II

It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that the great Athenians

were without the sympathy and influence of educated women; indeed,

it may be safely said that no great things in art or literature have

ever been done without this inspiration. The ignorance of the Attic

woman had its natural protest, though it did not come from an orthodox

source. Respectability was on the side of servitude. It had a dull

time, but it was decorous, and consoled itself, as it has often done

since, with the reflection that dullness was its natural lot. No doubt

it took pride in its nothingness, and looked with haughty disdain upon

the clever foreign women who were free to do as they chose. Fashion is

imperious, not to say cruel, and even the Chinese lady hobbles along on

her distorted feet with a happy consciousness of distinction that amply

repays her for all her suffering.

But social conventions had small weight with the foreign hetæræ or

companions, who had no legal rights, and no caste to lose. The real

power of women was in their hands. They were intelligent, often

gifted, and the better class had refined and graceful manners, which

the Athenian wives evidently had not. It was said of them that they

were delicate at table, and not like the native women, who “stuffed

their cheeks, and tore off the meat.” They were also noted for wit and

_esprit_, a quality of volatilized intellect that has always had

great social charm. These advanced women of the day, who cast into the

shade their illiterate sisters, monopolized both attention and honors.

Men praised the good women who stayed at home and looked after their

families, but sought the society of clever ones who did neither of

these fine things. With curious inconsistency, they found the culture

which was reprehensible and out of the proper order of nature in their

wives and daughters so charming in other women as to merit the highest

distinction. Poets sang of them, artists immortalized them, statesmen

and philosophers paid court to them.

’T is not for nothing that where’er we go

We find a temple of hetæræ there,

But nowhere one to any wedded wife,

says the poet.

Unfortunately, talent and the virtues did not always go together, and

it is impossible, at this distance, to determine with any certainty

who were good and who were not. In the conservative circles of Athens,

intelligence itself was a vice in women, and put them under a ban.

They might pray to Athena, and offer incense to her, and embroider her

robes, but it would not do to take this personification of wisdom and

knowledge for a model; indeed, it is not quite clear why so dangerous

a representative of the sex that was thought to have no intellect worth

considering should have been chosen to preside over all the Attic

divinities. There was a time, according to Varro, when it had been

customary for women to take part with men in public councils. In the

early ages they voted to name Athens after Athena, outvoting the men by

one. Poseidon was angry, and the sea overflowed. To appease the god,

the citizens imposed a punishment on their wives. They were to lose

their votes, the children were to receive no more their mother’s name,

and they were no longer called Athenians. Perhaps this is why they were

relegated forever after to ignorance and obscurity. Athena, however,

retained her power, and men still worshiped the gray-eyed goddess in

the abstract, as their fathers had done, doubtless quite content that

the superfluous wisdom of woman should be given a pedestal so high

and remote that it was not likely to cause serious inconvenience in

family relations. But their personal devotion was largely reserved for

Aphrodite, who was more beautiful and facile, if not so wise, and still

less fit to be held up as a worthy example for her sex. The race had

not greatly changed since its men went to their death for the “divine

Helen,” and thought the world well lost for a sight of her radiant

beauty.

The witty Phryne, whose exquisite face and form was made immortal by

Apelles and Praxiteles, was given a statue of gold between two kings

at Delphi. In the cypress-grove at Corinth there was a monument to the

beautiful Lais, who had enriched the city with fine architecture. Lamia

built a splendid portico for the people of Sicyon, and a temple at

Athens was consecrated to her under the name of Aphrodite. One of the

most striking and costly monuments in Greece was also erected there to

Pythionice. The wit and fascination of Glycera brought her the honors

due to a queen. Some of her letters to Menander were preserved, and

they were said to show not only a tender and delicate sentiment, but a

fine intellectual sympathy with her poet lover. No doubt the tributes

offered to the notoriously dissolute women were largely the expression

of a beauty-loving people who cherished “art for art’s sake.”

But there were other women with serious gifts of a high order, who

were far less likely to be honored with temples and statues. Leontium,

the disciple and favorite of Epicurus, wrote a treatise against

Theophrastus that was quoted by Cicero as a model of style. She

had a thoughtful face, and was painted in a meditative attitude by

Theodorus. It matters little whether Diotima was Arcadian priestess

or philosopher; she was the friend of Socrates, the counselor of the

wisest and subtlest of men. It was her high and spiritual conception

of love that he quoted at the famous symposium of Plato, raising the

conversation from a curious blending of unholy passion and metaphysical

subtlety to a region of light. Famous among the disciples of Pythagoras

was Perictione, who attracted the attention of Aristotle by writing

on such grave subjects as “Wisdom” and “The Harmony of Woman.” She

was duly conservative, and accepted the passive position of her

sex, dwelling on their need of a forbearing spirit. Possibly this

amiable attitude accounts in part for the kind consideration of the

philosopher. More advanced and less popular was Hipparchia, the wife

of Crates, an eminent Cynic, who called the statue of Phryne “a votive

offering of the profligacy of Greece.” She recognized virtue as the

supreme end of life, but contended that “virtue is the same in a man

as in a woman.” To Theodorus she said: “What Theodorus is not wrong

in doing, the same thing Hipparchia ought not to be wrong in doing.”

That she was severely attacked goes without saying. Such sentiments

were subversive of the inalienable rights of man, in the code of the

classic world. It was easier and more agreeable to discredit the woman

than to raise their own standards. Themista, the wife of Leon, was a

philosopher, corresponded with Epicurus, and was called by Cicero “a

sort of female Solon.” Lastheneia was a pupil of Plato, and went so far

as to disguise herself in a man’s robes in order to hear him discourse

at the Academy.

Perhaps it is unfair to group these women together. They were of

different shades, and not all contemporary. Some of them were

Athenians. Of most of them we have no knowledge except such as may

be gathered from a few passing words in connection with famous men,

and even this is involved in doubt and contradiction. What were the

attractions of Archaianassa, to whom Plato wrote sonnets, or did she

ever exist outside of the realm of dreams?

For dear to me Theoris is,

says Sophocles. Did he find in her the talent that inspired his own?

And what was the secret of Archippa’s influence, that he should have

left her his fortune? Or is she, too, a myth? Nor can we divine the

gifts that drew the eloquent Isocrates to Metaneira.

How far the honor accorded to so many of the hetæræ was due to their

talents and how far to their personal fascination, it is difficult to

say. In many cases, beauty was their chief distinction. Some are known

to have been fair and frail; others were apparently of good character

as well as brilliant intellect. A poet of the time speaks of one as

Pure and on virtue’s strictest model formed.

It would not be quite safe, however, to measure them by our standards.

We may go to the Greeks for art and literature, but not for morals.

Things that we consider criminal, they looked upon as quite natural and

innocent. No doubt, too, many things which we consider so harmless as

to pass unnoted would have been censured by them as violations of all

laws of decorum.