King (120-63 B.C.) of Pontus on the southern shore of the Black Sea. In
the Life of Lucullus, Plutarch relates that having been utterly defeated
by the Romans in 72 B.C., Mithridates gave order to have his wives
Bernice and Monima put to death together with his sisters Statira and
Roxana, in order to prevent them from falling into the hands of the
enemy,—while he himself took refuge with his son-in-law. Statira is
described by Plutarch as grateful to her brother for not forgetting her
amid his own anxieties, and for providing her the means of an honourable
death.
Note 351 page 191. This HASDRUBAL was the general of the Carthaginians
in their last struggle with Rome. When Scipio captured Carthage in 146
B.C., Hasdrubal surrendered, while it is said that his wife, after
upbraiding him for his weakness, flung herself and her children into the
flames of the burning temple in which they had sought shelter.
Note 352 page 191. In fact, HARMONIA was Hiero’s granddaughter, and the
wife of a Syracusan named Themistus, who (after the death of Hiero in
215 B.C.) was chosen one of the leaders of the commonwealth and
afterwards perished in a fresh revolution. Death was then decreed
against all surviving members of Hiero’s family, and Harmonia was slain
together with her aunts, Demarata and Heraclea.
Note 353 page 192. The reference is of course to the familiar story of
the obstinate dame who persisted in declaring that a certain rent had
been made with scissors, and whose husband vainly tried to change her
mind by plunging her in a pond. Each time she came to the surface, she
cried “Scissors,” until, unable to speak from strangulation, she
stretched forth her hand and made the sign of the instrument with two
fingers. In a coarser form, the story was current in Italy even before
Castiglione’s time.
Note 354 page 192. The conspiracy in question was discovered in 65 A.D.
Tacitus relates that EPICHARIS strangled herself with her girdle while
on the way to be tortured a second time.
Note 355 page 192. LEÆNA was an Athenian _hetaira_ beloved by
Aristogeiton. When he and Harmodius had slain the tyrant Hipparchus in
514 B.C., she was supposed to be privy to their plan, and died under
torture. The statue in question is mentioned by Pausanias and said by
Plutarch (in his essay on Garrulity) to have been placed “upon the gates
of the Acropolis.” Recent archæologists identify its site as being on
the level of the Acropolis, near the southern inner corner of the
Propylæa.
Note 356 page 192. Massilia became the modern Marseilles.
Note 357 page 192. This story is taken from the “Memorable Doings and
Sayings” of Valerius Maximus (_flor._ 25 A.D.), in which Castiglione
mistranslates the Latin word _publicè_ (at the public charge) as
_publicamente_ (publicly).
Note 358 page 192. Of several persons of this name, the one here
referred to was probably the Roman Consul (14 A.D.),—a patron of
literature and a friend of Ovid. Had the Magnifico been allowed to
finish his sentence, he would (following the narrative of Valerius
Maximus) have doubtless added the name of a town in Asia Minor, Julida.
Note 359 page 195. This story (which was used by Tennyson for his play
of “The Cup”) is found in Plutarch’s tract “Concerning Women’s Virtue,”
where the scene is placed in Galatia, in Asia Minor.
Note 360 page 197. The number of the Sibyls is usually reckoned as ten:
Persian (or Babylonian), Libyan, Phrygian, Delphian, Cimmerian,
Erythræan, Samian, Trojan, Tiburtine, and Cumæan,—of which the last was
the most famous.
Note 361 page 197. ASPASIA, (_flor._ 440 B.C.), was born at Miletus in
Asia Minor, but in her youth removed to Athens, where she was celebrated
for her talents and beauty, and became the mistress of Pericles, one of
whose orations she is said by Plato to have composed. Her house was the
centre of intellectual society, and was even frequented by Athenian
matrons and their husbands.
Note 362 page 197. DIOTIMA was a probably fictitious priestess of
Mantinea in the Peloponnesus, reputed to have been the instructress of
Socrates. Her supposed opinions as to the origin, nature and objects of
life, form the subject of Plato’s “Symposium.”
Note 363 page 197. NICOSTRATE or Carmenta was a prophetic and healing
divinity, supposed to be of Greek origin. Having tried to persuade her
son Evander to kill his father Hermes, she fled with the boy to Italy,
where she was said to have given the Roman form to the fifteen
characters of the Greek alphabet that Evander introduced into Latium.
Note 364 page 197. This ‘preceptress ... to Pindar’ was MYRTIS, a lyric
poetess of the 6th century B.C. She is mentioned in a fragment by
Corinna as having competed with Pindar. Statues were erected to her in
various parts of Greece, and she was counted among the nine lyric muses.
Note 365 page 197. Of PINDAR’S life little more is known than that he
resided chiefly at Thebes, and that the dates of his birth and death
were about 522 and 443 B.C. respectively. Practically all his extant
poems are odes in commemoration of victories in the public games.
Note 366 page 197. The Greek poetess CORINNA (5th century B.C.) was a
native of Tanagra in Bœotia. She is said to have won prizes five times
in competition with Pindar. Only a few fragments of her verse remain.
Note 367 page 197. SAPPHO flourished about 600 B.C., and seems to have
been born and to have lived chiefly at Mitylene. She enjoyed unique
renown among the ancients: on hearing one of her poems, Solon prayed
that he might not see death before he had learned it; Plato called her
the Tenth Muse; and Aristotle placed her on a par with Homer. For a
recently discovered and interesting fragment of her verse, see the Egypt
Exploration Fund’s “Oxyrhynchus Papyri,” Part I, p. 11.
Note 368 page 198. Castiglione here follows Plutarch. Pliny, on the
other hand, affirms that Roman women were obliged to kiss their male
relatives, in order that it might be known whether they had transgressed
the law forbidding them to drink wine.
Note 369 page 199. This paragraph is taken almost literally from Livy,
excepting the incident of the babies borne in arms, which Castiglione
seems to have invented.
Note 370 page 199. TITUS TATIUS was the legendary king of the Sabines.
His forces were so strong that Romulus was driven back to the Saturnian
Hill, which had previously been fortified and which became the site of
the Capitol. The familiar story is to the effect that Tarpeia (daughter
to the captain of the fortress), being dazzled by the Sabines’ golden
bracelets, promised to betray the hill to them if they would give her
the ornaments on their left arms. Accordingly she admitted the enemy at
night, but when she claimed her reward, they threw down upon her the
shields that they wore on the left arm, and thus crushed her to death.
Her infamy is preserved in the name of the neighbouring Tarpeian Rock,
from which traitors were flung down.
Note 371 page 199. There is said to be no historical mention of any
Roman temple to _Venus Armata_. Castiglione may have had in mind a
passage in the “Christian Cicero” (Lactantius Firmianus, who wrote about
300 A.D.), recording the dedication by the Spartans of a temple and
statue to the Armed Venus in memory of their women’s brave repulse of a
sudden attack by the Messenians during the absence of the Spartan army.
Note 372 page 199. _Calva_ (bald) was one of the Roman Venus’s most
ancient epithets, under which she had two temples near the Capitol. Of
the several explanations of this appellation, Castiglione seems to refer
to the one which interprets it as the memorial of the Roman women’s
heroism in cutting off their hair to make bow-strings for the men during
a siege by the Gauls.
Note 373 page 200. In his life of Camillus (died 365 B.C.), Plutarch
gives a legendary account of the origin of the Handmaidens’ Festival. At
a time when the Romans were ill prepared for war, the Latins sent to
demand of them a number of free-born maidens in marriage. This was
suspected as a trick to obtain hostages, but no method of foiling it was
devised until Tutula, a slave girl, advised the magistrates to send her
to the Latin camp along with some of the most beautiful handmaidens in
rich attire. This was done, and at night, when her companions had stolen
away the enemies’ weapons, Tutula displayed a signal torch agreed on
with the Romans, who at once sallied forth, easily captured the Latin
camp, and put most of the enemy to the sword.
Note 374 page 200. The Romans are said to have wearied of Cicero’s
self-praise for his suppression of the Cataline conspiracy (63 B.C.).
The woman in question was a Roman patrician, Fulvia by name, who was the
mistress of one of the conspirators and divulged the plot to Cicero.
Note 375 page 200. This DEMETRIUS (II) was grandson to the Demetrius I
already mentioned (see note 136), and ruled over Macedonia from about
239 to about 229 B.C. His son, PHILIP V (237-179 B.C.), joined Hannibal
in a war against Rome, which finally ended in the downfall of the
Macedonian monarchy and the captivity of his son and successor Perseus
(167 B.C.). The incident mentioned in the text is narrated by Plutarch
in his work on “Women’s Virtue,” as also is the instance next cited by
Castiglione, who however reverses the order of events.
[Illustration:
ANNE OF BRITTANY
QUEEN OF FRANCE
1476-1514
]
Enlarged from a negative, specially made by Alinari through the courtesy
of Professor I. B. Supino, of a medal, in the National Museum at
Florence, by Jean Perreal (1460?-1528?). See note 387.
Note 376 page 200. Erythræ was an important city on the west coast of
Asia Minor opposite Chios. The nearest approach to ‘Leuconia’ in ancient
geography is the distant town Leuconum in what is now Slavonia, between
the Danube and the Save.
Note 377 page 201. Plutarch’s version of this story adds that in honour
of the Persian women’s bravery on this occasion, Cyrus (559-529 B.C.)
decreed that whenever the king returned from a long journey, each woman
should receive a ring of gold.
Note 378 page 201. One of Plutarch’s minor works is entitled “Apothegms
and Famous Sayings of Spartan Women,” and Castiglione’s contemporary
Marcantonio Casanova wrote two Latin distiches on “The Spartan Mother
Slaying Her Son.”
Note 379 page 201. Saguntum, the modern Murviedro, was a city of Greek
origin on the eastern coast of Spain. After a desperate siege of nearly
eight months, it was captured by Hannibal in 219 B.C.
Note 380 page 201. The reference here is to the victory, at Vercelli
near Milan, by which the Roman general CAIUS MARIUS repelled the advance
of the Cimbri into Italy, 101 B.C. The sacred fire (supposed to have
been brought from Troy by Æneas as the symbol of Vesta, the hearth
deity) was kept alive at Rome by six virgins.
Note 381 page 202. AMALASONTHA, (498-535 A.D.), was the daughter of
Theodoric the Great, and regent of the East Gothic kingdom from his
death in 526 until her own. After a prosperous reign she is said to have
been strangled by her cousin and second husband Theodatus, at the
instigation of the Empress Theodora, the wife of Justinian.
Note 382 page 202. THEODOLINDA, daughter of Duke Garibald of Bavaria,
married (589 A.D.) Autharis, King of the Lombards, and on his death in
the following year, she married Duke Agilulph of Turin, who was
proclaimed king in 591. She died in 625, after exercising the regency in
the name of her son. Her virtue, wisdom and beauty were extolled; she
was active in her labours on behalf of Christianity; and she carried on
a correspondence with St. Gregory, who was pope from 590 to 604.
Note 383 page 202. The THEODORA here referred to is doubtless the wife,
not of Justinian, but of Theophilus, Emperor of Constantinople 829-842.
She died in 867, and was canonized by the Greek Church.
Note 384 page 202. COUNTESS MATILDA, (1046-1115), one of the most famous
heroines of the Middle Ages, was the daughter of Duke Boniface of
Tuscany and Beatrice of Lorraine. She ruled over Tuscany and a large
part of northern Italy, espoused the papal cause against the Emperor,
and exercised an important influence upon the politics of her time. She
was noted also for her religious zeal, energy, and austere yet gentle
and cultivated life. Count Ludovico’s supposed descent from her paternal
uncle Conrad is now regarded as doubtful.
Note 385 page 202. Among the eminent women here referred to, we may
note: Duke Guidobaldo’s grandfather’s wife, Caterina Colonna, (died
1438), who was a great-aunt of Vittoria Colonna, and was praised as
“noble, beautiful, discreet, charming, gentle and generous”; his
great-aunt Battista di Montefeltro, (died 1450), who, having been
deserted by her worthless Malatesta husband, wrote moral essays and
poetry, and was celebrated for her piety and mental gifts, as well as
for her learning and literary accomplishments; his aunt, Brigida Sueva
di Montefeltro, (born 1428), who, after enduring for twelve years the
brutalities of her Sforza husband, became an abbess and ultimately
received the honour of beatification,—her remains being revered as a
sacred relic; another aunt of his, Violante di Montefeltro, (born 1430),
who was famous for her talents and beauty; his maternal grandmother,
Costanza da Varano, (born 1428), was a granddaughter of the Battista
above mentioned, inherited much of that lady’s taste for learning,
became the associate of scholars and philosophers, wrote Latin orations,
epistles and poems, and (by her marriage to a brother of the first
Sforza duke of Milan) became the mother of Duke Guidobaldo’s own mother,
Battista Sforza, (born 1446), who rivalled her ancestresses’
attainments, administered her husband’s government judiciously during
his frequent absences, and was regarded as beautiful, although tiny in
person.
Note 386 page 202. Perhaps the most famous woman of the Gonzaga family
was “my lady Duchess’s” great-aunt, Cecilia Gonzaga, (born 1425), who
shared with her four brothers the tuition of the celebrated Vittorino da
Feltre, wrote Greek with remarkable purity at the age of ten, became a
nun at nineteen, devoted her life to religious and literary exercises,
and was regarded as one of the most learned women of her time. Her niece
(?), Barbara Gonzaga, (born about 1455), was educated with especial
care, became Duchess of Würtemberg, induced her husband to found the
University of Tübingen, and ruled the duchy as regent after his death.
Of the Este family, two aunts (Ginevra, born 1419, and Bianca Maria,
born 1440) of Isabella and Beatrice d’Este (see notes 397 and 398), were
famous for their knowledge of Latin and Greek, in which languages the
younger wrote both prose and verse, besides being an accomplished
musician, dancer and needlewoman.
Of the Pio family, Castiglione doubtless had in mind the celebrated Alda
Pia da Carpi, who was a sister of Aldus’s pupil and patron Alberto Pio,
aunt of Count Ludovico Pio of THE COURTIER (see note 46), and mother of
the still more celebrated poetess Veronica Gambara, (born 1485).
[Illustration:
MARGARITA OF AUSTRIA
1480-1530
]
Head enlarged from Braun’s photograph (no. 13.796) of an anonymous
portrait group, in the Palace at Versailles, representing the
Emperor Maximilian I and his family.
Note 387 page 202. ANNE DE BRETAGNE, (born 1476; died 1514), was the
daughter and heiress of Duke Francis II of Brittany, which became
permanently united to the crown of France through her marriages to
Charles VIII (1492) and Louis XII (1499). Castiglione’s praise of her
seems to have been in the main justified. Although sometimes vindictive,
she was generous, virtuous beyond the standard of her time, and carried
cultivation to the verge of pedantry. She surrounded herself with
artists, historians, minstrels and poets, and formed a collection of
MSS. and other precious objects, largely the spoils of her husbands’
Italian campaigns. Branthôme called her “the worthiest and most
honourable queen that has been since Queen Blanche, mother of the king
St. Louis, and so wise and virtuous.”
Note 388 page 202. CHARLES VIII, (born 1470; died 1498), was the son of
Louis XI and Charlotte of Savoy. Having succeeded his father in 1483,
and assumed royal power in 1491, he married Anne of Brittany and soon
set about enforcing his pretensions to the crown of Naples, transmitted
to him through his father and cousin from René of Provence, to whom the
last Angevine ruler had devised the kingdom in 1435. As we have seen,
the immediate cause of the invasion of Italy (1494) was a request from
Duke Ludovico Sforza of Milan and Pope Alexander VI. Although the
expedition was undertaken without adequate preparation and conducted
with incredible foolhardiness,—continuous good fortune together with the
mutual jealousies of Italian princes and the decadence of Italian
military power enabled Charles to enter Milan, Florence and Rome without
hindrance, to seize Naples almost unopposed, and (when threatened by a
powerful league formed against him) to retire northwards, to defeat the
Italians at Fornovo, and finally to reach France in safety, October
1495. His garrisons were driven from Naples in the following year, but
his foray had the immediate result of expelling the Medici from
Florence, and the far more important consequence of revealing to the
rest of Europe the wealth and helplessness of Italy,—thus paving the way
for the subsequent invasions with which the peninsula was scourged
during the 16th Century. The remainder of Charles’s life was given up to
inglorious ease and pleasure. A son of the painter Mantegna thus
describes him: “A very ill-favoured face, with great goggle eyes, an
aquiline nose offensively large, and a head disfigured by a few sparse
hairs;” while Duke Ludovico Sforza said of him: “The man is young, and
his conduct meagre, nor has he any form or method of council.” His own
ambassador, Commines, wrote: “He was little in stature and of small
sense, very timid in speech, owing to the way in which he had been
treated as a child, and as feeble in mind as he was in body, but the
kindest and gentlest creature alive.”
Note 389 page 202. MARGARITA OF AUSTRIA, (born 1480; died 1530), was the
daughter of the Emperor Maximilian I and Mary of Burgundy, and a native
of Brussels. Having been betrothed to the Dauphin Charles (VIII) and
then rejected by that prince in favour of Anne of Brittany, she married
(1497) the Infant Juan of Castile, but soon lost both husband and child.
In 1501 she married Duke Filiberto of Savoy, and after four years of
happiness again became a widow. In 1507 she was entrusted by her father
with the government of the Low Countries and the care of her nephew
Charles (see note 462). She did much to further the progress of
agriculture and commerce in her dominions, and besides showing a lofty
spirit and no little political sagacity, she was a patroness of art and
letters, and composed a great number of poems in French, most of which
are said to be lost. Her correspondence with her father has been
published.
Note 390 page 202. MAXIMILIAN I, Emperor of Germany, (born 1459; died
1519), was the son of the Emperor Frederick III of Hapsburg and Eleanora
of Portugal. In 1477 he married Charles the Bold’s daughter and heiress,
Mary of Burgundy, who bore him five children and died in 1482. On the
death of his father in 1493, he was elected Emperor, and soon afterwards
married Bianca Maria, niece of Duke Ludovico Sforza of Milan. He was a
member of the league that forced Charles VIII to retire from Italy
(1495), of the League of Cambray against Venice (1508), and of the Holy
League (1511) for the expulsion of Louis XII from Italy. Although
deriving little profit or honour from these and other foreign
enterprises, he contrived by prudent marriages to add Bohemia and
Hungary to his empire and to make Spain a possession of his family. He
also effected many reforms in his government, and even founded several
important institutions, such as a postal service and a permanent
militia. From his youth he showed a taste for study, became a patron of
scholars, poets and artists, and enriched the Universities of Vienna and
Ingolstadt. Besides being an accomplished if not very successful
soldier, he was the author of works on gardening, hunting and
agriculture, as well as on military science.
Note 391 page 202. ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC, (born 1451; died 1504), was
the daughter and heiress of Juan II of Castile. Having been trained in
retirement to habits of religious devotion, she married (1469) Ferdinand
of Aragon, with whom she succeeded jointly to her father’s crown in
1474, but was able to gain complete possession of her dominions only in
1479, the same year in which her husband succeeded his father as King of
Aragon. Under her rule the Inquisition was established in Castile
(1480), but she recoiled before its horrors and was reconciled to its
continuance only by the direct assurance of Pope Sixtus IV. In 1481
began the long war, which (largely owing to her energy and perseverance)
resulted in the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, and in which she is
said to have organized the earliest military hospitals. The story of her
noble patronage of Columbus is familiar. Her later years were clouded by
the loss of two of her three children, including her only son, and by
the unhappy conjugal life and mental disorder of her daughter, Juana,
the mother of Charles V. Castiglione’s praise of Isabella’s lofty
qualities is not a little justified by the facts of her life. In
personal appearance, she is said to have been agreeable rather than
handsome; her features were regular, her green eyes vivacious, her
complexion olive, her hair reddish blond, and her stature above the
medium.
[Illustration:
BEATRICE OF ARAGON
QUEEN OF HUNGARY
1457-1508
]
From a negative, specially made by the brothers Moreau with the kind
permission of M. Gustave Dreyfus, of an anonymous bust in his
collection at Paris.
Note 392 page 202. FERDINAND THE CATHOLIC, (born 1452; died 1516), was
the son of Juan II of Navarre and Aragon, and is justly regarded as the
founder of the Spanish monarchy. The means employed by him in building
up his power were perfidy towards other rulers and ruthless oppression
of his own people. Besides the other events of his reign, noted above,
mention should be made of his cruel expulsion of the Jews from Spain in
1492. These and his other persecutions, supposed at the time to be
actuated by zeal for pure religion, were in fact chiefly a source of
revenue, and the policy thus inaugurated,—of stifling the commerce, the
industry, the free thought and the energy of the nation at the beginning
of its greatness,—is now seen to have been one of the important causes
of its decline.
Note 393 page 204. Of these two remarkable queens, one was doubtless
Federico III’s widow, the Isabella del Balzo who is mentioned below (see
note 400). The other may possibly have been her predecessor Joanna, the
aunt and widow of Ferdinand II; or (more probably) Ippolita Maria, who
was a daughter of the first Sforza duke of Milan and wife of Ferdinand
II’s father and predecessor Alfonso II, and of whom Dennistoun says (ii,
122): “It was for this princess that Constantine Lascaris composed the
earliest Greek Grammar; and in the convent library of Sta. Croce at Rome
there is a transcript by her of Cicero’s _De Senectute_, followed by a
juvenile collection of Latin apothegms curiously indicative of her
character and studies.”