressed to her, while the other is said to be her reply. But there is no doubt whatever that Anacreon flourished at least a generation after Sappho, so that the two could never have met. It seems to have been one of the stock motifs of the comic poets to represent Greek lyrists as being lovers of the Lesbian; thus Diphilus, in his Sappho, pictured Archilochus and Hipponax, her predecessors by a generation, as her lovers.

The story of Sappho's love for Phaon and her leap from the Leucadian rock in consequence of his disdaining her, though it has been so long implicitly believed, rests on no historical basis. The perpetuation of the story is due chiefly to Ovid, who, in his epistle, Sappho to Phaon, tells of her unquenchable love and of her determination to attempt the leap. The story is best told by Addison:

"Sappho, the Lesbian, in love with Phaon, arrived at the temple of Apollo, habited like a bride, in garments white as snow. She wore a garland of myrtle on her head, and carried in her hand the little musical instrument of her own invention. After having sung a hymn to Apollo, she hung up her garland on one side of his altar, and her harp on the other. She then tucked up her vestments, like a Spartan virgin, and amidst thousands of spectators, who were anxious for her safety and offered up vows for her deliverance, marched directly forward to the utmost summit of the promontory, where, after having repeated a stanza of her own verses, she threw herself off the rock with such an intrepidity as was never observed before in any who had attempted that leap. Many who were present related that they saw her fall into the sea, from whence she never rose again; though there were others who affirmed that she never came to the bottom of her leap, but that she was changed to a swan as she fell, and that they saw her hovering in the air under that shape. But whether or not the whiteness and fluttering of her garments might not deceive those who looked upon her, or whether she might not really be metamorphosed into that musical and melancholy bird, is still a doubt among the Lesbians."

Modern critics justly set aside the whole story as fabulous, explaining it as derived from the myth of Aphrodite and Adonis, who in the Greek version was called Phaethon or Phaon. The leap from the Leucadian rock--the promontory of Santa Maura, or Leucate, in Sicily, known to this day as "Sappho's Leap"--was used by other poets, notably Stesichorus and Anacreon, as a metaphorical expression to denote complete despair, and Sappho herself may have used it in this sense. The legend did not connect itself with Sappho until two centuries after her death, and then only in the comic poets; hence it can have no basis in fact. The tradition of Sappho's Æolian grave, preserved in the Anthology, indicates strongly that she died a peaceful death on her own island. "Sappho," says Edwin Arnold, "loved, and loved more than once, to the point of desperate sorrow; though it did not come to the mad and fatal leap from Leucate, as the unnecessary legend pretends. There are, nevertheless, worse steeps than Leucate down which the heart may fall; and colder seas of despair than the Adriatic in which to engulf it."

The whole story of her love for Phaon is an instance of how her name was maligned by the comic poets of the later Attic school. It was impossible for the Athenians, who kept their women in seclusion, to understand how a woman could enjoy the freedom of life and movement that Sappho enjoyed and yet remain chaste. Consequently, she became a sort of stock character of the licentious drama, and even modern writers have used her name as the synonym for the brilliant, beautiful, but licentious woman. As says Daudet, who of all recent writers has done most to degrade the name: "The word Sappho itself, by the force of rolling descent through ages, is encrusted with unclean legends, and has degenerated from the name of a goddess to that of a malady." The Greek comic poets invented the misrepresentation; the early Christian writers accepted it, and exaggerated it in their tirades against heathenism; and thus the tradition that Sappho was a woman of low moral character became fixed.

Only in the present century have the ancient calumnies against Sappho been seriously investigated. A German scholar, Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker, was the first to show that they were based on altogether insufficient evidence. Colonel Mure, with great lack of gallantry, endeavored, without success, to expose fallacies in Welcker's arguments. Professor Comparetti has more recently gone laboriously over the whole ground, and his work substantiates in the main the conclusions of Welcker. The whole tendency of modern scholarship is to vindicate the name of Sappho.

We cannot claim that Sappho was a woman of austere virtue; but she was one of the best of her race, and there is no trace of wantonness in any stanza of hers preserved to us. She repulsed Alcæus when he made improper advances, while a recently discovered papyrus fragment shows how keenly she felt a brother's disgrace, and this aversion to the dishonorable would hardly have existed had her own life been open to censure.

Sappho's brother Charaxus, who was a Lesbian wine merchant, fell violently in love with the famous courtesan Rhodopis, then a slave in Naucratis, and subsequently the most noted beauty of her day. He ransomed her from slavery, devoted himself exclusively to her whims, and squandered all his substance upon her maintenance. Sappho was violently incensed at his conduct, and resorted to verse for the expression of her anger and humiliation. According to the story in Ovid, Charaxus was fiercely provoked by her ill treatment of him, and would listen to no attempts at reconciliation made by his poet-sister after her anger had cooled, though she reproached herself for the estrangement and did all she could to win him back.

A twenty-line fragment of a poem, found a few years ago among the Oxyrhynchus papyri, in a reference to the poet's brother, in its tone of reproach, in its expression of a desire for reconciliation, in dialect and in metre, indicates its origin as a part of an ode addressed by Sappho to her brother Charaxus. It is conceived by its editors and translators to be one of her vain appeals that he would forget the past:

"Sweet Nereids, grant to me

That home unscathed my brother may return,

And every end for which his soul shall yearn,

Accomplished see!

"And thou, immortal Queen,

Blot out the past, that thus his friends may know

Joy, shame his foes--nay, rather, let no foe

By us be seen!

"And may he have the will

To me his sister some regard to show,

To assuage the pain he brought, whose cruel blow

My soul did kill,

"Yea, mine, for that ill name

Whose biting edge, to shun the festal throng

Compelling, ceased a while; yet back ere long

To goad us came!"

Was Sappho's beauty a myth? Greek standards of feminine beauty included height and stateliness. Homer celebrates the characteristic beauty of Lesbian women in speaking of seven Lesbian captives whom Agamemnon offered to Achilles, "surpassing womankind in beauty." Plato, in the Phaedrus, calls Sappho "beautiful," but he was probably referring to the sweetness of her songs. Democharis, in the Anthology, in an epigram on a statue of Sappho, speaks of her bright eyes and compares her beauty with that of Aphrodite. According to Maximus of Tyre, who preserves the traditions of the comic poets, she was "small and dark," a phrase immortalized by Swinburne:

The problem, therefore, is whether she conformed to the Greek ideal of beauty or was small and dark. Our only evidence in this matter is that furnished by art. The portrait of Sappho is preserved on coins of Mytilene, which present a face exquisite in contour. A fifth century vase, preserved in Munich, gives us representations of Alcæus and Sappho, in which Sappho is taller than Alcæus, of imposing figure and exceedingly beautiful. She was frequently portrayed in plastic art. According to Cicero, a bronze statue of Sappho, made by Silanion, stood in the prytaneum at Syracuse, and was stolen by Verres. In the fifth century of our era, there was a statue of her in the gymnasium of Zeuxippus, in Byzantium. The Vatican bust is that of a woman with Greek features, but, of course, lends no corroborating testimony as to her size and complexion.

Alma-Tadema has fixed the current tradition in his ideal representation of Sappho's school at Lesbos--a marble exedra on the seashore at Mytilene. The poetess is seated on the front row of seats, with her favorite pupil, Erinna, standing by her side. Her chin rests on her hands as she leans forward against the desk, listening intently as Alcæus plays the lyre. She is small, dark, beautiful, intense; and the artist has "subtly caught the prophetic light of her soul, her eager intellect, her unconscious grace, and the slumbering passion in her eloquent eyes."

Let us now consider the conditions under which Sappho's genius blossomed to fruition.

There is a legend that after the Thracian women's murder of Orpheus, the mythical singer of Hellas, his head and his lyre were thrown into the sea and were wafted upon its waves to the island of Lesbos. This legend is an allegory of the island's supremacy in song, and of the unbroken continuity of lyric poetry from its budding in prehistoric times up to its full flower among the Lesbian poets of the sixth century before the Christian era. Every condition existed in Lesbos for the fostering of the love of beauty and the cultivation of all the refinements of life. The land itself presented mountain and coast, hill and dale, in pleasing and harmonious variety, while about it billowed a brilliant sapphire sea. The island was renowned for the salubrity of its climate, the purity of its atmosphere, and the transparency of its skies. Its inhabitants, owing to the variety of the products of the soil and their attention to commerce, enjoyed unbounded prosperity. They gave themselves up to the enjoyments of life, and cultivated everything that contributed to luxury, elegance, and material well-being. The men devoted their energies to politics and war and the pursuits of pleasure. The women, who were remarkable for their beauty and grace, enjoyed a freedom and rank accorded them nowhere else in Greece. Symonds thus vividly describes the free and artistic life of Æolian women:

"Æolian women were not confined to the harem, like Ionians, or subjected to the rigorous discipline of the Spartans. While mixing freely with male society, they were highly educated, and accustomed to express their sentiments to an extent unknown elsewhere in history--until, indeed, the present time. The Lesbian ladies applied themselves successfully to literature. They formed clubs for the cultivation of poetry and music. They studied the art of beauty, and sought to refine metrical form and diction. Nor did they confine themselves to the scientific side of art. Unrestrained by public opinion, and avid for the beautiful, they cultivated their senses and emotions, and developed their wildest passions. All the luxuries and elegancies of life which the climate and the rich valleys of Lesbos could afford were at their disposal; exquisite gardens in which the rose and hyacinth spread perfume; river beds ablaze with the oleander and wild pomegranate; olive groves and fountains, where the cyclamen and violet flowered with feathery maiden-hair; pine-shadowed coves, where they might bathe in the calm of a tideless sea; fruits such as only the southern sea and sea wind can mature; marble cliffs, starred with jonquil and anemone in spring, aromatic with myrtle and lentisk and samphire and wild rosemary through all the months; nightingales that sang in May; temples dim with dusky gold and bright with ivory; statues and frescoes of heroic forms. In such scenes as these, the Lesbian poets lived and thought of love. When we read their poems, we seem to have the perfumes, colors, sounds, and lights of that luxurious land distilled in verse."

The complete works of Sappho must have been considerable. She was the greatest erotic poet of antiquity, the chief composer of epithalamia, or wedding songs, the writer of epigrams and elegies, invocatory hymns, iambics, and monodies. Nine books of her lyric odes existed in ancient times, and were known to Horace, who frequently imitated her style and metre, and who doubtless at times in his odes directly translated her poems. But of all this we have only two poems which may be said to be in any way complete: a considerable portion of the ode to her brother Charaxus, already quoted, and somewhat over a hundred and fifty fragments, the total comprising not more than three hundred lines. Within the last few months, Doctor Schubart, of the Egyptian Section of the Royal Museum in Berlin, has discovered in papyri, recently added to its collection, several hitherto unknown poems of Sappho.

"Few, indeed, but those roses," as says Meleager, in the Anthology, are the precious verses spared to us in spite of the unholy zeal of antipaganism. And, strange to relate, we are indebted for what we have to the quotations of grammarians and lexicographers, who preserved the verses, not usually for their poetic beauty, but to illustrate a point in syntax or metre. But, though so few and fragmentary, they are, as Professor Palgrave says, "grains of golden sand which the torrent of Time has carried down to us."

Sappho wrote in the Æolic dialect, noted for the soft quality of its vowel sounds; and her poems were undoubtedly written for recitation to the accompaniment of the lyre, being the earliest specimens of the song or ballad so popular in modern times.

Predecessors of the melic poetry of Sappho are to be found in the chants and hymns in honor of Apollo prevalent throughout Greece, in the popular songs of Hellas, and in the songs sung in the home and at religious festivals by Lesbian men and women,--children's rhymes, songs at vintage festivals, plaints of shepherds expressive of rustic love, epithalamia or bridal songs, dirges, threnodies and laments for Adonis, typifying the passing of spring and summer.

SAPPHO IN HER SCHOOL OF POETRY IN LESBOS.
After the painting by Hector Leroux.

Wharton, in his great Memoir of Sappho, says she
"seems to have been the centre of society in Mitylene,--
capital of Lesbos,--a kind of æsthetic club devoted to the
service of the Muses. Around her gathered maidens from
even comparatively distant places, attracted by her fame,
to study, under her guidance, all that related to poetry
and music". In the memoir he defends her character and
speaks of "the fervor of her love and the purity of her
life." The Encyclopedia Britannica ranks her as
"incomparably the greatest poetess the world has ever seen."

The form and melody of Sappho's poems are due to the fact that they were to accompany vocal and instrumental music, which, thanks to the innovations of Terpander of Lesbos, was at that time exquisitely adapted to the purposes of the lyric. Terpander introduced the seven-stringed lyre, or cithara, with its compass of a diapason, or Greek octave, and this became the peculiar instrument of Sappho and her school. The choice of the musical measure determined the tone of the poem. Terpander united the music of Asia Minor with that of Greece proper, and the resulting product of Æolian poetry was the union of Oriental voluptuousness with Greek self-restraint and art. Of Sappho's numerous songs, two odes alone are presented to us in anything like their entirety, one dedicated to the service of Aphrodite, and the other composed in honor of a girl friend, Anactoria. Dionysius of Halicarnassus embodies the first in one of his rhetorical works, as a perfect illustration of the elaborately finished style of poetry, and comments on the fact that its grace and beauty lie in the subtle harmony between the words and the ideas. Edwin Arnold renders it as follows:

"Splendor-throned Queen, immortal Aphrodite,

Daughter of Jove, Enchantress, I implore thee

Vex not my soul with agonies and anguish;

Slay me not, Goddess!

Come in thy pity--come, if I have prayed thee;

Come at the cry of my sorrow; in the old times

Oft thou hast heard, and left thy father's heaven,

Left the gold houses,

Yoking thy chariot. Swiftly did the doves fly,

Swiftly they brought thee, waving plumes of wonder--

Waving their dark plumes all across the æther,

All down the azure.

Very soon they lighted. Then didst thou, Divine one,

Laugh a bright laugh from lips and eyes immortal,

Ask me 'What ailed me--wherefore out of heaven,

Thus I had called thee?

What was it made me madden in my heart so?'

Question me smiling--say to me, 'My Sappho,

Who is it wrongs thee? Tell me who refuses

Thee, vainly sighing.

Be it who it may be, he that flies shall follow;

He that rejects gifts, he shall bring thee many;

He that hates now shall love thee dearly, madly--

Aye, though thou wouldst not'

So once again come, Mistress; and, releasing

Me from my sadness, give me what I sue for,

Grant me my prayer, and be as heretofore now

Friend and protectress."

The ode to Anactoria is quoted by the author of the treatise on The Sublime as an illustration of the perfection of the sublime in poetry. John Addington Symonds thus renders it in English:

"Peer of gods he seemeth to me, the blissful

Man who sits and gazes at thee before him,

Close beside thee sits, and in silence hears thee

Silverly speaking,

Laughing love's low laughter. Oh this, this only

Stirs the troubled heart in my breast to tremble I

For should I but see thee a little moment,

Straight is my voice hushed;

Yea, my tongue is broken, and through and through me

'Neath the flesh impalpable fire runs tingling;

Nothing see mine eyes, and a noise of roaring

Waves in my ear sounds;

Sweat runs down in rivers, a tremor seizes

All my limbs, and paler than grass in autumn,

Caught by pains of menacing death, I falter,

Lost in the love-trance."

Epithalamia, or wedding songs, were the most numerous of all Sappho's works, and in them she attained an excellence unequalled by any other poet. Catullus, in despair, seems to have been content with adapting in his marriage odes well-known songs of Sappho. The poet seems to have described all the stages in the ceremony--the Greek maidens leading the pale bride to the expectant bridegroom, chanting their simple chorus to Hymen, the god of marriage. At one time, they sing the approach of the bridegroom:

But their thoughts are all for the rejoicing bride, who blushes "as sweet as the apple on the end of the bough."

We shall arrange the briefer fragments according to subject, not according to metre, in order that through them we may gain a clear conception of Sappho's attitude toward life and nature, that we may know the poetess in her love and friendship, her longings and her sorrows, her sensibility to the influences of nature and art.

Her conception of love has been already noticed in the longer poems just quoted. A number of the fragments indicate a similar intensity of emotion. Thus she says:

A being so intense as Sappho, with sensibilities so refined and intuitions so keen, naturally possessed an ardent love of nature. Her power of expressing its charm is shown in a number of fragments. Every aspect of nature seems to have appealed to her.

Trees and flowers and plants appeal to her as if they were endowed with life, and by her mention of them she calls up to the imagination a tropical summer with its attendant recreations. Thus she sings of the breeze murmuring cool through the apple boughs:

She sings also of the golden pulse that grows on the shores, and of the pure, soft bloom of the grass trampled under foot by the Cretan women as they dance round the fair altar of Aphrodite. The rose seems to have been her favorite flower, for, says Philostratus, "Sappho loves the rose, and always crowns it with some praise, likening beautiful maidens to it."

and she pities the wood-doves as "their heart turns cold and their wings fall," under the stroke from the arrow of the archer.

Sappho's love for nature is only surpassed by her love for art, for splendor and festivity, as they appeal to the æsthetic nature. She loves her lyre, the song and the dance, garlands, purple robes, and all that attended the worship of Aphrodite and the Muses. Her lyre she thus addresses:

In the worship of Aphrodite and the Graces, garlands are appropriate for the devotees:

"Of foliage and flowers love-laden

Twine wreaths for thy flowing hair

With thine own soft fingers, maiden,

Weave garlands of parsley fair;

"For flowers are sweet, and the Graces

On suppliants wreathed with may

Look down from their heavenly places,

But turn from the crownless away."

Such was the joy of the devotees of the Muses. Sappho believed in the adornment of the soul as well as of the body, and she thus addresses one who neglected the services of the Muses:

"Yea, thou shalt die,

And lie

Dumb in the silent tomb;

Nor of thy name

Shall there be any fame

In ages yet to be or years to come;

For of the flowering Rose,

Which on Pieria blows,

Thou hast no share:

But in sad Hades' house

Unknown, inglorious

'Mid the dark shades that wander there

Shalt thou flit forth and haunt the filmy air."

"I think there will be memory of us yet in after days," said Sappho, and the sentiment is one which later poets have often imitated. Thus the poetess had intimations of the immortality that is justly hers, and the reader will heartily enter into the spirit of Swinburne's paraphrase:

Sappho sings of love and its manifestations, of longing and passion, of grief and regret, of natural beauty in sea and sky, by day and by night, of the birds and trees and flowers, and "all this is told us in language at once overpowering and delicate, in verse as symmetrical as it is exquisite, free, and fervid, through metaphor simple or sublime; each word, each line, expressive of the writer's inmost sense; with an art that, in its Greek constraint, comparison, and sweetness, and in its Oriental fervor, is faultless and unerring."

Not only as a poet is Sappho of interest to the women of our day, but also because she was the founder of the first woman's club of which we have knowledge. This Lesbian literary club did not engage, however, in the study of current topics, or seek to gather sheaves of knowledge from the field of science and history, but was consecrated strictly to the service of the Muses. Sappho attracted by her fame young women of Lesbos and of neighboring cities. She gathered them about her, gave them instruction in poetry and music, and incited them to the cultivation of all the arts and graces. Many of these maidens from a distance doubtless sought the society of Sappho because they were weary of the low drudgery and monotonous routine of home life that fell to the lot of women in Ionian cities, and because they felt the need of a freer atmosphere and more inspiring surroundings.

Sappho eagerly sought to elevate her sex. She showed them that, through the more perfect training of mind and body, their horizon would be enlarged, their resources for happiness increased, and their homes become centres of inspiring influences for husband and children.

Never was there a teacher more eager to possess her pupils' love and confidence. Maximus of Tyre compares her relations with her girl friends to Socrates's relations with young men. At times, men have seen fit to censure these intimate friendships of Socrates and Sappho with their pupils, and to see in them immoral relations such as characterized the passionate devotion of many Greek men to beautiful youths; but there is no ground for such imputations. While manifesting the beauty and sweetness and satisfaction in woman's love for woman, Sappho did not attempt to make this love a substitute for the love of men. She herself was married; and there are intimations in her poems that certain of her girl friends exchanged the pleasures of aesthetic comradeship for the joys of wedded life.

From the fragments of her songs, we know the names of at least fourteen of her pupils, and it pleases the fancy to attempt to reconstruct a picture of that delightful band of girl friends, who spent their days in the study of poetry and music and their evenings in every elevating form of recreation. A writer has thus sketched the picture: "Let us call around her in fancy the maidens who have come from different parts of Greece to learn of her. Anactoria is here from Miletus, Eunica from Salamis, Gongyle from Colophon, and others from Pamphylia, and the isle of Telos. Erinna and Damophyla study together the composition of Sapphic metres. Atthis learns how to strike the harp with the plectrum, Sappho's invention; Mnasidica embroiders a sacred robe for the temple. The teacher meanwhile corrects the measures of the one, the notes of another, the strophes of a third; then summons all from their work, to rehearse together some sacred chorus or temple ritual; then stops to read a verse of her own, or to denounce a rival preceptress. Throughout her intercourse with these maidens her conduct is characterized by passionate love, as between equals in mind and heart, and is expressed in fervid and high-wrought language embodying a purity that cannot be misunderstood or cavilled away."

VII

THE SPARTAN WOMAN

It was from Sparta that Paris in the Heroic Age bore away to his Phrygian home Argive Helen, fairest of mortals, the Greek ideal of feminine beauty and charm. But never since that fateful day--as, indeed, never before it--was there in Sparta any woman to compare with her; for the Spartan maidens of historical times, though comely and vigorous and noted for physical beauty, were cast in a firmer, sturdier mould than that which characterized Helen, the flower of grace and loveliness. Yet the traveller in Sparta in her prime must have marvelled at the splendid maidens and matrons he saw amid the hills of Lacedæmon--trained in athletic exercises, fleet of foot, vigorous and well-proportioned, and showing in their very bearing how important they were to the well-being of the State.

In Sparta, woman was the equal of man--in Athens, his inferior. In this fact lies the secret of the training that was given her, for the character of the education of woman is an index to the position assigned her by the spirit of the State. Spartan legislation concerning woman was controlled by one idea--to develop in the maiden the mother-to-be. This idea is so beautiful, so profound, that, after all the centuries which have elapsed, one cannot find a better principle for feminine education. Like mother, like son--and the Spartan ideal of the son was the warrior strong, brave, and resolute, enduring hardship and living solely for the State. Hence the mother must be strong, brave, and resolute, sacrificing every womanly tenderness to the prevailing conception of patriotism.

Great is the contrast between the women of the various peoples of Greece. The Achæan woman, in Homeric times, played no prominent part in public affairs; her home was her palace, and she manifested those domestic traits and womanly qualities that in this day still constitute womanly charm. The life of the Ionian woman was a secluded one; she was under the domination of the sterner sex, and compelled to devote herself largely to the varied duties of the household. The Æolian woman, on the contrary, had asserted her freedom, and lived on terms of social and intellectual comradeship with men. She devoted herself to the cultivation of every womanly grace, and was the earnest follower of Aphrodite and the Muses. In contrast to these, the Spartan woman presents an altogether unique type. She was merely a creature of the State, the cultivation of her higher nature being under the control of a rigid system. As such, she contributed in a large degree to the public welfare, but it was at the sacrifice of many feminine attributes. In her, natural affection and womanly sympathy were sacrificed to a single virtue--patriotism. But one function was emphasized--that of motherhood. All her training was devoted to but one end--that of producing soldiers. The life of the individual was strictly subordinated to the good of the State. Such a system evolved a remarkable type of womanhood, and the Spartan matron has won an immortal name in history.

From the central mass of the mountain system of the Peloponnesus in Arcadia, two chains, Taÿgetus and Parnon, detach themselves and extend southward, terminating in the two dangerous promontories of Tænarum and Malea. Between the two ridges the river Eurotas winds its way in a southeasterly course. In the undulating valley formed by the bed of the stream, and shut in by the mountain ranges, lay ancient Sparta. The country, by nature and climate, was such as to make men hardy and determined. Euripides styles it "a country rich in productions, but difficult to cultivate; shut in on all sides by a barrier of stern mountains; almost inaccessible to the foe." Its hidden situation in the Eurotas valley made it a well-guarded camp, and the Dorian conquerors of the Peloponnesus, surrounded by enemies and threatened by warlike neighbors, soon saw that the only hope of holding their conquests and extending their power lay in the maintenance of a warlike race.

Lycurgus, usually reputed to have lived in the ninth century before Christ, was the founder of the legislation which constituted the greatness of Sparta. He was one of the originators of the principle, so characteristic of antiquity and in such contrast to the spirit of modern times: "The citizen is born and lives for the State; to it his time, his strength, and all his powers belong." Nowhere was this maxim so rigidly enforced as at Sparta. Lycurgus established institutions of a public nature which gave a centralized administration of the most rigid sort, and regulations relating to private life which would develop a warlike type of citizen, the whole system tending to make Sparta supreme in the Peloponnesus, and her soldiers invincible in war. To accomplish this end, the daily life of every individual, both male and female, was under the control of the State. The effect of such a system on the character has been happily expressed by Rousseau: "He strengthened the citizen by taking away the human traits from the man."

Lycurgus saw that the salvation of Sparta depended on its citizens being a nation of warriors. Only by being always ready for war and by possessing an invincible body of soldiery could the State fulfil its destiny in the work of the world. He realized further that the natural antecedent of a nation of men strong physically and intellectually is a race of healthy, sturdy, able-bodied women. Hence his training of the daughters of Sparta was the corner-stone of his system. Valuing woman only for her fruitfulness, his legislation in regard to her had but one object in view--fitting her to be the mother of a powerful race of men. Maidens, therefore, as well as youths, were subjected to the most rigid physical training.

From the moment of birth, the Spartan boy or girl was in the hands of the State. The infant was exposed in the place of public assembly, and if the elders considered it frail and unpromising, or for any reason regarded its existence of no value to the State, the child was thrown off a cliff of Mount Taÿgetus,--a usage shocking to modern sensibilities, but accepted as a necessity by Plato, Aristotle, and other ancient philosophers. The able-bodied child was restored to its mother, and she directed the early training of her charge under the eye of the magistrates. Though the Spartan girl was not, as the youth, removed altogether from the mother at the age of seven and brought up in the barracks, yet her training was scarcely less severe than that of the boys. The feminine tasks of spinning and weaving, customary for free women of other peoples, were by the Spartans committed to female slaves, and the State so ordered the lives of the free maidens that they might become in the future the mothers of robust children. "He [Lycurgus] directed the maidens," says Plutarch, "to exercise themselves with wrestling, running, throwing the quoit, and casting the dart, to the end that the fruit they conceived might in strong and healthy bodies take firmer root and find better growth." These gymnastic exercises they practised in public, clad in little else save their own modesty, thus overcoming fear of exposure to the air, as well as overgreat tenderness and shyness. Similarly clad, they took part in processions along with the young men, and were trained in singing and dancing in the public choruses. This carefully regulated comradeship between youths and maidens was encouraged with a view to stimulating the young men to deeds of valor. The maidens on these occasions would make, by means of jests, befitting reflections on the young men who had misbehaved themselves in the wars, and would sing encomiums upon those who had done gallant actions. Thus the young men were spurred on to greater endeavor by the dread of feminine ridicule, and were inspired by feminine praise to the performance of great deeds. It was always the part of the Spartan maiden, then, to keep bright the fires of patriotism and heroic endeavor. The mother, by precept and example, taught the daughter to repress every emotion of womanly tenderness, to elevate the State to the first place in her heart and life, and to find her destiny in bearing brave sons to defend her country. Thus admitted to the freedom of companionship with their brothers in the games and processions, and stimulated by the instructions of their mothers, they early caught the spirit and purpose which animated one and all--the spirit of unselfish patriotism. It was natural, therefore, that they accepted without a murmur the tyranny of a single idea and found in it their glory and pride. Many stories are told of their remarkable devotion to the State. A Spartan mother who has lost her boy in battle exclaims: "Did I not bear him that he might die for Sparta?" To another, waiting for tidings of the battle, comes a messenger announcing that her five sons have perished. "You contemptible slave," she replies, "that is not what I wish to hear. How fares my country?" On hearing that Sparta is victorious, she adds, without a tremor: "Willingly, then, do I hear of the death of my sons."

Marriage is the determining factor in the economic conditions of society, and the regulations prescribed concerning it are an excellent index to the character of any people. Under the Lycurgan system, marriage was strictly under the control of the State. The goddess of love was practically banished from Sparta. Only one temple to Aphrodite stood in Lacedæmon; and in this the goddess was represented armed, not with her magic girdle, but with a sword, and seated with a veil over her head and fetters upon her feet, symbolizing that she was under restraint. History records many instances of affection between husband and wife, but considerations of love did not enter into the marriage contract. No frail woman was allowed to marry. The age of marriage was fixed at the period which was considered best for the perfection of the offspring, usually about thirty years in the case of the men, and about twenty for the maidens. Plutarch describes in uncolored language the chief features of the marriage relations of the Spartans:

"In their marriages, the husband carried off his bride by a sort of force; nor were brides ever small and of tender years, but in their full bloom and ripeness. After this, she who superintended the wedding comes and clips the hair of the bride close round her head, dresses her up in man's clothes, and leaves her upon a mattress in the dark; afterward comes the bridegroom, in his everyday clothes, sober and composed, as having supped at the common table; and entering privately into the room where the bride lies, unties her virgin zone, and takes her to himself; and after staying some time together, he returns composedly to his own apartment, to sleep as usual with the other young men. And so he continues to do, spending his days and indeed his nights with them, visiting his bride in fear and shame and with circumspection, when he thought he should not be observed; she also, on her part, using her wit to help to find favorable opportunities for their meeting, when company was out of the way. In this manner they lived a long time, insomuch that they sometimes had children by their wives before ever they saw their faces by daylight. Their interviews being thus difficult and rare, served not only for continual exercise of their self-control, but brought them together with their bodies healthy and vigorous, and their affections fresh and lively, unsated and undulled by easy access and long continuance with each other, while their partings were always early enough to leave behind unextinguished in each of them some remaining fire of longing and mutual delight.

"After guarding marriage with this modesty and reserve, Lycurgus was equally careful to banish empty and womanish jealousy. For this object, excluding all licentious disorders, he made it nevertheless honorable for men to give the use of their wives to those whom they should think fit, that so they might have children by them; ridiculing those in whose opinion such favors are so unfit for participation as to fight and shed blood and go to war therefor. Lycurgus allowed a man, who was advanced in years and had a young wife, to recommend some virtuous and approved young man, that she might have a child by him, who might inherit the good qualities of the father, and be a son to himself. On the other side, an honest man who had love for a married woman upon account of her modesty and the well-favoredness of her children might, without formality, beg her company of her husband, that he might raise, as it were, from this plot of good ground worthy and well-allied children for himself."

Regulations such as these, though shocking to modern sensibilities, seem not to have been detrimental to public morals while Sparta submitted to the severe austerity of the laws. It seems surprising that, while a woman might lawfully be the recognized wife of two husbands, no such duplication of spouses was allowed to a man. This rule is illustrated by its one historical exception In the case of King Anaxandrides, who, says Herodotus, when the royal Heraclidæan line of Eurystheus was in danger of becoming extinct, married his niece, who bore him no children. The people besought him to divorce her, and to contract another marriage; but, owing to his love for his wife, he positively refused. Upon this, they made a suggestion to him as follows: "Since then we perceive thou art firmly attached to the wife whom thou now hast, consent to do this, and set not thyself against it, lest the Spartans take some counsel against thee other than might be wished. We do not ask of thee the putting away of the wife thou now hast; but do thou give to her all that thou givest now, and at the same time take to thy house another wife in addition to this one, to bear thee children." When they spoke to him after this manner, Anaxandrides consented, and from this time forth he kept two separate households, having two wives, a thing which, we are told, was not by any means after the Spartan fashion.

Every inducement was offered to encourage matrimony, and bachelors were the objects of general scorn and derision. "Those who continued bachelors," says Plutarch, "were in a degree disfranchised by law; for they were excluded from the sight of the public processions in which the young men and maidens danced naked, and in the winter-time the officers compelled them to walk naked round the market place, singing, as they went, a certain song to their own disgrace, that they justly suffered this punishment for disobeying the laws." Furthermore, at a certain festival the women themselves sought to bring these misguided individuals to a proper sense of their duty by dragging them round an altar and continually inflicting blows upon them. Without doubt, the maidens were all inclined to matrimony, as it enhanced their influence and enabled them to fulfil their mission; and the rulers were ever ready to provide husbands for them.

A kind of disgrace attached to childlessness. Men who were not fathers were denied the respect and observance which the young men of Sparta regularly paid their elders. On one occasion, Dercyllidas, a commander of great renown, entered an assembly. A young Spartan, contrary to custom, failed to rise at his approach. The veteran soldier was surprised. "You have no sons," said the youth, "who will one day pay the same honor to me." And public opinion justified the excuse.

The effects of the athletic training upon the physical nature of woman were most commendable. The Spartan maiden was renowned throughout Greece for preeminence in vigor of body and beauty of form. Even the Athenian was impressed by this. Lysistrata, in the play of Aristophanes, in greeting Lampito, the delegate from Sparta, who has come to a women's conference, speaks thus:

"O dearest Laconian, O Lampito, welcome! How beautiful you look, sweetest one! What a fresh color! How vigorous your body is! What beautiful breasts you have! Why, you could throttle an ox!" To this greeting comes the reply:

"Yes, I think I could, by Castor and Pollux! for I practise gymnastics and leap high."

Ideals of beauty differ in different ages and countries, and there is no doubt that Lampito was a magnificent specimen of woman; yet it may be doubted whether such masculine vigor is consonant with the highest moral and spiritual development, which, after all, is the chief factor in womanly charm. Spartan women were in demand everywhere as nurses, and were universally respected for their vigor and prowess; yet it was the equally healthy, but more graceful, Ionian woman who was chosen as the model of the statues of the goddess of love and beauty.

Spartan discipline produced beautiful animals, but any system which dulled the sensibilities could hardly inculcate that grace and sweetness and warmth of temperament which are essential to beauty.

As to the moral nature of the Spartan woman, there is no doubt that the unselfish devotion to the State, and the subordination of individual inclination to the good of the whole, would tend to promote a rigid morality. Yet the free intercourse between the sexes shocked the Athenians; and Euripides, in the Andromache, has put into the mouth of Peleus a severe indictment of the Spartan woman:

The Spartan laws, it is true, permitted and encouraged certain practices regarded as morally wrong in this day, yet that which was lawful could not well be considered immoral. Xenophon and Plutarch were ardent admirers of the Spartan system, and strongly affirm the uprightness and nobility of the Spartans. Plutarch tells an incident to illustrate Spartan virtue in the old days. Geradas, a very ancient Spartan, being asked by a stranger what punishment their law had appointed for adulterers, answered: "There are no adulterers in our country." "But," replied the stranger, "suppose there were." "Then," answered he, "the offender would have to give the plaintiff a bull with a neck so long that he might drink from the top of Taygetus of the Eurotas River below it." The man, surprised at this, said: "Why, 'tis impossible to find such a bull." Geradas smilingly replied: "It is as impossible to find an adulterer in Sparta."

Though we have to recognize much in the Spartan polity which is repugnant to our ideas of the sacredness of family ties, yet we must feel the utmost respect for the Spartan matron in the best days of Lacedæmon. This rigid system provided for four or five centuries "a succession of the strongest men that possibly ever existed on the face of the earth," and the strength of character of the mothers made the sons what they were. Only the Roman matron can be fitly compared to the Spartan mother.

It is not surprising that such mothers possessed an influence envied throughout Greece. "You Spartan women are the only ones who rule over men," said a stranger to Gorgo, wife of Leonidas. "True," she rejoined; "for we are the only ones who are the mothers of men."

For several centuries, owing to her peculiar discipline, Sparta was, excepting Athens, the foremost State of Greece. But time is an enemy often not taken sufficiently into consideration by men who establish peculiar systems. And Lycurgus, who wished to make his system perpetual, did not fully consider the disintegrating effects which time exerts on all things temporal. "Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret [You may repress natural propensities by force, but they will be certain to reappear]," says Horace, the wisest of Roman satirists; and the Spartan polity had attempted to repress nature in men and women and to control it by law. The great fault in the Lacedæmonian constitution was in effect the violation of the eternal laws which assign to each creature his rôle in the harmony of the world. Men are made for war, but they are made for peace as well. Therefore, as Lycurgus made the city an armed camp, in periods of peace the Spartan man "rusted like an unused sword in its scabbard," and in idleness at home or in garrison duty abroad fell an easy victim to avarice and lust.

In his legislation concerning women, Lycurgus violated natural propensities to an even greater extent than he had in his laws governing the conduct of men. Woman was destined primarily for domestic life. She was created to bear children; but her kingdom is the home, with its manifold duties, and rearing children is as much her function as bearing them. Yet the Spartan lad was taken forcibly from his mother at the tender age of seven, and the Spartan maiden, while living at home, was subject to stringent regulations formulated and enforced by the State.

Woman is intuitively interested in domestic duties, in housekeeping and clothes mending, and in caring for the innumerable wants of husband and children. Yet the Syssitia, or public meals, deprived her of the society of husband and sons, and took from her domestic cares because they were deemed too menial for a free Spartan. "Female slaves," averred Lycurgus, "are good enough to sit at home spinning and weaving; but who can expect a splendid offspring--the appropriate mission and duty of a free Spartan woman toward her country--from mothers brought up in such occupations?"

Although the Spartan system prescribed rigid discipline for the Spartan woman up to the time of motherhood, after that time it left her life altogether unregulated by law. Plato, who was in many respects a great admirer of the Spartans, criticises this singular defect. He found fault with a system which regarded woman only as a mother, and consequently, when children had been born and turned over to the State, did not by law provide occupation for the mothers or in any way regulate their conduct. There was nothing to restrain their luxury or keep them loyal to duty and probity. Higher culture was discouraged, intercourse with strangers was forbidden, and woman was left largely to her own devices for employment and recreation; but she was deprived in large measure of the usual feminine occupations. During the old days, when the State was the all in all of the citizens, and the mothers were urging on husbands and sons to valiant deeds, the evils of the Lycurgan system did not show themselves; but when the crisis came, and Sparta lost her supremacy in Greek affairs, then old manners gave way, vice and weakness rushed in, and men and women alike were debauched and evil.

Aristotle, who was at his zenith during the latter part of the fourth century before Christ, is severe in his denunciations of the license of the Spartan women. This he regards as defeating the intention of the Spartan constitution and subversive of the good order of the State. He argues that, while Lycurgus sought to make the whole State hardy and temperate, and succeeded in the case of the men, he had not done so with the women, who lived in every sort of intemperance and luxury. He charges that the Spartan men are under the domination of their wives--Ares being ever susceptible to the wishes and inclinations of Aphrodite. And the result is the same, he adds, "whether women rule or the rulers are ruled by women." He also attacks the courage of the women, stating that in a Theban invasion they had been utterly useless and caused more confusion than the enemy. He finds them prone to avarice, and regrets that, owing to the inequality of the laws governing property, more than two-fifths of the whole country was already in the hands of women.

Nature in the end asserted herself, and the evils inherent in the Lycurgan system brought about the fall of the State. Sparta had sacrificed the liberties of her citizens, she had despised the laws of nature in the destiny and education of women, she had banished the arts, and had sought to keep out every humanizing influence. Consequently, when that constitution, inflexible and in certain respects immoral and unnatural, was impaired, her decline was rapid. Sad it is that Aristotle should have perceived in the immorality, the greed, the misconduct, of the women, one of the causes of the fall of Sparta!

Sparta had become degenerate, but she was not to die without a final struggle. In the middle of the third century before Christ, two kings of Sparta, inspired by the stories of her early days, endeavored to overcome the luxury and vice that were rampant and to restore the State to its primitive simplicity and greatness. In their meritorious efforts to accomplish the impossible, they enlisted the efforts of noble women, who by their self-sacrificing devotion cast a momentary radiance over the dying State.

The earliest of these two kings was the young and gentle Agis. In the corrupt state of society he saw need of reforms, and wished to begin at the root of the evil by annulling debts and redistributing the land. One of the first counsellors whom he consulted in his projected reforms was his mother, Agesistrata, a woman of great wealth and power, who had many of the Spartans in her debt and would be seriously affected by the change. Yet, becoming conscious of the need of reforms, she, with the grandmother of the young king, entered heartily into his plans to restore the greatness of Sparta. Agesistrata urged other aristocratic women to join in the movement, "knowing well that the Lacedæmonian wives always had great power with their husbands." These, however, violently opposed the scheme, because at this time most of the money of Sparta was in the women's hands and was the main support of their credit and power. Leonidas, the other king, was the head of the opposition, and a deadly struggle followed between Agis and Leonidas--the one standing for the people, the other for the aristocrats. Agis was at first successful, and Leonidas was deposed, Cleombrotus, his son-in-law, being elevated to the kingship in his stead. Another woman now comes to the front. Chilonis, Cleombrotus's wife and Leonidas's daughter, seeing her aged father in exile and distress, leaves her husband in the height of his power and devotes herself to her aged father.

However, the wheel of fortune again turns, and Leonidas is restored to power. Agis and Cleombrotus flee for their lives, and become suppliants--the one at the temple of the Brazen House, the other at the temple of Poseidon. Leonidas, being more incensed against his son-in-law, leaves Agis for the time and goes with his soldiers to Cleombrotus's sanctuary to reproach him for having conspired with his enemies, usurped his throne, and driven him from his country. Chilonis, perceiving the great danger threatening her husband, leaves her father and seeks to aid and comfort the fugitive. Plutarch thus tells her story:

"Cleombrotus, having little to say for himself, sat silent. His wife, Chilonis, the daughter of Leonidas, had chosen to follow her father in his sufferings; for when Cleombrotus usurped the kingdom, she forsook him and wholly devoted herself to comforting her father in his affliction; whilst he still remained in Sparta, she remained also, as a suppliant, with him; and when he fled, she fled with him, bewailing his misfortune, and extremely displeased with Cleombrotus. But now, upon this turn of fortune, she changed in like manner, and was seen sitting now, as a suppliant, with her husband, embracing him with her arms, and having her two little children beside her. All men were full of wonder at the piety and tender affection of the young woman, who, pointing to her robes and her hair, both alike neglected and unattended to, said to Leonidas: 'I am not brought, my father, to this condition you see me in, on account of the present misfortune of Cleombrotus; my mourning habit is long since familiar to me; it was put on to condole with you in your banishment; and now you are restored to your country, and to your kingdom, must I still remain in grief and misery? Or would you have me attired in my royal ornaments, that I may rejoice with you when you have killed, within my arms, the man to whom you gave me for a wife? Either Cleombrotus must appease you by mine and my children's tears, or he must suffer a punishment greater than you propose for his faults, and shall see me, whom he loves so well, die before him. To what end should I live, or how shall I appear among the Spartan women, when it shall so manifestly be seen that I have not been able to move to compassion either a husband or a father? I was born, it seems, to participate in the ill fortune and in the disgrace, both as a wife and a daughter, of those nearest and dearest to me. As for Cleombrotus, I sufficiently surrendered any honorable plea on his behalf when I forsook him to follow you; but you yourself offer the fairest excuse for his proceedings, by showing to the world that for the sake of a kingdom it is just to kill a son-in-law and be regardless of a daughter.' Chilonis, having ended this lamentation, rested her face on her husband's head, and looked round with her weeping and woe-begone eyes upon those who stood before her.

"Leonidas, touched with compassion, withdrew a while to advise with his friends; then, returning, bade Cleombrotus leave the sanctuary and go into banishment; 'Chilonis,' he said, 'ought to stay with him, it not being just that she should forsake a father whose affection had granted to her the life of a husband.' But all he could say would not prevail. She rose up immediately, and taking one of her children in her arms, gave the other to her husband, and making her reverence to the altar of the deity, went out and followed him. So that, in a word, if Cleombrotus were not utterly blinded by ambition, he would surely choose to be banished with so excellent a woman rather than without her to possess a kingdom."

Having disposed of Cleombrotus, Leonidas next proceeded to consider how he might entrap Agis. Agis, however, held his sanctuary until he was finally betrayed by the treachery of three pretended friends, Amphares, Damochares, and Arcesilaus. He was led off to prison and executed.

Plutarch says: "Immediately after he was dead, Amphares went out of the prison gate, where he found Agesistrata, who, believing him still the same friend as before, threw herself at his feet. He gently raised her up, and assured her she need not fear any further violence or danger of death for her son, and that, if she pleased, she might go in and see him. She begged her mother might also have the favor to be admitted, and he replied that nobody should hinder it. When they were entered, he commanded the gate should again be locked, and Archidamia, the grandmother, to be first introduced; she was now grown to be very old, and had lived all her days in the highest repute among her fellows. As soon as Amphares thought she was despatched, he told Agesistrata she might now go in if she pleased. She entered; and beholding her son's body stretched on the ground, and her mother's hanging by the neck, the first thing she did was, with her own hand, to assist the officers in taking down the body; then, covering it decently, she laid it out by her son's, whom then embracing, and kissing his cheeks, 'O my son,' said she, 'it was thy too great mercy and goodness which brought thee and us to ruin.' Amphares, who stood watching behind the door, on hearing this, broke in, and said angrily to her, 'Since you approve so well of your son's actions, it is fit you should partake in his reward.' She, rising up to offer herself to the noose, said only, 'I pray that it may redound to the good of Sparta.'"

Thus was defeated the first effort for the reformation of Sparta. In the city's long history, Agis was the first king who had been put to death by the order of the ephors. When the bodies of the gentle king and his noble mother and grandmother were exposed, the horror of the people knew no bounds, and the aged Leonidas and Amphares became the objects of public detestation.

The second attempt at the reformation of Sparta is also remarkable for the unselfishness and nobility of the women who took part.

After the execution of King Agis, his wife, Agiatis, was compelled by Leonidas to become the wife of his son Cleomenes, though the latter was as yet too young to marry. As Agiatis was the heiress of the great estate of her father, Gylippus, the old king was unwilling that she should be the wife of anyone but his son. Agiatis was, says Plutarch, "in person the most youthful and beautiful woman in all Greece, and well-conducted in her habits of life." She resisted the union as long as she could; but when forced to marry, she became to the youth a kind and obliging wife. Cleomenes loved her very dearly, and often asked her about the reforms of Agis; and she did not fail to inspire him with the lofty ideals of her former gentle and high-minded husband. Cleomenes himself, in consequence, fell in love with the old ways, and, after Leonidas's death, attempted to carry out the reforms in which Agis had failed. His mother, Cratesiclea, was also very zealous to promote his ambitions; and in order that she might effectually assist him in his plans, she accepted as her husband one of the foremost in wealth and power among the citizens. With her help, the king succeeded in breaking the power of the ephors, and a return to the system of Lycurgus was partially accomplished. But Cleomenes had aroused a formidable enemy in the person of Aratus, head of the Achæan League. He carried into Achæa the war against Aratus, and made himself master of almost all Peloponnesus, but, through the persistence of his enemies, almost as quickly lost that territory. In the midst of his misfortunes, he received news of the death of his wife, to whom he was devotedly attached. "This news afflicted him extremely," says Plutarch, "and he grieved as a young man would do, for the loss of a very beautiful and excellent wife." When all seemed lost, he received promise of assistance from King Ptolemy of Egypt, but only on condition that he send the latter his mother and children as hostages. Plutarch thus continues the story:

"Now Ptolemy, the King of Egypt, promised him assistance, but demanded his mother and children for hostages. This, for a considerable time, he was ashamed to discover to his mother; and though he often went to her on purpose, and was just upon the discourse, yet he still refrained, and kept it to himself; so that she began to suspect, and asked his friend whether Cleomenes had something to say to her which he was afraid to speak. At last, Cleomenes venturing to tell her, she laughed aloud, and said: 'Was this the thing that you had so often a mind to tell me, but were afraid? Make haste and put me on shipboard, and send this carcass where it may be most serviceable to Sparta, before age destroys it unprofitably here,' Therefore, all things being provided for the voyage, they went by land to Tænarum, and the army waited on them. Cratesiclea, when she was ready to go on board, took Cleomenes aside into Poseidon's temple, and, embracing him, who was much dejected and extremely discomposed, she said: 'Go to, King of Sparta; when we come forth at the door, let none see us weep or show any passion that is unworthy of Sparta, for that alone is in our power; as for success or disappointment, those wait on us as the deity decrees,' Having this said, and composed her countenance, she went to the ship with her little grandson, and bade the pilot put out at once to sea. When she came to Egypt, and understood that Ptolemy entertained proposals and overtures of peace from Antigonus, and that Cleomenes, though the Achæans invited and urged him to an agreement, was afraid for her sake to come to any without Ptolemy's consent, she wrote to him, advising him to do that which was most becoming and most profitable for Sparta, and not, for the sake of an old woman and a little child, stand always in fear of Ptolemy. This character she maintained in her misfortunes."

Cleomenes, however, soon realized how little reliance is to be put in the favors of princes. Antigonus of Syria took the part of Aratus against him, and Ptolemy, who had been ever ready to help the valiant Spartan, did not care to invite the hostility of a greater foe. Cleomenes was defeated by Antigonus, and became an exile at the court of Ptolemy, but it proved to be a prison instead of a home. Upon the death of the elder Ptolemy, his son kept Cleomenes and his friends under restraint, and, to please Antigonus, purposed putting them to death. Cleomenes and his companions, knowing that a tragic end awaited them, determined to break through their prison bars and to rouse the populace to a revolt against Ptolemy. They easily made their escape, but the people could not be persuaded to undertake any struggle for liberty; and so the devoted band resolved to die. Then each one killed himself, except Panteus, the youngest and handsomest of them all, who was selected by Cleomenes to wait till the rest were dead, so that he might perform for them the last offices. He carefully arranged all the bodies of his comrades, and then, kissing his beloved king and throwing his arms about him, slew himself. The news of this sad event, having spread through the city, finally reached the aged mother, Cratesiclea, who, though a woman of great spirit, could hardly bear up against the weight of this affliction, especially as she knew that an equally tragic fate awaited her grandchildren.

The Egyptian king ordered that Cleomenes's body should be flayed, and that his children, his mother, and the women that were with her, should be put to death. Among these was the wife of Panteus, still very young and exquisitely beautiful, who had but lately been married. Her parents would not suffer her to embark with Panteus for Egypt so soon after they had been married, though she eagerly desired it, and her father had shut her up and kept her forcibly at home. But she found means of escape. A few days after Panteus's departure, she slipped out by night, mounted a horse and rode to Taenarum, and there embarked on a vessel sailing for Egypt, where she soon found her husband, and with him cheerfully endured all the sufferings and hardships that befell them in a hostile country. She was now the moral support of the whole company of helpless women. She moved about among them, comforting and consoling. She gave her hand to Cratesiclea, as the latter was being led out by the soldiers to execution, held up her robe, and begged her to be courageous, being herself not in the least afraid of death, and desiring nothing else than to be killed before the children were put to death. When they reached the place of execution, the children were first killed before Cratesiclea's eyes; and afterward she herself suffered death, with these pathetic words on her lips: "O children, whither are you gone?" Panteus's wife, as her husband did for the men, performed the last offices for the women. In silence and perfect composure, she looked after every one that was slain, and laid out the bodies as decently as circumstances would permit. And then, after all were killed, adjusting her own robe so that she might fall becomingly, she courageously submitted to the stroke of the executioner.

Thus ended the second great movement for the reformation of Sparta, and henceforth Sparta, as an independent State; disappears from history. The story of the fall of Sparta owes its human interest chiefly to the women involved, and Plutarch recognizes this fact when, in concluding his story of Cleomenes, he, with the Greek dramatic contests before his mind, says: "Thus Lacedaemon, exhibiting a dramatic contest in which the women vied with the men, showed in her last days that virtue cannot be insulted by fortune."

Chilonis, Agesistrata, Agiatis, Cratesiclea, the wife of Panteus,--what a pity that we do not know her name!--constitute the most admirable feminine group that Greek history offers us. What especially charms us is that they unite with the strength and self-abnegation of the ancient Spartan matron a sweetness, a tenderness, a womanliness, which we have not been accustomed to attribute to Spartan women. They are Spartans, but they are, above all, women.

VIII

THE ATHENIAN WOMAN

Divergent views have been entertained by writers who have discussed the social position of woman at Athens and the estimation in which she was held by man. Many scholars have asserted that women were held in a durance not unlike that of the Oriental harem, that their life was a species of vassalage, and that they were treated with contempt by the other sex; while the few have contended that there existed a degree of emancipation differing but slightly from that of the female sex in modern times. As is usually the case, the truth lies in the golden mean between these two extremes; and a careful perusal of Greek authors, with the judgment directed to the spirit of their references to women rather than to a literal interpretation of disparate passages, will show that the status of the freeborn Athenian woman, while by no means ideal or conforming to our present standards, was far better than is usually conceded by the writers upon Greek life.

It cannot be denied, however, that the social position of the Athenian woman was far inferior to that of the woman of the Heroic Age, and that, despite the boasted democracy and freedom of thought of the period, woman's status in the years of republican Athens was a reproach to the advanced culture and love of the good and the beautiful of which the city of the violet crown was the exponent. There had been a revolution in the habits of life of the Greeks since the days when Homer sang of the women of heroic Greece, and the student does not have to search far to discover the principal causes of the change.

The chief of these is the Greek idea of the city-state, which reached its highest development in Athens. Citizenship was, as a rule, hereditary, and every possible legal measure was taken to preserve its purity. The main principle of this hereditary citizenship was that the union from which the child was sprung must be one recognized by the State. This was accomplished by requiring a legitimate marriage, either through betrothal by a parent or guardian, or through assignment by a magistrate. Pericles revised the old conditions, which had become lax during the tyranny, by passing a measure limiting citizenship to those who were born of two Athenian parents. Greater stress was laid on the citizenship of the mother than on that of the father, as the child was regarded as belonging naturally to the mother. It was possible to increase the citizen body by a vote of the people; but in the best days of Athens her citizenship was regarded as so high a privilege that the franchise was most jealously guarded. Consequently, in the fifth century we see in Athens and Attica a population of about four hundred thousand, of which not more than fifty thousand were citizens; the rest consisted of minors, of resident aliens numbering some fifteen thousand, and of slaves, of whom there were about two hundred thousand in the Periclean Age.

To preserve the purity of the citizenship in so large a population of residents, increased by thousands of visitors and strangers who frequented the metropolis, every precaution was taken that the daughters of Athens should not be wedded to foreigners, and that no spurious offspring should be palmed off on the State. Hence marriage by a citizen was restricted to a union with a legitimate Athenian maiden with full birthright. The marriage of an Athenian maiden with a stranger, or of a citizen with a foreigner, was strictly forbidden, and the offspring of such a union was illegitimate.

Under such a conception of polity, marriage lay at the very basis of the State; and respect for the local deities, obligations of citizenship, and regard for one's race and lineage, demanded that every safeguard should be thrown about it, and that the women of Athens should conform to those enactments and customs which would fit them to be the mothers of citizens and would keep from them every entangling intrigue with strangers.

The result of this polity was a singular phenomenon: there were in Athens two classes of women--one carefully secluded and restricted, under the rigid surveillance of law and custom; the other, free to do whatever it pleased, except to marry citizens. Yet the latter class would gladly have exchanged places with the former; while the former, no doubt, envied the freedom and social accomplishments of the latter. The one class consisted of the highborn matrons of Athens, glorying in their birthright, and rulers of the home; the other, of the resident aliens of the female sex, unmarried, emancipated intellectually as untrammelled morally, who could become the "companions" of the great men of the city. Thus, owing to the Athenian conception of the city-state, the natural functions of woman--domesticity and companionship, which should be united in one person, were divided, the Athenian man looking to his wife merely for the care of the home and the bearing and rearing of children, and to the hetæra for comradeship and intellectual sympathy. This evil was the canker-worm which gnawed out the core of the social life of Athens and caused the unhappiness of the female sex.

At the birth of a girl in Athens, woollen fillets were hung upon the door of the house to indicate the sex of the child, the olive wreath being used to proclaim the birth of a boy. This custom demonstrates the relative importance of son and daughter in the eyes of the parents and the public. The son was destined for all the victories that public life and the prestige of the State can give; therefore, the olive, symbol of victory, served to make known his advent. The daughter's life was to be one of domestic duties, hence the band of wool, with its connotation of spinning and weaving, was a fitting emblem of the career for which the babe was destined. The plan of a Greek house indicates how secluded woman's whole life was to be. In the interior part of the Greek mansion, separated from the front of the building by a door, lay the gyncæconitis, or women's apartments, usually built around a court. Here were bedrooms, dining-rooms, the nursery, the rooms for spinning and weaving, where the lady of the house sat at her wheel. This was, in brief, the feminine domain.

In the seclusion of the gyncæconitis, the girl-child was reared by its mother and nurse. Her playthings--dishes, toy spindles, and dolls--were such as to cultivate her taste for domestic duties. No regular public and systematized instruction was provided for a girl; no education was deemed necessary, for her life was to be devoted to the household, away from the world of affairs. But though there were no schools for maidens to attend, reading and writing and the fundamentals of knowledge were regularly imparted by a loving mother or a faithful nurse. The frescoed walls made the girls acquainted with the stories of mythology, and music and the recitation of poetry were frequent sources of instruction and recreation in the homes of the well-to-do. The maidens were, above all, made proficient in the strictly feminine arts of housekeeping, spinning, weaving, and embroidery. They were rigidly excluded from any intercourse with the other sex, and their contact with the outside world was confined to participation in the religious festivals, which occupied so large a part in the everyday life of the Greeks. "When I was seven years of age," says the chorus of Athenian women in the Lysistrata of Aristophanes, "I carried the mystic box in the procession; then, when I was ten, I ground the cakes for our patron goddess; and, clad in a saffron-colored robe, I was the bear at the Brauronian festival; and I carried the sacred basket when I became a beautiful girl." Such were the opportunities granted to the highborn Athenian maiden for occasional glimpses of the splendor and activity of her native city; and can we doubt that on such occasions she was impressed by the sublimity of the temples and works of art, and that there were cast many modest glances at the handsome youths on horseback, who, in turn, were fascinated by the beauty and freshness of these tenderly nurtured maidens?

The seclusion of Athenian girls and the careful rearing which they received at the hands of mothers and nurses were such as to fit them to rule the home. The Athenian maiden was noted throughout Hellas for her modesty and sweetness. The intelligence was not cultivated, but the heart and sensibilities had ample scope for development in the duties and recreations of the gynæconitis and in the participation in religious exercises. Such a simple and peaceful rearing tended to preserve the delicacy of the soul and to keep unstained innocence and purity. When comparison is instituted with the Spartan system, preference must be given to the Athenian method of education, with all its defects. The sweet modesty imparted by seclusion was far more womanly than the boldness of bearing acquired by athletic exercises in the presence of young men. The Spartan system trained the woman for public life, to be the patriotic mother of warriors; the Athenian system prepared the maiden to be the guardian of the home, the affectionate and devoted mother.

When the maiden reached the age of fifteen, her parents began negotiations for her marriage. An Athenian marriage was essentially a matter of convenience, and was usually arranged by contract between the respective fathers of the youth and maiden. Equality of birth and fortune were generally the chief considerations in the selection of the son-in-law or the daughter-in-law; and in an atmosphere where the attractions of a maiden were so little known, a professional matchmaker frequently brought the interested parties together. Thus the rustic Strepsiades, in Aristophanes's Clouds, expresses the wish that the feminine matchmaker had perished miserably who had induced him to marry the haughty, luxurious, citified niece of aristocratic Megacles, son of Megacles.

The Homeric custom of bringing valuable presents or of performing valiant deeds to win a maiden's hand had long passed away, and, in the great days of Athens, the father had to provide a dowry consisting partly of cash, partly of clothes, jewelry, and slaves. Solon, who, as Plutarch tells us, wished to have marriages contracted from motives of pure love or kind affection, and to further the birth of children, rather than for mercenary considerations, decreed that no dowries should be given and that the bride should have only three changes of clothes; but this good custom had passed away with the era of simple living. So distinctly was the dowry the indispensable condition of marriage, that poor girls were often endowed by generous relatives, or the State itself would provide a wedding portion for the daughters of men deserving well of their country. For example, when the Athenians heard that the granddaughter of Aristogiton, the Tyrannicide, was in needy circumstances in the isle of Lemnos, and was so poor that nobody would marry her, they brought her back to Athens, married her to a man of good birth, and gave her a farm at Potamos for a marriage portion. The dowry was generally secured to the wife by rigid restrictions; in most cases of separation, the dowry reverted to the wife's parents; and though the husband's fortune might be confiscated, the marriage portion of the wife was exempt.

Of the ceremonies and formalities of marriage, the solemn betrothal was the first and most important, as it established the legality of the union; and it was at this ceremony that the dowry was settled upon the bride. In the presence of the two families, the father of the maiden addressed the bridegroom in the following formula: "That legitimate children may be born, I present you my daughter." The betrothed then exchanged vows by clasping their right hands or by embracing each other, and the maiden received a gift from her affianced as a token of love. The marriage usually followed close upon the betrothal.

The favorite month for the ceremony was named Gamelion, or the "marriage month"; this included part of our January and part of February. On the eve of the wedding, the good will of the divinities protecting marriage, especially Zeus Teleios, Hera Teleia, and Artemis Eukleia, was invoked by prayer and sacrifices.

Strange to say, the wedding itself, though given a religious character by its attendant ceremonies, was neither a religious nor a legal act. The legality of the marriage was established by the betrothal, while its religious aspect was found solely in the rites in honor of the marriage gods.

A second ceremony, universally observed, was the bridal bath, taken individually by both bride and bridegroom previously to their union. In Athens, from time immemorial, the water for this bath was taken from the sacred fountain, Callirrhoë, called since its enclosure by Pisistratus "Enneacrunus," or "the Nine Spouts." Authorities differ as to whether a boy or a girl served as water carrier on this occasion; but the latter supposition is supported by an archaic picture on a hydria, representing the holy fountain Callirrhoë flowing from the head of a lion under a Doric superstructure. A girl, holding in her hand branches of laurel or myrtle, looks musingly down on a hydria, which is being filled with the bridal water. Five other maidens are grouped about the fountain, some with empty pitchers awaiting their turn, others about to go home with their filled pitchers. No doubt it is in the month of marriage, and many maidens are preparing for the happy event.

On the wedding day, toward dark, a feast was held at the parental home, at which were gathered all the bridal party--for this was one of the few occasions in Athenian life when men and women dined together. Here the bride and groom appeared, clad in purple and crowned with flowers sacred to Aphrodite. The distinctive mark of the bride was the veil, which covered her head and partly concealed her face. All the guests wore wreaths in honor of the joyous event. With her own hand the bride plucked the poppies and sesame which were to crown her forehead, for it would have been an ill omen to wear a nuptial wreath that had been purchased.

Soon the banquet is concluded with libations and prayer, just as night begins to fall. Then the bride leaves the festively adorned parental home, and takes her place in a chariot, between the bridegroom and his best man, for the wedding journey to her new abode. The place of honor in the procession that follows is held by the bride's mother, who walks behind the chariot, carrying the wedding torches, which have been kindled at the family hearth, that the bride may have the sacred fire of her own home continued in her new dwelling. The festal company join in singing the wedding song to Hymenæus to the sound of flutes as the chariot leads slowly toward the bridegroom's house. At the close of the Birds of Aristophanes, when occurs the wedding of Pisthetærus and Basileia, the chorus attends the wedded pair with the following lines:

"Jupiter, that god sublime,

When the Fates in former time

Matched him with the Queen of Heaven

At a solemn banquet given,

Such a feast was held above,

And the charming God of Love

Being present in command,

As a bridegroom took his stand

With the golden reins in hand,

Hymen, Hymen, Ho!"

The new home, like that of the bride's father, is adorned with garlands of laurel and ivy--the laurel for the husband, as the symbol of victory, and the delicate and graceful ivy for the bride, embodying her attachment for her husband, as that of the ivy for the sturdy oak. At the door, the bridegroom's mother is awaiting the young couple, with the burning torches in her hand. As the spouses enter, a shower of sweetmeats is poured upon their heads, partly in jest, partly to symbolize the abundance and prosperity invoked upon them. To typify the bride's new duties as mistress of the house, a pestle used for bruising corn has been hung up near the bridal chamber; and in conformity to another custom, prevailing since the days of Solon, she is expected to eat a quince, which was considered to be a symbol of fruitfulness. Soon the bridegroom's mother attends the couple to the thalamos, or nuptial chamber, where, for the first time, the bride unveils herself to her husband. Meanwhile, before the door, the bride's attendants, crowned with hyacinth, join in the epithalamium, or marriage hymn, a characteristic specimen of which we possess in the bridal hymn to Helen, by Theocritus:

"Slumberest so soon, sweet bridegroom?

Art thou overfond of sleep?

Or hast thou leaden-weighted limbs?

Or hast thou drunk too deep

When thou didst fling thee to thy lair?

Betimes thou shouldst have sped,

If sleep were all thy purpose,

Unto thy bachelor's bed,

And left her in her mother's arms,

To nestle and to play,

A girl among her girlish mates,

Till deep into the day:--

For not alone for this night,

Nor for the next alone,

But through the days and through the years

Thou hast her for thine own."

"Sleep on, and love and longing

Breathe in each other's breast,

But fail not when the morn returns

To rouse you from your rest;

With dawn shall we be stirring,

When, lifting high his fair

And feathered neck, the earliest bird

To clarion to the dawn is heard.

O God of brides and bridals,

Sing, 'Happy, happy pair!'"

A fragment of Anacreon has preserved for us an example of the morning nuptial chant, sung by the chorus to greet the bride and groom on their awakening:

"Aphrodite, queen of goddesses; Love, powerful conqueror; Hymen, source of life: it is of you that I sing in my verses. 'Tis of you I chant, Love, Hymen, and Aphrodite. Behold, young man, behold thy wife! Arise, O Straticlus, favored of Aphrodite, husband of Myrilla, admire thy bride! Her freshness, her grace, her charms, make her shine among all women. The rose is queen of flowers; Myrilla is a rose midst her companions. Mayst thou see grow in thy house a son like to thee!"

Then begins a second fête day for the bridal pair. Husband and wife receive visits and gifts from relatives and friends, and exchange presents with each other. The festivities are concluded with a banquet in the husband's home, at which the wife's position in the clan of her husband's family is recognized; and she may now appear without her veil, as the mistress of her new home.

Wedding scenes are frequently the subject of illustration in antique art. The most remarkable of these is the splendid wall painting known as the Aldobrandini Wedding, preserved in the Vatican. It represents, painted on one surface, three different scenes of the marriage ceremony. The central picture represents a chamber of the gynoe onitis, where the bride, chastely veiled, reclines on a beautiful couch; "Peitho, the goddess of persuasion, sits by her side, as appears from the crown on her head and from the many-folded peplus falling over her back. She pleads the bridegroom's cause, and seems to encourage the timorous maiden. A third female figure, to the left of the group, leaning on a piece of a column, seems to expect the girl's surrender; for she is pouring ointment from an alabastron into a vase made of shell, so as to have it ready for use after the bridal bath. Most likely she represents the second handmaiden of Aphrodite, Charis, who, according to the myth, bathed and anointed her mistress with ambrosial oil in the holy grove of Paphos. The pillar at the back of Charis indicates the partition wall between this chamber and the one next to it on the left. We here see a large basin filled with water, standing on a columnar base. The water is perhaps that of the well Callirrhoë, fetched by the young girl standing close by for the nuptial bath. The girl seems to look inquiringly at the matronly figure approaching the basin on the other side, and putting her fingers into the water as if to test its warmth. Her sublime form and priestly dress, together with the leaf-shaped instrument in her hand (probably the instrument used at lustrations), seem to portray her as Hera Teleia, the protecting goddess of marriage, in the act of examining and blessing the bridal bath. The third scene of the picture is placed at the entrance of the bride's house. The bridegroom, crowned with vine branches, is sitting on the threshold, as if listening impatiently for the close of the ceremony inside the house. In front of him is a group of three maidens, one of whom seems to be making an offering at a portable altar, while the other two begin the hymenæus to the accompaniment of the cithara."

With the completion of the marriage ceremonies, the maiden has passed from the gynæconitis of her father to that of her husband; but, though still under masculine control, she is absolute mistress of her limited sphere; yet she is expected to refrain from manifesting interest in the public affairs of her husband and to confine her attention to her domestic duties.

writes the poet; and this couplet expresses the Athenian husband's idea of the wife's proper sphere of activity. His life is essentially an outdoor one. The market place, a the law courts, the numerous colonnades, are the centres of his activity, where he passes his time in attending to business, in discussing politics, in telling or hearing some new thing. His recreations consist in visiting the palæstræ or the gymnasia, the clubhouses of ancient Greece, and in participating with his chosen friends in banquets at which beautiful flute players and cultivated hetæræ afford pastime and amusement. He passes but little time at home.

Meanwhile, the wife superintends the slaves and assigns them their several duties; she looks after the stores, utensils, and furnishings of the household; she presides over the kitchen; she nurses the sick; and, above all, she devotes her attention to the careful rearing of the children, whose prattle breaks the otherwise monotonous existence of the women's apartments. Occasionally, she visits her friends, or receives them in her house; but the gathering of women was discouraged by the husbands, who believed the effect of gossip to be matrimonial discontent.

Religious ceremonies occupied a large part of feminine life, and women over sixty might attend any funerals to which inclination called them; and funerals among the Greeks, save in isolated cases, were not hopelessly solemn affairs. These elderly women were also privileged to attend memorial exercises in honor of the distinguished dead, and it was on an occasion such as this that Thucydides puts into the mouth of Pericles the famous dictum, expressing so aptly the Athenian conception of the ideal woman: "The best wife is the one of whom the least is said, either of good or evil." The tortoise was the symbol of feminine life--the creature that never goes out of her shell. Lycurgus draws a dramatic picture of the receipt of the news at Athens of the fateful day at Chæronea, when the Athenian women stood in the doors of their houses, making inquiries concerning husbands and brothers and fathers, but not, as might have been expected, gathering in the streets to discuss the terrible tidings.

Although their opportunities for social life were so limited, the Athenian women devoted much time to their toilet. Bathing was a daily habit, and was attended by anointing with oils and fragrant essences. The dignity and grace of Athenian dress are admirably illustrated by the drapery of the female forms which support the roof of the southern portico of the Erechtheum. The tunic, with its overhanging diplois, fastened round the hips by means of a girdle, was gracefully arranged in symmetrical folds. Linen was usually the material employed, and white was the favorite color among modest Greek women; yet particolored Oriental garments were also worn. Dresses were frequently adorned with inwoven patterns and attached borders and embroideries. The outer garment was the mantle, or peplos, shaped like a shawl and capable of a variety of picturesque drapings. The headdress of women was simple. Hats were not worn, except on journeys, and, beyond the customary veil, the chief ornament was a band for holding together the plentiful hair. This was frequently knotted at the top of the head and fastened by pins of gold and silver, the tops of which were shaped like the pineapple or the lotus flower; sometimes the front hair was arranged in small ringlets, while the back hair partly fell smoothly over the neck, and partly descended below the shoulders in long curls. Frequently, ribbons were used to bind the hair, adorned, where it rested on the forehead, with a plaque of metal formed like a frontal, called the stephané; or a band of cloth or leather was used, broad in the centre and growing narrower at the ends, styled sphendoné from its similarity to a sling. Sandals were the usual form of footwear, and variety was given by the length and graceful folding of the straps. Exquisite simplicity was also seen in the jewelry. The chief ornament was the necklace; these were sometimes composed of balls of gold and garnets intermingled, or of emeralds alternating with fine pearls and attached by little chains. Bracelets owe their Greek name to the form they were generally given--that of a serpent. They were usually worn on the wrist, sometimes on the upper arm, and sometimes even about the ankle. At times, bracelets were merely circlets of gold. Sometimes they were adorned with medallions at intervals, sometimes they were set with emeralds, garnets, or pearls. The ear-rings were of graceful form, sometimes representing a swan in black enamel, with bill, wings, feet, and tail of gold, sometimes a dove on a delicate pedestal, a bunch of grapes with a golden stem, or a sphinx, or a panther's head. The clasps or buckles which bound the tunic or the peplus, usually shaped in the form of an arc, exhibited rare beauty. Rings, set with carnelian, agate, sardonyx, amethyst, and other gems, and brooches of every variety, completed the ornaments in the jewel cases of the Athenian women.

In disclosing the secrets of the Athenian toilet, love of truth compels us to state that these fair dames had recourse to the use of cosmetics, perhaps to overcome the paleness of complexion incident to lack of outdoor life. Cheeks and lips were given a ruddy hue by the use of minium, or the root of the alkanet; eyebrows were darkened by applying pulverized antimony; and dark hair could be changed to blonde by the use of a certain powder, which gave a golden tint, much sung of by poets.

When one reads of the great attention paid by the Athenian women to the cultivation of grace of form, of taste in dress, and of beauty of feature, it is hard to realize that such charms were confined to the women's apartments, and merely revealed themselves to the outside world on festive occasions.

Though the gallantry of modern times was not a part of the habitual equipment of an Athenian gentleman, yet he was very careful as to his behavior in the presence of ladies. There was strict observance of the etiquette which controlled the relations of the sexes. No gentleman would enter an abode of women in the absence of the master, and unbecoming language in the presence of women was a gross offence. The husband carefully abstained in his wife's presence from doing anything that might lower her estimation of his dignity. A certain distance was apparently maintained between married persons, and cordial familiarity was sometimes sacrificed to love of social forms. No doubt, too, fine breeding and true courtesy were generally shown the wife and ruler of his home by the Athenian husband who, like Agathon in the Symposium of Plato, exhibited the most delicate tact and sentiment in his treatment of men.

In the peaceful atmosphere of the home, the Athenian gentlewoman was expected to live an irreproachable life. Infidelity on the part of the husband was regarded as a venial office, but the wife who violated her marriage vows was punished with the most terrible disgrace. Should she marry again, the man who ventured to wed her was disfranchised. She was to all intents and purposes an outcast from society. If she appeared in a temple, she might be subjected to any indignity short of death. Furthermore, a man could divorce his wife on the slightest pretext; while the wife, to obtain a divorce, was compelled to lodge with the archon a complaint against her husband and a prayer for the return of her dowry, and in the ensuing process she was subjected to many delays and inconveniences. Then, as she was still a minor in the eyes of the law, a wife who had left her husband was obliged to return to a state of tutelage under her father or brother; and many a suffering wife endured in silence neglect or ill usage rather than thus return to her father's control. Yet many a high-spirited woman revolted against the infidelities of her husband. The saddest incident of this marital inequality that we find in Greek literature is the story of Alcibiades's wife, Hipparete, and her case shows how difficult it was for a wife to assert her rights. Hipparete's early death leaves on the reader the impression that her heart was broken by her brilliant husband's inconstancy and brutality.

"Hipparete," writes Plutarch, "was a virtuous and dutiful wife, but at last growing impatient because of the outrages done to her by her husband's continual entertaining of hetæræ, strangers as well as Athenians, she departed from him and retired to her brother's house. Alcibiades seemed not at all concerned at this, and lived on still in the same luxury; but the law required that she should deliver to the archon, in person, and not by proxy, the instrument by which she claimed a divorce; and when, in obedience thereto, she presented herself before the archon to perform this, Alcibiades came in, caught her up, and carried her home through the market place, no one daring to oppose him or to take her from him. She continued with him till her death, which happened not long after, when Alcibiades had gone to Ephesus."

We find in Xenophon's remarkable treatise on Domestic Economy an interesting description of the method pursued by a model Greek gentleman in training for her domestic duties his young wife, a tender girl of fifteen, reared under the strictest restraint to the end that she might "see as little, hear as little, and ask as few questions as possible."

He was not content that his young wife should simply know the ordinary household duties of spinning and weaving, and directing her maid, but he wished to educate her so that she might have larger conceptions of her sphere as well as the ability to understand what was desirable for the happiness of both. The account which the model husband, Ischomachus, gives in his dialogue with Socrates of his experience in wife training throws many sidelights on the marriage relations of the Athenians and the philosophy of their system. As soon as the child-wife was properly domesticated, so that she dared to converse freely, her husband began to talk to her of their mutual responsibilities and to inculcate those lessons which would be to their mutual advantage. She was now, he goes on, the mistress of his house; henceforth everything should be theirs in common--the caring for their fortune, as well as the education of the children whom the gods might grant them. He will never question which of them has done the more to increase their common store, but each shall strive to contribute largely to that fortune.

The young wife, in her astonishment at such words, asks: "How can I help you in this, or wherein can the little power I have do you any good? For my mother told me that both my fortune as well as yours was wholly at your command, and that it must be my chief care to live virtuously and soberly."

ISCHOMACHUS.--This is true, good wife; but it is the part of a sober husband and virtuous wife not only to preserve the fortune they are possessed of, but to contribute equally to improve it.

WIFE.--And what do you see in me that you believe me capable of assisting in the improvement of your fortune? ISCHOMACHUS.--Use your endeavor, good wife, to do those things which are acceptable to the gods and are appointed by the law for you to do.

Ischomachus then enumerates the things which are acceptable to the gods and appointed by the law, and determines the limits which separate the duties of man from those of woman. He says: "The wisdom of the divinity has prepared the union of the two sexes, and has made of marriage an association useful to each one,--a union which will secure for them, in their children, support in their old age.

"It is man's duty to acquire food, to be busied with field work, to care for flocks, and to defend himself against enemies. Therefore the god has given him strength and courage. The woman must care for and prepare the food, weave garments, and rear the children. Therefore the god has given her a delicate physique which will keep her in the home, an exquisite tenderness of heart which brings about her maternal care and love and a watchful vigilance for the safety of her little ones.

"Since they are united for their common advantage, they are endowed with the same faculties of memory and diligence. Both are endowed with the same force of soul to refrain from things harmful, and the one who practises this virtue the more has, by the grace of the divinity, the better recompense. However," he adds, "as they are not equally perfect, they have the more occasion for each other's assistance; for when man and woman are thus united, what the one has occasion for is supplied by the other."

Ischomachus then shows that in well performing their respective functions husband and wife conform themselves to the rules of the good and the beautiful. If the wife leave the home, or the husband remain there, he or she is violating the laws of nature. He compares the duties of the wife to those of the queen bee, which, without leaving the hive, extends her activity around her, sends others to the field, receives and stores away provisions as they are brought, watches over the construction of cells, and brings up the little bees.

There is one duty of which he tells her with hesitation--the caring for the slaves when they may be ill. But to his great joy she responds: "That is surely an act of charity, and becoming every good-natured mistress, for we cannot oblige people more than by helping them when they are sick. This will surely engage the love of our servants to us and make them doubly diligent to us on every occasion."

He answers: "By reason of the good care and tenderness of the queen bee, all the rest of the hive are so affectionate to her, that whenever she is disposed to go abroad the whole colony belonging to her accompany and attend upon their queen."

The thought of being queen startles the young girl, whose education has taught her that passive obedience is the first duty of a wife. Her husband has placed in her hands a sceptre which she thinks herself unable to wield. She therefore says:

"Dear Ischomachus, tell me, is not the business of the mistress bee what you ought to do rather than myself? or have you not a share in it? For my keeping at home and directing my servants will be of little account, unless you send home such provisions as are necessary to employ us."

ISCHOMACHUS.--And my providence would be of little use, unless there is one at home who is ready to receive and take care of those goods that I send home. Have you not observed what pity people show to those who are punished by being sentenced to pour water into sieves until they are full? The occasion of pity is because those people labor in vain.

WIFE.--I esteem those people to be truly miserable who have no benefit from their labors.

THE GRECIAN TOILETTE
From an antique vase

The Greek women took great care of their bodies. It was their habit after bathing to anoint themselves with perfume, pastes or liquids, pomades, and oils. Nos. 1, 2 and 6 exhibits the basin, supplied with perfumed water. The figure at No. 6 is washing from her hair the color of powder which had been applied the evening before. The colors used might be black, red, silver, gold, or any other tint, according to taste. The eyebrows were tinted to harmonize. Nos. 9 and 10 represent the application of oil, which followed completion of the coiffure. Nos. 3 and 4 exhibit the slave's simple dress and the rich transparent costume of the lady. The mirrors, Nos. 4, 5, and 11, were framed in ivory or chiselled silver, ornamented with precious stones. One of the fêtes in honor of Minerva was that of the Parasols, which were often made of silk, see No. 7.

ISCHOMACHUS.--Suppose, dear wife, you take into your service one who can neither card nor spin, and you teach her to do those things, will it not be an honor to you? Or if you take a servant who is negligent and does not understand how to do her business, or has been given to pilfering, and you make her diligent and instruct her in the manners of a good servant, and teach her honesty, will you not rejoice in your success, and will you not be pleased with your action? So, when you see your servants sober and discreet, you should encourage and show them favor. But those who are incorrigible and will not follow your directions you must punish. Consider how laudable it will be for you to excel others in the well-ordering of your house. Be therefore diligent, virtuous, and modest, and give your necessary attendance on me, your children, and your house, and your name shall be honorably esteemed, even after your death; for it is not the beauty of your face and form, but your virtue and goodness, which will bring you honor and esteem that will last forever."

Thus does he conclude his first discourse with his wife on the subject of her duties, and she is diligent to learn and to practise what has been taught her. When, a little later, he asks her to find him a parcel which he had brought home, and she, with flushed cheeks and troubled look, has to confess that she is unable to find it, he takes this occasion to talk to her on order and harmony in all things. He tells her not to be grieved over her failure to find the parcel, as it is his fault for not having assigned a definite place for each thing. He shows her how everything is perfectly arranged in a chorus, in a large army, and in the crew of a vessel, that all may be done harmoniously and in order. "Let us therefore fix upon a proper place where our stores may be laid up, not only in security, but where they may be so disposed that we may know where to look for every particular thing. By this means, we shall know what we gain and what we lose; and in surveying our storehouses, we shall be able to judge what is necessary to be brought in or what may want repairing and what will be impaired by keeping." With the simplicity natural to men of high intelligence, he does not hesitate to confess that he finds beauty even in kitchen utensils orderly arranged.

The young wife is enchanted at his idea, and they go through the house assigning a place for each thing; they distribute duties to the slaves, and give them other instructions, with the endeavor to win their affections and elevate their characters. Ischomachus then tells her that all care will be useless if the mistress of the house do not watch to see that the established order is not disturbed. Comparing her to magistrates who make the laws of a city respected, he adds: "This, dear wife, I chiefly commend to you, that you may look upon yourself as chief overseer of the laws within our house."

He tells her that it is within her jurisdiction to oversee everything in the house, as a garrison commander inspects his soldiers; that she has as great power in her own home as a queen, to distribute rewards to the virtuous and diligent and to punish those who deserve it. He desires her not to be displeased that he has intrusted more to her than to any of the servants, for they have not the same incentive to preserve those things which are not their own but hers.

Up to this time, it is the loving and inexperienced child who has been conversing with her husband. Now, it is the woman, the mistress of the house, who says:

"It would have been a great grief to me if, instead of those good rules you instruct me in for the welfare of our house, you had directed me to have no regard to the possessions I am endowed with; for as it is natural for a good woman to be careful and diligent about her own children rather than to have a disregard for them, so it is no less agreeable and pleasant to a woman, who has any share of sense, to look after the affairs of her family rather than to neglect them."

The great Socrates admires much the wisdom of his friend's wife, and adds, asking Ischomachus to continue the narrative: "It is far more delightful to hear the virtuous woman described than if the famous painter Zeuxis were to show me the portrait of the fairest woman in the world."

This dialogue between husband and wife is doubtless typical of the relations between married couples in the Athenian household, and in the girl-wife one may recognize the innocence and ingenuousness of the average maiden of fifteen transferred from the seclusion of her girlhood life at home to the seclusion of married life in her husband's house. It is noticeable that in the training provided by Ischomachus no provision whatever is made for intellectual discipline, or for social obligations, which leaves the reader to infer that the career of the wife was to be a purely domestic one, and that her aspirations must be confined within the walls of her house.

While such implicit obedience was the rule, however, there were notable exceptions to such ingenuousness on the part of the wife, and there were doubtless many instances where the wife was the ruling power of the household because of mental superiority, domineering disposition, or amount of dower. Human nature is much the same the world over, and strong personality in women demanded expression in ancient as well as in modern times. It is also true that there were instances of beautiful affection between husband and wife, though the fact that such were much talked of proves that conjugal love was the exception, not the rule.

It is a pity that we do not know more of the wives and sisters and mothers of great Athenians, as the few of whom we know are of unusual interest. Many wives enjoyed the hearty admiration and companionship of their husbands. Cimon, in spite of occasional lapses on his part, had an unusually passionate affection for his wife, Isodice, and was filled with bitterest grief at her death. Socrates mentions Niceratus as "one who was in love with his wife and loved by her." There is a pleasing anecdote of Themistocles, told us by Plutarch, which shows where in his household lay the seat of authority. "Laughing at his own son, who got his mother, and, through his mother, his father also, to indulge him, he told him he had the most power of anyone in Greece, 'for the Athenians command the rest of Greece, I command the Athenians, your mother commands me, and you command your mother.'"

Plutarch also relates of the great statesman that of two who made love to his daughter, he preferred the man of worth to the one who was rich, saying that he desired a man without riches rather than riches without a man! The most pleasing, however, among the wives of great Athenians is the wife of Phocion, the incorruptible, as she is presented to us in the pages of Plutarch. The latter describes Phocion's simple way of living, and speaks of his wife as employed in kneading bread with her own hands. "She was," he continues, "renowned no less among the Athenians for her virtues and simple living than was Phocion for his probity." It happened once when the people were entertained with a new tragedy, that the actor, as he was about to enter the stage to perform the part of a queen, demanded to have a number of attendants, sumptuously dressed, to follow in his train; and when they were not provided, he became sullen and refused to act, keeping the audience waiting, till at last Melanthius, who had to furnish the chorus, pushed him on the stage, crying out: "What! don't you know that Phocion's wife is never attended by more than a single waiting-woman, but you must needs be grand, and fill our women's heads with vanity?" This speech, spoken loud enough to be heard, was received with great applause. Phocion's wife herself once said to a visitor from Ionia, who showed her all her rich ornaments made of gold and set with jewels, her wreaths, necklaces, and the like: "For my part, all my ornament is my husband Phocion, now for the twentieth year in office as general at Athens."

Aristotle said many things which are quoted as suggesting his low estimate of the weaker sex, but he loved with great tenderness his wife Pythias, niece and adopted daughter of his friend Hermias, ruler of Atarneus and Assos in Mysia. When she died after a few brief years of wedded life, Aristotle gave directions that at his own death the two bodies should be placed side by side in the same tomb. When his own death came, he left behind a second wife, Herpyllis, whose virtues he esteemed, and he besought his friends to care for her, and to provide her with another husband should she wish to marry again.

These instances of domestic affection dissolve the cold logic of rigid theory, and prove how, in spite of legislation and convention, love is lord of all, and that among the Athenians happy married life was not unknown.

Nor was the strong-minded woman altogether lacking in Athens, for there was Elpinice, sister of Cimon, who, taking the Spartan women as her model, went about alone, and did many other things which shocked the staid Athenian matrons. Unpleasant remarks were made about her--as in the case of every woman who defies convention: among them, that she was over intimate with Polygnotus the painter, who portrayed her as Laodice in his fresco of the Trojan women in the Stoa Poikile. But the essence of this scandal may have been merely that she served the painter as a model, at a time when few women would have dared to visit an artist's studio. To her brother Cimon she proved a devoted sister. Once, when he was on trial for his life, she pleaded with Pericles so earnestly that acquittal was the result; and later she arranged with this great rival the negotiations that led to Cimon's return from banishment. So lovable was she that Callias, one of the richest men in Athens, fell violently in love with her, and offered to pay the fine to which her father was condemned, if he could obtain the daughter in marriage; and with Elpinice's own consent, Cimon betrothed her to Callias.

We have reserved a brief consideration of the best known of all Athenian women, one who defies all out notions regarding the prevailing conventions--Xanthippe, wife of the philosopher Socrates. From all accounts, it seems likely that she was an aristocratic lady, in reduced circumstances, who had married Socrates when advanced in life, she herself being beyond the years at which women usually marry, yet a score of years younger than her husband. Socrates once said he married her for the excitement of conquest, just as one would enjoy the breaking of a high-spirited horse; but, at any rate, the philosopher was worsted, and Xanthippe ruled the household. Xanthippe has acquired the reputation of being the typical scold of antiquity. Doubtless this reputation is not without foundation, yet she should have our sympathy, for the strangest and most difficult of husbands fell to her lot. Her naturally infirm temper must have been tried beyond endurance by the calm unconcern of her husband toward the domestic problem of "making both ends meet." Ugly, careless of dress, keeping bad company, given to trances, utterly neglectful of his family--can one be surprised that the wife of such a man should lose all patience with him, and through repeated failures to improve him should by degrees become an arch termagant? Yet the stories of Xanthippe's temper rest on uncertain authority, and her reputation may be due largely to the fact that it was necessary for the story mongers to provide a foil for the always serene and placid philosopher. Plato, the most reliable authority, tells us nothing disparaging of Xanthippe, and the violent grief he attributes to her at the last parting suggests a high degree of affection for her phlegmatic spouse. Socrates preferred philosophical discussions with his friends to the society of his wife in his last hours of life, but he committed her and her children tenderly to their care. Thus parted the ill-assorted pair, each of whom has attained world-wide celebrity--the one as the world's philosopher, the other as the proverbial shrew.

In the early days of the Athenian democracy, women were powerful influences in civic matters, as is instanced in the case of Cylon and his conspirators, all of whom were ruthlessly slain except those who fell at the feet of the archons' wives, who in pity saved them. Herodotus tells a story which shows the intense interest of the Athenian women in public affairs in early times. There was always great rivalry between Athens and the neighboring island of Ægina. At one time, the Athenians demanded of the Æginetans the fulfilment of certain conditions regarding the statues of Attic olive wood which the latter had stolen from the Epidaurians. "The people of Ægina refused; and the members of an expedition sent against them, attempting to drag away the sacred statues with ropes, were seized with madness and destroyed, one after another, so that only one man returned alive to Athens. This man, recounting the disasters, was surrounded by the women whose husbands had been killed, and each one pierced him with the bodkin that fastened her garment; so that he died under their hands. The conduct of these women filled the Athenians with horror, and, as a punishment, they obliged all the women of Athens to give up the Dorian dress which they wore, and instead to clothe themselves with the Ionian tunic, which had no need of any pin to fasten it."

Under the tyrants, the women of aristocratic families throughout Hellas possessed an influence which was lost under the levelling process of democracy. Pisistratus, after his first banishment, furthered the reestablishment of his tyranny by wedding the daughter of Megacles, and thus winning for himself the influence of the powerful Alcmæonidæ. He worshipped Athena as his patron goddess, and, to give proper religious sanction to his return, arranged a singular ceremony, which Herodotus regards as "the most ridiculous that was ever imagined," but which introduces to us the most beautiful Athenian maiden of the times:

"In the Pæanian tribe, there was a woman named Phya, four cubits tall, and in other respects handsome. Having dressed this woman in a complete suit of armor, and placed her in a chariot, and instructed her how to assume a becoming demeanor, the followers of Pisistratus drove her to the city, having sent heralds before to proclaim: 'O Athenians, welcome back Pisistratus, whom Athena herself, honoring above all men, now conducts back to her own citadel!' Thus the report was spread about that the goddess Athena was bringing back Pisistratus; and the people, believing it to be true, paid worship to the woman, and allowed Pisistratus to return." The return was most happily effected, and, soon after, the usurper celebrated the marriage of this "counterfeit presentment" of the goddess to one of his sons.

Woman was to continue to play a fateful part in the history of the usurped power of Pisistratus. The tyrant ill-treated his young wife, and this threw her father, Megacles, again into the party of the opposition. Pisistratus was once more driven from Athens, and this time from Attica as well. But he returned a third time, and established his power so firmly that at his death he bequeathed it to his sons unimpaired. Hippias and Hipparchus ruled wisely at first, and carried on the many public works in which Pisistratus had engaged; but their downfall finally came through an insult to a highborn Athenian maiden, and the story as told by Thucydides shows how highly a sister's honor was cherished at Athens.

Harmodius, an aristocratic young Athenian, had rejected the friendship of Hipparchus, preferring that of Aristogiton, a citizen of modest station. The tyrant basely avenged himself. After summoning a sister of Harmodius to come to take part in a certain procession as bearer of one of the sacred vessels, Hippias and Hipparchus publicly rejected the maiden when she presented herself in her festal dress, asserting that they had not invited her to participate, as she was unworthy of the honor.

Harmodius was very indignant at this insult, and with his friend, who was equally incensed, formed a plot which led to the death of Hipparchus, though Harmodius was also killed in the prosecution of the plan. Aristogiton was put to the torture; and tradition relates that Leæna, his mistress, was also tortured, and fearing lest in her agony she might betray any of the conspirators bit off her tongue. After the expulsion of the Pisistratidæ, the Athenians honored her memory by a bronze statue of a lioness without a tongue, which was set up on the Acropolis. The Athenians by this act showed their delight in a play on names, as Leæna is the Greek word for "lioness."

The Athenian woman has never had the reputation for patriotism that characterized her Spartan sister, yet at times she showed an almost superhuman devotion to the State. After the sack of Athens by Mardonius and his troops in the Persian War, a senator, Lycidas, advised his fellow countrymen to accept the terms which were offered them by the Persian general. The Athenians in scorn stoned to death the man who could suggest such a cowardly deed. And the women, hearing what their husbands had done, passed the word on to one another, and, gathering together, they went of their own accord to the house of Lycidas and inflicted the same punishment on his wife and children--a cruel act, but one showing their love of country and their hatred of treason.

These women, who could be so ruthless when patriotism was involved, knew how to be genuine comforters when their own loved ones were in trouble. The orator Andocides and his companions were tried and imprisoned for impiety in violating the Eleusinian mysteries. "When," says Isocrates, "we had all been bound in the same chamber, and it was night, and the prison had been closed, there came to one his mother, to another his sister, to another his wife and children, and there was woe and lamentation as they wept over their misfortunes."

In so brilliant a race, it was impossible that some women should not rise above the surface and, by extraordinary virtue and by intellectual and spiritual endowments of a high order, win the lasting regard of men.

ASPASIA

The period in Greek history when the intellectual and artistic life of Hellas reached its zenith is known as the Golden Age of Pericles. The lofty ideals of this greatest of Greek statesmen incited him to make Athens the seat of a mighty empire that should spread the noblest and most elevating influences throughout all Hellas. He called to his assistance all the great men of his native city, and made also the fine arts serve as handmaidens of Athens and contribute to her power and splendor. Every condition was present for the realization of an intellectual and artistic epoch such as the world had never witnessed. At the disposal of Pericles was an inexhaustible treasury--the accumulation of the tribute of subject allies. The quarries of Pentelicon offered in great abundance the material necessary for the erection of public buildings which might express in sensuous form the noblest ideals of the Greek race. There were in Athens statesmen, philosophers, artists, dramatists, historians, men preeminent in all departments of the higher life. Foremost among these was Pericles's friend and counsellor, Phidias, a "king in the domain of art, as Pericles was in political life."

"What an age it was, truly, when, as the companions of Pericles, there were assembled in one city Sophocles and Euripides, Herodotus and Thucydides, Meton and Hippocrates, Aristophanes and Phidias, Socrates and Anaxagoras, Appollodorus and Zeuxis, Polygnotus and Parrhasius;--in a city which had but lately lost Æschylus, and was soon to possess Xenophon, Plato, and Aristotle; a city which, moreover, to make the illustrious dead its own, erected statues to their memory!"

"What should we expect the pupils of such masters to be? What they were,--the masters of Greece. Thucydides says that Athens was at this time the instructress of Greece, as she was the source of its supplies. Behold this fine democracy going from the theatre of Sophocles to the Parthenon of Phidias, or to the Bema where Pericles speaks to them in the language of the gods; listening to Herodotus, who recounts the great collision between Europe and Asia; Hippocrates of Cos, and the Athenian Meton, of whom one founded the science of medicine, and the other, mathematical astronomy; Anaxagoras, who eliminates the idea of God as distinct from matter; Socrates, who establishes the principles of morals! What lessons were these! Art, history, poetry, philosophy--all take a sublime flight. There is no place for second-rate talent here. The art that Athens honors most is the greatest of all arts--architecture; her poetry is the drama--the highest expression of poetic genius, for it unites all forms in itself, as architecture calls all the other arts to its service. At this fortunate moment all is great, the power of Athens as well as the genius of the eminent men who guide the city and do it honor."

Such, in brief, is the picture of Athens in her greatest days, as drawn by an eminent historian. The splendor and supremacy of the city in this epoch were largely due to the constructive genius of one man--Pericles; and if we study his private life to the end that we may discover the formative influences which contributed to his greatness, we find that the chief source of his inspiration was a woman--the Milesian Aspasia, the most brilliant and cultured woman of classic times.

Aspasia ranks as one of the most remarkable women of all antiquity; and her ascendency as one of the foremost of her sex is due to the fact that she is the only woman whose name appears in the brilliant galaxy of the Periclean age and that the greatest leaders in that coterie of great men were glad to acknowledge their indebtedness to her for Instruction and inspiration. She is the only woman prominent in the life of Athens of whom much is known to us, and she has won for herself a place altogether unique in the history of Greek womanhood.

She was the daughter of one Axiochus, and was born and reared in Miletus, the most pleasure-loving and artistic of the cities of Asia Minor. The story of her childhood and youth is a closed book, but we know that she was carefully trained in rhetoric, music, and the fine arts, and became the possessor of every feminine accomplishment. Her preceptress is said to have been the celebrated Thargelia, also of Miletus, who exerted her power for the Great King during the Persian War and finally married one of the kings in Thessaly. How Aspasia was drawn to Athens is not known, but the most probable theory is that she settled there as a young and brilliant teacher of rhetoric, following the precedent established by Anaxagoras in philosophy and by Protagoras and other men in rhetoric, who found in Athens the most profitable field for the exercise of their talents. Here Aspasia gathered about her all the learned and accomplished men of Athens. She was no mere creature of pleasure, who ministered to luxury and lust; but by her beauty and culture she sought to draw to her the first men of the town, that she might learn of them as they of her. "Nor was it long before it was recognized that she enchained the souls of men by no mere arts of deception of which she had learned the trick. Hers was a lofty and richly endowed nature, with a perfect sense of the beautiful, and hers a harmonious and felicitous development. For the first time, the treasures of Hellenic culture were found in the possession of a woman, surrounded by the grace of her womanhood, a phenomenon which all men looked upon with eyes of wonder. She was able to converse with irresistible grace on politics, philosophy, and art, so that the most serious Athenians, even such men as Socrates, sought her out in order to listen to her conversation."

There could be nothing more natural than that when Pericles and Aspasia met the soul of each should discover in the other its affinity, Pericles was married to an Athenian kinswoman, but they did not find conjugal life altogether congenial, and by mutual agreement their marriage ties were dissolved and Pericles found for his wife another husband. He then took Aspasia to his home and called her his wife. They could not wed, for she was a foreigner, and their union in consequence lacked civil sanction; yet it was a real marriage in all but in name, based on the truest and tenderest affection, and dissolved only by death.

So remarkable was Pericles's devotion to Aspasia, that Plutarch records, as an indication of its sincerity, that the great Athenian kissed Aspasia upon going out in the morning and upon his return home--clearly an unusual occurrence in Athenian homes, or it would not have seemed worthy of mention. The possession of so rare a woman was doubtless in many respects invaluable to the great statesman. Plutarch states that the latter was first attracted to the Milesian by her wisdom and political sagacity. Socrates, who confessed also his own indebtedness to Aspasia, states that she was Pericles's teacher in the art of rhetoric, and could even write his speeches. Pericles was a reserved man, who devoted himself strictly to his official cares and refrained from social intercourse with those about him. Hence he found in Aspasia not only the delight of his leisure moments and a sympathizing friend and counsellor hi his perplexities, but also the link that connected him with the daily life about him. She knew how to be at ease in every kind of society; how to keep informed of everything that took place in the city that Pericles should know; how to keep in touch with the great movements throughout Hellas and to make them contribute to the glory of Athens: and in all these, and in many other respects, she proved of use to him in his political life.

It is probable that Aspasia was still in her twenties when Pericles first met her, while he himself was much older. She must have possessed a fascinating personality which at once captivated the great statesman; but, aside from her intellectual gifts, it is difficult in this day to analyze her charm. There is no positive evidence that she was beautiful, according to Greek standards, though this is the natural inference. Ancient writers call her the good, the wise, the eloquent; they speak of her "honey-colored" or golden hair, of her "silvery voice," of her "small, high-arched foot," but no writer of the time has expressly said that she was beautiful. In the museums of Europe, there are various busts on which her name is inscribed, but they impress us rather by the expression of earnest and deep thought, by the delicacy and distinction of the features, than by mere beauty. Her charm lay, no doubt, rather in her wisdom, her vivacity, her sweetness of utterance, than in perfection of form and feature. Aspasia made the home of Pericles the first salon that history has made known to us; and what woman ever gathered about her a more brilliant coterie of friends? With Phidias and his group of eminent artists, she talked of the embellishment of the Acropolis with beautiful temples and statues; with Anaxagoras and Socrates, she discussed the problems of philosophy and the narrow conservatism of the Athenians; with Sophocles and Euripides, she conversed concerning the works of the dramatists and the ideal women presented in their plays. Herodotus, perhaps, was the inimitable story teller of this learned circle, and the melancholy Thucydides dwelt on the dark tragedy underlying human events; no doubt the satirical Aristophanes sometimes attended, for the Platonic dialogues show us the social side of his nature, and, while in his plays he scorns the philosophical set, he found among them intellectual companionship; and the young and gay Alcibiades was doubtless frequently present, talking with the hostess of the latest events in the high life of the city, of betrothals and marriages, of scandals and escapades.

One of the sons of Pericles scoffed at this circle of intellectual lights, and made fun of their metaphysical speculations and learned talk; but this merely indicates that such a salon was an innovation in Athens, and, therefore, led to harsh criticism and unseemly gossip on the part of those who could not appreciate its privileges. Music, poetry, and wit relieved the serious discussion of politics, philosophy, and literature. The salon of Aspasia must have been altogether decorous, for many men broke the traditions of their fathers and brought their wives to converse about wifely duties with the famous hetæra. She seems to have thought earnestly and deeply on the duties and destiny of woman, to have realized how contracted were the lives of Athenian women, and to have wished to better their condition, Æschines, in one of his dialogues, gives us in her conversation with Xenophon and his wife Philesia a glimpse of her method.

"Tell me, Philesia," said Aspasia, "whether if your neighbor had a piece of gold of more value than your own, you would not choose it before your own?" "Yes," answered Philesia. "If she had a gown, or any of the female ornaments, better than yours, would not you choose them rather than your own?" "Yes," answered she. "But," said Aspasia, "if she had a husband of more merit than your own, would not you choose the former?" Upon this, Philesia blushed. Aspasia then addressed herself to Xenophon. "If your neighbor, Xenophon, had a horse better than your own, would you not choose him preferably to your own?" "Yes," answered he. "If he had an estate or a farm of more value than your own, which would you choose?" "The former," answered he; "that is, that which is of more value." "But if his wife were better than your own, would not you choose your neighbor's?" Xenophon was silent upon this question. Aspasia therefore proceeded thus: "Since both of you, then, have refused to answer me in that point only which I wanted you to satisfy me in, I will tell you myself what you both think: you, Philesia, would have the best of husbands, and you, Xenophon, the best of wives. And, therefore, if you do not endeavor that there be not a better husband and wife in the world than yourselves, you will always be wishing for that which you shall think best: you, Xenophon, will wish you might be married to the best of wives, and Philesia, that she might have the best of husbands."

Thus this brilliant and withal domestic woman would counsel women to be the best of wives, and men the most considerate of husbands, that each might find in the joys of home and in conjugal harmony their greatest felicity. Doubtless many a wife went away from her with higher conceptions of wifely duty than custom had taught her, and sought to make her home a more congenial retreat for her husband. Many, however, looked askance at these gatherings of men and women and could see nothing but evil in their violations of custom. Husbands, too, saw in these novel proceedings dangerous tendencies; for if their wives became emancipated, there would be a limit to their own pleasant indulgences. It was Aspasia who preeminently labored to this end. The status of woman at Athens was far from ideal, and the need tor reform was great; and if we endeavor to discover who was chiefly responsible for the agitation which had for its purpose the emancipation of woman from the thraldom in which she was held, we find that it was the wise and far-seeing Aspasia.

Owing to the intellectual awakening at Athens during the Periclean Age and the influx of new ideas from the various Hellenic countries, a liberal party had arisen in the city, chiefly under the leadership of Pericles and Anaxagoras--a radical party, headed by men of culture and science, who taught that knowledge was power, who despised the established religion, and who set at naught the domestic manners of the day by seeking to elevate woman. Socrates, also, was heartily in sympathy with the objects of this party, as was the dramatist Euripides. On the other side were the ultra-conservatives, of whom Cimon and Aristophanes were representatives. The latter frequently made Pericles, Aspasia, Socrates, and Euripides the subjects of his satire. These Tories of the day saw in the tenets of the new party the subversion of all the principles of the old democracy, and they fought most bitterly to preserve established institutions. Toward the close of Xenophon's treatise on Domestic Economy, Critobulus, who has been impressed by the story of Ischomachus, wishes to learn how he too, may educate his young wife, and Socrates advises him to consult with Aspasia. The profound deference in which she was held by all the philosophers is a further indication that from her they had derived many of their advanced ideas regarding the relations of the sexes. Hence while positive evidence is lacking, incidental touches and sidelights on the Woman Question point unerringly to the one great woman of ancient Athens as the originator of the first movement for the emancipation of woman recorded in history.

As Aspasia, through her intercourse with the great, had attained unbounded influence in the State, and as her circle was the exponent of the ideas which offended the conventional spirit, it was natural that she should be involved in the storm of criticism that befell the leaders of thought. As a woman who had stepped out of the beaten track of womanhood, she was made the subject of the coarsest slanders. She was called the Hera to this Zeus, Pericles, the Omphale, the Deianira of the Heracles of the day; her girl friends and pupils, who enjoyed the same liberty she claimed for herself, were most violently defamed; she was said to have induced, for the basest of reasons, Pericles to bring on the Peloponnesian and Samian wars. The comic poets, as the chief organs of the opposition, engaged in this most merciless and unjust tirade against the party of the philosophers. None of their charges, however, can be said to have had any basis in fact, and all may easily be accounted for when the envy and hatred of the ignorant toward the beautiful and accomplished and independent woman is taken into consideration. In the Athens of the fifth century before our era, when people were just beginning to break away from the narrow conservatism of centuries, a woman who enjoyed an unheard-of degree of liberty, and because of her talents was regarded with admiration by the greatest men of the city, might well be the target for the grossest abuse. A vicious woman would be the last to undertake, as did Aspasia, the study of philosophy, which, with Socrates, was the study of virtue.

The party of the philosophers suffered for their opinions, Phidias was accused of theft, and died in prison; Anaxagoras, to escape the charges against him, went into voluntary exile; and Aspasia was brought to trial on a charge of impiety, which merely meant that she, as others of her circle, set at naught the polytheism of the multitude, and recognized but one creative mind in the government of the universe, an accusation under which Socrates later suffered martyrdom. She was brought before the judges, and Pericles pleaded her cause. Plutarch says that he pleaded with tears; and as the people could not resist the emotion of their great leader, she was acquitted.

Perides's last days were passed in the gloom of the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, of the plague that depopulated the city, and of the discontent of his beloved people. No brilliant sun ever had a more gloomy setting. Yet in his last moments his thoughts were of the two beloved objects that had absorbed his tenderest affections. "Athens has intrusted her greatness and Aspasia her happiness to me," Pericles said, when dying; and there could be no stronger testimony to the purity of Aspasia's character, to the influence of her life on his, to the role she had played in that Golden Age of Athens.

Athens and Aspasia--these were linked in the thoughts of the dying statesman; and as he made the one great, so he made the other immortal. Had his life not been blessed with union with hers, had his temperament not been sweetened by her companionship, had his policy not been moulded partly by her counsel and her wisdom, had his taste not been made so subtle and refined by communion with her artistic temperament, Athens would not have been embellished by the works of art which have made that city the unapproachable ruler in the domain of the spirit. Woman's influence, where it has counted most, has always been a silent one, and has worked through man. Is not Aspasia worthy of the laurel wreath for the results of her life on "the city of the violet crown"?

APHRODITE PANDEMUS

For the proper understanding of the status of woman among the Greeks of ancient times, it becomes necessary for the historian of Greek womanhood to call attention to a conspicuous social phenomenon pervading the life of all the nations of antiquity, but nowhere else so marked a feature of the higher life as in the lands of Hellas--a phenomenon bringing about social conditions that divided the female population of Greece into two sharply distinguished classes: the citizen-woman and the courtesan or mistress.

This notable aspect of Greek life is due to the fact that the ancient Hellene, as a rule, sought recreation and pleasure, not at the domestic hearth, but in the society of clever women, who had not only cultivated their physical charms, but had also trained their intellects and sensibilities so as to become virtuosi in all the arts of pleasure. Their pleasing forms of intercourse, their light and vivacious conversation, lent to association with them a peculiar seductiveness and fascination.

To designate this class of women in a manner which would distinguish them from the citizen-women on the one hand and the debased prostitute on the other, they were euphemistically called "hetæræ," or companions. The term hetæræ had been originally a most honorable one, and Sappho had used it, in the highest and best sense, of her girl friends as implying companions of like rank and interests. It is not known when it was first used with sinister suggestion, but, like our word mistress, it fell from its honorable estate and became the usual term to describe these women of pleasure.

The causes of the extent of hetairism among the Greeks are to be found in their religious conceptions, their political institutions, and the innate sensualism of the Greek peoples.

The Greeks were worshippers of the productive forces of nature as manifested in animal and plant life. Aphrodite is the female and Dionysius the male personification of the generative principles, and in consequence the religious ceremonials of these two deities assumed at times a most licentious aspect. In course of time, a distinction arose in the conception of Aphrodite, expressed by the surname applied to her. Thus Aphrodite Urania came to be generally regarded as the goddess of the highest love, especially of wedded love and fruitfulness, in contrast to Aphrodite Pandemus, the goddess of sensual lust and the patron deity of courtesans.

We could hardly expect high moral ideas in regard to sexual relations among the Greeks, whose deities were so lax. Zeus himself was given to illicit intercourse with mortal maidens and was continually arousing the jealousy of his prudent wife, the Lady Hera. Aphrodite was not faithful to her liege lord, Hephæstus, but was given to escapades with the warlike Ares. Apollo had his mortal loves, and Hades abducted the beautiful Proserpina. A people who from their childhood were taught such stories could hardly be expected to be more moral than their deities.

As has been shown in a previous chapter, the Greek conception of the city-state lay at the basis of laws and customs which repressed the citizen-woman and prevented proper attention to her education and to the full and well-rounded cultivation of womanly graces. The State hedged itself about with the most rigid safeguards to preserve the purity of the citizen blood. Stringent laws were passed prohibiting any citizen-man from marrying a stranger-woman, or any stranger-man from marrying a citizen-woman. To enforce these laws, it was necessary to keep the wives and daughters of the State within the narrow bounds of the gynæceum; and they were forbidden a knowledge of public affairs, which would make them more interesting to men. Hence the limitations of their culture made it impossible for them to be in every sense the companions of their husbands. But it is not natural for men to be deprived of the sympathy and inspiration that is found in association with cultivated women; hence there was, especially in Athens, a peculiar sphere for the cultivated hetæra. The men of the city recognized the need of feminine society in their recreations, in their political life, and on military expeditions. The hetæra entered this sphere, from which the citizen-woman was excluded.

A further reason for the predominance of hetairism is seen in the artistic impulses of the Greek people. These courtesans made an art of the life of pleasure. Cultivating every feminine grace, carefully attentive to all the little niceties of social intercourse, studying in every way how to be agreeable to the men, adepts in conversation, devotees of the Muses and the Graces, they knew how to make their relations with men answer to all the impulses of a beauty-loving people. And as the Greeks found æsthetic satisfaction in their masterpieces of prose and poetry, in their works of architecture and sculpture and painting, so they found it in their association with the hetæræ.

Owing to such conditions, there arose a most unnatural division of the admitted functions of woman in the world-order. Says the great orator Demosthenes: "We take a hetæra for our pleasure, a concubine for daily attention to our physical wants, a wife to give us legitimate children and a respected house"--an utterance narrowly defining the status of the hetæra as contrasted with that of the honorable wife. The latter was the housewife and mother, nothing more, though surrounded by all the dignities and privileges of her high station; the former was the companion, the comrade in whose society were found recreation and sympathy and intellectual delight, but she was outside the pale of society, not respected, yet not altogether despised.

It is difficult to ascertain the beginnings of hetairism among the Greeks. There is a noteworthy absence of it in the Homeric poems, though the Greek chieftains frequently had concubines, who were slaves captured in war.

Allusions in the lyric poets show that as early as the sixth century before our era the hetæra had made her appearance. The earliest reference to the social evil in the history of Athens is found in the administration of the lawgiver Solon, who was the first to legalize prostitution. With the avowed purpose of forestalling the seduction of virgins and wives, he bought slave girls in the markets of Asia Minor and placed them in public houses in Athens. This regulation for the protection of the home was generally regarded as deserving of praise. Thus speaks the comic poet Philemon:

"But you did well for every man, O Solon:

For they do say you were the first to see

The justice of a public-spirited measure,

The saviour of the State (and it is fit

For me to utter this avowal, Solon);

You, seeing that the State was full of men,

Young, and possessed of all the natural appetites,

And wandering in their lusts where they'd no business.

Bought women and in certain spots did place them,

Common to be and ready for all comers.

They naked stood: look well at them, my youth,--

Do not deceive yourself; aren't you well off?

You're ready, so are they: the door is open--

The price an obol: enter straight--there's

No nonsense here, no cheat or trickery;

But do just what you like, how you like.

You're off: wish her good-bye; she's no more claim on you."

In the early days antedating the Persian War, before the Athenians had been corrupted by power and by extensive intercourse with the outside world, it was regarded as shameful for a married man to associate with a hetæra. When the husband was guilty of such conduct, the insulted wife could obtain a decree of separation, which involved the return to the wife's family of the full dowry, while the enmity of the wife's kindred was visited upon the unfaithful husband. During the Golden Age of Pericles, however, Athens departed from her earlier simplicity, and the increase of wealth and the influx of foreigners swept away the old-fashioned standards of morality. The influence of Pericles and Aspasia on smaller minds seems to have been unfortunate. Reverential regard for the marriage bond became a thing of the past, and hetairism became the common practice. Almost all the great men of Athens had relations with hetærsæ; the young men gave themselves up to the life of pleasure; and with the disruption of family ties began the downfall of the State.

In Corinth, hetairism was invested with all the sanctity of religion, and these votaries of pleasure enjoyed a distinction accorded them in no other Greek city. When Xerxes was advancing against Hellas with his vast armament, the courtesans of Corinth betook themselves in solemn procession to the temple of Aphrodite, the patron deity of the city, and implored her aid for the preservation of the fatherland, dedicating their services to her in return for a favorable answer to their prayers, and vowing to reward with their unpurchased embraces the victorious warriors upon their return. The goddess was supposed to have heard their petitions, and out of gratitude the Corinthians dedicated to Aphrodite a painting, in which were represented various hetaerae who had supplicated the goddess, while beneath were inscribed the following verses of Simonides:

Private individuals frequently vowed, upon the fortunate issue of some undertaking, to dedicate to the goddess of love a certain number of hetæræ. These votaries of Aphrodite were called hierodulæ, or temple attendants. Pindar in his immortal verses thus describes them:

"O hospitable damsels, fairest train

Of soft Persuasion,--

Ornament of the wealthy Corinth,

Bearing in willing hands the golden drops

That from the frankincense distil, and flying

To the fair mother of the Loves,

Who dwelleth in the sky,

The lovely Venus,--you do bring to us

Comfort and hope in danger, that we may

Hereafter, in the delicate beds of Love,

Reap the long-wished-for fruits of joy

Lovely and necessary to all mortal men."

Strabo states that there were over a thousand hierodulæ in the Corinth of his day. Because of the enormous number of such damsels and of the respect which was accorded them, Corinth became the most noted hetæra city. Here dwelt the wealthiest and most beautiful hetæræ. As the most important commercial centre of Greece, the city was the abiding place of wealthy merchants and travellers; these fell victims to the voluptuous and licentious life of the place, and the vast fortunes accumulated by the professional courtesans were acquired by the ruin of many a merchant. The expression "Corinthian maiden" denoted the acme of voluptuousness, and to "Corinthianize" became synonymous with leading the most dissolute life.

In other prominent commercial centres of Hellas and of the Greek colonies hetairism also flourished. Piræus, the harbor of Athens, had its demi-monde quarter, and the number of courtesans in Athens and its harbor town was only surpassed by that of Corinth.

The inland cities were much more moral in this regard. From Sparta, in its best days, hetæræ were rigidly excluded. Plutarch records a saying of the Spartans, that when Aphrodite passed over the Eurotas River she put off her gewgaws and female ornaments, and for the sake of Lycurgus armed herself with shield and spear. This Venus armata of the Spartans, as well as their sturdy morals, forbade the presence of the seductive strangers in their midst; but Ares was ever susceptible to Aphrodite, and the Spartan warrior, when located in the voluptuous Ionian cities, frequently forgot his early training, and fell a victim to his environment.

There were in Athens, in the fifth and fourth centuries, four classes of hetæræ, graded according to political standing. The first and lowest class was that of the public prostitute--slaves bought by the State for the public houses, which were taxed for the benefit of the city and were under the supervision of city inspectors. These unfortunate women were gathered from the slave markets of Samos, Lesbos, Cyprus, and the Ionian cities, where every year large numbers of wretched human beings, who had been torn from their homes, usually as a result of war, were exposed for sale. These included many young girls who had been taken captive in the sacking of cities or had been stolen from their homes by the fiends in human form who made it a business to secure maidens of promising beauty or charm for the bawdy houses of the Greek cities. From these markets, too, came usually the hetæræ of the second class, who were likewise slaves, but were the property of panders or procuresses, who bought girls of tender age and educated them for the sake of the wealth to be acquired from traffic in lust. Aged and faded hetæræ, who had passed their lives in gross licentiousness and had finally lost their hold on the public, especially devoted themselves to this horrible trade. They owned their own houses, and had in conjunction with them regular schools or institutes for the training of hetæræ. In these institutes the girls were trained in physical culture, in music and dancing, and frequently in all the branches of learning that were popular at the time. They became experts in all the arts of pleasure, and were offered every advantage that would make them pleasing to men. From these institutes often emerged young women who played an important role in the social and intellectual life of the day, as Leontium, Gnathæna, Pythionice, and others. The names of certain of these establishments are preserved, as those of Nicarete, of Bacchis, and of the Thracian Sinope, who removed her institute from Ægina to Athens. Girls in such establishments remained at all times in the relation of slaves, and were compelled always to surrender to the mistresses or the panders the funds they collected from the sale of their favors. As young girls they acted as musicians or dancers at the banquets of the men, and as they developed into womanhood they entered upon their careers as regular courtesans. Often they were hired out for a considerable time; or if a good purchaser presented himself, they were sold outright, and lived as the kept mistress of a single lover. From him they usually obtained their freedom, in time, either as a mark of favor, or as the readiest means of ridding himself of a burden when the lover had wearied of the hetæra's charm.

Slave girls who obtained their freedom belonged to the third and most numerous hetæra class; they lived on a fully independent footing, and conducted their business on their own account. This class attached themselves especially to young and inexperienced men, preferably to youths who were still under parental control. They frequented the schools of rhetoricians and philosophers and the studios of artists, and sought in every way possible to make themselves interesting and indispensable to men. The jeunesse dorée of the day found in association with these young and beautiful and independent damsels their especial delight. At the banquets and drinking bouts of the young men, they were invited to take part; and the gay and frivolous youths would assemble in numbers at their houses, or take them on pleasure trips in the suburbs of the city, and would frequently engage in serenades and torchlight processions in their honor. Such a life was full of pitfalls for the young men, and they frequently brought down on themselves the rage of parents for their intercourse with these sirens. The avarice and greed of women of this class was such that they led their lovers into every form of deceit to obtain for them money and presents. To purloin and sell a mother's jewels and to contract debts in a father's name were frequent devices to which youths resorted whose parents kept a tight hold on the purse strings. These heroines of the demi-monde also sought to draw their lovers away from serious pursuits. Lucian, in his Dialogues of Courtesans, recounts an interesting conversation between two hetæræ, Chelidonion [Little Swallow] and Drosis [Dewdrop], about a youth whom his father had suddenly checked in his wild career and placed in the hands of a wise and artful tutor, to the end that he might be drawn away from his wild associations and given instruction in philosophy.

The fourth and most elevated hetæra class was that of freeborn women, who were attracted to this calling because of dissatisfaction with the restraint of home and longing for the ease and independent life which it seemed to offer. Frequently, the daughters of citizens, through the poverty or greed of their parents, or their own wilfulness, were driven to a life of shame. Usually, they changed their names, to bring forgetfulness of their former standing, and they sought by outward splendor to make up for the loss of virtue. To us in this day such a change seems most disgraceful; but to the Greeks it appeared to be in many instances nothing more serious than a change of patron goddess. Thus the maiden transferred herself from the protection of one of the austere virgin goddesses, Artemis and Athena, to that of the gracious and seductive Paphian goddess; or the widow, who with the death of her husband had lost her means of subsistence, would renounce Hera, the goddess of wedded love, for the frivolous and light-minded Aphrodite. This transfer was usually accompanied with solemn religious ceremonies, Greek epigrammatists frequently give us a poetical treatment of such life histories, and we thereby gain glimpses into the woes of many a feminine heart; thus we have a pathetic genre picture of a maiden, who, weary of the spindle and the service of Athena, betakes herself to the patron goddess of the hetæræ and pledges to her for her protection a tithe of all her earnings in her new calling.

The giving of votive offerings to Aphrodite for successes and rich gains in their dealings with men was a customary act of "pious" hetæræ. Toilet articles which enhance beauty, and costly gifts, such as statues, were frequently dedicated to the goddess. The hetæræ who followed in the wake of the Athenian army led by Pericles to Samos built a temple to Aphrodite from the tithes of their gains. This giving of votive offerings is frequently the subject of Greek epigrams.

The daughters or widows of citizens constituted but the smaller number of hetæræ of this class. The larger number were stranger-women, chiefly from Ionia, who came to Athens, attracted by its prominence in politics and the arts, that they might play their role on a larger and more brilliant stage. In the various cities of Asia Minor, there were groups of freeborn women who had broken away from the conventional bonds and had devoted themselves to intellectual and artistic pursuits and to the cultivation of every personal grace and charm. It was natural that they and others like them from other parts of Hellas should flock to Athens. Such women, though they were politically only resident aliens, were granted great freedom and had the benefit of all the intellectual advantages the city afforded. Marriage was the only political sin these beautiful and cultivated strangers could commit; they might do anything else that they liked. Hence they entered into relations with citizens as "companions," and soon became an important factor in the social life of the day. Bringing with them from their homes all the attractions and graces that attended the service of the Muses, they undoubtedly exercised a beneficial influence on the social customs and manners, but they also contributed much to the general demoralization of the Athenian people.

From the number of these women of foreign birth came the most beautiful and distinguished, as also the most selfish and proud, representatives of the hetæra class. Through their beauty and the outward splendor of their station they posed as veritable priestesses of Aphrodite, while through their intellectual brilliancy and their social charms they exercised a great influence over the daily life of the Athenians.

To this class belonged the celebrated "daughters of the people," for whose favor the most prominent and dignified men of the State became suppliants. As Propertius sang of Lais, they could literally boast that "all Hellas lay before their doors." Among these hetæræ we see the high life of the day on a most brilliant scale. Their dwellings were most sumptuous in their appointments; the walls were painted in frescoes, pieces of statuary and rich tapestries embellished their apartments, while the grounds about their houses were laid off with flower beds and beautiful fountains. Their apparel was of the richest fabrics and was made up in the most fashionable styles. They possessed numberless jewels and ornaments of enormous value. They never appeared in public without an imposing cortége of female slaves and eunuchs. Much of the etiquette of the courts of princes was maintained in their establishments.

To keep up this elaborate state, they sold their favors at almost shameless prices. Thus the elder Lais, Gnathæna, and Phryne were celebrated for their incredible demands. There is a story that the orator Demosthenes made a trip to Corinth and paid ten thousand drachmæ for a single evening with the younger Lais. As has been intimated, Corinth possessed the most voluptuous, Athens the most highly cultivated hetæræ. The excessive charges of "the Corinthian maiden" gave occasion for the proverb: "Not every man can journey to Corinth." Not only the celebrated beauties made such exorbitant demands, but even the ordinary courtesans asked prices which forbade to men of moderate means intercourse with them.

Beauty and wealth were the factors which determined the social status of the hetæræ, and with the fading of beauty and the squandering of their gains many celebrated hetæræ fell from the highest to the lowest station.

The principal classification of the queens of the demi-monde, however, was into "domestic" and "learned" hetæræ. The former attracted chiefly by their beauty and their social grace; the latter, by their native wit, their vivacity, and their intellectual endowments. These gifted women entered into intimate relations with the philosophers and rhetoricians of the day; they visited the lecture halls, devoted themselves to earnest study, and carried on their prostitution under the protection of philosophy. They allied themselves with the various philosophical schools, and by their manner of bestowing their favors sought to advance the interests of the sect they espoused.

They found, too, in the pursuit of philosophy the justification of their calling. The hetæræ of the Academy claimed that they were merely putting into practice Plato's doctrine of the community of women. The followers of the Cyrenaic school, with its doctrine of moderation in the pursuit of pleasure, maintained that they carried out the maxims of Aristippus in their pursuit of the joys of love. The female adherents of the Cynics, or "the Bitches," as they were called, sought to surpass one another in taking the beasts as models of imitation. The Dialecticians found in their system the widest range for feminine cleverness of speech, and defended hetairism with the greatest subtlety and the most ingenious sophism. The feminine Epicureans saw in the teachings of their school, with its doctrine of friendship and of the broadest cultivation of the sensibilities, the fullest justification for the pursuit of sexual enjoyment, and they sought to illustrate the greatest voluptuousness and refinement in their methods of gratifying animal passion.

The hetæræ of the various schools surpassed the men in their imitation of the jargon and the manners of the leading lights of their systems. Many of the philosophers yielded themselves readily to the seductions of their beautiful and clever adherents; yet there were some choice spirits who deplored the demoralizing tendencies which hetairism brought into serious pursuits, and protested in no uncertain language.

These philosopher-hetæræ were indisputably the most interesting phenomenon in the social life of ancient times, to which the later Greek world and modern times afford no adequate parallel. They were present always at theatrical exhibitions and on all public occasions when respectable women remained at home. They took an absorbing interest in politics and in all public affairs; they discussed with the citizens the burning questions of the day; they criticised the acts of statesmen, the speeches of orators, the dramas of the poets, the productions of painters and sculptors. They exerted, in a word, an enormous influence for good or ill on the social and political life of the day; while they themselves had the consciousness of a mission to perform in having in their hands the real power of their sex.

Almost every great man in Athens had his "companion," usually in addition to a lawful wife. Plato had Archeanassa, to whom he wrote sonnets; but we know not what were her attractions. "For dear to me Theoris is," sings Sophocles; and we should like to know more of Archippa, to whom he left his fortune. Aristotle had his Herpyllis, and the eloquent Isocrates his Metaneira. Speusippus, Plato's successor, found a "companion" in Lasthenia, and Epicurus in Leontium. It is difficult to believe that all these for whom the learned men of the day showed such regard were vicious women; in fact, some of them are described as noble and high-minded.

But if the careers of the learned hetæræ were influential, they did not equal in brilliancy and power those of the more celebrated domestic hetæræ. The vastness of the influence of this latter class is best shown by naming the prominent rulers of various periods who were under the domination of their "companions." We have in an earlier chapter called attention to the work of Thargelia in moulding Persian sentiment before the invasions of Darius and Xerxes, and to the influence of Aspasia during the Periclean Age. Many later hetæræ played prominent roles in the courts of princes and kings, and not infrequently enjoyed royal honors, Leæna, Myrrhine, and Lamia were favorites of Demetrius the Besieger, and the latter shared with him all except the throne. Thais, for a time beloved of Alexander the Great, and at whose nod he set fire to the palace of the Persian kings, later bore two sons and a daughter to Ptolemy Soter, the first Macedonian king of Egypt. Pythionice and Glycera were in high favor at the court of Harpalus. Hieronymus of Syracuse elevated a beautiful prostitute named Pytho from the bawdy house to his palace and throne. Ptolemy Philadelphus was celebrated for the number of his mistresses, among them being a Didyma, a Blistyche, a Stratonice, a Myrtion. Ptolemy Philopator was under the degrading influence of an Agathoclea, daughter of the procuress Oenanthe, both of whom, in the trenchant phrase of Plutarch, trod diadems under their feet and were finally murdered by the Alexandrian mob.

Some hetæræ inspired such regard that they were honored with public monuments. The first instance of this in Athens was in the case of Leæna, who, after the murder of the tyrant Hipparchus, bit out her tongue rather than reveal the accomplices of her lover, Aristogiton. The Athenians at this early date felt a reluctance to erect a statue representing a hetæra, but they placed on the Acropolis a bronze lioness to commemorate perpetually the name of Leæna, and to preserve the memory of her noble deed. In honor of Phryne there was a marble statue at Thespian sculptured by Praxiteles, as well as another of gold at Delphi. In Sparta, in her degenerate days, there was a monument to the celebrated hetæra Cottine. There were also famous statues of Lais, Glycera, Pythionice, Neæra, Clino, Blistyche, Stratonice, and other women of pleasure. To Lamia, the renowned flute player, and to her rival, Leæna of Corinth, favorites of Demetrius the Besieger, the servile Athenians erected temples, in which they were revered as goddesses. There was also in Athens a most beautiful and costly tomb in honor of Pythionice, erected by the Macedonian governor Harpalus, described by Pausanias as "the best worth seeing of all ancient tombs." Such are instances of the tributes offered by the beauty-loving Greeks to these beautiful but light-minded women, who were regarded as incarnations, as it were, of the goddess Aphrodite herself.

The characteristic traits of these reigning queens of the demi-monde were in almost all cases the same. The principal attributes of their characters were selfishness and greed. With all their outward good nature and apparent warmth of disposition, they were at all times "marble-hearted," cold, incapable of any noble emotion, and impervious to the stirrings of true love. There are a few exceptional cases of self-sacrificing devotion, as of Leæna, and of Timandra, who stood by Alcibiades in all his misfortune, but their exceeding rarity proves the rule. A few were of good character and were faithful to the relations which they had formed; many were merely fair and frail; while most of them descended to the lowest depths of corruption and depravity. While the deportment of those hetæræ who cultivated every womanly charm presents much that is attractive, yet their manner of life has been aptly compared to baskets of noxious weeds and garbage, covered over with roses. Extravagance, debauchery, and dissolute habits were sure to work out in time the attendant ills of wretchedness, destitution, and penury. Realizing that for them there was possible no such thing as true love and domestic happiness, they became rapacious and vindictive, cynical and ill-tempered. Nothing could be mare fearful than the pictures which the comic poets and satirists draw of some of these women; Anaxilas, for example, thus describes them as a class:

"The man whoe'er has loved a courtesan,

Will say that no more lawless, worthless race

Can anywhere be found: for what ferocious,

Unsociable she-dragon, what Chimæra,

Though it breathe fire from its mouth, what Charybdis,

What three-headed Scylla, dog o' the sea,

Or hydra, sphynx, or raging lioness,

Or viper, or winged harpy (greedy race),

Could go beyond those most accursed harlots?

There is no monster greater. They alone

Surpass all other evils put together."

Their outward behavior and manner were characterized by great elegance. One comic poet remarks that they took their food most delicately and not like the citizen-women, who "stuffed their cheeks and tore off the meat." Their speech, however, was unrestrained, and they delighted in indelicate witticisms and doubles entendres. Machon made a collection of the witty remarks of the most celebrated hetæræ, in his book of anecdotes. In Athenæus we also have specimens of their witticisms. Sinope of Ægina was particularly famous for her coarse wit, and had many clever encounters with the brilliant men of her day. To preserve or to enhance their natural beauty, the hetæræ were given to the use of cosmetics. Eubulus, in a fragment, thus represents a citizen-woman reviling the much-hated class:

"By Jove, we are not painted with vermilion,

Nor with dark mulberry juice, as you are often:

And then, if in the summer you go out,

Two rivulets of dark, discolored hue

Flow from your eyes, and sweat drops from your jaws

And makes a scarlet furrow down your neck,

And the light hair which wantons o'er your face

Seems gray, so thickly is it plastered o'er."

The secret mysteries of hetairism, which were celebrated chiefly by the Lesbian and Samlan hetæræ and which occasioned a hetasra literature, prepared in part by such members of the craft as Philænis, Elephantine, Niko, and others, constitute an important aspect of our subject, which must be briefly noticed. Suffice it to say that the women of pleasure of Lesbos and Samos excelled in the invention and practice of shameful, unnatural arts, and that the lasciviousness of the Lesbian courtesans led to the loathsome form of lust known as "Lesbian love," which has become proverbial.

Plutarch expressly distinguishes from the hetæræ a class known as "emancipated women," whose preeminent virtue, however, was certainly not modesty. To this class belonged many of the flower girls, wreath weavers, painters' and sculptors' models, who earned a living by means of their good looks, though they did not follow a life of shame. The best known representative of this class was Glycera, whom Goethe has immortalized. She was a native of Sicyon, and supported herself by the sale of flower wreaths, which she knew how to make most artistically, for use at banquets, funerals, and for adornment of the door of one's sweetheart. The painter Pausias, likewise a native of Sicyon, loved her passionately and used to enter into competition with her, whether she could wreathe flowers more artistically than he himself could paint them. He painted a portrait which represented her seated with a flower wreath; it was so excellent that the Roman general Lucullus, after the Mithridatic War, when he was making a collection of statues and paintings, paid two talents for a copy.

It is not strange that many of the hetæræ, noted for their superlative beauty and for their cultivation of art and literature and the refinements of life, should attain historical celebrity and, as heroines of the demi-monde, should influence for weal or woe the destinies of Greece. We shall briefly notice important incidents in the careers of a few of the members of this prominent class.

Gnathæna, daughter of the panderess Sinope, was one of the most keen-witted and clever of Athenian hetæræ. She was noted for her happy play on words. She also devised a set of rules for the conduct of dinners and banquets, which lovers had to observe when they visited her or her daughter, Gnathænion. In this she imitated the most cultured hosts of Athens, and exhibited a regard for social forms which throws a commendable light on the deportment of the more cultivated hetæræ. Gnathænion, the daughter, was for some time the favorite of the comic poet Diphilus, and he had many a brilliant passage of repartee with the mother on the occasion of his visits to the daughter.

Melitta was another famous hetæræ, beloved for her beautiful figure and voice as well as for her pleasing conversation and sprightliness. As each of her lovers said, "the fair Melitta was his madness," she was also called Mania. She was one of the many favorites of Demetrius the Besieger. More celebrated, however, than Melitta as a favorite of Demetrius was the beautiful Lamia, the most renowned flute player of antiquity. She was the daughter of a prominent Athenian citizen, by name Cleanor, and, choosing to follow the independent life of a hetæræ, she made her native city the first scene of her exploits. From here she journeyed to Alexandria, where by her art and her beauty she speedily won recognition at the court of Ptolemy. Accompanying Ptolemy Soter in his naval war against Antigonus and Demetrius, she fell a prisoner into the hands of the latter. Although her youth and beauty were already on the wane, she succeeded in captivating Demetrius, who was much younger than herself, so that, as Plutarch states, he appeared to be actually her lover, while with other women he was only the object of love. Lamia ruled him completely and led him into many excesses. Thus he once compelled the Athenians to collect for him at short notice two hundred and fifty talents, and when it was finally brought to him he sent it straightway to Lamia and her companions, "for pin money," Lamia herself on one occasion exacted from the citizens an enormous sum of money to prepare a magnificent banquet for Demetrius. This banquet, because of the exorbitant expenses which it occasioned, was so extraordinarily notorious that Lycurgus of Samos wrote a book about it. On this account, a comic poet characterized Lamia as the true Helepolis, or city destroyer, the name of one of the most famous engines of war of Demetrius. Demetrius remained passionately enamored of her, even after her beauty had faded. As a means of flattering Demetrius, the Athenians erected altars to her, made propitiatory offerings, and celebrated her festival. The Thebans went so far as to erect a temple in her honor, and worshipped her as Aphrodite Lamia.

Pythionice, the favorite of Harpalus, the friend and confidant of Alexander the Great, partook of honors which rivalled those of Lamia. During the most brilliant period of Harpalus's career, Pythionice was summoned to Babylon, where she shared his honors and bore the title of a queen of Babylon. A letter from the historian Theopompus to Alexander is extant, in which he speaks of the passionate devotion of Harpalus to his favorite, and thus alludes to her: "To this Pythionice, a slave of the flute player Bacchis, who in turn was a slave of the hetæra Sinope, Harpalus erected two monuments, one at Athens and one at Babylon, at a cost of more than two hundred talents, which seemed cheap to that spend-thrift; and, in addition, he had a precinct and a sanctuary dedicated to her, which he named the temple and altar of Aphrodite Pythionice. She bore him a daughter, and died before the sudden change which came in his fortunes."

Another favorite of Harpalus, and later of the celebrated deformed comic poet Menander, was Glycera, the daughter of Thalassis. She was a native of Athens, and passed most of her time in the company of littérateurs and philosophers. The Megarian philosopher Stilpo once accused her, at a banquet, of misleading the youth through her seductive art. She made the reply: "Stilpo, we are in this under like condemnation. It is said of you that you impart to your pupils profitless and eristic sophisms, of me that I teach them erotic sophisms." Some of Glycera's letters to her poet lover Menander, still extant, show how warm a sympathy existed between the two, and how delicate a sentiment could characterize such a union.

One of the names of hetæræ famous in both ancient and modern times is that of Lais, which belonged to two Greek women celebrated for their extraordinary beauty, who are differentiated by being known as Lais the Elder and Lais the Younger.

The elder and indisputably more famous of the two was the daughter of that hetæra, Timandra, who remained faithful to Alcibiades in his evil fortunes. As a seven-year-old maiden, Lais was taken captive by the Athenians during the sack of her birthplace, Hyccara in Sicily, and was brought as a slave to Corinth. Here she was early initiated into the arts of gallantry and was given a thorough training in the culture of the day.

The physical charms of Lais developed into a beauty rarely witnessed. Her bosom was of such indescribable perfection that sculptors and painters took it as a model in their creations of the ideal female form. She was regarded as surpassing not only all her contemporaries, but also all the famous beauties of earlier times; and later ages regarded her as the prototype of womanly beauty, and delighted in giving lengthy and minute descriptions of her charms, as, for example, that by the sophist Aristænetus in the first of his fifty erotic epistles.

Soon after her first appearance, Lais was talked of, was celebrated, was deified, in all Hellenic lands. It was considered good fortune, as a Greek poet expressed it, that Lais, the most beautiful of her sex, adopted the hetæra life; for were she not accessible to all, there would have been in Greece a conflict comparable only to that over Argive Helen.

The reputation of her beauty occasioned in a short time a formidable immigration to Corinth of the most wealthy and distinguished men, partly to enjoy her favor, partly to gaze in wonder at her charms, and partly to study this paragon of female beauty for imitation in works of art. From the homage that she received, and especially the wealth that was poured at her feet by her lovers, she was soon rendered so proud and selfish that she secluded herself from all except the richest. Her proud heart, however, was not entirely closed to emotions of love. She took a fancy to the Cynic philosopher Diogenes, in spite of his filth and brusqueness; and Ælian tells the story of her inclination for a young athlete, Eubatas of Cyrene, who had come to Corinth for the games, leaving behind a most beautiful and beloved wife. "When Lais became acquainted with Eubatas of Cyrene," says Ælian, "she was so enamored of him that she made a proposal of marriage. In order not to bring down on himself the vengeance of the powerful hetæra, he became betrothed to her, but yet continued to live a continent life. At the conclusion of the games, he had to fulfil his promise. But after he had been declared victor, in order to avoid the appearance of breaking faith with the courtesan, he had a picture of Lais painted, and took it with him to Cyrene, affirming that he had not broken his promise, but had brought Lais home with him. As a reward for his fidelity, his virtuous wife in Cyrene had a statue erected in his honor."

Aristippus, the founder of the Cyrenaic school of philosophy, tried in vain to win the love of this beautiful hetæra, though, of all her lovers, he passed the most time in her society, and on her lavished considerable sums of money.

Lais gained much knowledge from intercourse with this learned philosopher, so that she ranked not only as the most beautiful, but also as one of the most brilliant women of her time. She allied herself with the Cyrenaic school, whose system of philosophy appealed to her much more naturally than did the gross system of her favorite, Diogenes, who on his side sought in every way to win the celebrated beauty to Cynicism. Lais had nothing but contempt, however, for the moral claims of philosophy. "I do not understand," she said, "what is meant by the austerity of philosophers; for they of this fine name are as much in my power as the rest of the citizens."

The charms of Lais, though so unapproachable in their bloom, yet proved transient, and pitiable was the metamorphosis which the brilliancy of the famous beauty underwent with their fading. Wealthy admirers became fewer and fewer, and finally they ceased to appear, and with them her resources failed. The once proud beauty became the plaything of every man. She sought to drown her sorrow in the wine cup--a practice altogether too common among Greek women of disreputable life. At this sad period of her career, Lais dedicated her mirror, as being an unpleasant reminder of her lost beauty, to the goddess to whose service she had devoted her life. In her later years, she followed the vile trade of a procuress.

After her death, the Corinthians remembered what a reputation it had given their city to be the abiding place of so famous a woman, and they erected to her a mausoleum at Craneion, a cypress grove near the city, on which a lioness tearing a kid in pieces symbolized the rapacity of the deceased hetæra.

Lais the Younger was a contemporary of the orator Demosthenes and the painter Apelles, and flourished nearly a century after her more celebrated namesake. She too lived at Corinth, and was famous for her beauty and her association with distinguished men. She was born out of wedlock, and the names of both her father and mother are unknown. As she grew up, a waif in the dissolute city, Apelles, the celebrated painter, is said to have been the first to have noticed her budding beauty and to have educated her. According to the prevailing tradition, Apelles saw her when, as a young girl, she was drawing water from the fountain Pirene, and was at once so captivated by her beauty that he took her with him to a banquet whither he was going. When his friends jestingly reproached him because, instead of bringing a hetæra, as was usual, he had brought a child to the feast, he rejoined: "Be not surprised. I will show her again to you before three years have passed; you can then see how beautiful and vivacious she has become."

Before this period had passed, Lais became the most celebrated hetæra of the city. Her name was on everyone's lips, in the baths, in the theatres, and on the streets and public squares. Her fame spread throughout Hellas, and the richest men of Hellas flocked to Corinth. She was surpassed in the number and prominence of her lovers only by her contemporary, Phryne of Athens.

When at the height of her triumph, this celebrated and petted hetæra, "who inflamed all Hellas with love, and for whose favors two seas contended," suddenly disappeared from the scene of her conquests. A Thessalian, by name Hippolochus, had taught her the meaning of true love. She fled with him from the company of her other lovers, and lived in honorable marriage in Thessaly. Her beauty, however, caused a sad ending to this pleasing romance. From envy and jealousy, the Thessalian women enticed her into the temple of Aphrodite and there stoned her to death. Some historians relate that she had many Thessalian lovers; this aroused the jealousy of the women, and they took her life at a festival of Aphrodite at which no men were present. After her murder, a pestilence is said to have broken out in Thessaly, which did not end until in expiation a temple had been erected to Aphrodite.

Phryne was the most beautiful woman of all antiquity. She was born at Thespiæ in Boeotia, but flourished at Athens toward the latter part of the fourth century before our era. The name Phryne belongs essentially to the history of Greek art, for all her life was associated with the activities of the most eminent painters and sculptors. In her youth she was loved by the sculptor Praxiteles. Pausanias tells a story how "once when Phryne asked for the most beautiful of his works, Praxiteles, lover-like, promised to give it to her, but would not tell which he thought the most beautiful. So a servant of Phryne ran in, declaring that the sculptor's studio had caught fire, and that most, but not all, of his works had perished. Praxiteles at once ran for the door, protesting that all his labor was lost if the flames had reached the Satyr and the Love. But Phryne bade him stay and be of good cheer, telling him that he had suffered no loss, but had only been entrapped into saying which were the most beautiful of his works. So she chose the Love."

PHRYNE
After the painting by Henry I. Siemiradsky.

Phryne, with a modesty one would not expect in a woman
of her class, was very careful to keep her beautiful figure
concealed, avoiding the public baths and having her body
always enveloped in a long and graceful tunic. But on
two occasions the beauty-loving Greeks had displayed to
them the charms of her person. The fist was at the
solemn assembly at Eleusis, on the feast of the Poseidonia.
Having loosened her beautiful hair and let fall her drapery,
Phryne plunged into the sea in the sight of all the assembled Greeks.

Phryne was of very humble origin, and originally
obtained her livelihood by gathering capers; but her beauty
afterward gained great wealth for her. At Delphi there
was erected a statue in gold of her.

Either this or a similar statue of Eros was dedicated by Phryne in Thespiæ, the city of her birth. Later, Praxiteles made of her a statue of gold, which was set up at Delphi between those of two kings. She also served as his model for the celebrated Aphrodite of Cnidos, which Pliny describes as "the finest statue, not only by Praxiteles, but in the whole world." The inhabitants of Cnidos placed the image, which they believed had been made under the direct inspiration of the goddess of love herself, in a beautiful shrine surrounded by myrtle trees, so arranged that the figure might be seen from many different points of view; "and from all sides," adds Pliny, "it was equally admired." Hither came Greeks from all parts of the world merely to behold the statue and to worship at the shrine of the goddess. King Nicomedes of Bithynia, in his eagerness to possess the statue, offered to pay for it the whole public debt of the island, which was enormous; but the Cnidians preferred to suffer anything rather than give up their treasure; and with good reason, "for by that statue Praxiteles made Cnidos famous." Writers of epigrams were fond of extolling the statue; and many of the extant statues of Venus are but replicas or adaptations of this great prototype, modelled after the form of Phryne. The most celebrated copy of the Cnidian statue is in the Vatican, disfigured, however, by false drapery. The statue gives us some idea of the superlative beauty of Phryne. It is very pure, very unconscious of its charms, and captivates the beholder by its simple grace and naturalness. Lucian, the æsthetic critic, in the construction of his ideal statue selected for description the head of the Aphrodite of Cnidos. He particularly admired the finely pencilled telling him that he had suffered no loss, but had only been entrapped into saying which were the most beautiful of his works. So she chose the Love."

Either this or a similar statue of Eros was dedicated by Phryne in Thespiæ, the city of her birth. Later, Praxiteles made of her a statue of gold, which was set up at Delphi between those of two kings. She also served as his model for the celebrated Aphrodite of Cnidos, which Pliny describes as "the finest statue, not only by Praxiteles, but in the whole world." The inhabitants of Cnidos placed the image, which they believed had been made under the direct inspiration of the goddess of love herself, in a beautiful shrine surrounded by myrtle trees, so arranged that the figure might be seen from many different points of view; "and from all sides," adds Pliny, "it was equally admired." Hither came Greeks from all parts of the world merely to behold the statue and to worship at the shrine of the goddess. King Nicomedes of Bithynia, in his eagerness to possess the statue, offered to pay for it the whole public debt of the island, which was enormous; but the Cnidians preferred to suffer anything rather than give up their treasure; and with good reason, "for by that statue Praxiteles made Cnidos famous." Writers of epigrams were fond of extolling the statue; and many of the extant statues of Venus are but replicas or adaptations of this great prototype, modelled after the form of Phryne. The most celebrated copy of the Cnidian statue is in the Vatican, disfigured, however, by false drapery. The statue gives us some idea of the superlative beauty of Phryne. It is very pure, very unconscious of its charms, and captivates the beholder by its simple grace and naturalness. Lucian, the æsthetic critic, in the construction of his ideal statue selected for description the head of the Aphrodite of Cnidos. He particularly admired the finely pencilled eyebrows and the melting gaze of the eyes, with their sweet, joyous expression.

Phryne, with a modesty one would not expect in a woman of her class, was very careful to keep her beautiful figure concealed, avoiding the public baths and having her body always enveloped in a long and graceful tunic. But on two occasions the beauty-loving Greeks had displayed to them the charms of her person. The first was at the solemn assembly at Eleusis, on the feast of the Poseidonia. Having loosened her beautiful hair and let fall her drapery, Phryne plunged into the sea in the sight of all the assembled Greeks. Apelles, the painter, transported with admiration at the sight, retired at once to his studio and transferred to canvas the mental image which was indelibly impressed upon his fancy; and the resulting picture was the Aphrodite Anadyomene, the most celebrated of his paintings.

The second exhibition was before the austere court of the Heliasts. Phryne had been cited to appear before the tribunal on the charge of profaning the Eleusinian mysteries, and Hyperides, the brilliant young orator, was her advocate. Failing to move the judges by his arguments, he tore the tunic from her bosom and revealed to them the perfection of her figure. The judges, beholding as it were the goddess of love incarnate, and moved by a superstitious fear, could not dare to condemn to death "a prophetess and priestess of Aphrodite." They saw and they pardoned, and, amid the applause of the people, Phryne was carried in triumph to the temple of Aphrodite. To us in this day such a scene appears highly theatrical, but Aphrodite is no longer esteemed among men, and the Greek worship of beauty is something not understood in this material age.

Phryne's life was by no means free from blame, and as the result of her popularity she acquired great riches. She is said to have offered to rebuild the walls of Thebes, which had been torn down by Alexander, on condition that she might place on them the inscription: Alexander destroyed Thebes; but Phryne, the hetæra, rebuilt it; but the offer was rejected, showing that though the times were corrupt, yet shame had not altogether departed from men.

One cannot emphasize in too trenchant terms the demoralizing influences of hetairism on the social life of the Greeks, or fail to see in the gross immorality of the sexes one of the paramount causes of the downfall of the Greek peoples.

Yet it is a truism that feminine shamelessness was most advantageous for the arts of sculpture and painting. Sensuousness is close akin to sensuality, and from their passion for these "priestesses of Aphrodite" the Greek artists, without doubt, derived much of their inspiration, while the opportunities which hetairism offered for the study of the female form enabled Praxiteles and his contemporaries and successors to produce masterpieces which equalled in idealism the works of æsthetic art produced in the preceding century.

To become the ideal for the painter and the sculptor was the greatest ambition of the beautiful and cultivated hetæra. In permitting the artist to portray her charms she not only performed a lasting service for art, but she also rendered herself celebrated and immortal. The fame of her beauty was spread throughout all Hellenic lands, and the national devotion to the goddess Aphrodite was at once extended to her earthly counterpart. If she united intellectual brilliancy with beauty, fortune at once cast its most precious gifts at her feet. The most celebrated men of every city contested for her favors, poets made her the theme of their verses, artists portrayed her charms with chisel and with brush, and the wealthy filled her coffers with gold and precious stones.

THE WOMAN QUESTION IN ANCIENT ATHENS

Anyone who makes a careful perusal of the philosophical literature of Athens in the fourth century before our era will be struck with the amount of attention that has been paid to the question of the social and domestic position of woman. If he trace the subject back, he will observe that in the dramatic literature of the latter part of the previous century the same problems received the consideration of Euripides and Aristophanes. And the conviction will be forced upon him that this agitation was rooted in a sociological movement of great import, and that the dramatic and philosophical writers merely gave a literary form to the debates which profoundly stirred Athenian society in the fifth century.

This discussion of woman's rights is a subject of perennial interest, and the underlying currents in such movements are usually the same in every age. They take their rise, too, not in the efforts of philanthropic men who recognize that the status of woman is not what it should be, but in the efforts of the members of the sex themselves, who are sufficiently intelligent to see that they, while having an abundant share of the burdens, have not a fair share of the emoluments of life, and consequently endeavor to better the conditions which environ themselves and their sisters.

In this chapter we shall make a study of the dramatists and philosophers of Athens, in so far as they give insight into the social life of the city in its most important epoch, and outline what they contribute to our knowledge of Greek woman and the ever-present Woman Question.

For the early part of this brilliant period we must rely on the ideal pictures of tragedy for the higher side, and the ribald travesties of comedy for the lower side of feminine life, Æschylus flourished just before and during the glorious period following the Persian War,--the good days before the influx of foreigners and the new education corrupted the life and undermined the faith of the citizens. In his seven extant plays he has presented to us only three feminine characters of any importance,--Clytemnestra, Electra, and Cassandra,--all belonging to the cycle of tragedies treating of the fate of King Agamemnon and his royal house at Mycenæ. The dramatist's pictures of home life show his high conception of the ability and the importance of women and of the large part they play in human history. His Clytemnestra is a ruling queen exercising all the functions of royalty, but her powerful nature has been debased by grief and sin. She identifies herself with the "ancient bitter Alastor," who visits on Agamemnon the curse of his house. She is self-sufficingness, adamantine purpose, studied craft, and cold disdain incarnate. With fulsome speech and consummate flattery she welcomes her husband home; and when the deed is done and he lies dead by her hand, in exultant tones she rejoices in the blood upon her robe as "a cornfield in the dews of spring." Truly she is the most powerful portrait of feminine guilt that dramatic literature affords us. Æschylus drew his scenery and his characters largely from the conditions of the Heroic Age as pictured by Homer, and was little affected by the current of everyday life about him.

As Æschylus has given us Clytemnestra for an ideal type of feminine power and wickedness, so Sophocles has presented two immortal heroines, Antigone and Electra, who are statuesque in the beauty and grandeur of their characters. In Antigone we observe two fundamental qualities,--enthusiasm in the performance of duty, and intensity of domestic affection, as seen in her efforts to reconcile her brothers, Polynices and Eteocles, her desire to shield her sister Ismene, her self-sacrifice for the sake of her brother Polynices, and her filial devotion to her aged father. Electra also is an ideal type of sisterly love. Ill-treated by her unnatural mother, abused by the cowardly and brutal tyrant who had usurped her father's place, only one ray of hope was left her, that her brother Orestes would return to avenge their wrongs upon the guilty pair. When the deed is done, and Orestes is pursued by the Furies, she proves herself a devoted and unselfish sister. In these two characters we have sublime conceptions of heroic devotion to duty, but the more human womanly traits have been lost in the poet's delineation of them as the embodiment of lofty ideals.

Mahaffy finds in these two heroines something hard and masculine, traits which would not stir the sympathies of the reader or hearer and lead to emulation. He prefers Sophocles's Deianira and Tecmessa as being "truly 'female women,' as Homer would say, gentle and loving, not above jealousy, and for that reason a finer and clearer contrast to the heroes than are the coarser and more dominant heroines." ... "If these criticisms be just," he adds, "they will show that, in the most perfect and exclusive Athenian society--that is to say, among Thucydides's and Sophocles's set, the ideal of female character had degenerated; that to these men, whose affections were centred on very different objects, the notion of a true heroine was no longer natural, but was supplanted by a hard and masculine type. The old free, noble woman, whom Æschylus had, in early days, still known, was banished from their city life to make way for the domestic slave of the Attic household, called 'mistress,' but as such contrasted with the 'companions,' who gradually supplanted her in Athenian society."

The types of womanhood presented by Æschylus and Sophocles belonged to a state of society which had passed away, and were too remote from the life of their own day to be ideals for the daughters of Athens. These dramatists did not touch upon the problems which were then engaging the thoughts of enlightened men and women. There is nothing in Æschylus, absorbed as he was in the problems of destiny, to show that he felt the many weighty problems that confronted the social life of his time; and the serene Sophocles gives no hint that the world about him was not the best of all possible worlds. But how was it with the sombre and melancholy Euripides? What insight does he give us into the social life of the times?

There was a famous saying of Sophocles that "he himself represented men as they ought to be--Euripides, men as they are." This means that Euripides, while making the old legends the foundation of his tragedies, attributed to his heroes and heroines the faults and passions of ordinary men and women and utilized his plots to present the problems which confronted society as he knew it. As a follower of Anaxagoras and a member of the party of philosophers, he was dissatisfied with the conditions of life about him, and endeavored, through his dramas, to assist the movements for reform. He was, in many respects, a daring innovator, and this explains the bitter hostility which Aristophanes, the ultra-conservative, exhibited toward him. The glaring fault in Athenian social life was the status of woman, and to the solution of this problem Euripides bent all his energies. He used woman and the moral conflicts originating through the relations of the sexes as a motif for his poetry, and the whole body of his plays is a commentary on the Woman Question. He found in the portrayal of woman a new field for his genius, as well as a new means of advocating an unpopular but righteous cause.

Yet we are confronted by the prevailing opinion that Euripides was a woman hater who utilized his tragedies to present his unfavorable opinion of the sex. This view, presented by many modern writers, rests, however, on false assumptions. To exhibit the low views of woman held by the men of his day, the poet attributes to certain of his characters condemnations of the sex as a whole; and these are taken to be expressions of the personal opinion of the author. Thus Hippolytus engages in a lengthy tirade beginning:

But Hippolytus throughout is characterized as a pronounced misogynist, and this and similar passages found their inspiration in the characters and the situation and produce a well-defined dramatic effect. Furthermore, while the poet's unfavorable opinions of women are frequently cited out of their connection, his complimentary expressions are lost sight of. In contrast to the harsh criticisms of men who vent their spleen against those whom they have injured, or of women who find fault with their sex where the dramatic purpose justifies the expressions used, there can be cited passages in which maidenly modesty and wifely fidelity are commended; or one might quote the deeply emotional words of Admetus or Theseus concerning the joys of happy married life, or the tender expressions which fathers, like Agamemnon, utter in reference to their daughters. In the fragments also occur passages friendly and unfriendly to woman, but, as these are without their context, it is difficult to judge them fairly. Hence the conclusion from a study of the dialogues of Euripides is that every unfavorable judgment of woman finds its full justification in the economy of the drama; nowhere is there convincing indication that the poet himself had any hatred for the sex.

If we turn from the dialogues to the choruses, we may expect to find the author's true opinions, and here occur no traces whatever of unfriendly criticism. Male choruses sing of the unbounded happiness which is gained in the possession of a good wife; female choruses sing of entrancing love, of the blessings of a happy married life, while faithlessness and sinful passion are condemned. They refer at times to evil report concerning women, but always with indignation and in manifest effort to correct a wrong judgment. Thus, for example, the chorus of the Ion:

"Mark--ye whose strains of slander

Scourge evermore

Woman in song, and brand her

Wanton and whore,--

How high in virtue's place

We pass men's lawless race,

Nor spit in viper-lays your venom-store.

But let the Muse of taunting

On men's heads pour

Her indignation, chanting

Her treason-lore;

Sing of the outraged maid;

Tell of the wife betrayed

Of him who hath displayed his false heart's core--"

The nature of the characters of Euripides is the most important of all the testimony of the plays as evidence of the social life of Athens, since the poet drew them from real life, and consequently his men and his women are necessarily fair specimens of the men and women to be found in Athenian society. It is noticeable that the men are, as a rule, far inferior to the women, both in manners and in nobility of character, and are not to be compared with the heroes of Æschylus and Sophocles. Hippolytus is indeed a notable example of youthful purity; Pylades, of unselfish friendship; Achilles, of courtly chivalry; Ion, of youthful piety; Theseus, of devoted patriotism; and the peasant husband of Electra, of knightly regard; but the majority of the male characters are selfish, quarrelsome, and ordinary. How different do we find the case when we consider the dramatist's women!

Differing from his countrymen in the conception of the character, capabilities, and rights of woman, Euripides has in his plays presented ideals of a womanhood which would give woman something higher to live for than the drudgery of household duties, and would raise the sex in the estimation of men. Heroism in everyday life is the lesson he constantly teaches by the examples of such women as Alcestis, the devoted wife and mother; as Polyxena, the brave martyr-maiden; as Andromache, faithful in thraldom to the memory of her valiant husband; as Macaria and Iphigenia, sacrificing themselves for the sake of a great cause; and as Electra, the devoted sister. Nowhere can one find a longer catalogue of noble women, not heroines of prehistoric days living in a golden age, but women who in character and sentiments were like to those met with every day in every community. Euripides's heart was burdened by the sorrows and wrongs of the sex; and he combated the social system which was at the root of the evil, not by violent assaults upon it, not by seeking to overturn that which was the product of centuries and was a natural result of the Greek idea of the city-state, but by showing women how they could better their condition and by giving men more exalted ideas of the nature of woman. Says Mr. Arthur S. Way, the translator and ardent advocate of Euripides, who, of all Greek scholars, has most profoundly and sympathetically investigated this question:

"Euripides set himself to appeal to human hearts as he found them, to exalt men's estimate of woman, to redeem women from despair of themselves, by uplifting before them inspiring ideals of womanhood which might be types and examples for all time. And, first, he gave them those transcendent four--who in the union of the sweetness and lovable gentleness of the pure womanly with the magnificent exaltation of the highest heroism are unapproached by Homer's Penelope and Andromache, or by Sophocles's Antigone. He gave them Alcestis, who surrendered her life freely, not so much for her husband as for wifely duty's sake, and never flinched nor faltered as the horror of great darkness swallowed her up, but by strength of a mother's love stayed up the feet that were sinking into Hades, till her dying breath had made her children's future sure, and then in death's grasp quietly laid her hand, and so was drawn down, faintly and ever more faintly murmuring love. He gave them Iphigenia, who, summoned from the cloistered shelter of her home as to a bridal, found herself set without warning before the altar of death, and yet shrank and shuddered only till the full import of the great sacrifice demanded dawned upon her, and then sprang full-statured to the height of a godlike resolve; who grasped in her pure hands the scales of national justice, who bore up with her slender wrists the fate of her fatherland, and sang the triumph pasan of Hellas as she paced to death. He gave them Macaria, who attained a height of selfless heroism unimagined till that hour, in that unasked she gave her life for the salvation of a noble house and of alien helpers; who refused to hearken to the suggestion which whispered a hope of escape, but with unreverted eyes turned from all joys and all hopes of young life, and spent her last breath in consolation and encouragement to those who clung with adoring love and passionate tears about her parting feet. He gave them Polyxena, the most pathetic figure of all, sustained by no proud consciousness of salvation wrought from suffering, but only welcoming death as an angel of deliverance from shame and long regrets, who stood on the grave-mound, arrayed in spotless innocence, with modest lips that calmly made in the name of honor their last request, and so gave her throat to the sword, while the fierce men who but now had clamored for her blood acclaimed her of all maidens noblest of soul.

"He brought before them women in all the relations of life, everywhere surpassing the men in goodness, in constancy, in wisdom, in counsel. They watched the ministering angel who sat by a brother's bed, and wiped the dew of agony from his brow and the foam of madness from his lips; they held their breath while a gentle-hearted priestess bemoaned to her unknown brother the cruel destiny which even then drew her to the verge of fratricide. They saw the wife who hailed a death of fire to be reunited to her slain lord, and the wife who devoted herself to save, or die with, her husband. They heard one mother plead the cause of honor and right against cold statecraft; they listened as another besought her doomed sons to be reconciled. They thrilled beholding the princess-slave whose love was stronger than death and whose highborn spirit flashed defiance to a treacherous foe; and that other, who, remembering her hero-husband, would not suffer the imminent death to make herself or her children play a craven part, but mingled proud scorn of the murderous usurper with regrets for hopes foregone. In the noble words of Professor Mahaffy: 'These are the women who have so raised the ideal of the sex, that in looking upon them the world has passed from neglect to courtesy, from courtesy to veneration; these are they, who, across many centuries, first of frivolity and sensuality, then of rudeness and barbarism, join hands with the ideals of our religion and our chivalry, the martyred saints, the chaste and holy virgins of romance--nay, more, with the true wives, the devoted mothers, of our own day.'

"But there are female characters in his plays which have been pointed to as proving a very different attitude toward women. Of these, Phædra was the best-abused by his enemies, who wilfully shut their eyes to her true character. She is, by the very plot of the play, the helpless victim of the malice of a goddess. With her brain beclouded by fever frenzy, she agonizes for clear vision and wails for peace of mind. She is a pure-souled, true-hearted woman, who tingles with shame and shudders with horror at the hideous thing that has been born in her. She is driven by the imminence of ruin to a desperate expedient to shield her name from the unmerited dishonor which she might well believe, from the ambiguously worded threat with which Hippolytus departed, was to be cast upon her. He gave her cause to think that he would accuse her to his father of a crime of which she knew herself innocent. In her despair, she saw no help but to forestall him by an accusation equally false.

"Medea and Creusa--even Clytemnestra and Hermione--are not portrayed as transgressors without excuse: in each case, the audience heard the woman plead her cause and proclaim the doctrine that woman has rights as well as man, that what man avenges as the inexpiable wrong is not a light offence against her. It may well be that they were not ripe for the reception of ideas so unheard-of, that many of them mistook his drift; but the seed sank in, to bear fruit in due time.

"In each instance the sinner is a woman deeply wronged, or in sore straits, or under dæmoniac influence: there are no such gratuitously wicked characters as Goneril, Lady Macbeth, or Tamora. Yet no one calls Shakespeare a misogynist. Why, then, was it possible for Euripides's enemies to charge him with being one, a charge doubtless echoed by a good many thoughtless and stupid people in his day, but little creditable to modern scholarship? For three reasons: first, the wilful or obtuse misunderstanding of such characters as Phædra--the representation of these by Euripides was the main ground on which Aristophanes alleged that the tendency of his plays was immoral. Secondly, we occasionally come upon the censures of the faults and foibles of women--their proneness to scandal, to uncharitable judgments of their fellows, their pettiness, frivolity, and so forth. It must be admitted, too, that the context sometimes justifies us in concluding that the poet is uttering his own sentiments. It was, indeed, to be expected that a thinker who had so high a conception of what women might be should be painfully impressed by the contrast presented by what they too often were. Nor is it matter for wonder that he should take opportunities of bringing the same feeling home to them. It is not enough to set noble ideals before people who are not yet conscious of the incompatibility of their present habits and aims with the emulation of those ideals. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, as indeed these were, compared with the hideous presentments of female morality in which Aristophanes revels, till his readers might imagine that pure and temperate women were quite the exception in the Athens of his day. And was he not a friend to women who gave, for the sake of his sisters for whom heroic ideals might seem set too high, this winsome model, 'not too fair and good for human nature's daily food'?

"'Beauty wins not love for woman from the yokemate of her life:

Many an one by goodness wins it; for to each true-hearted wife,

Knit in love unto her husband, is Discretion's secret told.

These her gifts are: though her lord be all uncomely to behold,

To her heart and eyes shall he be comely, so her wit be sound;

('Tis not eyes that judge the man; within is true discernment found):

Whensoever he speaks, or holds his peace, shall she his sense commend,

Prompt with sweet suggestion when with speech he fain would please a friend:

Glad she is, if aught untoward hap, to show she feels his care:

Joy and sorrow of the husband aye the loyal wife will share:

Yea, if thou art sick, in spirit will thy wife be sick with thee,

Bear the half of all thy burdens--naught unsweet accounteth she:

For with those we love our duty bids us taste the cup of bliss

Not alone, the cup of sorrow also--what is love but this?'"

The ill-deserved reputation of being a misogynist which attaches to Euripides is due, not to his own plays, but to the satire and drollery of his rival, the comedian Aristophanes, who, in B. C. 411 or 410, produced the Thesmophoriazusæ, a play so cleverly constructed that, while it seemed to defend the female sex against the charges of Euripides, really presented them in a more disgusting light. Aristophanes represents the world of women as thrown into consternation and revolt through the production of the tragedies of Euripides, such as the Hippolytus, wherein the female sex is so severely arraigned. Unable to endure his accusations, an assembly of women is called at the Thesmophoria to plan the destruction of their arch enemy. Euripides, however, hears of the assembly, and prevails on his father-in-law, Mnesilochus, to disguise himself as a woman and seek admittance, that he may plead the cause of the tragedian. The humor of the debate lies in the fact that, after several women have roundly abused Euripides for slandering their sex, Mnesilochus, attired in rustic female garb, eloquently reminds them of the truths which Euripides might have divulged had he chosen to do so. One sin after another is glibly and facetiously piled up against the feminine record, until the few calumnies attributed to Euripides seem insignificant beside the mountain of crimes and foibles the supposed matron heaps up against her sisters. The picture which Aristophanes, in his clever bit of satire, presents of the women of his day is an exceedingly repulsive one. They are represented as profligate, licentious, stupid, fond of drink, thieves and liars. No other Greek writer has given them so base a character. But we must remember that we are reading comedy. "The point of the Thesmophoriazusæ, so far as the women are concerned, is that, while Aristophanes pretends to pillory Euripides for his abuse of them, his own satire is far more searching and penetrates more deeply into the secrets of domestic life."

The grotesque distortion by Aristophanes of the character of the philosopher Socrates is sufficiently well known; the contrast between the sentiments which he attributes to Euripides and the tragic poet's own views as presented in his plays is very striking; hence the pictures that he draws of the life and manners of women must not be accepted without important allowances. Aristophanes was writing to make people laugh, not to reveal the secrets of the household, and his plays were exclusively for an audience of men. Hence coarseness and buffoonery, as elements of comic effect, are continually availed of, and Aristophanes considered that he was witty in maligning the female sex. It would clearly be unfair and even absurd to regard Aristophanes as an accurate expositor of feminine life in Athens. But it is a noticeable fact that, from B. C. 411 onward, there is, as seen in the extant plays of Aristophanes, a marked prominence given to the female sex. Women, who heretofore have played but a subordinate rôle in comedy, now frequently have the principal parts. Comedy, more truly than any other department of literature, reflects the current thought; and while the characters of comedy play a rôle that is the reverse of actuality, comic invention deals with real movements, and this intentional prominence of the usually neglected sex can have but one interpretation: the Woman Question had become a problem which profoundly engaged the attention of the society of the time.

It is a difficult task to attempt to trace in the comedies of Aristophanes the thread of a social movement. He utilized the events and opinions of the day for fun making, and did not greatly concern himself with the serious aspects of social problems. He was an ultra-conservative, and desired to bring the new thought of the day into disrepute by exhibiting its ludicrous side. Hence he makes use of the woman's rights movement to give free rein to his fancy, and to delight the public with obscene jokes on the vices and weaknesses of women and with clever caricatures of their leaders. Yet the attentive reader can get glimpses here and there into the more serious aspects of the question, and can recognize behind some of the distorted, caricatured figures types which are not in themselves comic.

The other two plays of Aristophanes in which women figure prominently are the Lysistrata and the Ecclesiazusæ. In each of these the company of women is directed by a leader who in talents and aggressiveness is far superior to her fellows. These two have not the many small weaknesses of the other dames; they have the collective interest of their sex at heart; and they know how to form a plan and how to carry it through. The other women, in spite of their thoughtlessness and weakness of character, are dominated by the strong personalities of their self-appointed leaders. Hence, by a study of the controlling spirit of each play, in spite of the caricature in the poet's delineation, we may be able to form some conception of the currents of thought of the day as they affected women.

Lysistrata is the wife of an Athenian magistrate, and has been strongly affected by the ill success of the Peloponnesian War. She has meditated long over the experiences of the female sex in general during the last decade of the war. During the first ten years, the Grecian women had borne in silence and without forming any opinions, in the narrow confines of the home, the mistakes of their husbands; but gradually they had observed how politics, in the hands of the men, was going from bad to worse, and how want was increasing year by year. They began to ask questions, to find fault in a mild way, though only with the result that the men sent them back to their domestic duties with the brusque answer: "War shall be a care to men." That which finally roused the women to action was the realization that the men, in the face of events, had unanimously recognized their own helplessness. Lysistrata therefore, in Aristophanes's play, counsels the women to break their chains, seize the reins of government, and bring the dreadful war to an end. She tells the assembled women that they have carried a double burden in the war. As mothers, they have borne sons whom they have been compelled to send forth to death; while as wives, they have been deprived of their husbands; even the maidens have grown old in single blessedness, on account of the absence of men available as husbands. With such words as these she arouses the spirit of her comrades. They, in turn, speak of their virtues, their natural gifts, and their love for their native country, to which they are so much indebted, and in duty to it they are ready to turn their attention to things of war; for, say they: "The Attic woman is no slave, and has sufficient courage to take up arms in her country's cause: now, war shall be a care to women."

These reflections have a decided importance in a consideration of the social history of the times by suggesting how the female sex developed under the trying conditions of war.

In the poet's delineation of Lysistrata, the scene in which she describes to the assembled Athenian and Laconian deputies their political sins gains special importance. She possesses historical insight. By recounting historical facts, she reminds them of what the Laconians have done for the Athenians, and what the latter for the Laconians, and awakens them to general Pan-Hellenic interests, for which they should labor in common instead of weakening their power in fratricidal war. In this address she characterizes herself as follows: "I am a woman, it is true; but I have understanding; and of myself I am not badly off in respect of intellect. By having often heard the remarks of my father and my elders, I have not been ill educated."

We have then in the Lysistrata the women of the day led on in a great patriotic movement by an educated and eloquent woman. The play exhibits a constant battle of words between men and women, each grouped in a chorus. The women seize the Acropolis and make themselves experts in the science of war. Their plans succeed; and the husbands are reduced to a terrible plight by the novel resolution adopted by their wives to bring them to terms. Envoys at length come from the belligerent parties, and peace is concluded under the direction of the clever Lysistrata.

If from the unbridled drollery and serious moral of the drama we endeavor to reach conclusions regarding the Woman Question, they will be found to be about as follows. There were at this time certain prominent women who were endeavoring to have the natural capabilities of the female sex more justly esteemed, and energetic voices were being raised against the humble status of woman in society and in public affairs. This movement was quickened in the latter part of the century, owing to the mistakes of the Peloponnesian War, but the efforts of women to assert their rights were met by the violent opposition of the conservative party. The leader in the Lysistrata, in her gift of speech and breadth of understanding, typifies some historical women who took a prominent part in the movement, and these were, probably, some aristocratic ladies who had been influenced by Aspasia.

The unique importance of the Lysistrata consists in its portraiture of the leaders of the woman's rights movement and in its suggestion of the ambitious projects they were prepared to undertake. The Ecclesiazusæ is, like the Lysistrata, a picture of woman's ascendency, but it goes further in satirizing some of the schemes which in daily conversation and in the works of the philosophers were being presented for bettering the conditions of society and improving the status of women. The success of such a play presupposes that the minds of the audience were prepared for it by the informal discussion of such questions in everyday life. The Athenian ladies, in the Ecdesiazusæ, under the leadership of Praxagora,--who is endowed with much the same gifts as Lysistrata, and is, in fact, a replica of that clever woman,--disguise themselves as men and crowd the public assembly; by means of the majority of votes which they have thus fraudulently obtained, they overturn the government of the men and proclaim the supremacy of the women in the State. Praxagora, the leading agitator, is chosen strategis, and she immediately proclaims, as the fundamental principles of the new State, community of property and free trade between the sexes--ideas which were prominent in the ideal Republic of Plato and had been earlier projected by Protagoras. "The point of the satire consists in this: that the arguments by which the women get the upper hand all turn on their avowed conservatism; men change and shift, women preserve their old customs and will maintain the ethos of the State; but no sooner have they got authority than they show themselves more democratic than the demagogues, more new-fangled in their political notions than the philosophers. They upset time-honored institutions and make new ones to suit their own caprices, squaring the laws according to the logic of feminine instinct. Of course, speculations like those of Plato's Republic are satirized in the farcical scenes which illustrate the consequences of this female revolution. But perhaps the finest point about the comedy is its harmonious insight into the workings of women's minds--a clear sense of what a topsy-turvy world we should have to live in if women were the lawgivers and governors."

We have thus briefly sketched the indications of the prevalence of the Woman Question in Athens, as presented in the plays of Aristophanes. This writer furthermore affords us many ludicrous pictures of woman in private life, which indicate that the fair sex were not always as weak as men would have them. The chorus of the Thesmophoriazusæ resent the many ill things said of the race of women,--"that we are an utter evil to men, and that all evils spring from us, strifes, quarrels, seditions, painful grief, and war. Come, now, if we are an evil, why do you marry us, if indeed we are really an evil, and forbid any of us either to go out, or to be caught peeping out, but wish to guard the evil thing with so great diligence? And if the wife should go out any whither, and you then should discover her to be out of doors, you rage with madness, who ought to offer libations and rejoice, if indeed you really find the evil thing to be gone away from the house and do not find it at home. And if we sleep in other peoples' houses, when we play and when we are tired, everyone searches for this evil thing, going round about the beds. And if we peep out of a window, everyone seeks to get a sight of the evil thing. And if we retire again, being ashamed, so much the more does everyone desire to see the evil thing peep out again. So manifestly are we much better than you." As portrayed by Aristophanes, the women of his day manifestly knew how to assert their equality. Feminine foibles and weaknesses do not escape his satiric pen. Women are overfond of dress, and no brilliant or prudent action can be expected of them,

Furthermore, they are fond of drink, and this vice is mercilessly satirized. The inexorable oath administered by Lysistrata to her comrades, in entering upon their crusade to bring about peace, is one which no Athenian woman would incur the penalty of breaking: "If I violate my pledge, may the cup be filled with water!"

Occasionally a man found he had married a wife who set aside his conjugal authority and ruled the household. Thus Strepsiades, the country gentleman of Aristophanes's Clouds, quarrelled with his luxurious, city-bred wife, of the aristocratic house of Megacles, over the naming of their son, which was the father's right, and, woman-like, she carried her point; and this son she brought up to despise his father's country ways and to squander his father's substance in horse racing.

Aristophanes was not the only comic poet who indulged in gibes at the female sex, for the object of comedy was to amuse, and the Athenian audience of men ever found delight in the portrayal of the weaknesses and foibles of the opposite sex. Even his predecessor Susarion, who was the first to compose comedy in verse, and is usually called the inventor of comedy, gave expression to the current abuse: "Hear, O ye people! Susarion says this, the son of Philinus, the Megarian, of Tripodiscus: women are an evil; and yet, my countrymen, one cannot set up house without evil; for to be married or not to be married is alike bad." It is unfortunate for our purpose that so little survives of the numberless plays of the Middle and New Comedy, especially the latter, for this comedy of manners presented a close and faithful picture of domestic life and would have been an almost inexhaustible mine of information on Attic life in general, full as it was of illustrations of the manners, feelings, prejudices, and ways of thinking of the Ancient Greeks.

The fragments preserved to us are sufficient, however, to give us glimpses of the manner in which woman was treated on the stage; and, while there was much harsh criticism, it is gratifying to note that her good qualities were at times recognized. Says the poet Antiphanes:

"Great Zeus," says another poet, "may I perish, if I ever spoke against woman, the most precious of all acquisitions. For if Medea was an objectionable person, surely Penelope was an excellent creature. Does anyone abuse Clytemnestra? I oppose the admirable Alcestis. But perhaps someone may abuse Phaedra; then I say, by Zeus! what a capital person was.... Oh, dear! the catalogue of good women is already exhausted, while there remains a crowd of bad ones that might be mentioned." "Woman's a necessary and undying evil," says Philemon; and in another fragment:

Menander, the greatest representative of the New Comedy, has been compared to a mirror, so clear were the images he presented of human life. His epigrammatic sayings are justly famous, and many of them refer to woman. "Manner, not money, makes a woman's charm," says he in one passage; and in another:

"Where women are, there every ill is found," is still another disparaging sentiment, as is his repetition of the frequent gibe at marriage:

Yet the poet was also appreciative of the good qualities in woman, as is seen in the sentiment: "A good woman is the rudder of her household;" with which we may compare the words of another poet:

and at times Menander notes how even a woman of serious faults may prove to be the greatest blessing:

Surely a touching portraiture of woman's gentle ministry, and worthy to be compared with Scott's famous lines! In spite of the numerous complaints against woman, the plays of the New Comedy usually ended in a happy marriage--the wild youth falls in love with the penniless maiden, reforms, discovers her to be wellborn, and wins over the angry parent; then follow joyous wedding festivities, and happiness ever afterward. Such is the usual course of the plot. Satirical reflections on woman, especially when made in poetry, must not be taken too seriously; and where romantic love is also the theme for song, we may be sure that woman, though much abused, is yet tenderly regarded and highly esteemed among men.

A social movement for the emancipation of woman, which had occupied the attention of thinking men and women of Athens in the latter half of the fifth century before Christ, which had been started by Aspasia in her salon, which had been discussed by Socrates and the Socratics, especially Æschines, and which had brought about a battle royal between the dramatists Euripides and Aristophanes, naturally called for scientific treatment at the hands of the philosophers. The works of Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon accordingly devote much space to the consideration of the Woman Question. The female sex, hitherto "accustomed to live cowed and in obscurity,"--as Plato puts it,--justly claimed more favorable conditions; and the philosophers who endeavored to bring about a better social status asserted that woman deserved proper recognition at the hands of men.

Plato had taken seriously to heart the lessons of the Peloponnesian War. He was keenly sensitive to the evils of democracy as then existent, and recognized the need of governmental and social reform. He felt that in the disregard of women at least half the citizen population had been neglected, and we have in his works the strongest assertion of the equality of the sexes.

"And so," he says, in one of his dialogues, "in the administration of a State, neither a woman as a woman nor a man as a man has any special function, but the gifts of nature are equally diffused in both sexes; all the pursuits of men are the pursuits of women also, and in all of these woman is only a lesser man." "Very true." "Then are we to impose all our enactments on men and none on women?" "That will never do." "One woman has a gift of healing, another not; one is a musician, another is not." "Very true." "And one woman has a turn for gymnastic and military exercises, while another is unwarlike and hates gymnastics." "Beyond question." "And one woman is a philosopher, and another is an enemy of philosophy; one has spirit, and another is without spirit." "This is also true."

From these premises, recognizing the diversity of gifts among women and the correspondence of their talents with those of men, though less in degree, Plato affirms that women should receive a training similar to that accorded to men; to them should be given the same education and assigned the same duties, though the lighter tasks should fall to them as being less strong physically.

"There shall be compulsory education," says Plato, in his Laws, "for females as well as males; they shall both go through the same exercises. I assert, without fear of contradiction, that gymnastic exercises and horsemanship are as suitable to women as to men. I further affirm that nothing can be more absurd than the practice which prevails in our country, of men and women not following the same pursuits with all their strength and with one mind, for thus the State, instead of being a whole, is reduced to a half."

The view of Plato, as stated in his Republic, which aroused the most hostile criticism was his theory of the community of women as well as of property. But this grew out of the fundamental thesis in his theory of government: that the State must be developed into a perfect unity. The family as a private possession disturbed this unity, and must therefore be dispensed with.

This theory, however, proved too extreme, even for Plato himself, and in his Laws he returns to the idea of marriage, but he follows the Spartan system by putting marriage under the constant surveillance of legislation. He wishes every man to contract that marriage which is most beneficial to the State, not that which is most pleasing to himself. He urges that people of opposing temperaments and of different conditions in life should wed,--the stronger with the weaker, the richer with the poorer,--"perceiving that the city ought to be well mingled, like a cup in which the maddening wine is hot and fiery, but, when chastened by a soberer god, receives a fair associate and becomes an excellent and temperate drink." By such arguments he endeavors to beguile the spirits of men into believing that the equability of their children's disposition is of more importance than equality when they marry.

The philosopher does not seem to see the humor in his proposal to bring together contrary natures, nor the pain he would inflict on the parties most concerned. With him the interest of the State is supreme, and to that everything must yield.

However, even amid such extreme doctrines we find wise counsel, inspired by a more practical and humane spirit. Plato finds fault with the prevailing custom of not giving young people an opportunity to become acquainted with each other before marriage; and he recognizes, from the excellent influence of the wife's activity in the home, how much she might contribute to the well-being of the State if she were taken out of seclusion and intimately associated with the life of her husband.

The woman's rights movement reached its high-water mark in the works of Plato. Thenceforth there were a gradual decline in the conception of woman's capacities and a lessening of the demands for her emancipation.

Aristotle is less generous than Plato in his concessions to woman. "The male is by nature superior, and the female inferior; the one rules, the other is ruled; this principle of necessity is extended to all mankind." Thus he asserts woman's inferiority to man and he insists upon her silent and passive obedience. The difference of functions and duties he bases upon difference of nature. "The temperance and courage of a man are other than those of a woman. For a man who is courageous only as a woman is will seem timid, and a woman will seem impudent if she has merely the reserve and modesty of an honest man. Thus, in a family, a woman's duties differ from a man's--his it is to acquire, hers to preserve." Each woman, however, has her part in the State, and should be prepared for it. "In women the qualities of the body are beauty and height; those of the soul are temperance and love of work, without baseness. An individual and a State should desire each of these qualities in both men and women." Yet, while asserting woman's inferiority, Aristotle recognizes the sanctity of marriage and of the family, and preaches to men faithfulness and regard and appreciation in their attitude toward women. In his Ethics he dwells with delicacy on the affectionate regard husband and wife should each have for the other. They should bear with and encourage each other in all the events of life. And while he insists upon the limitations of woman's intelligence and reasoning powers, he yet recognizes her superiority to man in qualities of the heart; and when he wishes to give an example of disinterested and ideal affection, it is woman who serves as his model. On the whole, Aristotle draws a more pleasing picture of woman's character and position than Plato, in spite of the greater equality granted by the latter. Plato's philosophy was primarily the product of imagination, Aristotle's of experience; Plato was essentially theoretical, Aristotle practical. Hence the teachings of the Stagirite were doubtless based on examples of conjugal unity and felicity which he saw about him, and he extended to the Athenian people in general the views of marital relations that prevailed in his own circle.

Xenophon's treatise on Domestic Economy was probably intended to be a contribution to the current discussion of the Woman Question; in it he sought to prove the falsity of the views of Plato and Aristotle, who advocated greater freedom for woman, and at the same time endeavored to reform existing conditions without materially changing them. In his Recollections of Socrates, he expresses, as the views of that philosopher, opinions of the high value of the sex, but only in purely domestic relations. Socrates insists upon reverence for and obedience to the mother, who watches over her children with tender affection and unwearied solicitude; who, when they are capable of receiving instruction, endeavors to instil into their minds the knowledge which will best conduce to their future welfare. "For the man who is wanting in respect to parents," he adds, "public punishments are appointed; the laws yield him no longer their protection, neither is he permitted any share in the administration; since they think no sacrifice offered by a hand so impious can be acceptable to the gods or beneficial to man." These and other passages show that the Socrates of Xenophon entertained very delicate sentiments regarding the domestic life. He saw in woman the diligent mother and industrious housekeeper, watchful of her house and its management. He leaves her in her seclusion, occupied with her quiet domestic duties, but at the same time he recognizes the charm as well as the usefulness of her presence in the home. Her economy, vigilance, and care are of inestimable value to her husband. He regards marriage as a union in which husband and wife have each his or her own duties as well as authority. His views are a contrast to those of his time, when the rights were all on one side, while on the other were only duty and submission.

The Domestic Economy of Xenophon is but an exposition and illustration of the views which the author here attributes to Socrates. The most remarkable feature in Xenophon's system of woman training is the utter absence of any intellectual discipline. Manifestly, he did not believe in the mental equality of the sexes. His was a purely industrial system of education, one merely designed to fit woman for the duties of the home.

It is not improbable that in this work is embodied the view which pleased the majority of the Athenian public regarding the aspirations of women. Thus, after more than half a century of discussion, the agitation for the emancipation of woman seems not to have accomplished any demonstrable change in her social life, but to have resolved itself merely into a plea for better equipment for her domestic duties. Yet even this was something gained; and if all the husbands of Athens were as conscientious as Ischomachus in training their wives for the duties of home, and gave them the companionship which such an education involved, there must have been marked improvement in the social status of woman.

Perhaps it was impossible for women to be accorded greater liberty of action while the ancient conception of the city-state obtained. Woman's harmonious development regularly keeps pace with her freedom, and the intellectual possibilities of the sex are only limited by the opportunities afforded. The men who were responsible for the system could hurl their shafts of satire at the uncultivated women confined to their apartments and their domestic cares; but whenever the least liberty of action was granted those women, they proved themselves fully equal to the men in intellectual capacity, and the Greek woman always exceeded her brothers in moral sublimity and unselfishness. The root of the evil was the system of government. Soon Philip and Alexander were to put an end with their legions to the exclusiveness of the city-state, and the Greek woman of the Hellenistic period was destined to enjoy greater freedom and greater influence.

XII

GREEK WOMAN IN RELIGION

More spiritual by nature, more inclined to mysticism, with keener intuitions, woman has ever taken a more prominent part in religious matters than man. Hence, even in such a country as Hellas, where woman was excluded from so many lines of human activity, we find that in religious observance she had equal freedom with man, and far exceeded him in devoutness and religious fervor. The Greeks, though they had only the light of nature to guide them, were essentially a spiritual people. They saw the hand of the Unseen everywhere manifesting itself in natural phenomena: they recognized divinities in the fertility of the soil, in the stars of the heavens, in the crystal waters of the spring, in the rain and in the storm cloud, in the winds of the forest. They even personified abstractions, and deified emotions and virtues. Nor were they merely content with inward piety, but endeavored in every way by outward observance to worship the deities which were the creations of their own myth-making faculties; and in all the religious ceremonials of the Greeks woman played a prominent role.

All the Greek peoples gloried in being of the same blood and language and religion. Though widely separated politically and engaged in endless wars among themselves, the chief bond of union known to them was the common cult of some divinity and participation in the same religious festivals. The oracles, the temples, the games, the processions in honor of their gods, tended to maintain the unity of Greece and were the promoters of national sentiment. Woman's part in these bonds of union made her influential in the welfare of the common country, and religious ceremonies were to her occasions in which she could feel herself an essential factor in Greek life.

In the childhood of the world, man, who reached conclusions by a long process of reasoning, stood in awe of the intuitive faculty in woman that enabled her to arrive at a truth without apparent effort. Hence the spirit of divination was thought to be inherent in the sex, and women were prophetesses from remote ages. Among pagan peoples, the earliest manifestations of the prophetic instinct in woman were recognized in the persons of certain seers to whom was given the name of Sibyls. The word in its etymology signifies the "will of God," and was applied to the inspired prophetesses of some deity, chiefly of Apollo. The Sibyls were generally represented as maidens, dwelling in lonely caverns or by sacred springs, who were possessed of the spirit of divination and gave forth prophetic utterances while under the influence of enthusiastic frenzy. Their number, their names, their countries, their times, are matters about which we have no certain knowledge; but twelve are mentioned by ancient writers, of whom three were certainly Greek--the Delphian, the Erythrean, and the Samian. Herophila, the Erythrean Sibyl, was the most celebrated of them all, and she is represented as wandering from her Ionian home, by manifold journeyings, to Cumæ, in Magna Græcia, whence she became known as the Cumæan Sibyl. She it was whom Æneas consulted before his descent into Hades, and who later sold to the last Tarquin the prophetic books. It was believed that her age reached a thousand years.

Women also were priestesses at the oracles of Hellas, which were seats of the worship of certain divinities, where prophecies were imparted to inquiring souls through the instrumentality of the attendants of the deity. The oldest and most venerated of the oracles was that of Zeus at Dodona, mentioned by Homer. Here, among the prophetic oaks, priestesses read the future in the rustling of the leaves and in the creaking of the branches, in the bubbling of a spring and in the sounds made by brazen cymbals hung near the sacred shrine. Herodotus visited this oracle, and gives the names of the three priestesses who officiated in his time. These priestesses--Promenia, Timarete, Nicandra--related to him a very interesting story concerning the origin of the oracle. They traced its sacred legends back to the worship in the famous temple of Thebes in Egypt. Two doves, they said, flew away one day from the city of Thebes and took their flight into distant lands. One alighted in Libya, on the spot where the oracle of Jupiter Ammon was later established; while the other, crossing the sea, flew as far as Dodona, where, perching on an oak, in human voice she commanded those that heard her to establish there an oracle of Zeus. For this reason the priestesses were known as Peliades, or doves. When, however, Herodotus inquired of the priests in Thebes about the tradition, they told a different story: that two priestesses of their temple had once been carried off from Egypt by the Phoenicians and sold into slavery, and that one of these priestesses finally established herself at Dodona. So, whether dove or priestess, the tradition of the Egyptian origin of the oracle seemed confirmed.

Apollo, however, rather than Zeus, was the god of prophecy, and it was generally in connection with his shrines that oracles were spoken. Usually, fountains whose water was supposed to influence the workings of the mind, or caverns whence escaped a gas producing delirium or hallucination, were regarded as places where the divinity was present. Hence there existed numerous oracles of Apollo in Greece proper and in Asia Minor. The most celebrated of the latter was the oracle of the Didymæan Apollo at Branchidæ, near Miletus, where a priestess uttered prophecies, seated on a wheel-shaped disk, after she had bathed the hem of her robe and her feet in the sacred spring and had breathed the vapors arising from it.

The most illustrious of all the oracles of ancient Hellas was at Delphi, which is situated, like a vast amphitheatre, above the beautiful plain of Cirrha in Phocis, with the double summits of Parnassus forming the background. Delphi became the centre of the Hellenic religion, and the fame of its oracle extended as far as to Lydia in the east, and to Rome and the Etruscans in the west. At first, a young maiden took the part of the priestess of Apollo who gave the responses; but the authorities realizing the dangers to which the beauty of the priestess might lead, a woman of at least fifty years of age was later selected for the honor, and finally, as one prophetess was not sufficient to answer the questions of the vast crowd of pilgrims that assembled to consult the oracle, three were chosen. The name given to the inspired priestess was always the same, that of Pythia.

To prepare the priestess for the ordeal which was to make known the will of the god, she was kept fasting for a number of days--a condition favorable to hallucinations, and then was given laurel leaves to chew because of their narcotic virtue. Then the Pythia was seated on a tripod, placed in the middle of the sanctuary, over an opening in the ground whence mephitic vapors were escaping. Her head was crowned with a garland made from the tree of Apollo, and about the tripod coiled a snake, the emblem of the art of divination. The exhalations from the abyss were deemed to be the very breath of the god, with which he inspired his priestess. Soon she grew pale and trembled with convulsive movements; her only utterances at first were groans and sighs; and now, with eyes aflame, with hair dishevelled, and with foam on her lips, amid shrieks of anguish she gave forth a few incoherent, disconnected words. The god had at last spoken through his priestess. The words were carefully written down by the attendant priest, who gave a rhythmic form to the response, and thus a revelation of the future was made known to the anxious inquirer.

The Pythia was consulted by all the peoples of Greece, as well as by kings and strangers from foreign lands. Colonies to Italy, to Africa, to the regions about the Black Sea, were sent at her command; she sanctioned laws; she taught Lycurgus that the best laws were those which obliged rulers to rule well and subjects to obey well. To the conquered, she counselled resignation and hope. Peoples lusting for conquest, she bade revive their piety toward the gods and seek the mercy of heaven by showing themselves merciful. She was also the guardian of individual morality. To a king desiring peace of mind, she declared that his unhappiness was due to his and his predecessors' wrong-doings, and recommended the exercise of clemency when he returned home. Being asked: "Who is the happiest of men?" she replied: "Phædrus, who has died for his country," A man named Glaucus wished to withhold a treasure which had been confided to him, but decided first to get the sanction of the oracle; the Pythia revealed to him the woes reserved for the perjured. To the lot of Gyges, the wealthy and powerful king, she preferred that of a poor Arcadian farmer who cultivated his plot of ground in peace of mind. By pure and elevated moral teachings, the Pythia instructed the bands of pilgrims who assembled at Delphi. Such was the power in the hands of a woman. Frail and nervous, she yet represented a religious institution the most influential in the pagan world; she largely determined the destiny of Greeks and barbarians alike. The wisdom of this oracular centre is generally ascribed in modern times to the college of priests assembled at Delphi, who interpreted the responses of the Pythia; but, whatever the nature of the mechanism by which this oracle retained its influence for centuries, the people in general had, for ages, perfect faith that the responses came directly from the god of prophecy through his inspired priestess. It is undoubtedly true that the Greeks, as well as the Hindoos, Gauls, and Germans, attributed to woman the gift of second-sight; and the immaculate life which the Pythia was required to lead attests the fact that to receive the inspiration of the god of light there were needed a purity of heart and a devoutness of spirit which could only be found in a woman. Strange to say, it was the law that no woman could consult this oracle of Apollo, whose divine will was revealed through a woman; women could, however, indirectly receive a response through the mediation of a man.

The Greeks were fond of the pomp and splendor of religious festivals. They celebrated such festivals whenever occasion offered, and during their continuance all regular occupations ceased. Plato saw in the prevailing custom other advantages besides the purely religious effect. "The gods," he says, "touched with compassion for the human race, which nature condemns to labor, have provided for intervals of repose in the regular succession of festivals instituted in their own honor." These festivities were not only a feature of the national religion; they were the schools of patriotism, of poetry, and of art. Each city had its own special festivals, and there were also those national celebrations in which all people joined. Zeus was the national deity of the Greeks; Olympia was his most sacred seat; and the Olympian festival was the greatest event in Greece.

In the district of Elis, on the western side of the Peloponnesus, the river Alpheus, after dashing and splashing down the mountains of Arcadia, slackens its speed and meanders westwardly through the valley in fantastic curves and windings. Soon it meets the quiet waters of the Cladeus coming from the north. Between the two, and not far from their confluence, lie the wooded slopes of Mount Cronion. In the triangular space thus formed by the rivers and the mountain is situated the sacred grove known as the Altis, the hallowed precinct of Olympian Zeus. Here was his temple, and not far from it the shrine of his consort Hera; and just outside the sacred precinct lay the racecourse, where were celebrated the Olympic games which have made the name of Olympia famous throughout the world. This was the national centre of Greece, where citizens from all parts of the Greek world assembled to join in friendly contests of physical prowess and poetry and song. The situation was indeed a beautiful one. Northward and westward were the mountain peaks of Achæa and the high tablelands of Arcadia; southward, the rugged mountain chain of Messene; westward, the Ionian sea. The well-watered valley, bounded by undulating hills, was covered with luxuriant vegetation. The pine woods of Mount Cronion, the dense grove of plane trees within and about the sacred precinct, the vine, the olive and the myrtle of the valley, and the quiet waters of the sacred streams, were elements that constituted a landscape of indescribable beauty, renowned in ancient times and the delight of modern travellers.

The festival in honor of Olympian Zeus recurred every four years, at the time of the full moon following the summer solstice. Sacred heralds carried to all parts of the Greek world the official message announcing the festival, and a sacred truce was declared for a sufficient length of time to allow all desirous of doing so to attend the gathering and to return home. As the great day approached, men and youths, matrons and maidens, set out to take part in or to witness the various features of the festival. Cities sent sacred embassies, or theoriæ, resplendent in purple and gold, bearing offerings to the god. Artists and poets, merchants and manufacturers, found in this gathering of the Greeks a great mart in which they could make known their talents or their wares and receive lucrative orders, the former for a statue or an ode, the latter for the sale of their merchandise. Tents stood in rows upon the plain, and everywhere were scenes of busy traffic or of social entertainment.

We are not concerned here with the various exercises that constituted the festival, nor with the games which were celebrated in the stadium, nor with the horse and chariot races in the hippodrome, except in so far as women were participants; and their part was but slight. When the games were held, a priestess of Demeter was present, seated on an altar of white marble opposite the umpires' seats, but she was the only woman to whom this privilege was granted. While their loved ones were contending in the stadium, mothers and wives and sisters had to remain on the southern bank of the Alpheus. Only one instance is recounted where this rule was broken. "Pherenice, daughter of a celebrated Rhodian wrestler, whose family boasted that they were descended from Hercules, could not bear to leave her son while the contest was going on, and disguising herself as a man, and pretending to be a teacher of gymnastics, she mingled with the groups of gymnasts. When her son was proclaimed victor, however, her feelings carried her away, and forgetful of prudence she rushed to embrace her child. In her haste her robes became disordered, and her sex was revealed. The law was explicit: every woman found within the sacred precinct was condemned to death. Nevertheless, the judges acquitted her, in recognition of the fame her family had won; but to prevent any repetition of the occurrence, the masters, as well as their pupils, had thenceforth to present themselves naked."

Women could, however, run their horses in the hippodrome and thus win a prize, as was done by Cynisca, daughter of Archidamnus, King of Sparta, who was the first woman that bred horses and gained a chariot victory at Olympia. After her, other women, chiefly Spartans, won Olympic victories, but none of them attained such fame as did Cynisca. So honored was she by her people that a shrine was erected to her at her death; there was also erected at Sparta a statue of the maiden Euryleon, who won an Olympic victory with a two-horse chariot.

Though excluded from the games at the great festival of Zeus, there were yet some games at Olympia in which women took part. These were a feature of the festival of Hera, whose temple was also in the Altis. At this festival, sixteen women, duly appointed, wove a robe for the goddess and conducted games called the Heræa, participated in by the maidens of Elis and surrounding districts. Pausanias thus describes the spectacle: "The games consist of a race between virgins. The virgins are not all of the same age; but the youngest run first, the next in age run next, and the eldest virgins run last of all. They run thus: their hair hangs down, they wear a shirt that reaches to a little above the knee, the right shoulder is bare to the breast. The course assigned to them for the contest is the Olympic stadium; but the course is shortened by about one-sixth of the stadium. The winners receive crowns of olive and a share of the cow which is sacrificed to Hera; moreover, they are allowed to dedicate statues of themselves, with their names engraved on them."

From a consideration of woman's part in the religious ceremonials at the national centres of Greece,--Delphi and Olympia,--we must now turn to Athens, with whose festive calendar we are much better acquainted. The Athenians were rightly characterized by the Apostle Paul as being very religious. In all parts of the city were temples and statues; according to one writer, it was easier to find there a god than a man. More than eighty days out of each year were given up to religious festivities. Pallas Athena, daughter of Zeus, was the patron goddess of Athens, and the Acropolis was her sacred precinct; but other deities were worshipped, even on the Acropolis, and throughout the city there were shrines to numberless gods and goddesses.

From earliest times, women were intimately associated with the worship of Athena. Varro preserves a tradition which records that it was women's votes that determined the choice of Athena over Poseidon as patron deity of Athens. Originally, women took part in the public councils with men and had a voice therein, and when the weighty question of the rivalry of the two divinities came up they outvoted the men by a majority of one in favor of the goddess. Poseidon was angered, and submerged the land of Attica. To appease the god, the citizens deprived the women of the right to vote and forbade them in future to transmit their names to their children and to be called Athenians. But though their political rights were thus sadly infringed and they were relegated to ignorance and obscurity, they retained their part in the exercises of religion, especially in the worship of their patron goddess. Little is known of the various priestesses of Athena, who figured so prominently in the art of Athens and who presided at the goddess's temples on the Acropolis. It was an important office and was always held by a woman of great wisdom, high moral character, and mature years. Under her direction were the maidens of the city who were chosen from time to time from the noblest families to take part in the festivals of the goddess. Pausanias gives us a glimpse of the duties of certain of these maidens, and we could wish that he had cleared up the mystery that surrounded their office. "Two maidens," said he, "dwell not far from the temple of the Polias; the Athenians call them Arrephoræ. They are lodged for a time with the goddess; but when the festival comes around, they perform the following ceremony by night. They put on their heads the things which the priestess of Athena gives them to carry, but what it is she gives is known neither to her who gives nor to them who carry. Now, there is in the city an enclosure, not far from the sanctuary of Aphrodite, called Aphrodite in the Gardens, and there is a natural underground descent through it. Down this way the maidens go. Below, they leave their burdens; and getting something else which is wrapped up, they bring it back. These maidens are then discharged and others are brought to the Acropolis in their stead." Other maidens resided for a time on the Acropolis, engaged in weaving the saffron-colored peplus which was to be presented to the goddess at the Great Panathenæa--the most brilliant festival of the Athenians. This was the highest honor that could be conferred on Athenian maidens, and while engaged in this work they shared in the deference shown the goddess. They dwelt with the great priestess, and were under her immediate direction when they appeared in public; they were clad in tunics of white, with cloaks of gold, and were universally recognized as votaries of Athena. It has been conjectured that the mysterious bundles which the Arrephoræ carried down from the Acropolis contained the remnants of the wool which had served to make the peplus of the preceding year, and that they brought back the material destined for the future peplus; but of this there is no positive evidence. Certain it is, however, that the garment intended for the goddess was a masterpiece of the textile art, woven of the finest fabrics and embroidered in gold with scenes of Athena battling with the gods against the giants, and of such other incidents as the State had judged worthy to figure beside her exploits. Athena was, among her many functions, also the goddess of weaving and other feminine arts, and as such had a shrine on the Acropolis, where she was worshipped under the title of Athena Ergane. Within this precinct were statues to Lysippe, Timostrata, and Aristomache, maidens thus honored because of their skill in womanly occupations.

For the origin of the Panathenæa--the greatest of Athenian festivals--we must go back to the heroic days of Athens when King Erechtheus dedicated on the Acropolis the archaic wooden statue of Athena, reputed to have fallen from heaven, and established the custom of offering to the image once a year a new mantle, embroidered by noble maidens of the city. Later, Theseus united the various tribes under one rule, with the Acropolis as its centre, A festival to celebrate this event was united with the festival to Athena, and the enlarged festival was known as the Panathenæa, symbolizing the union and political power of Athens and the sovereignty of the goddess. Pisistratus increased the splendor of this festival, and, in the golden days of Athens after the Persian War, Pericles added to its pomp and magnificence. He erected on the Acropolis an imposing temple to the goddess, the Parthenon, and placed within it her image of gold and ivory. The worship of Athena and the political supremacy of Athens now became synonymous. Her festival was the highest expression of the ideals of Athens in its greatest epoch. The greater Panathenaæ was Athens in its glory, possessed of an overflowing treasury, supreme among the States of Greece, the exponent of poetry and art and beauty.

There was great rejoicing when the sacred peplus was at length completed by the maidens, and there arrived the season of the festival, which was to culminate on Athena's birthday, the twenty-seventh of the month Boëdromion, which corresponded nearly to our September. The earlier days were spent in gymnastic games, horse and chariot races, and contests in music and poetry. On the fifth and last day occurred the most brilliant feature of the entire festival, the solemn procession which attended the delivery of the sacred peplus to the priestess of Athena that she might place it around the wooden image of the goddess. So important was this procession that Phidias selected it as the theme to be portrayed on the frieze of the Parthenon. The procession formed in the Outer Ceramicus, just outside the principal gate of the city, and the peplus was placed on a miniature ship (for which it served as a sail), which was set on wheels and drawn by sailors. Through the market place, round the western slope of the Areopagus, along its southern side, the procession wended its way till it reached the western approach to the Acropolis. Then the peplus was removed from the ship, and, borne by those chosen for this service, it was carried at the head of the procession up the western slope, through the Propylæa, and delivered to the magistrate appointed to receive it before the temple of Athena. The frieze of the Parthenon presents the most important details of the procession. Its western end shows the stage of preparation--the flower of Athenian youth and nobility preparing to mount or just mounting their steeds to join in the cavalcade. As we turn to the northern and southern sides, we observe that the procession has formed and is now in motion. The cavalcade is composed of youthful horsemen, who move forward in compact array, with all the dash and spirit of youth. Just ahead of the horsemen are the chariots, driven by their charioteers, with the warriors either standing by the driver or just stepping into the moving chariot. As the eastern end of the temple is approached, restlessness of movement gives place to solemnity, and impatient riders and charioteers are succeeded by more stately figures. Elderly men, bearers of olive branches; representatives of the foreign residents, carrying trays filled with offerings of cakes; attendants, bearing on their shoulders vessels filled with the sacred wine; musicians, playing on flutes or lyres-march in slow, measured steps. In advance of them are the cows and sheep led to sacrifice, conducted by a number of attendants.

The frieze on the eastern end of the temple represents the culmination of the festival. The crowning act is about to be performed, and the solemnity becomes absolute. Figures at one end are balanced by corresponding figures at the other, all advancing toward a common point. First come slowly moving maidens, who are carrying the sacrificial utensils--their noble birth manifesting itself in their dignity of demeanor. The five maidens in the rear bear the ewers used in the libations; those forming the central group carry, in pairs, large objects resembling candlesticks, whose uses are not definitely known; while in the lead, on each side, are two maidens, bearing nothing in their hands--probably the Arrephoræ, whose duties have been already performed. Both in costume and in coiffure these maidens represent what was characteristic of their age and sex in Athens during the supremacy of Pericles. Next comes a group of men, probably the magistrates appointed to await the arrival of the procession on the Acropolis. They border the seated divinities who have assembled to do honor to Athens at its greatest festival--seven figures on each side of the central slab, directly over the door of the temple, whereon is represented the climax of the solemn occasion,--the delivery of the new peplus to the priest or magistrate, whose office it was to receive it; while at his side stands the priestess of Athena, receiving from two attendants certain objects of unknown significance.

Other pieces of sculpture on the Acropolis magnify the office of woman in the religious ceremonials in honor of the patron goddess. One of the porticoes of the Erectheum represents maidens of dignified mien and great beauty holding up the entablature with perfect ease and stately grace. These figures are usually called Caryatides, a name applied by the architect Vitruvius to designate figures of this kind; he ascribes its origin to the destruction of the town of Carya, in the Peloponnesus, by the Athenians, because it espoused the Persian side, the women of the town being sold into slavery; but surely the Athenians would not have so honored the disgraced women of a hostile city. Could they not portray, in marble, the Arrephoric maidens, and could not the basket-like burdens on their heads represent the burdens which they carried down from the Acropolis, and those which they received instead? The Athenians, indeed, called the figures merely Korai, or "the maidens."

Furthermore, excavations at Athens made in 1886 brought to light a number of statues of maidens, which now adorn one of the rooms of the Acropolis Museum. They are all of one type,--life-size figures of young women, all standing in the same attitude, with one arm extended from the elbow, while the other hand holds the long and elegant drapery close about the figure; their hair is elaborately arranged, and ringlets fall over their necks and shoulders. These statues are relics of days before the Persian War. The Persians sacked Athens in B.C. 480, and wrought general havoc on the Acropolis, burning temples, throwing down columns, demolishing statues. When the Athenians, flushed with victory, returned to their ruined homes, they regarded as unhallowed all that had been touched by the hands of the barbarian, and therefore, in building up anew the Acropolis as the sacred precinct of Athena, they extended and levelled its surface and filled in the hollows thus made with the debris of the Acropolis--architectural blocks, statues, and vessels; and these relics of pre-Persian art lay thus securely buried for ages, to be revealed to modern eyes by the pickaxe of the archæologist. Now, who are these maidens, standing in conventional pose, with regular and finely moulded features, and with richly adorned drapery and elaborate headdress? They cannot represent priestesses of Athena, for the priestess was always an elderly lady, who, after being chosen, held office for the rest of her life. Nor can they represent the goddess herself, for all her usual attributes--the ægis, the spear, the helmet, the snake--are absent. Hence we probably have in these statues portraits of votaries of Athena, young women of the aristocratic families of Athens, who placed statues of themselves in the sacred precinct of the goddess to serve as symbols of perpetual homage.

Finally, certain maidens of Athens of the Heroic Age were later deified and themselves given sacred precincts on the Acropolis. King Cecrops had three daughters--- Aglauros, Herse, and Pandrosus. When Erectheus, the son of Earth by Hephæstus, was born, half of his form being like that of a snake,--a sign of his origin,--the child was put into a chest by Athena, who then gave it to the daughters of Cecrops to take care of, at the same time forbidding them to open it. Aglauros and Herse disobeyed, and, in terror at the serpent-shaped child, went mad and threw themselves from the rock of the Acropolis. Pandrosus, the faithful maiden, was rewarded by being made the first priestess of Athena, and was later honored by having a sanctuary of her own, next to that of the goddess; while Aglauros had to rest content with a cavern on the northern slope of the Acropolis, near where she had thrown herself down.

The celebrations in honor of Dionysus, the god of luxuriant fertility and especially of the grape, were exceedingly simple at first, according to Plutarch, being merely "a rustic procession carrying a vine-wreathed jar and a basket of figs"; but later there was a festival at every stage in the growth of the grape and in the making of the wine, and especially at the approach of vintage time, and when the vintage was put into the press. There were processions and rustic dances, and all the usual features of the carnival, as the revellers became more and more under the influence of the god. In these revels, women consecrated to this divinity, and called Bacchantes or Mænads, formed a special group. The symbol of their worship was a thyrsus--a pole ending with a bunch of vine or ivy leaves, or with a pine cone and a fillet. At intervals the procession would stop, and one of the revellers would mount a wagon or a platform and recount to those below, disguised as Pans and Satyrs, the adventures of the god of wine and joy. From these rustic masquerades emerged in time both Tragedy and Comedy.

Of the festivals in the city, the Anthesteria, or Feast of Flowers, was of most interest to the fair sex. This festival occurred in the spring--when the preceding year's wine was tasted for the first time--and lasted three days. Its principal feature was the Feast of Beakers, which began at sunset with a great procession. Those who took part in it appeared, wearing wreaths of ivy and bearing torches, in the Outer Ceramicus. This festival was in the especial charge of the king-archon, and the wife of that magistrate played the chief role in the ceremonies. Maidens and matrons appeared, disguised as Horæ, Nymphs, or Bacchantes, and crowded round the triumphant car on which the ancient image of Dionysus, was conveyed to the town. At a certain stage in the procession, the king-archon's wife, known as the Basilissa, was given a seat in the car, beside the image of Dionysus, for on this day she was the symbolical bride of the god. Thus, on this joyous wedding day, the nuptial procession conducted the car to the temple of the god in Limnai.

In the inmost shrine of the temple a mystic sacrifice for the welfare of the State was offered by the Basilissa and the fourteen ladies of honor expressly appointed by the archon for this purpose. After the sacrifice, with which numerous secret ceremonies were connected, the mystic union of Dionysus, and the Basilissa was celebrated, symbolizing the sacred marriage of the god with his much-loved city. On the following day, among other ceremonies, the ladies of honor offered sacrifices to Dionysus, on various specially erected altars.

These were joyous occasions; there were, however, sombre Dionysia, which were celebrated by night, in the winter season, when the god was thought to be absent or dead; because the vine was then withered and lifeless. Such celebrations commemorated only grief and regret. At this season, women of Athens left their homes and sought the slopes of Mount Parnassus, to join the women of Delphi in savage rites celebrating the sufferings of Dionysus. In these Bacchantes, religious fervor was transformed into the wildest delirium. "With dishevelled hair and torn garments they ran through the woods, bearing torches and beating cymbals, with savage screams and violent gestures. A nervous excitement brought distraction to the senses and to the mind, and showed itself in wild language and gestures, and the coarsest excesses were acts of devotion. When the Mænads danced madly through the woods, with serpents wreathed about their arms, or a dagger in their hands, with which they struck at those whom they met; when intoxication and the sight of blood drove the excited throng to frenzy--it was the god acting in them, and consecrating them as his priestesses. Woe to the man who should come upon these mysteries! he was torn to pieces; even animals were thus killed, and the Mænads devoured their quivering flesh and drank their warm blood." In the ardor inspired by their mad orgies, these votaries did not distinguish between man and beast, and a mother once tore to pieces her son, whom she mistook for a young lion, and proudly placed on the end of her thyrsus the bleeding head of her offspring. Euripides, in his Bacchanals, has drawn a sombre picture of the excesses into which the wine god led his inspired followers. Similar orgies, which took their rise in Lydia, were held on the summits of Taÿgetus and in the plains of Macedon and Thrace.

Though certain Attic women, under the frenzy of religious enthusiasm, would join the Delphian women in their wild rites of Dionysus, this orgiastic worship was never popular at Athens. The Athenian ladies much preferred the worship of Demeter, the goddess of agriculture and of domestic life.

The Thesmophoria, the festival in honor of Demeter and her daughter, Persephone, contrasted greatly with the Panathenæa. The latter was public and was participated in by all; the former was secret, and only married women could take part in it. The Panathenæa celebrated the political and intellectual supremacy of the State, as symbolized in its patron goddess; the Thesmophoria was the festival of domestic life, held in honor of the goddess of virtuous marriage and the author of the earth's fertility.

This festival was celebrated in October, at the period of the autumnal sowing. Every citizen of Athens who possessed property to the amount of three talents was compelled to furnish his wife with sufficient money to enable her to celebrate the Thesmophoria; this was the extent of male participation. For many days, the women had to prepare themselves for the solemn rites by fasting, abstinence, and purifications; two of their number were chosen from each tribe by their companions to prepare and preside over the various features of the celebration. On the first day of the Thesmophoria, the women went to the primitive seat of the celebration at Halimus, near the promontory of Colias, not in a formal procession, but in small groups, and at the hour of nightfall. The comic side of the Demeter festivals exhibited itself on the way, as the participants recognized each other with jests and raillery, recalling by this the pleasantries with which the maiden lambé caused Demeter to smile, when the latter was afflicted with melancholy over the loss of her daughter; and woe to the man who met these women! for he became the victim of the most scornful mockery and sarcasm. At Halimus, in the sanctuary of Demeter, the mysteries were celebrated by night; the following day was spent in taking purifying baths in the sea and in playing and dancing on the shore. After enjoying their freedom here for a day or more, the women set out in a long procession for Athens, while priestesses bore in caskets on their heads the Thesmai, or the laws of Demeter, whence the festival took its name.

The remainder of the celebration took place in the city, either in the sanctuary of Demeter or on the Pnyx, which was on this occasion exclusively turned over to the women for the celebration. The first day after their return was called the "day of fasting," for during the whole day the women sat in deep mourning on the ground and took no food whatsoever, while they sang dirges and observed other customs common in case of death; they also sacrificed swine to the infernal deities. The rites of the next day were of a more general character. The name given the day was "Calligenia," signifying "bearer of a fair offspring," and on this day they offered a sacrifice to Demeter and prayed her to give to women the blessing of fair children. We know but little of the sacrifices, dances, and merry games which occupied this final day of the festival. This worship of Demeter was one of the most elevating influences in the social life of Athens; and the Thesmophoria was but a prelude to the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries, into which women as well as men were initiated.

The ceremonies at Eleusis seem to have consisted primarily in a dramatic representation of the beautiful legend of Demeter and Persephone, from which many moral lessons could be drawn. Homer has preserved to us this legend in the Homeric hymn beginning:

"I begin to sing fair-haired Demeter, a hallowed goddess,--herself and her slim-ankled daughter whom Hades snatched away from golden-sworded Demeter, renowned for fruits, as the maiden sported with the deep-bosomed daughters of Oceanus, culling flowers through the soft meadow--roses and crocuses and beautiful violets, hyacinths, the iris and the narcissus, which Earth, at the command of Zeus, favoring the All-Receiver [Hades], brought forth as a snare to the maiden. From its root an hundred heads sprung forth, and the whole wide heaven above was scented with its fragrance, and the whole earth laughed, and the briny wave of the sea. And the girl stretched out both her hands to seize the pretty plaything, when the wide-winged earth yawned in the Mysian plain where the all-receiving king, the many-named son of Cronus, leaped forth with his immortal steeds and snatched her away, unwilling, in his golden chariot, weeping and shrieking aloud, calling upon her father, the son of Cronus."

The hymn then recounts how the goddess-mother roamed for nine days over the earth, seeking her lost daughter, till on the tenth she learned the truth from the all-seeing Sun. Angered at Zeus for permitting the violence, she wandered about among men in the form of an old woman, till at length, at Eleusis, in Attica, she was kindly received at the house of King Celeus, and acted as nurse for his newborn son, Demophon. She would have made the lad immortal by giving him a bath of fire; but being surprised and prevented by the mother, she revealed her deity, and caused to be erected in her honor a temple, in which she gave herself up to her sorrow. In anger, she made the earth barren, and would not allow the crops to spring up again until her daughter was allowed to spend two-thirds of the year with her mother among the Immortals, devoting the remaining third to her gloomy spouse in the realms of Hades. Upon her return to Olympus, Demeter left the gift of corn, of agriculture, and of her holy mysteries, with her host, and sent Triptolemus the Eleusinian about the earth to make known to men the knowledge of agriculture, of civil order, and of holy wedlock. Thus the worship of Demeter, as the founder of law and order and marriage, became prevalent, and exerted a most helpful influence throughout Hellas.

The mysteries of Eleusis inculcated the moral lessons which would promote right living among the people. They were in charge of a priesthood consisting of both men and women. The chief priest, the hierophant, was a man of irreproachable character, and held the office for life on condition of celibacy. The priestesses had in charge especially the initiation of the women, but their duties were not restricted to this.

The candidates for initiation, the Mystai, had to spend a year in preparation. Homicides, courtesans, barbarians, all who had any stain upon their lives, were excluded from these rites; only Hellenes "of pure soul and pure hands" were eligible for initiation. On the days preceding the festival, expiatory ceremonies were performed, of which the most notable was one in which a girl or boy, styled "the child of the hearth," performed certain rites of purification for those who were desirous of being admitted into the mysteries. Finally, on the twentieth day of the month Boëdromion, corresponding nearly to our September, the great procession set forth from Athens for Eleusis, along the Sacred Way. In this procession the women took part in great numbers, and it afforded excellent opportunities for the display of beautiful toilettes. Aristocratic ladies were usually driven in chariots. As the crowd of pilgrims passed over the Cephissus Bridge, there was, as in the Thesmophoria, much banter and raillery in memory of the manner in which the goddess was once diverted from her grief; and all along the road there were stations for sacrifices and oblations, where the maidens engaged in singing and graceful dances. Eleusis was finally reached at night by torchlight, and the following days were spent by the initiated in their religious duties and by the candidates in further preparation.

We have unfortunately but meagre glimpses into the Eleusinian mysteries, and cannot follow the order of ceremonies. Suffice it to say that, besides promoting good living and happiness in this life, they gave hope for the life to come. "The man purified by initiation," says Pindar, "has understood before his death the beginning and end of life, and after death dwells with the gods."

In Polygnotus's famous painting of the infernal regions, in the Lesché at Delphi, two women were represented trying to carry water in jars that have no bottoms; an inscription states that they were never initiated, and the moral was "that without initiation life is altogether wasted and lost." In the worship of Demeter and in the Eleusinian mysteries there was everything to appeal to woman--the sanctity of marriage, deified motherhood, exaltation of the home and of domestic duties--and the zeal manifested by Athenian women in these religious rites doubtless promoted a feminine piety and a natural devoutness which ennobled the Athenian home and softened parental discipline.

The Thesmophoria was the festival of the married women; but young girls and even children had their festivals in the Brauronia and the Artemisia, celebrated in honor of Artemis, the special patron of virgins. The Brauronia was celebrated every fifth year, in the little town of Brauron. Chosen Athenian maidens between the ages of five and ten years, dressed in saffron-colored garments, went in solemn procession to the sanctuary of the goddess, where they performed a propitiatory rite, in which they imitated bears, an animal sacred to Artemis. Every maiden of Athens, before she could marry, must have once taken part in this festival and consecrated herself to the goddess. There was also a precinct of Artemis Brauronia on the Acropolis, and doubtless this ceremony was also performed there. Almost everywhere this virgin goddess was revered by young girls as the guardian of their maiden years, and before marriage it was the custom that the bride should dedicate to Artemis a lock of her hair, her girdle, and her maiden tunic.

Maidens also took part in the worship of the twin brother of Artemis, Apollo, in the island of Delos, which was the birthplace of the god and goddess. The celebration was a festival of youth and beauty, of poetry and art. Aristocratic maidens of Athens joined with those of the seat of the Delphian confederacy over which Athens presided in making the occasion emphasize the power and splendor of Athens in the height of its greatness.

"Once every five years, in the spring, a solemn festival recalled the anniversary of the birth of the god. The maidens of Delos, wearing their richest attire, and crowned with flowers, united in joyous chorus around the altar, and represented in sacred dances the story of the birth of Apollo. Others, with garlands of flowers in their hands, went to hang them on the ancient statue of the goddess, which Theseus had, according to tradition, brought from Crete to Delos. From all parts of Greece, from the islands, and from Asia, solemn embassies, sacred theoriæ, landed in the harbor. The most brilliant was that of the Athenians, who were long the suzerains of the island. Each year, a State vessel, the Paralian galley, conveyed the sacred embassy to Delos; the crew was composed of free men, the vessel decked with flowers. At the moment of its departure, the whole town was purified; the priests of Apollo bestowed on the galley a solemn benediction, and the law forbade that the purified town should be defiled by any sentence of death until the return of the vessel. The members of the embassy were chosen from the chief families of the city, and they were accompanied by a chorus of young men and maidens, who were to chant the sacred hymns in honor of Apollo and perform around the altar of the Horns, one of the marvels of Delos and of the world, an ancient and solemn dance--the geranos. The day of the arrival of these theoriæ was a festival in Delos. Amid the acclamations of an enthusiastic crowd, the embassy disembarked in the harbor; and such was the joy and impatience of the people, that sometimes its members had not even time to don their robes of ceremony and to crown themselves with flowers. Over the bridge wound the sacred procession of the Athenians, with its splendidly dressed musicians, its chorus chanting the sacred hymns, its rich offerings destined for the god; received at the end of the bridge by the official charged with the reception of these pious embassies, it pursued its way to the temple, there to present its offerings and prayers, and to pour out on the altar the blood of its hecatombs. During the rest of the day, feasts were provided for the people, and games and contests filled the island with the sounds of rejoicing."

After the celebration, the Paralia returned to Athens, bearing homeward the beautiful maidens who had done honor to the god and had added to the glory of their native city.

Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and of pleasure, also had her festivals in which women took part. Certain of these were of a lascivious character and were celebrated chiefly by the demi-monde; they were held especially at the temple of Aphrodite Pandemus on the promontory of Colias. But the ladies of Athens took part in the Adonia, in honor of Adonis, beloved of Aphrodite. The ceremonies of the first day were of a mournful character, as they commemorated the death of Adonis; but the second day was one of rejoicing and entertainment, as Adonis was conceived of as returning to life to spend six months with Aphrodite. In his death and resurrection the changes of the seasons were poetically symbolized. Women of the leading families were expected to participate in the magnificent solemnities, which took place at the summer solstice. A long procession of priests and of maidens acting as canephorse, bearing vases for libations, baskets, perfumes, and flowers, approached a colossal catafalque, over which were spread beautiful purple coverlets. On these lay a statue of Adonis, pale in death, but still beautifull Over this mournful figure a beautiful woman gave expression in every way to the most bitter grief and sang a hymn to Adonis, telling his sad story. The women round about were clad in mourning and celebrated the plaintive funeral dance; while on all sides was heard the mournful cry: "Alas! alas! Adonis is dead!"

The hymn or psalm to Adonis was a distinguished and most popular feature of the celebration of the Adonia; Theocritus, in Idyl XV., gives its rendering on the occasion when Arsinoe, queen of Ptolemy Philadelphus, decorated the image of Adonis. In a later chapter of the present volume,--that on The Alexandrian Woman,--an English version of this psalm is given, into which the spirit of the original is most aptly infused; and in connection therewith is a lively and forceful picture of the attitude and manners of the ladies of the day.

XIII

GREEK WOMEN AND THE HIGHER EDUCATION

It is by no means a matter of surprise that among a people so highly cultured as the Greeks there should be women of the highest intellectual attainments. Sappho has already furnished us an example, and her ascendency over her pupils was such as to start a train of influences that stimulated her sex in every part of Hellas to engage in the study and composition of poetry.

Furthermore, among the famous men of Hellas there were, from time to time, ardent advocates of the higher education of women. As early as the seventh century before the Christian era, Cleobulus, one of the seven sages of Greece, insisted that maidens should have the same intellectual training as youths, and illustrated his doctrine in the careful education of his daughter, Cleobuline, who became a poetess of wide renown.

Pythagoras, who in the sixth century founded his celebrated philosophical sect in Southern Italy, fully recognized the equality of the sexes and devised a system of education for women, which made his feminine followers not only most efficient in all domestic relations, but also preeminent in philosophical and literary culture. Plato spent considerable time in Magna Græcia, and became imbued with the spirit of Pythagorean philosophy. He must have been impressed with its elevating influence on the status of woman, for in his Dialogues he urged that women should receive the same education as men, and he himself admitted members of the gentler sex to the lectures of the Academy.

After Plato's time, accordingly, we find many women engaged in the study of philosophy, not only among the Academicians, but also in the other philosophical schools, especially the Cyrenaic, the Megarian, and the Epicurean. The Peripatetic and the Stoic doctrines seem not to have appealed to the fair sex.

Alexander's empire, in overthrowing the exclusive State laws of the various cities, accomplished much for the emancipation of women, and from that time forward we find women engaged in almost all the branches of the higher learning. In Alexandria, especially, the daughters of scholars pursued studies in philosophy, in philology, and in archaeology, and some of them became celebrated. In the Græco-Roman period, Plutarch was a constant advocate of female education, and the circle of learned women that he has made known to us indicates how general was the spread of education among the women of his day.

Aspasia had set the fashion for hetaaræ in Athens to devote attention to rhetoric and philosophy; consequently, many of the blue-stockings of Greece belonged to the hetæra class. Some acquaintance with the higher learning, however, became fashionable also in the retirement of the gynæceum, and many maidens and matrons of honorable station employed their leisure moments in reading the works of philosophers and poets, and received, if not public, at least private instruction from professional lecturers.

The variety of intellectual pursuits among the women was marked. Poetry was their natural field, and philosophy appealed to them as being the most learned vocation of the times. Even in the Heroic Age, women were skilled in the uses of plants for purposes of witchcraft and of healing; and in historic times, when medicine became a science, women engaged in various medical pursuits. Similar tastes led many also to follow the different branches of natural science, and in Alexandrian times, when philology was the prevailing study, history and grammar and literary criticism became favorite studies with the daughters of the learned.

In a previous chapter, we have described the Lesbian Sappho's seminary of the Muses, to which maidens flocked from all Hellenic lands for the study of poetry and art. The natural beauties of the isle of Lesbos, the luxurious life of the aristocratic classes, the brilliancy and zeal of Sappho herself, and her ardent affection for her girl friends, were influences favorable to the pursuits of the Muses and the Graces.

It is not surprising that, amid such surroundings and with such a teacher, women should acquire a love of poetry and of all that appeals to the æsthetic nature. There is a vague tradition that there were seventy-six women poets among the Ancient Greeks. Unfortunately, the names of but few of these are preserved to us. We have authentic information concerning only the nine most distinguished poetesses, to whom the Greeks gave the title of the Terrestrial Muses.

The second of the nine Terrestrial Muses--for Sappho was, of course, the first--was the poetess's favorite and most promising pupil, Erinna of the isle of Telos. She aroused among Greek poets a most respectful and tender sentiment, and they frequently sounded her praises. Her most noted production was a poem called The Distaff, and the poets compared it to the honeycomb, which the gracious bee had gathered from the flowers of Helicon; they perceived in this production of a maiden the freshness and perfume of spring, and they likened her delicate notes to the sweet voice of a swan as he sings his death song--a comparison only too just, for she died at the tender age of nineteen years. A poet of the Anthology thus laments her untimely taking-off:

The names of the next two of the Terrestrial Nine are closely associated with that of Pindar of Thebes,--Myrtis and Corinna, the one the instructor, the other the rival, of the great composer. Myrtis was the eldest of the three, and probably gave instruction to her younger contemporaries. She later entered the lists in a poetic contest with Pindar, and for this she was censured by Corinna. The younger woman, who defeated Pindar five times in poetic contests, gave her rival some good advice, by which he profited in his later productions. She reproached him for devoting too much attention to the form and neglecting the soul of the poem. When, following her counsel, Pindar brought to her a poem abounding in mythological allusions, Corinna smiled, and remarked to him that in future he should "sow by the handful, not with the whole sack."

Pausanias saw the tomb of Corinna in a conspicuous part of her native town of Tanagra; and also a picture of her in the gymnasium, representing her binding a fillet about her head in honor of the victory she had gained over Pindar at Thebes. But he ungallantly ascribes her victory partly to her dialect--for she composed not in Doric, like Pindar, but in a dialect which Æolians would understand--and partly to her beauty; for, judging from her portrait, she was the fairest woman of her time.

Telesilla of Argos was not only a poet, but an antique Joan of Arc as well. Being of feeble constitution, she was told by the oracle to devote herself to the service of the Muses, and in this salutary mental exercise she found health and preeminence among her fellows. Famous hymns to Apollo and to Artemis were composed by her. Her love of beauty also inspired her with noble ideals of patriotism and self-sacrifice, and in the crisis of the war between her native town and Sparta she armed her countrywomen and led them forth to victory against the enemy. As a memorial of this noble action, her statue was erected in the temple of Aphrodite at Argos.

Praxilla of Sicyon was placed by ancient critics by the side of Anacreon for the softness and delicacy of her verses, and she was honored in her native city with a statue from the hand of Lysippus. She sang beautiful songs of Aphrodite and retold in passionate verse the legend of Adonis.

The next name on this immortal list takes us to Locris, in Italy, and down to the fourth century before Christ. Like Sappho, Nossis "of womanly accents" is a love poetess, and twelve epigrams attributed to her are found in the Anthology. Her poetry was symbolized by the fleur-de-lis with its penetrating perfume. In praising the portrait of her child she sees the reflection of her own beauty, and in the epitaph which she composed for her tomb she declares herself equal to Sappho; hence humility cannot be classed among the many virtues which caused her to be adored by her contemporaries.

The little poems of Anyte of Tegea and Moero of Byzantium, the last two of the Terrestrial Nine, are often symbolized by the lilies for their purity and delicacy. These poets flourished in the third century of our era. Antipater surnames Anyte "a feminine Homer"; rather should she be called "a feminine Simonides," though even this is too high praise. Her soul was simple and pure, and her sweet sentiments are reflected in a style as limpid as a running stream. Charm and freshness characterize her invitation to some passer-by to repose under the trees and taste of the cool water; deep and melancholy emotions pervade the poem in which she bewails the death of a young maiden; and a masculine philosophy of life is manifest in the epitaph of a slave whom death has made equal with the Great King. Moero's range was not so great, nor her touch so delicate. A heroic poem, Mnemosyne, was the most ambitious of her works; she also composed elegies and epigrams, and two of the latter have been preserved to us, revealing a soul sensitive to natural beauty.

Here and there, other names and occasional verses of Greek poetesses are found--Cleobuline of Rhodes, Megalostrata and Clitagora, of Sparta, and others; but they did not attain the fame of the Terrestrial Muses.

As the verses of the Greek women were to be sung to the accompaniment of the lyre, the daughters of the Muses were as celebrated in music as they were in poetry. Nor were the maidens of Greece without distinction in other arts. It is in part to a Corinthian maiden that legend ascribes the invention of modelling in clay. Cora, daughter of Butades, is about to say farewell--perhaps forever--to her lover, who is going on a long journey. The light of a lamp throws his shadow on the wall, and, to preserve at least this image of him, she deftly sketches the outline of the shadow. Her father, with the instinct of an artist, observes the outline and fills it in with potter's clay, and then bakes the model which he has obtained. There are no names recorded of Greek women who were sculptors, but doubtless in the studio of many an artist a daughter delighted in assisting him at his work.

Many Greek women distinguished themselves in painting. Timarete, the daughter of Micon, produced an image of Artemis, which was long to be seen at Ephesus; it was one of the most ancient monuments of this art, and the goddess was probably represented under a strange and symbolic form, such as she had in her sanctuary in Ephesus. Eleusis possessed a painting made by Irene, daughter of Cratinus, representing the figure of a young girl, perhaps a priestess initiated into the mysteries of the great goddesses. Calypso, Alcisthene, Aristarete, and Olympias are the names of other female painters, whose memories at least have been preserved.

The most celebrated of all, however, was Lalla, a native of the city of Cyzicus, to which Apollo had accorded the gift of arts. Though she worked with extreme rapidity, this did not detract from the merits of her work, and she was considered the first painter of her time. Painting with pencil and on ivory were equally familiar to her. The portraits which she painted were principally of persons of her own sex. Pliny mentions a portrait, which was at Naples during his life, in which Lalla had represented an old woman. He adds that she had reproduced in this her own picture reflected in a mirror. There has been found at Pompeii a painting of an artist which is believed to be a portrait of Lalla, probably painted by herself. It represents a young woman seated on a stool on a little porch, with her eyes fixed on a statue of Bacchus, which she is reproducing on a tablet held by a child. In her right hand is a pencil, which she plunges into a small box evidently containing her colors; in her left hand she holds a palette. Her garments are elegantly draped around her; a band encircles her waving hair, which falls over her neck and shoulders, A deep, intellectual look illuminates her delicate features. If this be really a picture of Lalla, she was wonderfully beautiful.

Not only in poetry and the fine arts, but also in philosophy and intellectual pursuits did the Greek woman show herself capable of great achievements. In the schools of Pythagoras, established at Croton in Magna Græcia, women were freely admitted and took a prominent part in the exercises, together with their husbands and brothers.

There is a tradition that the ascendency of Pythagoras at Croton was so great that the ladies of the city brought their rich apparel, their jewels, necklaces and bracelets, to the temple of Hera, and dedicated them as an offering to domestic virtue, vowing that henceforth prudence and modesty, not luxurious apparel, were to be the true ornaments of their sex. Whether this story be true or not, there is no doubt that Pythagoras had a large number of women among his disciples, and that the "Pythagorean Women" attained throughout the Greek world a great and enviable reputation. Pythagoras's friendly attitude toward the sex was probably in part the result of his cordial relations with the Delphian priestess Aristoclea, renowned for her amiability and her wisdom, with whom he carried on a learned correspondence. The general results of his teachings upon woman were a high ideal of feminine morality, careful attention to household duties, and the elevation of the conception of motherhood, especially in the careful rearing of children.

Existing fragments of the works of "Pythagorean Women" indicate their lofty views of moral perfection and harmony, and their practical judgment in everyday affairs. Sophrosyne is constantly commended as the chief feminine virtue, a term connoting moderation, self-containedness, modesty, and wifely fidelity--in a word, all that is essentially womanly.

The Neo-pythagorean philosopher, Iamblichus, in his biography of Pythagoras mentions fifteen celebrated women of the School. Other writers name other female adepts in Pythagorean philosophy, who lived during and after the time of Pythagoras. The number was so large that the comic poets Alexis and Cratinus the Younger, who, like most Athenians, had a genuine contempt for blue-stockings, made them the object of much drollery and ridicule.

Of all the Pythagorean Women, none attained such exalted rank as Pythagoras's wife, the high-minded Theano. She combined virtue and wisdom in such perfect harmony that she was regarded in antiquity not only as the foremost representative of feminine scholarship, but also as the brilliant prototype of true womanhood. Of the life of Theano we know only a few characteristic incidents, and these give insight into her character mainly by relating "sayings" uttered by her on certain occasions. She was once asked for what she wished to be distinguished. She replied by quoting a verse of Homer (II. 1:31): "Minding the spindle and tending my marriage bed." Another time, she was asked what most became a wife; she answered: "to live entirely for her husband."--Again, she was asked what was love; "the sickness of a longing soul," was her answer. Once, while she was throwing off her mantle, it happened that her arm was exposed. A gentleman, struck by its beauty and shapeliness, exclaimed: "What a beautiful arm!" "But not for the public gaze," replied the wise Theano, while she hastily adjusted her robes. This remark has been quoted by Plutarch, by two Church Fathers, Clement of Alexandria and Theodoret, and by the Byzantine authoress Anna Comnena, as a noteworthy apothegm, tending to promote womanly modesty and reserve.

Theano was both prose writer and poetess. Of a long epic poem written by her in hexameters we have not even a fragment; of her philosophical works, there are still extant three letters of great charm and a fragment of a philosophic and didactic work On Piety. This fragment is too short for us to distinguish in it anything more than the highly developed reasoning power of the author; in her letters, however, discussing the rearing of children, the treatment of servants, and the suppression of jealousy, the sentiments are forceful, and the style has a familiar grace and tenderness. The relics that we have abound in axiomatic expressions, emphasizing womanly virtues and manifesting the lofty morality and high culture of the writer.

After the death of Pythagoras, Theano, in conjunction with her two sons, Telauges and Mnesarchus, kept up the secret order; and Theano, as teacher and as writer, promulgated her husband's doctrines. The time and circumstances of her death are unknown.

Theano's three daughters followed in their mothers footsteps. Myia, the most distinguished, had been so carefully reared and was of such preeminent virtue that she was chosen as a virgin to lead the chorus of maidens, and as a wife the chorus of matrons, at all the sacred festivals of Croton, and she knelt at the head of her companions before the altars of the gods. She was the wife of Malon, the celebrated athlete, also of the Pythagorean order; their union was in all respects a happy one. Myia was also a writer, but we have only one letter attributed to her. Her work in the spirit of her father was so brilliant that she spread the fame of his teachings throughout all Hellenic lands. There was probably an extensive literature about her in antiquity, for Lucian, several centuries later, says he had much to tell of her, but that her history was already generally known.

Not without distinction were also Myia's sisters, of whom Arignote attained a great reputation as a philosopher and writer of epigrams, while Damo distinguished herself by her fidelity to her father's dying request. The story goes that he consigned to her his most precious treasure,--his memoirs,--with the injunction that she should keep them secret from all who were not of the family. Though offered large sums for them, she never yielded, preferring poverty to disobedience. At her death she turned the works over to her daughter Bistalia, with the same mandate her father had given herself. The granddaughter remained equally faithful, and these invaluable works perished with the family. Some ancient writers mention as another daughter of Pythagoras, Theano the Younger, of Thurii, but, according to Suidas, she was a daughter of Lycophron. She was a clever philosopher and a prolific authoress.

Other Pythagorean Women of whom we know more than the mere name are Phintys, Perictyone, Melissa, Ptolemais, and Timycha. Phintys wrote a book On Womanly Virtue; Perictyone--often erroneously identified with the mother of Plato--composed a work On Wisdom, much prized by Aristotle, and another Concerning the Harmony of Women,--that is, concerning the accord of life and thought, of feelings and actions, the right relations between body and spirit. Fragments of these works show the Pythagorean idea concerning the mission of woman. They connect the duties of woman with the propensities and faculties peculiarly her own. To the men, they leave the defence of the country and the administration of public affairs; to the women, they assign the government of the home, the guardianship of the family hearth, and the education of children. Personality is regarded as the dominating virtue of man--chastity, of woman.

Melissa is known only by a short fragment on feminine love of adornment; and Ptolemais was a specialist in music and an authority on the Pythagorean theory of music in its relation to life. Of Timycha we have a characteristic story. She lived in the time of Dionysius of Syracuse. A party of Pythagorean pilgrims, while on their way to Metapontum to celebrate certain rites, were attacked by a band of Syracusans. They at first fled; but when they saw they must pass through a field of beans, they suddenly stopped and fought till the last one was killed. The Syracusans shortly after came upon Mylias of Croton and his wife, Timycha, who, on account of her delicate condition, had been left behind by the rest of their party. They were arrested and brought before the tyrant. Dionysius promised them liberty and an escort to their destination if they would tell him why the deceased Pythagoreans refused to tread on the beans. But they refused to tell. Dionysius's curiosity was all the more excited, and he had the husband taken aside, that he might question the wife alone, feeling convinced that he could compel her to answer his question. Threatened with the torture, and fearing lest in her weakness she might be overcome, Timycha bit out her tongue rather than reveal the secrets of her order.

In these Pythagorean Women, we observe the perfect blending of intellectual beauty with moral elevation. Perhaps no later age has presented a higher ideal of feminine perfection. Their system of culture taught them how to pursue at the same time the most abstruse philosophical speculations and the most insignificant duties of practical life, and the higher learning in their hands never led to a sacrifice of true womanliness.

Passing from Croton to Athens, Socrates, the father of the various philosophical schools, had no female disciples, so far as we are informed; but he is credited with saying that he learned the ait of love from the priestess Diotima, and that of eloquence from Aspasia. Xenophon also recounts a lengthy conversation of Socrates with the hetsera Theodota concerning the art of winning men. His most eminent disciple, Plato, had numerous pupils of the gentler sex. Plato possessed in large measure the ewig weibliche, which Goethe deems an essential element in all great men. As a young man he was given to composing love poems, but the names of his youthful sweethearts are not known. His visits to Southern Italy made him sympathetic with woman's literary aspirations; and when he opened the door of the Academy to them, women flocked to his lecture room from various cities of Hellas. It was the first known instance in Athens of women engaging in philosophy.

The female members of the Academy did not attain to such distinction as did the Pythagorean Women. The latter were of Dorian blood, and lived, according to the rules of their order, in the greatest simplicity and industry; the former were chiefly of Ionian stock and were more inclined to lives of ease and luxury. Consequently, they did not cultivate those domestic virtues which made the Pythagorean Women so superior. Athens was not the place for feminine ambition to receive proper recognition, and the honorable maids and matrons could not, if they wished, pursue the study of philosophy in association with the male sex; hence the feminine element of the Academy was composed of strangers, who were attracted to Athens by the fame of the philosopher.

Of Plato's immediate family, only his sister Potone, the mother of his pupil and successor Speusippus, appears to have engaged in philosophical studies. Of the strangers associated with the Academy, under Plato and later under Speusippus, two gained especial distinction--Axiothea and Lasthenia.

Axiothea, who was also called Phlisia, was a native of Phlius, a small Peloponnesian town in the district of Sicyon, whence came the poetess Praxilla. The story goes that some works of Plato fell into the maiden's hands, and she read them with great zeal and industry. His Republic finally aroused her enthusiasm to such a pitch that her desire for personal instruction from the philosopher could no longer be resisted. So she assumed masculine attire, made the journey alone to Athens, and was received into the Academy. She continued the use of men's clothing, and for a long time concealed her sex, becoming one of the most prominent and zealous members of the school. Plato was so impressed with her ability that, as tradition says, he would postpone his lectures if Axiothea chanced to be absent. When he was asked the reason for such an interruption, he replied: "The intellect sufficient to grasp the subject is not yet present"--meaning Axiothea. She frequented the Academy also under Speusippus, and became herself a teacher of philosophy. Nothing but What is commendable is known of her, but her reputation has suffered from the association of her name with that of Lasthenia. The latter came from Arcadia to Athens to hear Plato, attracted, as was her fellow student, by the fame of the philosopher. The prevailing life of the stranger-women in Athens, however, undermined her moral principles, and she played in the Academy a similar rôle to that played by Leontium later among the Epicureans. Speusippus himself was her lover. Though better known for her adventures as a hetæra, she also possessed some reputation as a philosopher. Dionysius once wrote to Speusippus: "One can also learn philosophy from your Arcadian pupil."

The Cyrenaic School, founded by Aristippus, the forerunner of the Epicurean in its doctrine of pleasure, naturally attracted women, especially courtesans, into its membership. The celebrated Lais the Elder was numbered among the Cyrenaics; but there were also high-minded women among its disciples.

Arete, daughter of Aristippus, continued the latter's teachings after his death. Her father had given her a most thorough education, and himself instructed her in philosophy. She was taught to despise riches and luxury and to observe moderation in all things. Aristippus once said: "The greatest thing which my daughter Arete has to thank me for is that I have taught her to set a value on nothing she can do without." Arete was also learned in natural history and in other branches of science. She passed her time partly in Athens, partly in Cyrene and other Greek cities; and wherever she went she aroused great interest by the charm of her beauty and amiability. There is no reproach whatever upon her good name: she appears to have been an ingenuous, highly endowed woman, devoted to science and philosophy. As head of the Cyrenaic School after her father's death, she had many distinguished pupils, among them Theodorus and Aristippus the Younger. She was a prolific writer; forty works are attributed to her, on philosophy, on agriculture, on the wars of the Athenians, on the life of Socrates, and various other subjects, showing the wide range of her interests. She died at Cyrene, in the seventy-seventh year of her age; and in the inscription over her grave she was styled a "light of Hellas."

The coarse doctrines of the Cynic school, founded by Antisthenes, were not attractive to women, yet the school had one female representative who has become famous and has been in recent years the subject of a racy romantic poem. This Cynic was Hipparchia.

The ugly and ill-shapen Crates of Thebes was one of the successors of Antisthenes. A beautiful and popular maiden, Hipparchia, with her brother Metrocles, heard the lectures of Crates, and she was so captivated by his teachings and his manner of life that she became not only his most zealous disciple, but fell violently in love with her teacher. She scorned all her younger, richer, more handsome suitors, and declared that she would have only Crates. She threatened to kill herself if her parents did not secure Crates for her husband. They tried to dissuade her; even Crates, at the request of her parents, sought to make her abandon her purpose. Yet every effort was fruitless. Finally Crates, throwing off his clothing, appeared before her and said: "Such is the shape of your bridegroom: this is all he possesses. Take careful counsel with yourself, for you cannot become my wife unless you accept my whole manner of life. Ponder it well, that you may later have no pretext for ill feeling." "Already a long time," answered the maiden, "have I anticipated this and thought over it; I can nowhere on earth find a richer or handsomer husband than you. Take me, then, with you, wherever you may go." Seeing that her mind was made up, the parents finally gave their consent to the marriage of their daughter with the philosopher.

Crates, as a true Cynic, straightway led his wife into one of the colonnades, and publicly celebrated his nuptials. Hipparchia entered fully into the manner of life of her husband. She clad herself in coarse garments like his, accompanied him everywhere, and bore many privations. Many cynical sophisms and apothegms are attributed to Hipparchia, who became one of the most prominent members of the school. We know but little of her later life, beyond the fact that she was the mother of one son, Pasicles, and of several daughters.

The Megarian school of philosophy, founded by Euclides of Megara, a pupil of Socrates, practised dialectic, and was called the Eristic, or disputatious, sect. The art of disputation appealed to the female sex, and a number of women allied themselves with this school. The first female Dialecticians were the five daughters of Diodorus, an eminent disciple of Euclides, and they conferred much honor on the school. Argia was the most celebrated of the sisters for her mental endowments and dialectic skill, but unfortunately there are but scant records of the philosophical activity of Argia and her four sisters, Artemisia, Menexena, Theognis, and Pantaclea. Hieronymus commends the five for their modesty as well as for their intellectual attainments, and they must have aroused general enthusiasm, as Philo, a disciple of their father, wrote a book about them. Euclides was succeeded by Stilpo as head of the school, and among his hearers was Nicarete of Megara, the daughter of prominent parents, who became renowned for her cleverness and profound learning. She adopted the hetaera life, and was the "companion" of Stilpo himself. The relation was tender and enduring, but she did not restrict herself to one lover. Her favors, however, were not to be won, as usual, by the payment of gold, but through the invention or solution of a difficult sophism.

The philosophy of Epicurus was a comfortable and pleasing doctrine for people of light morals, and in consequence we meet with the names of a large number of young and beautiful hetaerae who infested the Gardens of Epicurus, among whom were a Boidion, Hedia, Nicidion, Erotion, Marmarion, and the celebrated Leontium. Their presence gave the enemies of the Epicurean sect justification for characterizing their philosophy as a system of immorality; and the strict moralist and academician Plutarch violently censured the Epicureans "who lived with the hetaera Hedeia or Leontium, spat in the face of virtue, and found the summum bonum in the flesh and in sensuality." While nothing but the names of the other Epicurean hetaeras have survived, Leontium, by her varied accomplishments, has won an abiding prominence in the intellectual world.

Leontium, "the little lioness," is indisputably the most remarkable and attractive personality in the philosophical demi-monde of Ancient Greece. Of her home and her family, history is silent; but she was the product of a hetaera seminary which imparted to its pupils a thorough intellectual discipline in addition to the secrets of "gallantry" and the knowledge of cosmetic arts. When she became a favorite of Epicurus and began to study philosophy, she continued the practice of hetairism, which occasioned great vexation to the master, not because he deplored her light morals, but because he was himself passionately enamored of the highly gifted maiden. The aged and broken Epicurus could not attach to himself alone the high-spirited creature, who preferred the beautiful and wealthy Timarchus. One of her early lovers was the poet Hermesianax of Colophon, to whom she owed her literary training. He dedicated to her three books of elegies, entitled Leontium, fragments of which are extant. Leontium's fame is due most of all to her activity as an authoress. Theophrastus the Peripatetic published a work On Marriage in which he severely handled the female sex. Leontium wrote a reply in which she displayed so much subtlety, learning, and argumentative power that Theophrastus was thoroughly routed. This work caused general admiration, Cicero commends it, and Pliny pays a tribute to its excellence. Unfortunately for our study of the social status of Greek women, the work is lost. Leontium had a daughter, Danaë by name, who was also a hetæra and a consistent Epicurean. She became the favorite of Sophron, Prefect of Ephesus.

Though the Epicurean hetæræ have brought reproach upon the sect, yet there were honorable women of irreproachable reputation who became members of the school. The chief of these was Themista, wife of Leontius of Lampsacus, styled by Strabo "the most excellent man of the city." Epicurus became acquainted with the couple during his four years' sojourn in Lampsacus and was much influenced by their learning and culture. He won them to his system of philosophy, and he ever afterward carried on a most industrious correspondence with them, and especially with Themista. Her name became widely known both within and without Epicurean circles. The Church Father Lactantius regarded her as a model of feminine culture and as the only true philosopher among the heathen Greeks. Themista was very active as an author, and there was in antiquity an extensive Themista literature, which has entirely disappeared.

As the various schools of philosophy thus far mentioned began to lose their hold upon mankind, there were two tendencies manifest among thoughtful people: the first, to doubt whether it was possible to ascertain truth,--the spirit of scepticism; the second, to combine from earlier systems whatever seemed most worthy of credence,--the spirit of eclecticism.

The two systems which appealed most to enlightened pagans during the earlier Christian centuries were those of Pythagoras and Plato, which offered many points of likeness. By the union of these with certain Hebraic or Oriental elements, there arose the philosophical amalgam known as Neo-platonism. Plotinus is regarded as the founder of this system in the third century of our era. Through his attractive personality and the timeliness of his teachings, Plotinus rapidly gained a great following among the learned, especially philosophers, statesmen, physicians, and ladies of high social station. He passed many years in Rome, where a large number of noble ladies, including the Empress Salomina, were among his hearers. From Rome, Neo-platonism spread over the Empire; and in the beginning of the fourth century, we find the theosophist Iamblichus, who united the Neo-platonic philosophy with thaumaturgy, attracting to himself large numbers of highly cultured men and women, who still clung to paganism. Syria was the centre of this movement, which reached across Asia Minor and became popular even in Athens and Alexandria. Among the followers of Iamblichus in Asia was an excellent and learned woman, who became celebrated by her intense devotion to this philosophy. Sosipatra was the beautiful and noble-hearted wife of Eustathius, Prefect of Cappadocia. After the death of Eustathius, she became the wife of a kinsman, by name Philometor, and dedicated the rest of her life to the promotion of science and philosophy and to the education of her children, whom she herself instructed and of whom she made ardent and intelligent disciples of Neo-platonism. At Athens, where philosophical studies had for a long period declined, Platonism was revived by the Emperor Julian the Apostate, who appointed Plutarchus the first head of the New Academy. Plutarchus had a daughter, Asclepigenia by name, who had been initiated into all the mysteries of Neo-platonism and thaumaturgy, and who played a prominent rôle in the new school. It is related of her that after the death of her father she kept alive the knowledge of the great orgies and all the secret lore of thaumaturgy. In association with her brother Hierius, she became the head of the New Academy, and through her personality and her lectures she exercised a great influence over the philosophic youth of the day. Her daughter, Asclepigenia the Younger, was likewise a devoted Neo-platonist, and continued the traditions of the school. But the appearance of the two Asclepigenias in the history of philosophy cannot be regarded as of much importance, as the system of thaumaturgy which they advocated was scientifically worthless.

About the same time, however, there lived in Alexandria a beautiful and learned pagan, who ranks as the last brilliant star in the philosophical firmament before the twilight of the gods. Charles Kingsley's historical romance, Hypatia, or New Foes with an Old Face, has depicted in an impressive manner the womanly graces, the learning, the elevating influence, and the tragic fate, of the last of the Greek women, and has made the name of Hypatia a household word. His vivid portrayal of social life in Alexandria at the dawn of the fifth century brings out most strongly the phases of the closing conflict between paganism and Christianity, and invests with an atmosphere of aërial clearness and radiance the heroine, who almost singly and alone fights the battle for the old gods.

About the year 370, to Theon, a noted astronomer and mathematician of Alexandria, a daughter was born, to whom he gave the name Hypatia. The child very early exhibited extraordinary intellectual endowments, and Theon himself took charge of her education. She rapidly mastered his own favorite subjects of mathematics and astronomy, and the most celebrated teachers of the day were called in to give her instruction in the various branches of rhetoric and philosophy. All the ancient philosophical systems were pursued by the devoted and zealous maiden, and the prevailing system of the time, that of Neo-platonism, appealed especially to her spirit.

As she attained to womanhood, Hypatia united with the charm of extraordinary beauty all the rarest traits of spirit and character. She became the object of flattering regard on the part of the cultured; the common people reverenced her as a superior being, and even the Christians respected her learning and her demeanor. Hypatia was worthy of all the admiration that she excited. Amid the widespread corruption of the age, she lived as spotless as a vestal. The philosophy she professed preserved her from pollution and inspired her with the love of beauty, truth, and goodness.

With her intense devotion to the gods of her fathers, with her extraordinary endowments and wide learning, with her preëminent virtues and the charm of her whole personality, this celebrated maiden appeared to the pagan world as a higher being sent by the gods to defend the ancient faith against the subverting teachings of the Christians,--a herald, who with the weapons of exalted wisdom and moral sublimity should win the victory and restore the worship of the gods to its former splendor. This was also the ambition of the virgin philosopher.

Hypatia's early womanhood was passed in the period when hostility to paganism reached its height. She was barely twenty-one when Theodosius I. issued an edict commanding the destruction of heathen temples and images at Alexandria, and from this time the patriarchs of the city endeavored to exercise both spiritual and temporal authority and to root out every vestige of paganism.

Against such an opposition Hypatia sought to contend. Her weapons were not carnal, but intellectual. By a spread of the knowledge of Greek philosophy and literature, she sought to quicken the sensibilities of the people and to reawaken a reverence for the Greek gods. It seemed at first as if her efforts would be crowned with success. Her lecture hall was crowded with the clever and intellectual men of the day, and many came from distant parts, attracted by the reputation of her beauty and learning. Hypatia soon surpassed all her contemporaries in wisdom and influence, and rapidly became the soul of the rather numerous pagan community at Alexandria. This remarkable maiden was honored with a devotion which almost bordered on idolatry. Orestes, the prefect of the city, though professedly a Christian, often came to her for counsel. The learned and eloquent Synesius of Cyrene, afterward a Church Father, was one of her devoted followers, and even after his conversion to Christianity maintained a correspondence with her and showed in manifold ways his regard for his former teacher. Numerous panegyrics and epigrams were composed, lauding her in most exalted terms.

Thus Hypatia, by moral suasion and by avoiding all open opposition, sought to wean the people from Christianity and to revive their faith in the ancient gods. Her success in attracting to paganism both the cultured and the plain people naturally caused her to be an object of hatred and jealousy to those who strove to promote Christianity by violence and force.

The name of Cyril, among the Church Fathers, is the synonym for fanaticism and bigotry. Elevated to the archi-episcopal chair of Alexandria to succeed his uncle, Theophilus, he sought to attain supreme power in the city and to make the power of the Church dominant in temporal affairs. He succeeded in expelling the Jews, and then turned his attention to the extermination of paganism. As Hypatia was the chief exponent of the old gods, and as her influence extended even to the palace of the prefect, Cyril hated her with all the zeal of bigotry and was eager for her downfall. Irreproachable in conduct, beloved of all, influential with the civil power, she was not subject to attack in any open manner, and Cyril finally countenanced an inhuman and disgusting plot of assassination devised by the most violent of his followers--the deacon Peter.

One day in March of the year 415, Peter secretly gathered in an alley not far from the lecture hall of Hypatia a band of savage monks from the Nitrian desert. When the customary lecture hour approached, Hypatia, unconscious of danger, left her house and entered her chariot to drive to the lecture hall. Soon the mob of zealots, headed by Peter, rush out from the alley, seize the horses, tear the helpless woman from her seat, and drag her into a neighboring church. Here, more like savage beasts than men, Peter's frenzied followers remove from her every shred of clothing, and at the foot of the bleeding image of the Saviour of mankind do to death the virgin martyr in the most horrible manner with fragments of tiles and mussel shells. The limbs are torn from the still quivering body, and, when life is extinct, the howling mob gather up and burn the fragments of the mutilated corpse.

It was a horrible deed. The life of a beautiful and talented maiden was sacrificed for the cause which she professed, and, like many a Christian maiden, she attained by her death the sanctity of martyrdom. The purity and nobility of her character invested her with an enduring fame, and, though her end marks the doom of the old gods, Hypatia herself will never be forgotten. Judged by the abiding results of her activity, Hypatia was, like Shelley, "a beautiful and ineffectual angel beating in the void her luminous wings in vain," but as the embodiment of the highest and best elements of Greek culture she deserves to rank as one of the most typical of Greek women.

A peculiar and deep-rooted trait in woman's nature is tender compassion and sympathetic devotion to suffering humanity. Hence from heroic times onward through the various epochs of Greek history we find women at the bedside of the sick and the wounded, acting as attendant, nurse, or physician. Thus it is not surprising that we should find Greek women preeminent in the art of medicine.

In the Heroic Age, Homeric heroines were gifted with a knowledge of plants and their virtues. Hecate, wife of King Æetes of Colchis, her daughter Medea, and Circe were so celebrated in this respect that they passed for enchantresses. One has but to recall the transformation of Odysseus's companions into swine as an evidence of Circe's peculiar power. All the daughters of Asclepius the physician--Hygiea, Panacea, Iaso, and Ægle--were specialists in medicine. Helen of Troy knew how to compound her celebrated potion, Nepenthe, which made men forget all care and enjoy sound slumbers; and OEnone, the forsaken wife of Paris, and Agamede, daughter of a king of Elis, were skilled in the use of simples.

In historical times, the Thessalian women were noted for their knowledge of the virtues of plants, and were acquainted with all forms of witchcraft. They were frequently consulted for the preparation of "love potions," and, as midwives, were in demand throughout Hellas. Women naturally preferred women's services in those ailments which are peculiar to the sex; but in ancient Athens, so unfriendly to the female sex in its laws, there was a statute forbidding the practice of gynæcology by women as a profession. Women rebelled, but their complaints were without avail.

Agnodice, whose date is not known, was the name of the courageous maiden who broke the prevailing traditions and won a natural right for her sex. She conceived the idea of studying medicine in secret until she became an expert, and then of offering her services to women, also in secret, for medical treatment, especially in cases of maternity. To this end, she cut off her hair, adopted masculine apparel, and, as a promising youth, took instruction in medicine from Hierophilus, a celebrated physician. Her progress was rapid, and when she was pronounced sufficiently equipped for independent practice she revealed her identity to prospective mothers, who gladly availed themselves of her services, so that she soon obtained the monopoly of this kind of practice. The other physicians were naturally overcome with jealousy and chagrin that the young doctor should supplant them, and finally they brought charges of malpractice against the supposed youth. Agnodice was brought to trial, and in self-defence was compelled to reveal her sex. The older physicians then endeavored to have the laws enforced against her; but all the prominent ladies of the city took her part, and the obnoxious laws were repealed.

From that time forward, large numbers of women studied medicine, the majority devoting their attention to the diseases of women and children. These female physicians frequently appear as medical writers, especially on gynæcology and pediatrics. They also produced many treatises on cosmetics, which ranked as a branch of hygiene and was cultivated most diligently by many eminent physicians. These women rivalled one another in the discovery of an endless variety of toilet preparations, beauty wafers, skin and hair ointments, pastes and powders, and wine essences for the removal of pimples and freckles.

In later and more immoral times, female physicians lent their talents gladly to demoralization and license, and wrote treatises on love potions and abortives--a disreputable form of literature very popular with the hetseræ, and which, according to Pliny, found diligent readers among the great ladies of Rome. Of all the numerous works of the feminine doctors, only fragments and excerpts have come down to us, and their loss is not greatly to be regretted. Yet credit is due to these women as pioneers in female emancipation, and the most eminent of them deserve to be rescued from oblivion.

The greatest was Aspasia--not the favorite of Pericles nor the devoted companion of Cyrus the Younger, but the "medical" Aspasia, who was a prominent figure in the Athens of the fourth century before the Christian era. She attained great fame, not only in women's diseases, but also in surgery and other branches of medicine, as may be judged from the titles of her works, preserved by Aëtius, a physician and writer of the fifth century of our era. It seems clear from what is known of her that the Athenian women saw nothing criminal in giving and using abortives. Even Aristotle desired to have a law regulating the number of children that might be borne by woman.

Antiochis, to whom Heraclides of Tarentum, one of the best physicians of antiquity, dedicated his works, was a practising female physician in Magna Græcia, in the third century before Christ, who devoted especial attention to salves and plaster cures. To the great Cleopatra has been ascribed the authorship of a work "on the medical means of preserving beauty"; but there were probably one or more physicians of this name, as there are various treatises ascribed to "Cleopatra." Other female physicians, of whom we know little more than the name and the titles of their works, are Olympias of Boeotia, Salpe, Elephantis, Sotira, Pamphile, Myro, Spendusa, Maia, and Berenice.

Space will not suffer us to do more than call attention to many wise and able women of Hellas who were eminent in other branches of learning. In historical writings, Thucydides's daughter is worthy of mention, as she is said to have composed the eighth book of her father's history of the Peloponnesian War; Nicobule, the author of a history of Alexander the Great, was another excellent woman writer. Plutarch gathered about him a learned circle of women, of whom the chief was Clea, the clever matron of Delphi, to whom he dedicated several of his works, and Eurydice, who enjoyed his instruction. Aganice, daughter of Hegetor of Thessaly, possessed an astonishing knowledge of astronomy, and was regarded as an enchantress. To Melanippe, the sculptor Lysistratus erected a monument as a tribute to her learning.

Alexandria, with its vast number of scholars, its libraries and museums, and its intellectual freedom for women, naturally produced a large number of women eminent in history and philology. Frequently philologists' daughters were trained from childhood by their fathers, and afterward became their companions and secretaries in literary labors. The most prominent of these literary feminine grammarians was doubtless Hestiæa of Alexandria, a Homeric scholar of note, who was the first to devote scientific attention to the topography of the Iliad and to throw doubt on the generally accepted view that New Ilium was the site of Ancient Troy. Pamphile, daughter of the grammarian Soteridas and wife of the scholar Socratidas, was a woman of wide erudition, celebrated especially as essayist and historian. Others whose names are associated with similar labors are Agallis, Theodora, and Theosebia.

When one reflects on the varied activity of Greek women, the conclusion forces itself upon him that they were intellectually as acquisitive and as brilliant as the Greek men, who have set the standard for the world in the realm of literature and science. Cleverness is the most salient characteristic of the Greek intelligence, and this trait belonged as truly to the female sex as to the male. The Renaissance furnishes examples of women renowned for their erudition and culture; but perhaps only the present age furnishes an adequate parallel to the varied intellectual activities of Greek women in the centuries that followed the decline of Greek independence and that saw the spread of Greek culture among all civilized peoples. Modern women can therefore learn much from their Greek sisters in all that pertains to the so-called emancipation of the sex.

XIV

THE MACEDONIAN WOMAN

Separated from the lands of the Hellenes by the range of the Cambunian Mountains which extended north of Thessaly from Mount Olympus on the east to Mount Lacmon on the west, there lay a rugged country, whose inhabitants were destined to play a prominent role and become a powerful factor in the later history of Greece. This country, divided into many basins by spurs which branch off from the higher mountain chains, by its mountain system not only shut the people off from the outside world, but also forbade any extended intercourse between the dwellers in the various cantons. The wide and fertile valleys, however, and the mountain slopes abounding in extensive forests, the haunts of wild game, mark the land as the country of a great people, who by generations of seclusion were storing up strength and vitality to be of vast influence whenever they should break through their narrow confines.

Such a people dwelt there, but it required strong leaders to bring them in touch with the rich Hellenic life to the south of them and to make them a powerful factor in the history of the world. Philip, lord of Macedon, and his mightier son, Alexander, were the great men who were to accomplish the work of grafting the new blood and energy of Macedon upon the decaying stock of Greek culture, and to diffuse the spirit of Hellenism throughout the civilized world. With them the old order of things, as represented in Athens and Sparta, passed away, and a new order, with new ideals, new motives, new views of life, was born. Hence, the people of Macedon, themselves Greek by race, have a large place in the consideration of any phase of Greek life. When the Hellenes originally migrated into Greece, a branch of the race found its way into the southwestern part of Macedon behind the barriers of Olympus, and later, by intermixture with the Illyrians and other barbarous races, these invaders lost some of their national characteristics and, shut off as they were, failed to share in the history and development of their kinsmen to the south. In language, in institutions, and in aspirations, however, they gave indisputable evidence of their right to be considered as members of the great Hellenic family.

The people were a hardy, peasant folk, devoted to hunting, to grazing, and to agriculture, and they preserved the patriarchal institutions which obtained among the earliest Greeks. They were divided into many tribes, each with its own chief and leader. Among some of the hardier tribes, the man who had not slain a wild boar was not allowed to recline at table with the warriors, and not to have slain an enemy was regarded as a mark of disgrace. In the tribal organization and in the institution of the kingship, we are carried back to the society of Homeric times, and in manifold ways the public and private life of the Macedonians reflects the life portrayed in the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Aristotle remarks that the ancient kingship survived only among the Spartans, the Molossians, and the Macedonians, of all the Greek peoples; and only among the last mentioned did the office retain all its prerogatives. As in the Heroic Age, so in Macedon, the king was supreme judge, military commander-in-chief, and at the head of the religion of the State. But he was no Oriental despot. The people were conscious of their liberty and sensitive as to their rights. By the side of the king stood the nobles, who were closely associated with him at all times, constituting his council, accompanying him to war, and sharing with him his dangers and his honors. As the population was largely rural, there were present none of the conditions which tend to nullify clan distinctions and create a democracy. The lines between noble and peasant were very broad. Hence, Macedon was essentially a dynastic State, and its history is largely the history of its royal family. As we have frequently noted, in monarchies woman is ever a most influential factor, A king must have a court, and there can be no court without a queen. The queen's life has necessarily its public, political, and military aspects; and the part she plays largely determines the weal or woe of both king and people. Hence it is with the royal family of Macedon, and with those queens and princesses who make up a large part of its history, that we are now chiefly concerned.

The royal family of Macedon claimed descent from members of the ancient Heracleid family of Argos, which had taken refuge in the north; and this descent was so capable of proof, that, on the basis of it, one of the earlier kings was admitted to the Olympic games. Herodotus, the great story teller, relates the incident of the founding of the dynasty. According to his narration, three brothers of the royal race of Temenus,--the fourth in descent from Heracles,--Gauanes, Eropus, and Perdiccas, exiles from Argos, went into Illyria, and thence into upper Macedon, where they placed themselves, as herdsmen, at the service of Lebea, one of the local kings. Now, when the queen baked the bread for their food, she always noticed that the loaf destined for Perdiccas doubled its weight; she made this marvel known to her husband, who saw danger in it, and ordered the three brothers to depart from the country. They replied that they would go as soon as they had received their wages. Thereupon the king, who was sitting by the hearth, on which fell sunlight through the opening of the roof, as if by divine inspiration said to the brothers, pointing to the light on the floor: "I will give you that; that is your wages." Upon this, the two elder brothers stood speechless; but the younger, who held a knife in his hand, said: "Very well; we accept it." And having traced with his knife a circle on the floor surrounding the rays, he stooped down thrice, feigning each time to take up the sunshine and place it in the folds of his garment and to distribute it to his brothers; after which, they all went away. One of those who sat by called the attention of the king to this conduct on the part of the young man, and the manner in which he accepted what was offered him; and the king, becoming anxious and angry, sent horsemen to follow the brothers and slay them. Now in that country is a river, to which the descendants of these Argives offer sacrifice as to a god. This river, after the fugitives had crossed it, became suddenly so swollen that the horsemen dared not follow. The brothers arrived in another part of Macedon and established themselves near the lake called the Gardens of Midas, and, when they had subjugated the country in those parts, they went thence to conquer the rest of Macedon.

Herodotus states that Perdiccas I. founded the reigning dynasty in Macedon, and he mentions as his successors Argæus, Philip, Eropus, Alcetas, and Amyntas I., whose son, Alexander "the Philheliene," the Greeks permitted to take part in the Olympic games. This Alexander on one occasion visited dire punishment upon a party of Persian envoys who at a banquet forgot the respect due to the ladies at the court of Macedon; he caused them to be assassinated by a company of young men whom he had disguised in women's attire. When the Persians sent to require the punishment of the guilty, Alexander won over the envoy by giving him his sister in marriage.

This Alexander, who became king in the year 500 before the Christian era, begins the series of those Macedonian kings who felt the need of Hellenizing their people, and his reign accordingly marks a turning point in the history of Macedon. Perdiccas II., Archelaus I., and Amyntas II. were his successors, who continued this policy; but this forced civilization by no means reached the mass of the people, and, while it refined the nobility and the court and paved the way for the Macedonian inroads into Greece, it also introduced luxury and corruption. Amyntas II. left three sons, Alexander II., Perdiccas III., and Philip, the last of whom was the one so well known to fame; and Eurydice, the mother of these three valiant sons, was the first of that series of remarkable women, noted for their power, their beauty, or their crimes, who from this time on fill the annals of Macedonian history.

In her barbarous instincts, Eurydice gives evidence of the non-Hellenic blood in her veins. Her career in crime was such as to place her among the Messalinas and Lucrezia Borgias of history. To begin with, she was implicated in a conspiracy with a paramour, Ptolemæus of Alorus, against her husband's life; but when the plot was detected, she was, out of regard for their three sons, mercifully spared by her husband. Alexander, the eldest, succeeded his father, but, after reigning two years, was assassinated by Ptolemæus, with his own mother as an accomplice of the murderer. When Perdiccas grew to manhood, he avenged his brother's death and his mother's disgrace by slaying Ptolemæus; but he himself, a few years later, fell in battle against the Illyrians, or, as was asserted, at the hand of an assassin hired by his mother Eurydice. Philip, the next in succession, then ascended the throne, and succeeded in securing himself against the attempts of his mother and in conciliating all factions. Eurydice then disappears from the scene, and the manner of her death is unknown. Heredity, without doubt, had much to do with the cruelty in Philip's nature, and in spite of her crimes he seems to have had much respect for his sanguinary mother, for he placed a figure of her among the gold-and-ivory statues embellishing the monument he erected to commemorate his victory over the Athenians and Thebans at Chæronea.

We are not concerned here with the rise of Philip's power over Hellas, nor with the history of his son Alexander and the empire he established, except in so far as the spread of Hellenism and the union of the world under one dominion brought about changes in social conditions which affected the status of woman. We shall, for the present, confine our attention to the consideration of those women, chiefly royal princesses, whose names group themselves about the careers of Philip and Alexander and their immediate successors, and who by their strong personalities greatly influenced the course of events.

A few general reflections will prepare us for the sombre history which we are about to read. The Macedonian kings were, as a rule, not content with one wife; they either kept concubines, or married a second wife, as did Philip and Alexander, while the first was living. This practice led to jealousy, envy, and hatred, and the attendant ills of constant and bloody tragedies in the royal families. We find henceforth a combination of Greek manners and Macedonian nature. In the life of the courts, women as well as men, in spite of their Greek culture, show the Thracian traits of passion and cruelty. Owing to the intense respect in which women were held, the royal princesses occupied an exalted station and hence found willing instruments for the carrying-out of their cruel practices. Every king was either murdered or conspired against by his family. Women entered into matrimonial alliances with a view to increasing their power and extending their influence. Hence, the women who played so prominent a part in the great struggles that attended Philip's extension of his power over all Hellas, Alexander's conquest of the world, and the founding of independent dynasties by the Diadochi and their descendants, were not women who attained the Thucydidean ideal of excellence; namely, that those are the best women who are never mentioned among men for good or for evil. They were, on the contrary, powerful and haughty princesses, who possessed royal rights and privileges, who had resources of their own in money and soldiery, who could address their troops with fiery speeches and go forth to battle at the head of their armies, who made offers of marriage to men, and who finally got rid of their rivals with sinister coolness and cruelty.

Philip the Great followed the Oriental fashion of marrying many wives; according to Athenæus, he was continually marrying new wives in war times, and seven more or less regular marriages are attributed to him. Of his numerous wives or mistresses, the strong-minded Olympias was the chief; and, as she survived both her husband Philip and her son Alexander, she played a dominant part in Macedonian history and was the most prominent woman of those stormy times. Olympias was the daughter of Neoptolemus, King of Epirus, who traced his lineage back to Neoptolemus, son of Achilles. Philip is said to have fallen in love with Olympias while both were being initiated into some religious mysteries in Samothrace, at a time when he was still a stripling and she an orphan. He was ardent in his suit, and, gaining the consent of her brother Arymbas, he shortly after married her. We know nothing of the first few years of their married life, but the union seems never to have been a happy one. Both were of too decided individuality to blend well together. Says President Wheeler: "Both were preëminently ambitious, energetic, and aggressive; but while Philip's ambition was guided by a cool, crafty sagacity, that of his queen manifested itself in impetuous outbreaks of almost barbaric emotion. In her, joined a marvellous compound of the mother, the queen, the shrew, and the witch. The passionate ardor of her nature found its fullest expression in the wild ecstasies and crude superstitions of her native religious rites."

Plutarch gives a graphic account of the religious intensity of Olympias's nature: "Another account is that all the women of this country, having always been addicted to the Orphic and Dionysiac mystery rites, imitated largely the practices of the Edonian and Thracian women about Mount Hæmus, and that Olympias, in her abnormal zeal to surround these states of trance and inspiration with more barbaric dread, was wont in the sacred dances to have about her great tame serpents, which, sometimes creeping out of the ivy and the mystic fans, and sometimes winding themselves about the staffs and the chaplets which the women bore, presented a sight of horror to the men who beheld."

In Olympias we find all the traits of character which selfishness and love of power, combined with intense religious fervor, could engender; and her devotion to weird religious rites makes more ghastly the story of her life. With a different husband she might have been a good woman, but when two such natures clash much evil is bound to result. To her young son, Alexander, she was ardently attached, and she expected great things of him. Just before her marriage with Philip she dreamed that a thunderbolt fell upon her body, which kindled a great fire, whose divided flames dispersed themselves all about and then were extinguished. This was later regarded as a presage of the rapid spread of Alexander's empire and its ultimate breaking-up among the Diadochi.

Philip's numerous infidelities and marriages caused an estrangement between him and Olympias that was far-reaching in its consequences. They reached their culmination when Philip with great ceremony wedded Cleopatra, a niece of his general, Attalus. At the wedding banquet, Attalus, the uncle of the bride, heated with wine, cried out:

"Macedonians, let us pray the gods that from this marriage may spring an heir to the throne!" Whereupon, Alexander, who was present, violently irritated at the speech, threw one of the goblets at the head of Attalus and exclaimed: "You villain, what! Am I, then, a bastard?" Philip, taking Attalus's part, rose up, and would have run his son through with his sword, but, overcome by rage and by drink, he slipped and fell to the floor. "Here is a man," scornfully exclaimed the prince, "preparing to cross from Europe into Asia, who is not able to step safely from one table to another." This incident brought to a climax the estrangement between Philip and his wife and Alexander. Olympias and Alexander fled, the one taking shelter with her brother, the King of Epirus, and the other going into Illyria, where he remained until a sort of reconciliation was effected by the marriage of Philip's daughter, Cleopatra, with the Epirote king. When Philip was assassinated, suspicions of complicity in the murder attached to both Olympias and Alexander. The young man's conduct fully acquits him of the crime, but it would not be strange if the mother, seeking her own vengeance and her son's preferment, should have abetted the youth Pausanias, who committed the deed.

Olympias could not brook any rivals, and shortly after the murder of Philip she despatched that king's last wife, Cleopatra, and her infant son. Throughout Alexander's brilliant but short-lived career, Olympias remained in Macedon, exercising a queenly power. She and her son seem to have been bound by the closest ties of affection and respect. With Antipater, however, who had been left behind by Alexander to govern Macedon in his absence, she was continually falling out. Plutarch gives an interesting account of the intimate relations between mother and son and of the quarrels between the old queen and the regent:

"How magnificent he, Alexander, was in enriching his friends appears by a letter which Olympias wrote to him, where she tells him he should reward those about him in a more moderate way. She said: 'For now you make them all equal to kings, you give them power and opportunity of making many friends of their own, and in the meantime you leave yourself destitute.' She often wrote to him to this purpose. To her he sent many presents, but would never suffer her to meddle with matters of State or war, not indulging her busy temper; and when she fell out with him on this account, he bore her ill humor very patiently. Nay, more, when he read a long letter from Antipater, full of accusations against her, 'Antipater,' he said, 'does not know that one tear of a mother effaces a thousand such letters as these.'

"The tidings of the difficulties he had gone through in his Indian expedition had begun to give occasion for revolt among many of the conquered nations, and for acts of great injustice, avarice, and insolence on the part of satraps and commanders. Even at home, Olympias and her daughter Cleopatra had raised a faction against Antipater and divided his government between them--Olympias seizing upon Epirus, and Cleopatra upon Macedon. When Alexander was told of it, he said his mother had made the best choice, for the Macedonians would never consent to be ruled by a woman."

Upon the death of Alexander, Olympias espoused with great devotion the cause of her daughter-in-law Roxana and the young Alexander against the intrigues of the generals, and she did everything in her power to maintain their rights in opposition to the cold and calculating Cassander. Diodorus gives a graphic account of her last days:

"As soon as Olympias heard that Cassander was entering Macedonia with a large army, she, taking with her the son of Alexander and his mother Roxana, and other kindred and eminent relations, entered the town of Pydna. Neither was there provision in that place sufficient for such a multitude to hold out any long siege. Yet she was resolved to stay here, expecting many Greeks and Macedonians to come in to her assistance by sea. Now spring came on, and the famine increased every day, whereupon most of the soldiers came up in a body and entreated Olympias to suffer them to leave the place because of the scarcity, who, not being able to supply them with bread, let them go. At length Olympias, perceiving that many went over to Cassander, without delay got ready a galley of five oars with a design to rescue herself and her kindred; but being discovered to the enemy by some of the deserters, Cassander sailed to the place and seized the vessel. Whereupon Olympias sent a herald to Cassander to treat upon terms of pacification, but he insisted upon the delivering up of herself to his mercy; she at length prevailed only for the preservation of her person. He then incited the relations of such as were put to death by Olympias to prosecute her in the general assembly of the Macedonians, who readily complied with what they were desired to do; and though she herself was not then present, nor had any person there to plead her cause, yet the Macedonians condemned her to die. Cassander therefore sent some of his friends to Olympias and advised her to get out of the way, and promised to procure for her a ship and to cause her to be conveyed safely to Athens. He did not do this for her preservation, but that, as one confessing her own guilt by her flight, it might be judged a just vengeance upon her if she was cut off as she was on her voyage; for he was afraid as well of the fickle disposition of the Macedonians as of the dignity of her person. But Olympias refused to fly, and said she was ready to defend her cause before all the Macedonians. Cassander therefore, fearing lest the people should change their minds and so take upon them to defend the queen, sent to her a band of two hundred soldiers with orders to despatch her forthwith, who, rushing on a sudden into the palace, as soon as they saw her, in reverence to her person, drew back without executing the command. But the kindred of those she had put to death, both to ingratiate themselves with Cassander, and likewise to gratify their own revenge for the death of their relations, cut her throat, she not in the least crying out in any womanish terror or fear to spare her. In this manner died Olympias, the greatest and most honorable woman in the age wherein she lived, daughter of Neoptolemus, King of Epirus; sister of Pyrrhus, who made the expedition into Italy; wife of Philip, the greatest and most victorious prince of all that ever lived before in Europe; and lastly the mother of Alexander, who never was exceeded by any for the many great and wonderful things that were done by him."

So Olympias showed herself in her death, as in her life, every inch a queen; and, in spite of her temper and her bloodthirstiness, she deserves a high place in the history of womanhood, because of her untiring devotion to her son and to his helpless widow and child against the machinations of cruel and powerful men.

Philip had three daughters who appear prominently in Macedonian history: Cynane, by an Illyrian princess, who figures in the history of her daughter Eurydice, which we shall recount later; Thessalonica, whom Cassander married after he had slain Olympias and all the heirs of Alexander, and after whom he named the famous city which he built; and Cleopatra, full sister of Alexander, who was first married to her uncle, Alexander, King of Epirus, murdered in Italy while he was trying to subdue the West. The young Princess Cleopatra was left a widow in good time to enter upon a career in the stormy days that followed the death of the world-monarch. She returned to Macedon, and notwithstanding the fact that she and her mother Olympias were both of violent tempers, and frequently quarrelled, yet their interests were too closely united to permit any permanent estrangement. Her claims to the throne were the strongest, next to those of the infant Alexander, and, in consequence, she was much sought after in marriage, and had her choice of almost all the distinguished men of the time. She regarded marriage as a legitimate weapon of diplomacy to advance her interests and to increase her influence. Yet a sad fatality seemed to attach to the men whom she proposed to honor with her hand. She first chose, probably from ardent affection, Leonnatus, one of the most gallant of Alexander's generals, but he was killed while assisting Antipater before Lamia. Her mother then offered her hand to Perdiccas, when he became regent, and he gladly accepted; but before the nuptials were celebrated, he was slain in an attack on Egypt. Had the loyal Eumenes been victorious in his long struggle against Antigonus, Cleopatra would doubtless have married him, in spite of the fact that he was not of royal blood. She then resided for fifteen years in Sardis, amid all the pomp and luxury naturally attending so noble and beautiful a princess, and became the object of intrigue among the rival generals. Old Antipater, when appointed regent, accused her of treason and sedition; but she publicly defended herself, in their native tongue, before the Macedonian soldiers, and so great was the influence she exerted over them that Antipater wisely concluded to withdraw the charge, and harassed her no further. At last, however, at Sardis, she fell into the power of her old enemy, Antigonus. Realizing her peril, this redoubtable princess, although past fifty, was planning escape and flight to Egypt to marry Ptolemy, who had already two wives and grown-up children. To prevent this marriage of the queen with his strongest rival, Antigonus put her to death.

Cleopatra manifested the same strength of personality and independence of character as her mother Olympias, and she had, in addition, all the advantages of education and culture which would naturally accrue to the sister of Alexander. She differed most strongly from her mother and other Macedonian princesses of the day, in that no murders could be laid at her door.

When we come to Cynane, the third daughter of Philip, we find another type of womanhood. She showed her Illyrian blood in her fondness for outdoor exercise, being a skilled horsewoman, and she would even enter into battle at the head of her troops. She was first married by Philip to her cousin Amyntas. Left a widow, she devoted herself to the education of her daughter, Eurydice, whom she trained in the same martial exercises for which she herself was famous. When Philip Arrhidæus, the imbecile half-brother of Alexander, son of a female dancer, Philinna of Larissa, was proclaimed joint heir with the posthumous son of Roxana to Alexander's dominions, Cynane determined to marry him to her daughter, and started over to Asia to accomplish this end. As her influence was great, Perdiccas and Antipater determined to forestall such a contingency by the murder of the mother, and Perdiccas sent his brother Alcetas to meet her on the way and put her to death. By her valor and her eloquence, however, she won over the Macedonian warriors, so that the schemes of the generals could not be publicly carried out; but, in defiance of the feelings of the soldiery, Alcetas secretly consummated the ruthless plot, and Cynane met her doom with dauntless spirit. After the death of the mother, the discontent of the Macedonian troops and the respect with which they looked on Eurydice, as one of the few surviving members of the royal house, induced Perdiccas not only to spare Eurydice's life, but also to give her in marriage to the unhappy King Philip Arrhidasus, whose weakened intellectual powers were due to the drugs of Olympias--the queen who never ceased to wreak her vengeance upon her rivals in Philip's affections and upon their ill-fated offspring.

Then began the long and bitter struggle for mastery between the new queen, Eurydice, and the old queen, Olympias, who took the part of Roxana and her son; and only the superior claims of Olympias, as the mother of Alexander, to the respect of the Macedonian soldiery led to her final victory over her gifted and powerful rival. These hostile factions in the royal party of Macedon were to lead to the extinction of all the legitimate heirs to the throne. After the death of her mortal enemy Antipater, Eurydice determined to make an active campaign against his successor, the less able Polysperchon, who had allied himself with Olympias. She therefore concluded an alliance with Cassander, assembled an army, and took the field in person. Polysperchon marched against her, accompanied by Olympias and Roxana, with the young Alexander, and the presence of Olympias decided the day.

"As the troops of Alcetas would not fight against her and Cynane, so the troops of Eurydice deserted her when she led them against the queen-mother. It was the moment when Olympias's pent-up fury burst out after many years. Amid her orgies of murder and of disentombing her enemies, she was not likely to spare the offspring of Philip's faithlessness; for Philip Arrhidæus was the son of a Thessalian dancing girl, and Eurydice the granddaughter of an Illyrian savage. She shut them up, and meant to kill them by gradual starvation. But her people began to expostulate, and then, having had Philip shot by Thracians, she sent Eurydice the sword, the halter, and the hemlock, to take her choice. But she, praying that Olympias might receive the same gifts, composed the limbs of her husband, and washed his wounds as best she could, and then, without one word of complaint at her fate, or the greatness of her misfortune, hanged herself with the halter. If these women knew not how to live, they knew how to die."

A word must be said about Alexander the Great and his relations with the fair sex; for notwithstanding the fact that in Alexander's career Persian woman plays the chief rôle, yet it was by breaking down the barriers between Greek and Barbarian, between Occidental and Oriental, that the way was prepared for the larger freedom of woman in succeeding generations; and in his younger days, before becoming a world-conqueror, Alexander was greatly influenced by certain women of his household. We have already spoken of his ardent affection and respect for his queen-mother. He also had in his childhood a nurse, Lanice, to whom he was devotedly attached, "He loved her as a mother," says an ancient writer. Her sons gave their lives in battle for him, and her one brother, Clitus, who had once rescued him from imminent death, was later slain by Alexander's own hand in a fit of anger. This deed occasioned the conqueror infinite regret and remorse, and Arrian tells graphically how, as he tossed weeping on his bed of repentance, "he kept calling the name of Clitus and the name of Lanice, Clitus's sister, who nursed and reared him--Lanice the daughter of Dropides,--'Fair return I have made in manhood's years for thy nurture and care--thou who hast seen thy sons die fighting in my behalf; and now I have slain thy brother with mine own hand!'"

Another friend of his youth was a lady of noble birth, by name Ada, whom he dignified with the title of "mother," and later established as Queen of Caria. Plutarch tells how, as a friendly attention, she used to send him daily not only all sorts of meats and cakes, but finally went so far as to send him the cleverest cooks and bakers she could find, though, owing to the rigid training of his tutor, he was extremely temperate in eating and drinking and did not avail himself of her indulgence.

Alexander was ever considerate of women, even when these were taken captive in battle, and Plutarch tells an interesting story of his treatment of a noble lady of Thebes, when he had captured and was about to raze that city:

"Among the other calamities that befell the city, it happened that some Thracian soldiers having broken into the house of a matron of high character and repute, named Timycha, their captain, after he had used violence with her, to satisfy his avarice as well as lust, asked her if she knew of any money concealed, to which she readily answered she did, and bade him follow her into a garden, where she showed him a well, into which, she told him, upon the taking of the city she had thrown what she had of the most value. The greedy Thracian presently stooping down to view the place where he thought the treasure lay, she came behind him and pushed him into the well, and then flung great stones in upon him till she had killed him. After which, when the soldiers led her away bound to Alexander, her very mien and gait showed her to be a woman of dignity and of a mind no less elevated. And when the king asked her who she was, 'I am,' she said, the sister of Theagenes who fought the battle of Chæronea with your father Philip, and fell there in command for the liberty of Greece.' Alexander was so surprised, both at what she had done and what she said, that he could not choose but give her and her children their liberty."

In the evil fortunes of the princesses of Macedon the Persian wives of Alexander shared. Roxana, the daughter of a Bactrian satrap, whose youthfulness and beauty charmed him at a drinking entertainment, was the first of his wives. Later, in celebrating at Susa the union of Europe and Asia by the marriage of his Greek officers to Persian maidens, he himself wedded Statira, the daughter of Darius. "After Alexander's death, Roxana," says Plutarch, "who was now with child, and upon that account much honored by the Macedonians, being jealous of Statira, sent for her by a counterfeit letter, as if Alexander had still been alive; and when she had her in her power, killed her and her sister and threw their babies into a well which they filled up with earth, not without the assistance of Perdiccas, who in the time immediately following the king's death, under cover of the name of Arrhidæus, whom he carried about with him as a sort of guard to his person, exercised the chief authority." There is no more tragic story than that of the fate of the young Alexander and his mother. Olympias, the grandmother, warmly espoused the youth's cause, but his existence was a menace to the ambitions of the rival generals. Cassander finally seized the power in Macedon and obtained possession of Roxana and her son, whom he confined in the fortress of Amphipolis and later caused to be secretly assassinated by the governor of the fortress.

After the murder of Roxana and her son, a movement was made to raise to the throne Heracles, son of Darius's daughter, Barsine, he being the sole surviving offspring of Alexander, though a bastard; but Cassander, perceiving the danger, conspired for the destruction of the young prince, and the latter was poisoned or strangled by the treacherous Polysperchon. His mother, who lived with him at Pergamum, was also secretly put to death. So perished by violent death all the women of the family of Philip and Alexander, except Thessalonica, who became the wife of Cassander, the destroyer of her mother and her half-sisters.

On the death of Alexander, his generals began the task of establishing independent dominions. They were surrounded by a group of princesses who added to the interest and liveliness of the court society of the times. These generals and their sons, in spite of their bitter rivalries and constant wars, eagerly sought family alliances with each other, such as would in any way increase their prestige. Hence, the princesses who were thus in demand were expected to take a part in the game of politics and diplomacy; and frequent marriages fell to the lot of many of them, as husbands were ofttimes either slain or murdered, and divorces were readily obtained for the slightest reasons of State. The marriage tie seems to have been regarded with but little sanctity; and no bonds were forbidden because of relationship or of family feuds, Cratesipolis, for instance, was the wife of Alexander, son of the titular regent Polysperchon; and at Alexander's death, the father married his son's widow. She had a thrilling career, and was famous not only for her warlike qualities, but also for her goodness of heart and kindness to the poor. Her first husband was Tyrant of Sicyon, and at his death she seized the reins of power. The citizens, despising her because she was a woman, revolted; but she met them in battle, herself commanding her troops, and defeated them and crucified the thirty ringleaders of the revolt. Thus she established her power.

Of all the princesses of this stormy period, the one who ranks as the noblest and most virtuous woman of her age was Phila, daughter of Antipater and wife of Demetrius the Besieger, son of Antigonus--the Alcibiades among the princes of the Succession. She shared with her brilliant husband his various vicissitudes of fortune; and she bore uncomplainingly his many infidelities, his disgraces, and his misfortunes. When, after an erratic career of successes and failures, he was made King of Macedon, she no doubt attained the height of her desires. But his ambition soared higher, and he endeavored to organize a movement to reconquer and embrace under his exclusive rule the whole extent of the empire of Alexander. He was unsuccessful; and after seven years of power as King of Macedon, he was expelled from his kingdom and was compelled to flee for his life to the Peloponnesus. The blow was too severe for his noble-hearted wife, and Phila poisoned herself when she thought his ruin inevitable. She left two children by Demetrius who became prominent in the politics of the times--Antigonus Gonatas, who stood nobly by his father in his misfortunes, and who finally became King of Macedon and was the first of that famous line of kings which became extinct only at the hands of the Romans; and Stratonice, who at the tender age of seventeen was married to the aged Seleucus, King of Syria.

Plutarch tells an interesting story of this princess. Antiochus, son of Seleucus, fell violently ill, and it was difficult for the royal physicians to discover the nature of the malady. Finally, the cleverest of them observed that when Stratonice, the prince's young stepmother, was present, he exhibited all the symptoms mentioned by Sappho in her famous ode,--"his ears rang, sweat poured down his forehead, a trembling seized his body, he became paler than grass." The physician at once perceived that Antiochus was sick for love of the queen. The wily physician, however, in explaining to Seleucus the nature of the malady, pretended at first that it was his own wife with whom the prince was in love; but, so soon as he fully ascertained the king's mind, he told him that his son was dying for love of his stepmother, the beautiful Stratonice. Without a moment's hesitation, the old king resigned his wife to his son and gave them an independent kingdom as a wedding present.

It is rather a remarkable society of queens and princesses to which the court of Macedon admits us,--the licentious and cruel Eurydice the Elder, mother of Philip; the gloomy and violent Olympias; the brilliant and versatile Cleopatra; the valiant and eloquent Cynane and her warlike and ambitious daughter Eurydice; the rather colorless and ill-fated wives of Alexander the Great; the kind-hearted Cratesipolis; the unselfish and noble Phila; and her beautiful daughter Stratonice.

The court life of which they formed a part had its brilliant side, with its veneering of Greek culture and much of the etiquette and ceremony of an Oriental monarchy, and they were the objects of all the respect with which high station endows royal women at the hands of courtiers and gallant soldiers. But one is apt to think rather of the storm and turmoil through which they passed, of their jealousies and intrigues, of their marriages and alliances, and of the violent deaths which they all, with one or two exceptions, found at last. Yet, the most wicked of them had redeeming qualities; even Olympias, who sent numberless men to death, was devoted to her own children, and fought to the bitter end for the rights of her son's heirs; and Eurydice the Younger, who carried on the losing battle with the aged queen, was ever the zealous wife of her weak husband, Arrhidæus. Phila stands out, however, amid this remarkable group, as the one against whom nothing can be said and whose virtues were preëminent--the ever-faithful and devoted wife of the most brilliant and most licentious man of his time.

A history of Greek womanhood would not be complete, did it not somewhere in the volume consider the story of two Greek queens noted for their beauty, their wisdom in counsels, and their valor in war, and withal for their devoted love,--the two Artemisias, Queens of Caria. The first flourished during the Persian Wars, in which she took a prominent part; the second, a century later, and her name is closely identified with the names of many members of the Hellenistic royal families and with the later history of Greek art. Hence we feel justified in appending the account to this chapter discussing the careers of Hellenistic princesses.

Herodotus delights to praise the first Artemisia's queenliness and wisdom, and the only fault he has to find with her is that she fought on the Persian side. He dwells on her story whenever the occasion offers, and we shall be pardoned for permitting the great story teller to sketch the account of her career:

"Of the rest of the officers [of the Persian fleet] I make no mention, but only of Artemisia, at whom I marvel most that she joined the expedition against Hellas, being a woman, for after her husband died, she, holding the power herself, although she had a son who was a young man, went on the expedition, impelled by high spirit and manly courage, no necessity being laid upon her; and she was the daughter of Lygdamus, and by descent she was of Halicarnassus, on the side of her father, but of Crete by her mother. She was ruler of the men of Halicarnassus, Cos, Nisyrus, and Calynda, furnishing five ships, and she furnished ships which were of all the fleet reputed the best after those of the Sidonians; and of all his allies she set forth the best counsels to the king. Of the States of which I said she was the leader, I declare the people to be all of Dorian race."

After the disaster to the Persian fleet at Artemisium, King Xerxes was in doubt as to his future policy. He knew that the Greeks had gathered a great fleet at Salamis, and, after sacking Athens, his own naval strength was being collected in the Saronic Gulf. The problem was whether to make a naval engagement, and accordingly "Xerxes sent Mardonius and inquired, making trial of each one, whether he should fight a battle by sea. So when Mardonius went round asking them, the others gave their opinions, all to the same effect, advising him to fight a battle by sea, but Artemisia spoke these words: 'Tell the king that I, who have proved myself to be not the worst in the sea fights which have been fought near Euboea, and have displayed deeds not inferior to those of others, speak to him thus: "Master, it is right that I set forth the opinion that I really have and say that which I happen to think best for thy cause; and this I say--spare thy ships and do not make a sea fight; for their men are as much stronger than thy men by sea, as men are stronger than women. And why must thou needs run the risk of sea battles? If, however, thou hasten to fight forthwith, I fear that damage done to the fleet may ruin the land army also. Moreover, O king, consider also this, that the servants of good men are apt to grow bad, and thou, who art of all men the best, hast bad servants, namely those who are reckoned as allies, Egyptians, Cyprians, and Cilicians, in whom there is no profit."' When she thus spoke, those who were friendly to Artemisia were grieved at her words, supposing that she would suffer some evil from the king; while those who had envy and jealousy of her, because she had been honored above all the allies, were rejoiced at the opposition, supposing that she would now be ruined. When, however, the opinions were reported to Xerxes, he was greatly pleased with the opinion of Artemisia; and whereas even before this he thought her excellent, he commended her now yet more."

Xerxes, however, did not follow the counsel of Artemisia, but was persuaded to attack the fleet of the Greeks. Artemisia entered most valiantly into the sea fight, which very soon began to be disastrous to the Persians.

"When the affairs of the king had come to great confusion, at this crisis the ship of Artemisia was being pursued by an Athenian ship; and as she was not able to escape, for in front of her were other ships of her own side, while her ship was further advanced toward the enemy, she resolved what she would do. She charged in full career against a ship of her own side manned by Calyndians and in which the King of the Calyndians was embarked. Now though even it be true that she had had some strife with him before while they were still about the Hellespont, yet I am not able to say whether she did this by intuition or whether the Calyndian ship happened by chance to fall in her way. Having charged against it and sunk it, she enjoyed good fortune and got for herself good in two ways; for first the captain of the Athenian ship, when he saw her charge against a ship manned by barbarians, turned away and went after others, supposing that the ship of Artemisia was either a Hellenic ship or was deserting from the barbarians and fighting for the Hellenes. Secondly, she gained great reputation by this thing with Xerxes, for besides other things which happened fortunately for her, there was this also, that not one of the crew of the Calyndian ship survived to become her accuser. Xerxes is reported to have said: 'My men have become women and my women men.'

"Now if the Athenian captain had known that Artemisia was sailing in this ship, he would not have ceased until either he had taken her or had been taken himself; for orders had been given to the Athenian captains and a prize was offered of ten thousand drachmas for the man who could take her alive; since they thought it intolerable that a woman should make an expedition against Athens."

After the calamitous issue of the battle of Salamis, Xerxes, having learned by hard experience that the insight of such a woman as Artemisia was more to be depended upon than the wisdom of his male advisers, once more sends for Artemisia and takes counsel with her. "When Xerxes was taking counsel with those of the Persians who were called to be his advisers, it seemed good to him to send for Artemisia also to give him counsel, because at the former time she alone had showed herself to have perception of that which ought to be done. So when Artemisia had come, Xerxes removed from him all the rest and spoke to her thus: 'Mardonius bids me stay here and make an attempt on the Peloponnesus, saying that the Persians and the land army are not guilty of any share in my calamity and that they would gladly give me proof of this. He bids me, therefore, either do this, or, if not, he desires himself to choose thirty myriads from the army and to deliver over to me Hellas reduced to subjection; and he bids me withdraw with the rest of the army to my own abode. So now advise me which of these things I shall do.' She spoke these words: 'O king! it seems good to me that thou shouldst retire back and leave Mardonius here, if he desires it, and undertakes to do this. If Mardonius suffer any disaster, no account will be made; and if the Hellenes conquer, they gain a victory which is no victory, having destroyed one who is but thy slave. Thou, however, wilt retire, having done that for which thou didst make thy march--that is to say, having delivered Athens to the fire,' With this advice Xerxes was greatly pleased, since she succeeded in saying that very thing which he himself was meaning to do. He commended Artemisia, therefore, and sent her away to conduct his sons to Ephesus, for there were certain sons of his who accompanied him."

This time Xerxes took the advice of Artemisia, and left Mardonius with three hundred thousand men to carry on the campaign, while he himself, with the greater part of his forces which had survived, retired to Persia. Artemisia, having won great glory by her valor and wisdom returned to her own dominions, and we know nothing authentic as to her later life. So queenly a woman, however, could not escape the Greek fondness for manufacturing marvellous stories concerning the great; and Ptolemy Hephæstion, a writer who mingles little fact with much fancy in his works, preserves a tradition that Artemisia came to her end in a most romantic manner. During her later years, she conceived a violent attachment for Dardanus, a beautiful youth of Abydos. As her passion was not returned, she avenged herself by putting out his eyes while he slept. This excited the anger of the gods, and in obedience to an oracle she, like the traditional Sappho, threw herself down from the Lover's Leap of Leucate.

The second Artemisia is immortalized by her attachment to her husband Mausolus, King of Caria, in memory of whom she built the celebrated and stately tomb, considered to be one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. This imposing structure, four hundred and forty feet in circuit, and one hundred and forty feet high, built by the most renowned architects of the time, embellished with sculptures from the hands of Scopas and his associates, and rendered gorgeous by the use of the most varied colors, gave the name of mausoleum to all succeeding sepulchres built on a colossal scale. No expense was spared by the devoted queen to make it expressive of her love for her husband and brother; for this species of marriage, so common later in Egypt, was sanctioned by the customs of the country.

She furthermore invited the most noted writers of the day to attend a literary contest, and offered the richest prizes to the one who should excel in composing a panegyric to her husband's virtue. Notwithstanding the interest she took in these memorials to her departed lord, she continued to be a prey to the deepest affliction. The story is told that she visited the place where her husband's ashes were deposited, and, mixing them with water, drank them off, for the purpose of becoming, as she said, the living tomb of her husband. In spite of her poignant grief, she did not neglect the duties of her elevated position, but conquered the island of Rhodes, whose inhabitants she treated with great severity. Her love of art was shown in the two statues she had set up in the city, one representing the city of Rhodes, habited like a slave, the other of herself branding the city with a hot iron. Though interested in making Halicarnassus a centre of art and culture, and extending and strengthening her dominions, she could not overcome her desolation of heart, and is said to have died of grief two years after the loss of her husband.

THE ALEXANDRIAN WOMAN

The Forty-five Years' War came to a close in B.C. 277. It had been entered into by those generals of Alexander the Great who succeeded to his dominions, and its close witnessed three dynasties firmly established and a number of minor principalities governed by various petty rulers. The main divisions of the Hellenistic world at this time were the kingdoms of Macedonia, under the successors of Antigonus Gonatas; of Syria, under the Seleucidæ; and of Egypt, under the Ptolemies; while the chief second-rate powers were Pergamum and Rhodes. These States continued to be the great centres of Hellenism until they were one by one overthrown by the mightier power of Rome, which in its turn continued and perpetuated the Greek spirit, so that it has become an element in the culture and civilization of modern times.

The most striking feature of social life in the Hellenistic Age was its cosmopolitan character, reminding one of the European culture of to-day. We know almost nothing of the life of the peoples of the different nationalities, but the history of the times deals largely with the courts of the rulers, and with the wars and commercial rivalries of contending powers. As we have frequently noticed in previous chapters, the status of woman under the old monarchical governments was an elevated and influential one. Kings must have their courts, and court life always presupposes a queen, with her attendant ladies; and in the story of the Hellenistic periods of the world's history, one of the most striking features is the number of royal women who enter upon the stage of action and play a prominent part for the weal or woe of mankind.

We have already considered the character of the Macedonian woman--bold, fearless, ambitious, ready to resort to cruelty and to intrigue in the carrying-out of her ends. Macedonian character partook of the rugged, hardy nature of the land, and the women of the country cared more for outdoor sports and scenes of war than for the enervating luxuries of the East and the letters of Egypt.

The kingdom of Syria, with its luxurious capital at Antioch, under the dynasty of the Seleucidæ, was perhaps, as a whole, more Hellenistic in culture than either Egypt or Macedon, and united more generally the refinement of Greece with the luxury and splendor of the Orient. Unfortunately, we know but little of this important kingdom, except as to its wars and politics. Though Antiochus, the real founder of the dynasty, was a patron of letters and maintained learned men at his court, no literature of importance arose to tell us of its patrons; and, excepting the story already told of his romantic marriage with Stratonice, we know nothing of Antiochus's private life and but few incidents in the lives of his successors. We know that the population of Syria was manifold in nationality, in politics, and in manners, and that the Greek cities, which were so profusely established, developed a high degree of culture and created a general diffusion of knowledge. Juvenal, in describing the Greek influence on Rome, speaks of the Syrian river Orontes as flowing into the Tiber, and, doubtless, the Greek of the Orient was the type most largely represented in the mixed population of Rome. Antioch became a formidable rival of Alexandria as a social and commercial centre, and extended Greek influence over a far wider area than did the Egyptian city. But when we seek to know something of the social life of this important branch of Hellenism, of the details of private life and of the condition of women, we have absolutely no source of information. Outside of the history of the royal family, there is unbroken silence as to the more intimate story of Syria.

In this concluding chapter, therefore, we shall confine our attention to Alexandria and the court of the Ptolemies, whither the centre of gravity of the Greek world trended after the fall of Greek independence and the decline of Athens. Its great founder seems to have shown prophetic insight in his selection of the spot on which to build the city that should bear his name, and the supremacy of that city was assured when Alexander by his conquests opened up the Orient to Greek commerce; but the greatest good fortune of Alexandria lay in obtaining a ruler of the ability and insight and energy of Ptolemy Soter.

Ptolemy, the son of Lagus and Arsinoë, had grown up with Alexander as one of his playfellows, and later became one of his most trusted, though not most prominent, generals. There is a story that, before her marriage, Arsinoë was a mistress of Philip, and that Ptolemy was in truth the half-brother of Alexander; but there is no testimony to substantiate the tradition, unless it be found in Ptolemy's likeness to Philip in intrigue and governing power.

During the stormy years following the death of Alexander, Ptolemy, alone of the generals, seems to have preserved his mental balance; and instead of entering into the struggles of his rivals for world-empire, he preferred to acquire as his secure dominion the province of Egypt, so easily defensible, and separated from the contestable ground of opposing nations.

The policy of the first Ptolemy moulded the history of Egypt and the destinies of Hellenism. He surrounded himself with Greeks, so that they became the dominant faction in the government and determined the tone of court society. He gave religious freedom and large liberty in other respects to the Egyptians, so that they became supporters of the dynasty. By the foundation of the Museum, or University, of Alexandria, he made his capital the literary centre of the new era and attracted to his court learned men from all parts of the world. Greek became the language of the court, and Greek culture and manners there prevailed.

Mahaffy graphically describes the brilliant court life of Alexandria under Soter and his successors:

"So it came to pass that Ptolemy Soter gathered into his capital every kind of splendor.... He established the most brilliant palace and court, with festivals which were the wonder of the world. He gathered all that he could command of learning and literary fame, and the city was adequate to the largeness and splendor of its external appearance. We have it described in later times as astonishing the beholder not only with its vastness, but also with the splendor of its colonnades, which lined the streets for miles and kept the ways cool for passengers; with the din and bustle of the thoroughfares, of which the principal were horse and carriage ways, contrary to the usual Greek practice; with the number and richness of its public buildings, and with the holiday and happy airs of its vast population, who rested not day and night, but had their streets so well lighted that Achilles Tatius says the sun did not set, but was distributed to illumine the gay night. The palace and other royal buildings and parks were walled off like the palace at Pekin, and had their own port and seashore, but all the rest of the town had water near it and ship traffic in all directions. Every costume and language must have been met in its streets and quays. It had its fashionable suburbs too, and its bathing resorts to the east, Canopus, Eleusis, and Nicopolis; to the west, its Necropolis. But of all this splendor no eye-witness has left us in detail what we are reduced to infer by conjecture."

The dynasty of the Ptolemies, so ably founded by Ptolemy Soter and ending with the reign of the great Cleopatra, presents a series of monarchs renowned for their culture, their luxury, their lasciviousness, and their cruelty; and by the side of the kings may be found a series of queens unrivalled in history for their cleverness, their wickedness, or their beauty. Woman's place in this dynasty was a most influential one, and she possessed all the freedom and power that could well fall to her lot; she knew nothing whatever of the restrictions common in old Greek life or in the life of the Orient. This was no doubt partly due to the fact that the Macedonian spirit prevailed, partly that the status of woman among the Egyptians themselves had its influence on the conquerors. Papyri found in recent years demonstrate the legal independence and freedom of women among the ancient Egyptians. A married woman could make contracts and hold property in her own name and perform all legal acts, without reference to her husband. Monogamy was the rule, though in addition to the "dear wife" or "the lady of the house" there were frequently subordinate wives. So supreme was the position of woman that there were instances in which the husband settled all his property on his wife, upon condition that she support him for the rest of his days and give him a decent burial. There was such a contrast between the Egyptian and the old Greek conception of woman that the Greek ofttimes jeered at the Egyptian submission to feminine domination. In Alexandria under the Ptolemies, accordingly, owing to Macedonian respect for woman and the old Egyptian idea of feminine worth and capacity, the gentler sex experienced conditions altogether different from those in ancient Athens and enjoyed a freedom similar to that of modern times.

Ptolemy Soter, like his successors, was very fond of women, and recognized fully the influence to be gained by political marriage. Alexander, at the famous wedding feast, married his general to the daughter of one of the noblest of the Persians, but we hear nothing further of this union. His first political marriage was with Eurydice, daughter of Antipater, the old regent, and some years later he married Berenice, the grandniece of Antipater. He did not divorce Eurydice, but openly adopted the practice of polygamy, which was sanctioned in both Macedon and Egypt. The two wives seem to have lived together amicably, but Berenice was the favorite. She was a woman of amiable but strong character, and she maintained unbroken ascendency over her husband. So skilful was her diplomacy that her son Magas, the fruit of a former marriage, was appointed King of Cyrene, while her son Ptolemy was made her husband's successor on the throne of Egypt, to the exclusion of Eurydice's much older son, Ceraunus.

Ptolemy Philadelphus, son of Berenice, succeeded to the throne of Egypt in B.C. 285, and for forty years was the most famous monarch in the world. His court was renowned for its splendor and magnificence, and may be aptly compared to the courts of Haroun al Raschid and Lorenzo de' Medici, and here too woman played her part. Philadelphus's first wife was Arsinoë I., daughter of Lysimachus, King of Thrace, who bore him several children. It is not known definitely why Philadelphus divorced her, but there is a story that she was detected plotting against his life, which resulted in her divorce and banishment. The second wife was likewise named Arsinoë, Ptolemy's own full sister. This match proved to be a very happy one. Arsinoë had had an eventful career. Daughter of Ptolemy and Berenice, she first became the wife of King Lysimachus of Thrace, and at his untimely death she married Ptolemy Ceraunus, her half-brother, the banished son of Eurydice. She and her husband caused the murder of Agathocles, the rightful heir of Lysimachus, and Ceraunus later murdered the children of Arsinoë by Lysimachus. After such an experience in crime and misfortune, at the death of her second husband she retired for a season,--a widow of middle age,--and then emerged to become the consort of her brother Philadelphus. Arsinoë herself first assumed the title Philadelphus, "loving her brother," by which the king came to be known in later generations. As she was childless and was not likely to have any heirs of her own, Arsinoë adopted her predecessor's children; and being her husband's sister, she did not disturb him in the many amours which consumed so large a part of his time.

Arsinoë was a woman of brilliant intellectual gifts, and the union between her and Philadelphus seems to have been of the intellectual and spiritual kind. She proved to be an able helper in all the affairs of government; she assisted him in the financial administration and particularly in foreign affairs; she encouraged him in his endeavor to make Alexandria the centre of letters and art, and her name is coupled with his in all the great events of this period. The two were deified, and statues were erected to them as Gods Adelphi. The marriage between brother and sister was quite in accord with Egyptian notions, and in the public records, for ages past, the queen had been called sister of the king, whether she was really so or not. The marriage was compared by court poets with that of Zeus and Hera; and the couple were frequently lauded by them for their many achievements and the splendor of their court.

The reign of Philadelphus and Arsinoë was the brilliant epoch of Alexandrian literature, and we may well pause at this point to see what glimpses the poets of Alexandria give us into the feminine life of the day. Theocritus, the famous pastoral poet, lays the scene of his fifteenth idyl in Alexandria, and presents one of the most charming bits of feminine life that literature affords us. The feast of Adonis, described in an earlier chapter, was about to be celebrated at the palace of King Ptolemy, and two ladies of Alexandria had agreed to go together to see the image of Adonis which Queen Arsinoë "had decorated with great magnificence, and to hear a celebrated prima donna sing the Adonis song." The household details, the toilettes, the complaints of the two cronies about their husbands, the admiration of a new dress and its cost, the rough treatment of an unknown servant; then the crowd in the streets, the terrors of the passing cavalry, the squeeze at the entrance, the saucy rejoinder to a stranger who protests against their incessant jabber--these and many other comic and picturesque details have made this poem the best known among the so-called Idyls, and indicate that the everyday life of woman in Ptolemaic Alexandria was much the same as her life to-day. Gorgo, one of the ladies, goes by appointment to the house of her friend Praxinoe, where the dialogue begins:

PRAXINOE.--Dear Gorgo, how long it is since you have been here! She is at home. The wonder is that you have got here at last! Eunoe, see that she has a chair. Throw a cushion on it, too.

GORGO.--Oh, what a thing spirit is! I have scarcely got to you alive, Praxinoe! What a huge crowd, what hosts of four-in-hands! Everywhere cavalry boots, everywhere men in uniform! And the road is endless; yes, you really live too far away!

PRAXINOE.--It is all the fault of that madman of mine. Here he came to the ends of the earth and took--a hole, not a house, and all that we might not be neighbors. The jealous wretch, always the same, ever for spite!

GORGO.--Don't talk of your husband Dinon like that, my dear girl, before the little boy--look how he is staring at you! Never mind, Zopyrion, sweet child, she is not speaking about papa.

PRAXINOE.--That papa of his the other day--we call every day "the other day"--went to get soap and rouge at the shop, and back he came to me with salt--the great big endless fellow!

GORGO.--Mine has the same trick, too, a perfect spend-thrift--Diocleides! Yesterday he got what he meant for five fleeces, and paid seven shillings apiece for--what do you suppose?--dogskins, shreds of old leather wallets, mere trash--trouble on trouble! But come, take your cloak and shawl. Let us be off to the palace of rich Ptolemy, the king, to see the Adonis; I hear the queen has provided something splendid!

GORGO.--What a tale you will have to tell about the things you have seen, to anyone who has not seen them! It seems nearly time to go.

PRAXINOE.--Idlers have always holiday. Eunoe, bring the water and put it down in the middle of the room, lazy creature that you are. Cats like always to sleep soft! Come, bustle, bring the water; quicker! I want water first, and how she carries it! give it me, all the same; don't pour out so much, you extravagant thing! Stupid girl! Why are you wetting my dress? There, stop, I have washed my hands, as heaven would have it. Where is the key of the big chest? Bring it here.

GORGO.--Praxinoe, that full bodice becomes you wonderfully. Tell me, how much did the stuff cost you just off the loom?

PRAXINOE.--Don't speak of it, Gotgo! More than eight pounds in good silver money,--and the work on it! I nearly slaved my soul out over it!

PRAXINOE,--Thanks for the pretty speech! Bring my shawl, and set my hat on my head, the fashionable way. No, child, I don't mean to take you. Boo! Bogies! There's a horse that bites! Cry as much as you please, but I cannot have you lamed. Let us be moving. Phrygia, take the child and keep him amused, call in the dog, and shut the street door.

Ye gods, what a crowd! How on earth are we ever to get through this coil? They are like ants that no one can measure or number. Many a good deed have you done, Ptolemy; since your father joined the Immortals, there's never a malefactor to spoil the passer-by, creeping on him in Egyptian fashion--oh! the tricks those perfect rascals used to play. Birds of a feather, ill jesters, scoundrels all! Dear Gorgo, what will become of us? Here come the king's war horses! My dear man, don't trample on me. Look, the bay's rearing; see, what temper! Eunoe, you foolhardy girl, will you never keep out of the way? The beast will kill the man that's leading him. What a good thing it is for me that my brat stays safe at home!

GORGO.--Courage, Praxinoe. We are safe behind them now, and they have gone to their station.

PRAXINOE.--There! I begin to be myself again. Ever since I was a child, I have feared nothing so much as horses and the chilly snake. Come along, the huge mob is overflowing us.

OLD WOMAN.--The Achæans got into Troy by trying, my prettiest of ladies. Trying will do everything in the long run.

PRAXINOE.--Monstrous, Gorgo! Give me your hand; and you, Eunoe, catch hold of Eutychis; never lose hold of her, for fear lest you get lost. Let us all go in together; Eunoe, clutch tight to me. Oh, how tiresome, Gorgo, my muslin veil is torn in two already! For heaven's sake, sir, if you ever wish to be fortunate, take care of my shawl!

STRANGER.--I can hardly help myself, but, for all that, I will be as careful as I can.

PRAXINOE.--Both this year and forever may all be well with you, my dear sir, for your care of us. A good, kind man! We're letting Eunoe get squeezed--come, wretched girl, push your way through. That is the way. We are all on the right side of the door, quoth the bridegroom, when he had shut himself in with his bride.

GORGO.--Do come here, Praxinoe. Look first at these embroideries. How light and how lovely! You will call them the garments of the gods.

PRAXINOE.--Lady Athena! what spinning women wrought them, what painters designed those drawings, so true they are? How naturally they stand and move, like living creatures, not patterns woven! What a clever thing is man! Ah, and himself--Adonis--how beautiful to behold he lies on his silver couch, with the first down on his cheeks, the thrice-beloved Adonis,--Adonis beloved even among the dead!

A STRANGER.--You weariful women, do cease your endless cooing talk! They bore one to death with their eternal broad vowels!

GORGO.--Indeed! And where may this person come from? What is it to you if we are chatterboxes! Give orders to your own servants, sir. Do you pretend to command ladies of Syracuse? If you must know, we are Corinthians by descent, like Bellerophon himself, and we speak Peloponnesian. Dorian women may lawfully speak Doric, I presume?

PRAXINOE.--Lady Persephone!--never may we have more than one master! I am not afraid of your putting me on short commons.

GORGO.--Hush, hush, Praxinoe! the Argive woman's daughter, the great singer, is beginning the Adonis; she that won the prize last year for dirge singing. I am sure she will give us something lovely; see, she is preluding with her airs and graces.

O Queen that lovest Golgi, and Idalium, and the steep of Eryx, O Aphrodite, that playest with gold, Io, from the stream eternal of Acheron they have brought back to thee Adonis--even in the twelfth month they have brought him, the dainty-footed Hours. Tardiest of the Immortals are the beloved Hours, but dear and desired they come, for always, to all mortals, they bring some gift with them. O Cypris, daughter of Dione, from mortal to immortal, so men tell, thou hast changed Berenice, dropping softly in the woman's breast the stuff of immortality.

Therefore, for thy delight, O thou of many names and many temples, doth the daughter of Berenice, even Arsinoë, lovely as Helen, cherish Adonis with all things beautiful.

Before him lie all ripe fruits that the tall trees' branches bear, and the delicate gardens, arrayed in baskets of silver, and the golden vessels are full of incense of Syria. And all the dainty cakes that women fashion in the kneading tray, mingling blossoms manifold with the white wheaten flour, all that is wrought of honey sweet, and in soft olive oil, all cakes fashioned in the semblance of things that fly, and of things that creep, Io, here they are set before him.

Here are built for him shadowy bowers of green, all laden with tender anise, and children flit overhead--the little Loves--as the young nightingales perched upon the trees fly forth and try their wings from bough to bough.

O the ebony, O the gold, O the twin eagles of white ivory that carry to Zeus, the son of Cronos, his darling, his cupbearer! O the purple coverlet strewn above, more soft than sleep! So Miletus will say, and whoso feeds sheep in Samos.

Another bed is strewn for beautiful Adonis, one bed Cypris keeps, and one the rosy-armed Adonis. A bridegroom of eighteen or nineteen years is he, his kisses are not rough, the golden down being yet upon his lips! And now, good-night to Cypris, in the arms of her lover! But Io, in the morning we will all of us gather with the dew, and carry him forth among the waves that break upon the beach, and with locks unloosed, and ungirt raiment falling to the ankles, and bosom bare, will we begin our shrill, sweet song.

Thou only, dear Adonis, so men tell, thou only of the demigods, dost visit both this world and the stream of Acheron. For Agamemnon had no such lot, nor Aias, that mighty, lord of the terrible anger, nor Hector, the eldest born of the twenty sons of Hecuba, nor Patroclus, nor Pyrrhus, that returned out of Troy land, nor the heroes of yet more ancient days, the Lapithæ and Deucalion's sons, nor the sons of Pelops, and the chiefs of Pelasgian Argos. Be gracious now, dear Adonis, and propitious even in the coming year. Dear to us has thine advent been, Adonis, and dear shall it be when thou comest again.

GORGO.--Praxinoe, the woman is cleverer than we fancied! Happy woman to know so much, thrice happy to have so sweet a voice! Well, all the same, it is time to be making for home. Diocleides has not had his dinner, and the man is all vinegar--don't venture near him when he is kept waiting for dinner.--Farewell, beloved Adonis, may you find us glad at your next coming!

This idyl of Theocritus suggests the freedom of movement and the ordinary pursuits of the Alexandrian lady in the days of Arsinoë. A lost work of Callimachus, the Ætia, has also an importance in our quest, since it contained one of the earliest love stories in literature, showing the ideals of feminine character which were popular at that time. As the literary original of that sort of tale which makes love and marriage the beginning and end of the plot, and which emphasizes the constancy and purity of female love, this story, which was the model for the Greek novel of later generations, is evidence that in an age infamous for the wickedness of those in high places the people yet delighted in stories of domestic affection and innocence. The tale of Callimachus, according to Mahaffy, ran in this wise:

"There were once upon a time two young people of marvellous beauty, called Acontius and Cydippe. All previous attempts on the part of any youth or maiden to gain their affections had been fruitless; and the one went about, a modern Achilles in manly splendor; the other, with the roses and lilies of her cheeks, added a fourth to the number of the Graces. But the god Eros,--now already the winged urchin of the Anacreontics,--angry at this contumacy, determined to assert his power. They met at a feast of Delos, she from Athens, he from Ceos.... Seized with violent love at first sight, the youth inscribes on a quince, which was a fruit used at this particular feast, 'I swear by Artemis that Acontius shall be my husband,' and this he throws at the girl's feet. Her nurse picks it up and reads the words to the girl, who blushed 'in plots of roses' at the oath which she had never taken. But she too is seized with an absorbing passion, and the situation is complicated by the ignorance or hardness of heart of her parents, who had determined to marry her to another man. Her grief prostrates her with sore sickness, and the marriage is postponed. Meanwhile, Acontius flees the city and his parents, and wanders disconsolate through the woods, telling to trees and streams his love, writing 'Cydippe' upon every bark, and filling all the groves with his sighs. Thrice the parents of the maiden prepared the wedding, and thrice her illness rendered their preparation vain. At last the father determined to consult the oracle at Delphi, which revealed to him the facts and ordered him no longer to thwart the lovers. Acontius arrives at Athens. The young couple are married, and the tale ends with an explicit description of their happiness."

Though there were in Alexandrian literature shocking stories of unnatural passion, as found later in Ovid, among Roman poets, yet the type of the Acontius and Cydippe tale fascinated the age and held its ground, and its moral elevation in contrast to the prevailing corruption shows how the men and women of the times prized "the original purity of the maiden, and the importance of its preservation until the happy conclusion of marriage."

The son and successor of Philadelphus, the young King Ptolemy III., Euergetes, continued the literary traditions of the parental court. Soon after his father's death, he married the Princess Berenice II. of Cyrene, a young lady of beauty and spirit, who had already experienced the corruption of the court life of the day. Demetrius the Fair had been sent from Macedon to obtain her kingdom with her hand, but, while she was waiting to be of marriageable age, he had beguiled himself by intriguing with her mother. Berenice, in consequence, had him put to death. Doubtless her marriage with the young King of Egypt was a political alliance, but it was based also on mutual liking and appears to have turned out well. This reign of Euergetes and Berenice is, in fact, the one reign of the Ptolemies in which neither rival wives nor mistresses agitated the court. Information concerning this important period is meagre; we know, however, that no sooner had the bride entered upon her new happiness than the bridegroom was called away to Syria to avenge the horrid murder of his sister, also named Berenice, who had been wedded to the old King Antiochus Theos on condition that the latter repudiated his former wife Laodice and her children. But Laodice got the aged king again into her power; and she forthwith poisoned him and had her son proclaimed king. Her party in Antioch at once rose up against the new Egyptian queen and murdered her and her infant child.

Queen Berenice, upon the departure of her husband, consecrated a lock of her hair in the temple of Aphrodite, with a prayer for his safe return. The lock mysteriously disappeared, and the philosopher Conon, happening just at that time to discover a new constellation, declared that the lock of Berenice's hair had been set among the stars. Callimachus, one of the court poets, seized this occasion to compose a poem entitled the Lock of Berenice,--preserved in Catullus's elegant Latin version,--celebrating the accession to the constellations of this lock of hair, which, according to the conceit of the poet, notwithstanding its high honor, wishes that it had never been severed from Berenice's fair head.

The reigns of Ptolemy Soter, Philadelphus, and Euergetes, with their brilliant queens, mark the golden age of Alexandria. In Ptolemy IV., Philopator, we notice the curious and rapid change of the great family of the Lagidæ into debauchees, dilettanti, drunkards, dolts. This sovereign was a feeble and colorless personage who was completely under the control of his minister Sosibius, whom Polybius speaks of as "a wily old baggage and most mischievous to the kingdom; and first he planned the murder of Lysimachus, who was the son of Arsinoë, daughter of Lysimachus, and of Ptolemy; secondly, of Magas, the son of Ptolemy and Berenice, daughter of Magas; thirdly, of Berenice, daughter of Ptolemy and mother of Philopator; fourthly, of Cleomenes the Spartan; and fifthly, of Arsinoë, daughter of Berenice, the king's sister and wife." Surely a criminal of the deepest dye, at whose hands the princesses of Alexandria suffered untold horrors! During his later years, the king was under complete subjection to his mistress Agathoclea and her brother Agathocles. The Queen Arsinoë, the mother of the infant heir to the throne, who was young and vigorous, was regarded throughout Egypt as the natural protectress and regent of the young Ptolemy when his father's life was on the wane; but Agathocles and his sister secretly murdered her, and, when the king died, presented the prince to the populace and read a forged will in which they themselves were made his guardians during his minority. But the people learned of the sad fate of Queen Arsinoë, and her ill treatment roused the indignation of the populace; thereupon followed one of the mob riots for which Alexandria was noted. Polybius gives a dramatic description of the great riot and tells how the wicked regent Agathocles, his sister Agathoclea, and his mother Oenanthe, were seized by the multitude and torn in pieces, limb by limb, while yet they lived.

When the young King Ptolemy V., Epiphanes, grew up, he took for his queen Cleopatra, daughter of Antiochus III., the Great, and sister of Antiochus IV., Epiphanes. Now for the first time, with this Syrian princess, enters the name of Cleopatra in the annals of Egypt. Previous queens have been named either Berenice or Arsinoë, and from this time on the three names appear in almost inextricable confusion, Cleopatra prevailing and being applied at times even to sisters of the same house. The first Cleopatra was a great and good queen, and after the death of her husband, whose reign was short and uneventful, and of her elder son, who seems to have died soon after his accession, she became regent of her second son, Ptolemy VI., Philometor, who was not seven years old when he began to reign, Philometor married his sister, Cleopatra II., and was the last of the Ptolemies who could in any sense be called good. His later years were clouded by the rivalry of his wicked brother Physcon, who sought the throne.

When Philometor was killed in battle, Physcon, or Euergetes II., laid siege to Alexandria, forced the widowed queen Cleopatra II. to marry him, murdered her young son Ptolemy, Philopator Neos, the rightful heir, for whom the mother had made a bold attempt to maintain the throne, and reigned as Ptolemy VII. Physcon even married the queen's daughter, Cleopatra III., and we see this remarkable man managing, at the same time, two ambitious queens, mother and daughter, who were probably at deadly enmity throughout the period in which they were associated with him in the royalty. One story, almost too horrible to obtain credence, tells that Physcon served up as a birthday feast to the mother, Cleopatra II., his own heir Memphitis. When this wretch finally ended his days, Cleopatra III., who was as great a monster of ambition, selfishness, and cruelty as Physcon himself, seems to have murdered her queen-mother and to have assumed the reins of government, at first alone, and later associated with her eldest son, Lathyrus Soter II., who reigned as the eighth Ptolemy. Lathyrus first married his sister Cleopatra IV., but was finally compelled by his mother to divorce her and to marry his other sister, Selene. He was finally turned out of his kingdom by his mother, who desired the accession of his younger brother, Alexander I., the ninth Ptolemy; and the latter repaid her maternal interest in him by murdering her as soon as he was secure on the throne. His queen was Berenice III., with whom he reigned until they were in turn ousted by Lathyrus. Alexander II., Ptolemy X., succeeded Lathyrus, and married his stepmother, Berenice III., whom he speedily murdered, and was himself put to death after a brief reign of nineteen days. Ptolemy XI., Auletes, an illegitimate son of Soter II., then mounted the throne, his queen being Cleopatra V., Tryphæna. He was the last and the weakest of the Ptolemies, and is worthy of mention merely because of his base dealings with Rome, which introduced Roman intervention into Egyptian affairs, and because he was the father of the great Cleopatra.

We have given this brief chronicle of the later kings and queens of Egypt to prepare us for the consideration of the character of the foremost Egyptian woman of antiquity--Cleopatra. The Ptolemies, we have found, degenerated steadily and became in the end the most abominable and loathsome tyrants that the principle of absolute and irresponsible power ever produced. Regardless of all law, abandoned to the most unnatural vices, thoroughly depraved, and capable of every crime, they showed utter disregard of every virtuous principle and of every domestic tie. The Ptolemaic princesses seem, as a whole, to have been superior to the men. They usually possessed great beauty, great personal charm, and great wealth and influence. Yet among them always existed mutual hatred and disregard of all ties of family and affection. Ambitious to excess, high-spirited and indomitable, they removed every obstacle to the attainment of power, and fratricide and matricide are crimes at which they did not pause. When the student of history sees pass before him this dismal panorama of vice and crime, he wonders whether human nature had not deserted these women and the spirit of the tigress entered into them.

Cleopatra, the last Queen of Egypt, was the heiress of generations of legalized license, of cultured sensuality, of refined cruelty, and of moral turpitude, and she differed from her predecessors only in that she had redeeming qualities which offset in some degree the wickedness that she had inherited. To the thoughtful mind her character presents one of the most difficult of psychological problems, and to solve the enigma thus presented we have to consider her antecedents, her early training, and the part which she was compelled to play in the world's history.

Her early years were spent in the storm and turmoil of the conflict between her father Auletes and her sister Berenice. Ptolemy XI., Auletes, called "the Piper,"--because of his only accomplishment, his skill in playing the flute,--was perhaps the most degraded, dissipated, and corrupt of all the sovereigns of the dynasty. He inspired his contemporaries with scorn for his weakness of character and with abhorrence for his vices and crimes. His one redeeming trait was his love for his younger children, and he seems to have brought them up with every obtainable advantage and as much as possible removed from the turmoil of the court. For fear of losing his kingdom, he sought recognition from Rome and paid Cæsar enormous sums of money for his patronage. The people rose in revolt against the heavy taxes, and Ptolemy fled to Rome for aid. Berenice IV., his eldest daughter, was raised to the throne by the Alexandrians, and she began her reign in great splendor. Hoping to strengthen her position by marriage with a royal prince, she first wedded Seleucus of Syria. But she soon found him not to her taste, and disposed of him by strangling--in true Ptolemaic fashion. After many intrigues, she found a second husband in Archelaus, a prince of Asia Minor. She then made every preparation to offer effectual resistance to her father. Auletes succeeded in gaining a hearing at Rome, and a Roman army under Gabinius, with Mark Antony as his lieutenant, marched against the forces of Berenice and Archelaus. After many battles, the Romans were victorious. Archelaus was slain; Berenice was taken prisoner; her government was overthrown; and Auletes was restored to power, as a vassal of Rome. Ptolemy was filled with savage joy at his daughter's capture, and at once ordered her execution. After a reign of three years, Auletes died, leaving the kingdom jointly to Cleopatra, now eighteen years of age, and her brother Ptolemy, aged ten; and the brother and sister, in obedience to the custom of the Ptolemies, were married, that they might rule together.

Amid such scenes and excitements, a constant witness of the cruelty of her father and elder sister, Cleopatra had grown up, and with such examples before her she entered upon her reign. Her training, under most skilful masters, had been of the broadest character, and her intellectual endowments have seldom been surpassed. She was very learned, and is said to have mastered eight or ten languages; so that she could address in his own tongue whoever approached her--whether Egyptian, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, or Syriac.

"With a fondness for philosophy she united a love of letters as rare as it is attractive; and in the companionship of scholars and poets her mind expanded as it added to its priceless store of wealth. She was not only familiar with the heroic tales and traditions, the poetic myths and chronicles, and the religious legends, of ancient Egypt, but she was well versed, too, in the literature and science of Phoenicia and Chaldæa, of Greece and Rome; she was skilled also in metallurgy and chemistry; and a proficient in astronomy and the other sciences cultivated in the age in which she lived. Her skill in music found none to equal it. Her voice itself was perfect melody, and touched by her fingers the cithara seemed instinct with life, and from its strings there rolled a gushing flood of glorious symphonies. She was eloquent and imaginative, witty and animated. Her conversation, therefore, was charming; and if she exhibited caprice, which she sometimes did, it was forgotten in the inevitable grace of her manner."

Essentially Greek in all her characteristics, she possessed the wisdom of Athena, the dignity of Hera, and the witchery of Aphrodite. An enthusiastic writer has thus described her: "She was tall of stature and queenly in gait and appearance. The warm sun of that southern clime had tinged her cheek with a hue of brown, but her complexion was as clear and pure as the serene sky that smiled above her head, and distinctly traced beneath it were the delicate veins filled with the rich blood that danced so wildly when inflamed with hate or heated with passion. Her eyes and hair were like jet and as glossy as the raven's plume. The former were large and, as was characteristic of her race, apparently half-shut and slightly turned up at the outer angles, thus adding to the naturally arch expression of her countenance; but they were full, too, of brilliancy and fire. Both nose and chin were small, but fashioned as with all the nicety of the sculptor's art; and her pearly teeth nestled lovingly between the coral lips whose kisses were as sweet as honey from the hives of Hybla."

Plutarch expresses himself rather differently from the modern writer,--who draws largely on his imagination,--and perhaps more truthfully:

"There was nothing so incomparable in her beauty as to compel admiration; but by the charm of her physiognomy, the grace of her whole person, the fascination of her presence, Cleopatra left a sting in the soul." Hence, as has been said, she probably possessed not supreme beauty, but supreme seductiveness.

Her social and moral qualities at this time seem not to have been inferior to her beauty or her intellectual endowments. Falsehood and hypocrisy were foreign to her. She gained her ends by the winningness of her disposition, the melody of her voice, the gentleness of her manner. Says Ebers, who of modern writers has drawn the most attractive picture of her character: "The fundamental principles which dominated this rare creature's life and character were two ceaseless desires: first, to surpass everyone, even in the most difficult achievements; and, secondly, to love and be loved in return." Ambition and love were the two ruling principles in her nature which raised her above all other women of her time.

CLEOPATRA
After the painting by Alexandre Cabanel.

From the period when the last Pharaoh died until it fell
under the Roman domination, Egypt was ruled by the
Greek Ptolemies, and the last of the rulers of Greek
descent was the world-famous Cleopatra.

Plutarch, in his life of Antony, states that after the
defeat of Actium, Cleopatra, feeling the end of her reign
imminent, busied herself in making a collection of poisons;
and in order to see which of them was the least painful
in operation, she had them tried upon prisoners condemned to die.

Such was Cleopatra when she began to reign. But neither her learning nor her beauty nor the charm of her manner protected her from the machinations of the court. Ptolemy XII., her boy husband, was under the control of his tutor, Pothinus, who, becoming jealous of Cleopatra's growing power, organized a conspiracy against her; and she was compelled to flee to Syria, where she began to raise an army to assert her rights. But a greater power now intervened in the affairs of Egypt. Cæsar entered upon the scene. Cleopatra appealed to him, and, rolled in a bale of carpet, gained admittance to his presence. When the carpet was unrolled and the queen appeared to view, the great conqueror was captivated at the spectacle. She was now about twenty-one, slender and graceful and of bewitching manner. Cæsar was about fifty-two, but thoroughly susceptible to the charms of youth and beauty. He warmly espoused her cause, and, after a conflict which nearly ended his career, restored her to the throne; and as Ptolemy XII. had been accidentally drowned in the Nile, he associated a younger brother, Ptolemy XIII., as her consort in the kingdom.

This is perhaps the most fascinating period in the life of Cleopatra, when, just entering upon her womanhood, she captivates the great commander and becomes, for a season, his Aspasia. In Egyptian eyes their union was regarded as a marriage, and the relations of these two never assumed the grossness and voluptuousness that were later exhibited by Antony and Cleopatra. Cæsar, with all his lofty intelligence, no doubt found in her one whose intellectual faculties rose to the level of his own. He passed the winter in her company, but at last had strength of mind enough to break away from her seductions, that he might continue his conquests and establish his dictatorship at Rome. When at the height of his power, he summoned to Rome Cleopatra, with his young son, Cæsarion, and gave them a residence in his villa on the Tiber. Here she lived in splendid state, and exercised a dominating influence over the ruler of the world, much to the disgust of the Romans. It was the height of her ambition to have Cæsar proclaim their son Cæsarion his heir, but the dictator in this regard resisted her allurements, and remained true to Roman traditions. Upon Cæsar's assassination, Cleopatra, disappointed in her fondest hopes, hastily returned to Egypt and her throne. There now appears a great change in the character of Cleopatra. The simplicity of nature and gentleness of spirit of earlier years gradually give place to a nature selfish, heartless, and designing. Jealous of her little brother, now fast approaching the age of fifteen, when he would share her power, she caused him to be poisoned. She was troubled by no conscientious scruples which might interfere with the fullest and most unrestrained indulgence of every propensity of her heart. In all her subsequent life she showed herself passionate and ambitious, cunning and politic, luxurious and pleasure-seeking.

Cleopatra was in her twenty-ninth year when she first met Antony--"a period of life," says Plutarch, "when woman's beauty is most splendid, and her intellect is in full maturity."

When Antony summoned Cleopatra to appear before him at Tarsus to answer charges brought against her for aiding Cassius and Brutus in the late war, she, fired with the idea of achieving a second time the conquest of the greatest general and highest potentate in the world, employed all the resources of her kingdom in making preparation for her journey. Shakespeare has most admirably described the splendor of her barge and the scene of enchantment that greeted Antony as she sailed up the Cydnus to meet him, a veritable Aphrodite surrounded by the Graces:

"The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,

Burn'd on the water; the poop was beaten gold;

Purple the sails, and so perfum'd that

The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver,

Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made

The water, which they beat, to follow faster,

As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,

It beggar'd all description: she did lie

In her pavilion (cloth-of-gold of tissue)

O'er-picturing that Venus, where we see

The fancy outwork nature: on each side her

Stood pretty dimpl'd boys, like smiling Cupids,

With diverse-color'd fans........

Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,

So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes.

........ At the helm

A seeming mermaid steers........

........ From the barge

A strange invisible perfume hits the sense

Of the adjacent wharves. The city cast

Her people out upon her; and Antony,

Enthroned i' the market-place, did sit alone,

Whistling to th' air; which, but for vacancy,

Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,

And made a gap in nature."

Antony was completely fascinated with her charms. Her beauty, her wit, and, above all, the tact, adroitness, and self-possession which she displayed in consenting thus to appear before him, forced him to yield his heart almost immediately to her undisputed sway. Cleopatra remained at Tarsus for some time, in an incessant round of gayety and revelry, and by her flatteries and caresses she prevailed on Antony, forgetful of his wife Fulvia and his duty as a Roman, to spend the winter at Alexandria, where the pair engaged in continual feastings, spectacles, and sports, as well as in every species of riot, irregularity, and excess. It is not our purpose to follow the well-known career of Cleopatra during these years of turmoil, or to dwell on the circumstances that caused her to prove the destruction of Antony's hopes at the battle of Actium; neither shall we describe in detail those closing days when both committed suicide rather than suffer the consequences of humiliation and defeat.

The case of Mark Antony is the most conspicuous example in history of the complete subjugation by the arts and fascinations of a woman of a will stern and indomitable, if reckless, and of a heart that was naturally generous and noble. Cleopatra led him to betray every public trust, to alienate from himself the affections of all his countrymen, to repel most cruelly the kindness and devotedness of a beautiful and faithful wife; and at last she led him away in a most cowardly and ignoble flight from the field of duty as a soldier, he knowing full well that she was hurrying him on to disgrace and destruction, and yet being utterly without power to break from the control of her irresistible charms.

Yet they were lovers--lovers who sacrificed wealth, ambition, duty, honor, on the altar of Aphrodite. It was a love which brought destruction; still, we may charitably account for the weakness exhibited by each as the natural consequence of that romantic love, than which history has given us no greater example.

Dire was the fate of Cleopatra. Hopes all frustrated,--Antony dying in her arms,--Octavius impervious to all her allurements,--rather than grace the conqueror's triumph, the most fascinating of Greek women ended her days, according to the prevailing tradition, by the bite of an asp, in her thirty-ninth year.

Cleopatra's character is a most fascinating and baffling study. Of many faults and vices she was guilty, but they were characteristic of her age. Her virtues must have been also many, for had she not possessed virtues she would not have been loved and admired by all who knew her. Her faithful attendants, Iras and Charmion, sacrificed themselves over her dead body, and by their devotion made even the Roman Proculius exclaim, in the words of Plutarch: "No other woman on earth was ever so admired by the greatest, so loved by the loftiest. Her fame echoed from nation to nation throughout the world. It will continue to resound from generation to generation; but, however loudly men may extol the bewitching charm, the fervor of the love which survived death, her intellect, her knowledge, the heroic courage with which she preferred the tomb to ignominy--the praise of these two must not be forgotten. Their fidelity deserves it. By their marvellous end they unconsciously erected the most beautiful monument to their mistress; for what genuine goodness and lovableness must have been possessed by the woman who, after the greatest reverses, made it seem more desirable to those nearest to her person to die rather than to live without her!"

Cleopatra was not a great queen, regarded as a ruler, yet she did a great service to her country in preserving its independence for a score of years after it had reached its end by a natural process of degeneracy; but she accomplished this end by the arts of intrigue. Cleopatra was too essentially a woman to be a great ruler, having all a woman's weaknesses, a woman's faults, and yet withal the charms and graces that make woman beautiful and lovable. Yet when we weigh her character with due reference to the times in which she lived, to the family influences which moulded her early years, and to the degeneracy of the Ptolemies to which she fell heir, she must rank as one of the best of her dynasty. Horace, the Roman poet, called Cleopatra: "non humilis mulier [a woman capable of no baseness];" and the phrase gains in importance from the fact that it occurs in the hymn which the poet dedicated to Octavius in honor of his victory over Antony and Cleopatra. In thus characterizing, in such an ode, the victor's foe, Horace gives us an estimate of the "Serpent of the Nile" which may stand as an epitome of her character and as a just claim to the partial respect and admiration of posterity.

Cleopatra's intimate relations with Rome's greatest men, and the conversion of her kingdom into a Roman province after her death, but emphasize the fact that all Hellenistic lands were at that time in the power of Rome and that the period of Græco-Roman culture had begun much earlier. In B.C. 146 had occurred the destruction of Corinth and the absorption of Old Greece into a part of the Roman province of Macedon, and from that time Rome exerted a marked influence over the social life of Hellas. One of the chief characteristics of this age was the freer life of women of all classes. Even in Athens and Boeotia, the mistress of the house obtained her rights as mother and hostess. Perhaps it was in imitation of what they saw in Rome, perhaps it was merely the natural process of evolution, but, at any rate, the recognition of the capabilities and the elevated position of woman was general. Plutarch is the best chronicler of Greek life in the first century after the Christian era, and his works abound in precepts on the relations of the sexes, in whose equality he was a firm believer, and on the proper training and education of woman. His own wife, Timoxena, paid visits and received guests even when her husband was absent, shared fully the intellectual life of her husband, and took part in all his public interests.

The age was mending its manners. New ideas were prevailing among men. Woman was becoming more and more fully a factor in the world. Yet, for her complete emancipation, there was need of a new dogma, a great revelation, which would bring about startling reforms in the moral and social life of mankind. Already "the Word had been made flesh, and dwelt among them full of grace and truth"; yet the great writers of the first century of our era, Dion, Plutarch, even Josephus, seem never to have heard of the new teaching which had been preached throughout Asia Minor and at Athens and Corinth--the new teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, which was destined to overturn the prevailing conception of woman and her status and to lead her into a fulness of life such as had never been conceived in the imagination of even the most elevated of her sex.

In Cleopatra and other Greek women considered in the volume, we have observed from time to time the highest development of feminine endowments, physical, intellectual, or sensuous. The ethereal beauty of Helen, the poetic fervor of Sappho, the intellectual temper of Aspasia, the artistic temperament of Phryne, and the seductive sensibility of Cleopatra--these exhibit phases of feminine perfection that have not found their counterparts in modern times. Yet in each instance mentioned there was the one thing needful--the corresponding development of the moral and spiritual nature. These women were but pagans. Each sought in her own way to attain the highest perfection possible to woman; still, for them the truth was but seen in a glass darkly, and their philosophy had not yet taught them concerning the higher life of the spirit as distinct from the body.

Yet the dominion established by Julius Caesar, which embraced all the Hellenistic lands, was even in Cleopatra's time preparing the way for the dominion of the Son of Man, who brought into the world new conceptions of womanhood, new influences destined to elevate and ennoble the sex and emphasize the higher elements in human character that the ancients had so sadly neglected. Pagan Woman attained unrivalled excellence in physical beauty, intellectual endowment, and sensuous charm; to Christian Woman was vouchsafed the light which dispelled the moral darkness of antiquity and made attainable the highest spiritual excellence.

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