CHAPTER XI.

SPIRIT OF THE GRECIAN RELIGION.

Whether the Greeks received their earliest system of philosophy from

the East, as is commonly believed, or themselves invented it, as to me

seems most probable, there can I think be little doubt that once

engaged in philosophical speculations they exhibited in the pursuit a

degree of boldness and originality, a patience of research, a power of

combination rarely if ever equalled in succeeding times. For some

ages, it is true, from the days of Thales down to those of Socrates

(B. C. 600 to B. C. 450) physical investigations and researches

chiefly occupied the philosophers of Greece. They conceived it to be

within the power of man to discover the nature of the principal

elements which compose the world, and the law’s that regulated its

formation.[993] The origin likewise of the human race, of which

nothing is yet known but that which has been revealed, naturally

awakened their curiosity and led to many theories wild and fantastic

in the extreme.

Footnote 993:

Cf. Diog. Laert. Pr. iii. 4. Ἀρχαῖος μὲν οὖν τις λόγος καὶ πάτριος

ἐστὶ πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις, ὡς ἐκ θεοῦ τὰ πάντα, καὶ διὰ θεοῦ ἡμῖν

συνέστηκεν.—Aristot. de Mund. c. 6. In c. 7. we have a curious list

of the various epithets of Zeus, whose name the Pseudo-Aristotle

conceives to signify the root of all existence: ὡς κᾄν εἰ λέγοιμεν,

δἰ ὅν ζῶμεν. This thought St. Paul expresses by the well-known

words—"in whom we live and move and have our being." The author of

the Treatise De Mundo then quotes from the Orphic fragments a

passage, the doctrine of which strongly resembles the Pantheism of

Pope:

Ζεὺς πρῶτος γένετα, Ζεὺς ὕστατος ἀρχικέραυνος·

Ζεὺς κεφαλὴ, Ζεὺς μέσσα· Διὸς δ᾽ ἐκ πάντα τέτυκται·

Ζεὺς πυθμὴν γαίης τε καὶ οὐρανοῦ ἀστερόεντος·

Ζεὺς ἄρσην γένετο, Ζεὺς ἄμβροτος ἔπλετο, νύμφη·

Ζεὺς πνοιὴ πάντων, Ζεὺς ἀκαμάτου πυρὸς ὁρμή·

Ζεὺς πόντου ῥίζα· Ζεὺς ἥλιος, ἠδὲ σελήνη·

Ζεὺς βασιλεὺς· Ζεὺς ἀρχὸς ἁπάντων ἀρχικέραυνος·

Πάντας γὰρ κρύψας αὖτις φάος ἐς πολυγηθὲς

Ἐξ ἱερῆς κραδίης ἀνενέγκατο μέρμερα ῥέζων.

Cf. Orphic. fragm. 6. p. 138.

Into any consideration of these it is not my design to enter; but the

Greeks had another philosophy, which, resting on the basis of

theology, comprehended religion, morals, and politics, and may be

regarded as the instrument, the soul, and the measure of their

civilisation. It seems to be a truth frequently overlooked, that man

is civilised exactly in proportion as he is religious; at least this

was the case in Greece, where the highest developement of the national

mind concurred in Socrates and Plato with the utmost developement of

the religious instinct, and began immediately to decline in Aristotle

and his successors, arriving at the lowest degradation among the

grovelling sophists of the lower empire. This division of philosophy

occupied among the Greeks the place, which in modern times is assigned

to religion,[994] that is, it was their guide through this life, and

their preparation for a better. It may, indeed, be regarded as the

spiritual part of paganism, teaching man his duties, and explaining

the grounds and motives which should lead to their performance.

Footnote 994:

“Do good to all,” an evangelical precept (Plat. Rep. i. § 9. p. 33.

Stallb.), forming part of that philosophy which taught the Greeks

what was honourable and what base, what just and what unjust, what

was above all things to be desired and what avoided, how they were

to demean themselves towards the gods, towards their parents, their

elders, the laws, strangers, magistrates, friends, wives, children,

slaves: to wit, that they were to reverence the gods, honour their

parents, respect their elders, obey the laws, love their friends, be

affectionate to their wives, solicitous for their children,

compassionate towards their slaves.—Plut. de Educ. Puer. § 10.

There is one article of faith without which no religion can of course

exist—the belief in God. Devoid of this, it may be doubted whether an

individual or a nation ought not rather to be classed among the

inferior animals than among men. It is superfluous, therefore, to say

that the Greeks, preëminently endowed with the highest attributes of

humanity, were a religious people, and held firmly all the doctrines

which entitle a people to such an appellation. From their ancestors,

the Pelasgi,[995] they inherited a pure and lofty theism, which seems

to have always continued to be the religion of the more enlightened;

while among the mass of the people, this central truth of religion was

gradually surrounded by a constantly expanding atmosphere of fable,

which obscured its brightness, and in a great measure concealed its

form. Mr. Mitford, whose acute and philosophical mind clearly

discerned this verity, also seems to have understood the cause. “A

firm belief both in the existence of the Deity, and in the duty of

communication with him, appears to have prevailed universally in the

early ages. But religion was then the common care of all men, a

sacerdotal order was unknown.”[996]

Footnote 995:

Herod. ii. 52.

Footnote 996:

History of Greece, i. 97. Dioscorides in Athenæus observes that no

sacrifice is so acceptable to the gods as that which is offered up

by members of a family living in unison.—i. 15. In the earliest ages

of the world the first-born of every family was esteemed a

prophet.—Godwin, Moses et Aaron, i. 6. 2.

The institution of an order of priests, however effected, almost

necessarily corrupted the simple truths of religion, but it is

unphilosophical in the highest degree to consider those ancient

priests as impostors on this account, or to speak of their propagation

of error as craft. Meditating, in seclusion and solitude, on the few

truths which had come down to them by tradition or been discovered by

reason, they soon bewildered their own wits, and wandered into

superstition.[997] As was too natural, they conceived that the

Divinity must be desirous of giving them signs, marking what was to be

done and what avoided. The mistake of concomitance for causation,

often made in more learned and refined ages, would confirm them in

this view. They would, for example, find that in the order of time the

flight of certain birds over their heads, the appearance of a serpent

in their path, the apparition of certain objects in a dream, was

followed by certain misfortunes; while other apparitions were

succeeded by contrary events. Out of these observations the science of

augury, divination, &c. arose. Yet the inventors were not therefore

impostors, but rather, in their intentions, benefactors of mankind;

and to be respected accordingly.

Footnote 997:

Plato, Crit. t. vii. 146.

The generation of polytheism is to be in like manner explained. It was

an abuse of the inductive method of philosophy. Men perceived, as soon

as they began to observe nature and draw inferences from what they

beheld, that the sun and moon[998] exert extraordinary influence,

beneficial or hurtful, upon mankind and the world they inhabit; and

the supposition was neither unnatural nor absurd that those glorious

bodies, by whose rising and setting, by whose approximation or

retreat, they were in turn affected with gladness or melancholy, with

comfort or discomfort, with good or evil, must be themselves possessed

of intelligence as well as power, or at least be inhabited and

directed by beings on whom they bestowed the name of gods. The air,

too, “which bloweth where it listeth while thou canst not tell whence

it cometh or whither it goeth,” sweeping around them invisibly, and

appearing only in its effects, soon obtained the rank of a deity,[999]

as did the ocean which appears to be alive in all its extent, and the

earth on whose inexhaustible bounty we subsist.

Footnote 998:

Plat. de Legg. t. viii. p. 182.

Footnote 999:

The air was Zeus.—Lycoph. Cassand. 80. Meurs. Comm. p. 1179. To some

particular state of which the ancients alluded when they spoke of

Kronos seeking to devour his children and swallowing stones instead

of them. For the teeth of time which produce no effect on the air

appear to devour whatever is composed of the element of earth.

Mythologists, however, have generally omitted to remark that the

stones which Kronos mistook for his children were not ordinary

blocks of basalt or granite but rather so many statues of children

endued, _pro tempore_, with life.—Ἔτι δέ, φησὶν, ἐπενόησε θεὸς

Οὐρανὸς βαιτύλια, λίθοις ἐμψύχοις μηχανησάμενος.—Sanchon. ap. Euseb.

Præp. Evang. l. i. c. 10. p. 37.

Out of these elements the sacerdotal families of Greece framed its

religion, which, however, is by no means to be considered a system of

materialism. They conceived every portion of nature to be animated by

its particular soul, just as they believed the whole, as a whole, to

have one universal soul, the source of all the others. Their mythology

was based on unity. At every step backwards we find the number of gods

diminish, till at length we arrive at the Great One, surrounded by the

unfathomable splendours of eternity. This is the θεὸς ὁ θεῶν Ζεὺς, of

whom Plato[1000] and Aristotle constantly speak when they employ the

expression τὸ δαιμόνιον.[1001] Philosophy, indeed, considered it to be

its chiefest task to deliver men from their multitudinous errors

respecting the nature of God, and of our duties towards Him; so that,

in their speculative notions, very little difference from our own can

be detected. Above all men, Plato sought to elevate the sphere of

philosophy. In his works, in truth, it moves frequently within the

confines of theology, and seldom quits them except for the purpose of

infusing spirituality into politics and morals.

Footnote 1000:

Crit. t. vii. p. 173.

Footnote 1001:

Poll. i. 5.

This great man, whose profound veneration for the Deity equalled,

perhaps, that of Newton himself, conceived that human happiness

consists wholly in the knowledge of God, concerning whose character

and attributes he was anxious that no unworthy ideas should be

entertained. His doctrine was, “that we should ever describe God such

as he is.” But, as Muretus has well observed, this was requiring too

much of human nature, for, most assuredly, we should never speak of

God if we waited to discover language befitting His majesty. “For the

mind of man is incapable of comprehending the essence of God; the

nature of God is known to God alone; he alone perfectly understands

himself, and in himself all things. The mind of man waxes dim,

beholding that stupendous light whose brightness excels all other

lights; and, in proportion as it endeavours more daringly to soar, is

it conscious of falling below its great aim.”[1002] The Egyptians

expressed the same conviction in the celebrated epigraph on the base

of the veiled statue of Neith at Saïs: “I am whatever has been, is, or

shall be, and no mortal has drawn aside my veil.” To the same purpose

was the saying of Simonides to Hiero, “that the more he contemplated

the Divine Nature the less he appeared to comprehend it.” And

Socrates, in the Philebos of Plato, observes that he shuddered as

often as the Great Name was to be pronounced lest he should bestow

upon it some unworthy epithet.

Footnote 1002:

Muret. ad Plat. Rep. p. 726.

It would appear, indeed, that the idea which the theologians of Greece

had formed of the Almighty was very nearly the same as our own;

though, in compliance with popular prejudices, they often made use of

the plural for the singular. Goodness, power, and knowledge were his

characteristics, which in substance are the same as the types of the

theologians of modern times—goodness, immutability, truth,—goodness

leading the van in both cases, and the remaining conditions answering

perfectly to each other. For in supreme power and supreme wisdom must

be immutability and truth, since the Almighty can do all he wills and

must ever will what is right.[1003] In accordance with these views,

the spiritual philosophy of Greece maintained that the Deity is the

source of no evil, though traces of a far different theory are here

and there discoverable among the poets. Thus, speaking of the

calamities arising from the anger of Achilles, Homer says

Διὸς δ᾽ ἐτελείετο βουλή.

And, again—

Ζεὺς δ᾽ ἀρετὴν ἄνδρασιν ὀφέλλει τε, μινύθει τε

Ὅππως κεν ἐθέλησιν.[1004]

Footnote 1003:

Muret. ad Plat. Rep. p. 727.

Footnote 1004:

Iliad, υ. 242. seq.

So, again, the two vases in the palace of Zeus, out of which he

distributed good and evil to mankind.[1005] Hesiod also introduces

Zeus, boasting that instead of fire he will give men a curse:—

Τοῖς δ᾽ ἐγὼ ἀντὶ πυρὸς δώσω κακόν

But in all ages men lay their misfortunes at the door of Providence.

However, though the notions men entertain of God be ever so just,

their conduct will not be thereby influenced, or a religion, properly

speaking, created, unless several other truths be equally believed. It

must be established not only that the maker of the universe still

regards his workmanship, and will punish all those who seek to

disorder the machine, by entailing remorse upon transgression, but

that man is not a fugitive being, who can escape out of the hands of

God by shrinking into annihilation, but a creature who, in accordance

with his will, must run the vast circle of eternity, co-lasting with

God himself.[1006] This is the great keystone of religion: without

this, men will believe that even the Almighty can have no hold upon

them; that they die, and their accountability ceases. The doctrine of

immortality, however, has everywhere opened the skies to man, and set

him upon the discovery of the steps leading thither, and, at the same

time, has checked his daring, and poisoned his guilty pleasures.

Footnote 1005:

Iliad, ω. 527. seq. Cf. Muret. p. 737.

Footnote 1006:

Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 95.

From the remotest ages the immortality of the soul constituted a

leading dogma in the religion of Greece, and was necessarily

accompanied by the persuasion, that to the good that immortality would

bring happiness, and to the evil the contrary.[1007] Homer is full of

this, and the fables, wherein the enemies of God, parricides,

murderers, the perpetrators of impiety and wrong, are, after death,

banished to the depths of Tartarus, while various degrees of glory and

happiness, not altogether unlike what is sublimely shadowed forth by

St. Paul, are attributed to the good. That part, for example, of

Heracles, which is divine, ascends to Heaven: Achilles enjoys the

everlasting serenity of the Islands of the Blessed; and, generally,

every virtuous man who rightly performed his duty ascended to the

mansion prepared for him in the stars, there to live for ever in

happiness.[1008] They taught, moreover, that the spirit of man is of

heavenly birth: without this we had lived as so many animals. But God

bestowed upon us an immortal soul, to watch as a guardian angel over

the body, and placed it in the loftiest part of our frame, to teach us

to look upward, and remember our birth,—that men are not creatures of

clay but children of God and heirs of immortality.[1009]

Footnote 1007:

Among the people of the East we even discover traces of the doctrine

of the resurrection:—Καὶ ἀναβιώσεσθαι, κατὰ τοὺς Μάγους, φησὶ

(Θεόπομποσ) τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, καὶ ἔσεσθαι ἀθανάτους.—Diog. Laert. Pr.

vi. 9.

Footnote 1008:

Plato, Tim. Opp. vii. 45. Cf. p. 97.—Is there not some allusion in

the following passage to the scriptural account of the creation of

man before woman? Ὡς γάρ ποτε ἐξ ἀνδρῶν γυναῖκες καὶ τἄλλα θηρία

γενήσοίντο ἠπίσταντο οἱ ξυνιστάντες ἡμᾶς.—Tim. Opp. t. vii. p. 111.

Footnote 1009:

Plato, Tim. Opp. t. vii. p. 137.

It will not, however, surprise those who comprehend the constitution

of human nature, to find that the Greeks, deprived as they were of

revelation, were not content with the simple dogma of immortality,

rendered happy or otherwise by rewards and punishments, but imagined a

return of the soul to earth, and its passage through a long succession

of bodies, until the stains,[1010] contracted during its first

sojourn, had been obliterated: properly, therefore, their Hell was a

kind of Purgatory, and, no doubt, suggested the original idea of that

intermediate place to the Church of Rome. The religious part of the

pagan world, those especially who went through the ceremonies of

expiation and initiatory rites, firmly believed that bad men met in

the realms of Hades with a just retribution for their crimes, and were

again launched into the career of life, that they might receive from

others that which they had done unto them.[1011] Though even in those

days there were not wanting persons who affected to possess the power

of absolution, nay, of granting for a moderate sum of money

indulgences and licences to sin. These ragged impostors, of course,

patronised only rich sinners, over whose heads vengeance might be

hanging for crimes committed either by themselves or their ancestors,

(since the Greeks also believed that the sins of the parents are

visited upon the children to the third and fourth generations,[1012])

professing to be masters of arts and incantations by which the gods

were compelled to grant their prayers.

Footnote 1010:

Even among the ancient Christians this doctrine was not wholly

exploded. Origen believed it:—Λέγει δὲ καὶ ἄλλα παραλογώτατα· καὶ

δυσσεβείας πλήρη μετεμψυχώσείς τε γὰρ ληρωδεὶ καὶ ἐμψύχους τοὺς

ἀστέρας καὶ ἑτέρα τούτοις παραπλησία.—Phot. Bib. p. 3. seq.

Footnote 1011:

Plato de Legg. ix. Opp. viii. 152. seq. Cf. 172. seq. 191. seq. De

Rep. i. Opp. vi. 9. sqq.

Footnote 1012:

De Rep. ii. 7. t. i. p. 112. sqq. Stallb.—The belief that children

suffered for the crimes of their parents, which widely pervaded the

pagan world, is nowhere more clearly stated than by Plato:—Γὰρ ἐν

Αἵδου δίκην δώσομεν ὧν ἂν ἐνθαδε ἀδικήσωμεν, ἢ αὐτσὶ ἢ παῖδες

παῖδων.—Id. c. 8. p. 119.

But while the vulgar and the superstitious were thus deluded, they who

possessed superior education and superior minds, united, with a belief

in the future, a more cheerful faith in the justice and beneficence of

the Deity. They discovered, even by the light of reason, that human

nature has been perverted from its original perfection,—that an evil

principle has been introduced into our inmost essence,—that in our

sinful state we are at enmity with God and all goodness,—and must by

prayers and sacrifices be purified and reconciled to him ere we can

taste of happiness. On the subject of prayer the wiser Greeks

entertained notions not wholly unbecoming a Christian.[1013] They well

enough understood, that it is not to be considered as an importuning

of God for wealth or fame or wisdom, or, as ignorant persons suppose,

an impious desire that He would for our sakes depart from his eternal

purposes; but merely the nourishing in our minds of a profound

veneration for the Almighty, a trust in his Providence and wisdom, an

habitual disclosure voluntarily made of our inmost thoughts and

desires, which must be known to him whether we will or not. Hence the

great philosopher of antiquity[1014] simply prayed for those things

which it might please God to send, and that if he asked for anything

wrong it might be denied him.

Footnote 1013:

Cf. Mitford, Hist. of Greece, i. 115. 8vo.

Footnote 1014:

Xen. Mem. i. 3. 2. Cf. Plut. Inst. Lac. § 26.

It is no doubt true, as Mr. Mitford[1015] has observed, that the Gods

in Homer are sometimes introduced favouring the perpetrators of

injustice. But this is in contradiction to the general tone of the

Greek religion; according to the tenets of which, every injured person

had his Erinnyes who avenged whatever wrongs or violence he might

suffer. Nay, even animals were comprised within the protecting circle

of this beneficent superstition; and the God Pan was intrusted with

the punishment of excesses perpetrated against them,[1016]

“When vultures that, with grief exceeding measure,

Lament their heart’s lost treasure,

And o’er their empty nest, in torturing woe,

Pass to and fro,

Borne on their oarlike wings,

Missing the task that brings

Joy with it, send their piercing wail on high,

Apollo, Pan, or Zeus hearing the cry,

Charges th’ Erinnyes, though late,

The penalty decreed by Fate

To visit on the spoilers far or nigh.”

Footnote 1015:

Hist. of Greece, i. 108.

Footnote 1016:

Æsch. Agam. 55. sqq. with the commentary of Klausen. p. 104.—There

occurs in the Scriptures a like sentiment, “He who stilleth the

young ravens, when they cry.” So also the Mahomedan tradition, that

in the midst of a battle-field, where two mighty hosts were engaged,

God preserved from the hoofs of the chargers, and from the feet of

men, the lapwing’s nest.

Another doctrine, which we might scarcely expect to discover in

paganism, constituted, nevertheless, a part of the Greek religion,—I

mean the power of penitence. In all cases, indeed, this would not

avail. The laws of nature (πεπρωμένη, fate) would have their course

whatever might be the conduct or disposition of man; but in all other

cases, tears[1017] shed in secret, solemn acts of religion, and deep

contrition were supposed to appease the anger of Heaven. Besides, when

afflictions fell upon men, they were not necessarily regarded as

evils; for by suffering, the soul, they thought, is purified,

chastened, endued with wisdom,—

“Sweet are the uses of adversity;”

and, hence, of those trials which ignorance regards as evils, most, if

not all, are but so many dispensations of mercy, designed to work off

the dross of sin, and restore the spirit to its original

brightness.[1018] By these means, likewise, transgressors were

believed to make some atonement for their crimes. Remembrance haunted

them even in sleep. Their miseries rose up before them, compassed them

round, and urged them by invisible stripes into her track, “whose ways

are ways of pleasantness, and all whose paths are peace.”

Footnote 1017:

Πηγὴ δακρύων—Soph. Trach. 852. Antig. 802. A Scriptural expression,

“O that mine eyes were a _fountain of tears_.” Æsch. Agam. 68. sqq.

Eumen. 900. Suppl. 1040.

Footnote 1018:

Æsch. Agam. 160. sqq.—Klaus. Com. p. 120. Hence the proverb,

παθήματα μαθήματα.—Blomfield.

But over the impenitent wicked vengeance for ever impended; nor could

wealth or rank purchase impunity, as the bare-footed friars and

ass-mounters of the time were fain to persuade the credulous and

weak-minded. Long withheld, the anger of the Gods descended at length

in showers, utterly extirpating the evil-doers.[1019] Thus perished

Paris, the violator of marriage and of hospitable rites; thus

Clytemnæstra and Ægisthos, adulterers and murderers; thus the whole

house of [OE]dipos, involved in an unutterable cycle of misery and

crime. The interval, moreover, between the commission of guilt and its

final punishment, was given up to the Erinnyes,[1020] those dire and

mysterious powers of vengeance, whose breathless chace after crime is

pourtrayed with so much sublimity by Sophocles. These divinities,

starting into instant birth, whenever blood was unlawfully shed,

walked perpetually beside the murderer to his grave,—to him alone

visible, to him alone audible.

Footnote 1019:

Pind. Pyth. iii. 11. Æsch. Agam. 342. sqq. Klausen. Com. p. 140.

Footnote 1020:

Cf. Æsch. Eum. 859. seq.—Schol. ad Æsch. Tim. Orat. Att. t. 12. p.

384.

The gross and carnal-minded contrived, indeed, in the case of lesser

transgressions, to remain blind to this deformity, while youth and

health and prosperity cast their illusions over their path. But age in

this matter sharpened their sight. On drawing near the brink of the

grave, the vices, hitherto so blythe and comely, appeared to grow more

shrivelled and hideous and unlovely than their own impure

countenances, and they would then fain have parted company with them.

But, no! Having been comrades of their own choosing, Zeus chained them

to their side to the last, unless repentance severed the link; and

their fearful howlings, night and day, broke their repose, harrowed up

their feelings, augmented tenfold their terrors, while sweat and

tears, and agonising shrieks burst from them even in their dreams. The

wicked, therefore, in the deepest darkness of paganism, were not left

wholly to the error of their ways. But God reserved himself a witness

in their hearts, and set up a light by which they might rightly, if

they chose, direct their footsteps. It is true that the cardinal

verities of religion were then but very imperfectly perceived, that,

to get at them at all, men had to break through the shells of many

fables, and that, when found, they must be for the most part enjoyed

in secret, far from the din of ambition. Not, indeed, that the people

refused their sympathy to virtue,—public opinion is never so far

corrupted,—but that in the world there has always existed a strong

current bearing men far from the track of duty and holiness.

There was, no doubt, some degree of fanaticism mixed up with all this.

The priesthood, an order of men much calumniated, but without whom

society would be worse by far than it is, found it necessary to allure

men into the bosom of their church by imposing ceremonies, by

sacrifices, and by the mysterious disclosure of certain truths in the

performance of certain rites. It will be seen that I allude to the

mysteries. On the occasion of initiation, as if to intimate that men

cannot be virtuous or religious by proxy, each individual became his

own priest and sacrificed[1021] for himself. But in what initiation

itself consisted, no man knows. Antiquity has revealed nothing, and

nothing can we discover. The hypotheses of scholars are, therefore, so

many dreams, and a mere waste of ingenuity; for, if they should by

chance hit the mark, there exist no means of proving that they have

done so. But of this we are sure, that a persuasion was widely spread

that a blissful immortality awaited the initiated. A greater degree of

holiness was supposed to attach to them,—there was a spell shed around

their persons,—in situations of danger they experienced less of the

fear of death. In storms, for example, at sea, when the ship seemed

about to sink—"Have you been initiated?" was the question men asked

each other. Still, among philosophers, the wisest and best sometimes

neglected this popular consummation of a pious life. Socrates belonged

not to this communion, a circumstance which rendered it more easy to

fasten upon him the charge of impiety, in those days more atrocious

than now, since, to be esteemed inimical to the gods, was the surest

way to make enemies of men. Further than this, it is not necessary

that I enter into the gentile faith, which only incidentally, as it

affected morals, belongs to my subject.

Footnote 1021:

Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 712.

But there exists in all countries a minor cycle of superstitions,

which, more strongly perhaps than anything paints the peculiarities of

the national character. In the north, as we know, this indigenous

belief has survived all changes in the public creed, and will subsist

to the last, lingering among our woods, our ruins, our moonlit

meadows, our churchyards, by our firesides. Fairies, witches, ghosts,

goblins can by no advances in civilisation be put to flight. They sail

in our steamers on the ocean, ride at quickest speed along the

railroads, go to bed with the first lady in the land, and even nestle

beneath the statesman’s vest.[1022] With us these aërial beings, or

spectres of crime, too commonly assume an aspect grotesque or

devilish, but they nevertheless keep alive in the popular mind the

spirit of romance and poetry, one of the never-failing handmaids of

religion. Mythology rarely penetrates down to these primitive

superstitions, which, however, constitute the basis of the whole

science, and in Greece assumed, in many cases, forms of beauty

analogous to its loftier and more poetic fables.

Footnote 1022:

See, for example, Lord Castlereagh’s vision of the fire-devil in Mr.

Lockhart’s Life of Sir Walter Scott.

The place occupied in our own popular mythology by the

“light-sandalled fays,” was in Greece filled by the Hamadryads and

Nymphs.[1023] No wood or grove or solitary tree, no fountain or rill

in moss-grown cell or rustic cavern, existed without its co-existent

divinity, female generally, and instinct with beauty and beneficence.

These creatures, the Jinn and Jinneh of the Arabs, extended their

dominion over all minor streams, and sported, in the softness and

stillness of night, athwart the billows silvered by the moon; but the

deities of great rivers, as the Acheloös, the Peneios, and others,

were male. Being only a few degrees raised above humanity, they were

often enamoured of mortals, to whom they appeared arrayed in

loveliness, amid the glimmering forests, at dawn or twilight, or when

“overhead the moon

Wheels her pale course.”

Footnote 1023:

The same superstitions, a little modified, are still found in many

parts of Greece. “The religious feelings of the Cretan, in the

nineteenth century, differ very little, if at all, from those

entertained for the Naïads by his heathen ancestors.”—Pashley, Trav.

in Crete, i. 89.

It was not always, however, that the love of a nymph proved a

blessing. There were occasions when, having for a moment revealed

their superhuman charms to some shepherd in his romantic solitude, or

to some poet worshiping the muses alone, beside the inspiring mount or

spring, they again capriciously withdrew, and left him vision-smitten

to pine or, perchance, to die.

Nor were the Greeks wholly devoid of belief in evil spirits, for the

demon Alastor,[1024] which was a deification of the principle that

incites to crime and afterwards brings vengeance, can in no way be

regarded as good. Typhon, too, with the Giants and Titans, had at

least a predominance of evil in their character, but these are treated

of at length by the mythologists. Several superstitions, commonly

supposed to be wholly Oriental, were current in Greece, such as that

men had the power by using certain spells to quit their mortal forms

and roam disembodied through the earth. By magic rings, too, and

helmets they might be rendered invisible, and, thus protected, enter

into the secret chambers of kings, pollute their wives, and rifle

their treasures.[1025] Means, moreover, they had, confounded in those

ages with supernatural power, of charming poisonous serpents, as to

this day is done by the subjects of our Eastern empire, and the

snake-catchers of Egypt; and though it be now known that opium

constitutes no small portion of this charm, the people generally, both

in the East and West, conceive other influences to be employed than

those of legitimate art.

Footnote 1024:

Cf. Poppo, Proleg. in Thucyd. i. 14. Xenarchos observes that the

home perishes when conflicting fortunes attach to the master, and

into which the Alastor creeps:

φθίνει δόμος

ἀσυντάτοισι δεσποτῶν κεχρημένος

τύχαις, ἀλάστωρ τ᾽ εἰσπέπαικε.

Ap. Athen. ii. 64. seq. See also Æsch. Choeph. 119. Eumen. 560. 802.

with Klausen. Æsch. Theolog. i. 9. 56. seq. et ad Agam. p. 119. The

Egyptians had their Babys or Typhon, a god of evil.—Athen. xv. 25.

Footnote 1025:

Plat. Rep. ii. § 3. Stallb.

There was not in later times, perhaps, that boundless faith in spells

and transformations still subsisting in the East. But in the earlier

ages, and in the gloomy mountain recesses of Arcadia, events equally

strange were supposed to have happened. Thus Lycaon having sacrificed

an infant to Zeus Lycæos, and sprinkled the blood upon the altar,

immediately became a wolf;[1026] and it was reported that any one who

performed this dreadful sacrifice, and afterwards by accident tasted

of the human entrails, when mingled with those of other victims,

forthwith underwent the same transformation.[1027] Thus we find the

gloomy legend of the Breton forests existing in the heart of the

Peloponnesos, where there can, I fear, be little doubt, that human

victims were habitually offered up. Another ancient superstition,

which found its way into Italy, was, that a person first seen by a

wolf lost his voice, whereas if the man obtained the prior glimpse of

the animal no evil ensued.[1028]

Footnote 1026:

Paus. viii. 2, 3. Cf. Plat. Rep. viii. 16. Stallb.

Footnote 1027:

Plat. Rep. viii. 16. t. ii. p. 223. Stallb. Cf. Bœckh in Platon.

Minoem. p. 55. seq.

Footnote 1028:

Muret. ad Plat. Rep. i. p. 670. where, with much ingenuity, he

detects an allusion to this superstition in a hasty glance of the

philosopher.—Plin. Hist. Nat. viii. 34. Schol. ad Theocr. xiv. 21.

Virg. Ecl. ix. 53. Donat. in Ter. Adelph. iv. 1. 21. et Stallb. ad

Plat. Rep. i. 37.

The belief in ghosts, coeval no doubt with man, flourished especially

among the Greeks. Hesiod entertained peculiar notions on this subject,

which some suppose to have been borrowed from the East, that is, he

believed that the good men of former times became, at their decease,

guardian spirits, and were entrusted[1029] with the care of future

races. Plato adopts these ghosts, and gives them admission into his

Republic, where they perform an important part and receive peculiar

honours.[1030] When they appeared, as sometimes they would, by day,

their visages were pale and their forms unsubstantial like the

creations of a dream.[1031] But, as among us, they chiefly affected

the night for their gambols, and in Arcadia particularly, would appear

to honest people returning home late in cross-roads, and such places

whence they were not to be dislodged but by being pelted apparently by

pellets made from bread crumb, on which men had wiped their fingers,

carefully preserved for this purpose by the good folks about

Phigaleia.[1032]

Footnote 1029:

Hes. Opp. et Dies, 121. seq. where see Goettling.

Footnote 1030:

De Rep. v. 15. t. i. 377. seq. The Magi, among whom supernatural

sights and powers were most familiar, maintained that the Gods

occasionally appeared to them, and that the atmosphere is filled

with spectral shadows, which, floating about like mists or

exhalations, are visible to the sharpsighted.—Diog. Laert. Pr. vi.

9. A similar belief prevailed among the early anchorites. “It was

their firm persuasion, that the air which they breathed was peopled

with invisible enemies; with innumerable dæmons who watched every

occasion and assumed every form, to terrify, and, above all, to

tempt, their unguarded virtue.”—Gibbon, vi. 263.

Footnote 1031:

Æsch. Agam. 68.—Klaus. Com. p. 108.

Footnote 1032:

Athen. iv. 31.

The most remarkable prank played by any ancient ghosts, however, with

whose history I am acquainted, did not take place in Greece, but in

the Campagna di Roma, where, after a bloody battle between the Romans

and the Huns, in which all but the generals and their staff bit the

dust, two spectral armies, the ghosts of the fallen warriors, appeared

upon the field to enact the contest over again. During three whole

days did these valiant souls of heroes, as the Homeric phrase is,

carry on the struggle; and the historian who relates the fact, is

careful to observe that they did not fall short of living soldiers,

either in fire or courage. People saw them distinctly charge each

other, and heard the clash of their arms. Similar exhibitions were to

be seen in different parts of the ancient world. In the great plain of

Sogda,[1033] for example, spectral armies of mighty courage but

voiceless, were in the constant habit of engaging in mortal combat at

the break of day. Caria likewise possessed a favourite haunt of these

warlike phantoms. But here the apparition was only occasional, and all

its evolutions were performed in the air, which was the case in

England, as we have been assured by very old people, before the

breaking-out of the American war. Another fray of ghosts took place

every summer in Sicily on the plain of the Four Towers, but in this

case the whole business was carried on at noon, to the no small

annoyance of Pan who usually takes his siesta at that hour,—that is,

if they were as noisy in their battles as the Campanian

spectres.[1034]

Footnote 1033:

Which had once been a lake.—Vit. Isidor. ap. Phot. Bib. p. 839.

Footnote 1034:

Phot. Bib. p. 339.

Like the Roman Catholics, the Greeks had great faith in miraculous

images, holy wells, &c. and their descendants still maintain the same

creed. Near the Church of Haghia Parthenoë in Crete, is a most copious

fountain deriving its name from the same holy and miracle-working

virgins to whom the church is dedicated, and who also preside over the

waters. “The worship of the headless body of Molos has also its

parallel in modern times.”[1035] As the Cretan Christians for many

years reverenced the head of Titus, though deprived of its body, so

their heathen ancestors used annually to honour by a religious

festival the body of Molos, the well-known father of Meriones, though

deprived of its head. The legend, told to explain the ancient ceremony

in which the headless statue of a man thus exhibited, was that “after

Molos got possession of a nymph’s person without having first obtained

her consent, his body was found, but his head had disappeared.”[1036]

An image of the Virgin travelled by water from Constantinople to

Greece, where it was shortly after seen standing up in the waves near

Mount Athos. Similar legends obtained of old. Near Biennos in

Crete,[1037] “has been dug up the bones and skulls of giants, many of

whom were eight or ten times the size of common men.”[1038]

Footnote 1035:

Pashley, Travels in Crete, i. 88.

Footnote 1036:

Pashley, Travels in Crete, i. 177.—Plut. de Orac. Def.

Footnote 1037:

Herod. iv. 33.—Pashley, Travels in Crete, i. 192.

Footnote 1038:

Pashley, i. 278.

Of the various modes of penetrating into the future,[1039] prevalent

among the people, I may mention some few. Prophetesses are frequently

spoken of in Scripture, and in the Acts of the Apostles[1040] is given

an account of a young female slave who brought her master large sums

of money by this trade, which was that of a gipsy. Others there were

who, like many among the Orientals, professed to understand the

language of birds. A slave, said to possess this knowledge, is

celebrated, by Porphyry, and was probably from the East.[1041] One

sort of divination was practised by pouring drops of oil into a vessel

and looking on it, when they pretended to behold a representation of

what was to take place. This in Egypt is still practised, merely

substituting ink for oil, and a great many travellers appear to

believe in it. Soldiers going to war were especially liable to fall

into this kind of foolery.[1042]

Footnote 1039:

See Max. Tyr. Diss. iii. p. 31–38.

Footnote 1040:

C. xvi. v. 16. sqq.

Footnote 1041:

De Abstinentiâ, iii. Cf. Cedren. Michael, Compotat. εἰσὶ γὰρ τίνες

οἱ ἐν ἐλαίῳ ὁρίοντες μαντεύονται.—Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 1093.

Footnote 1042:

Οἱ γὰρ ἐπὶ πόλεμον ἐξιόντες ἐπητήρουν τὰς διοσημείας.—Schol.

Aristoph. Acharn. 1106.

The use of holy water on entering temples is of great antiquity. This

custom was called περίῤῥανσις, and the act was performed with the

branch of the fortunate olive.[1043] There stood at the door of the

temple a capacious lustral font, whose contents had been rendered holy

by extinguishing[1044] therein a lighted brand from the altar; thence

water was sprinkled on themselves, by worshipers or by the officiating

priest. A similar apparatus stood at the entrance to the Agora, to

purify the orators, &c. going to the public assembly. It was likewise

placed at the door of private houses, wherein there was a corpse, that

every one might purify himself on going out.[1045] Superstitious

persons usually walked about with a laurel leaf in their mouth, or

occasionally bearing a staff of laurel, there being a preserving power

in that sacred shrub: hence arose the proverb δαφνίκην φορῶ

βακτήριαν,—"I carry a laurel staff," when a man would say, I have no

fear. Persons not thus protected it is to be presumed were terrified

if a weasel or dog crossed their path; and the omen could only be

averted by casting three stones at it, the number three being

exceedingly agreeable to the gods. Certain fruits would not burst on

the tree if three stones were cast into the same hole with the seed

when the tree was planted. Two brothers walking on the way conceived

it ominous of evil if they happened to be parted by a stone. On every

trifling occasion altars and chapels were erected to the gods,

particularly by women; no house or street was free from them. For

example, if a snake crept into the house through the eaves, forthwith

an altar was erected. At places where three roads met, stones were set

up, to be worshiped by travellers, who anointed them with oil. If a

mouse nibbled a hole in a corn-sack, they would fly to the portent

interpreter, and inquire what they should do,—"Get it mended," was

sometimes the honest reply. Horrid dreams[1046] might be expiated, and

their evil effects be averted, by telling them to the rising sun. When

the candles spit, it was a sign of rain.[1047] During thunder and

lightning they made the noise called _Poppysma_,[1048] which it was

hoped might avert the danger. On board ship sailors entertained the

idea, that to carry a corpse would be the cause of shipwreck, as

happened to the vessel which was bearing to Eubœa the bones of

Pelops.[1049] The sailors of the Mediterranean, for this reason, will

refuse to receive mummies on board.

Footnote 1043:

Ramo felicis olivæ.—Virgil. Æn. vi. 230.

Footnote 1044:

Athen. ix. 76.

Footnote 1045:

Casaub. ad Theophr. Char. p. 287. Eurip. Alcest. 99.

Footnote 1046:

Cf. Plut. Alcib. § 39.

Footnote 1047:

Casaub. ad Theophr. Char. p. 300.

Footnote 1048:

Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 260. 262. 626.

Footnote 1049:

Pausan. v. 13. 4. Palm. Exerc. in Auct. Græc. d. 398.

BOOK III.

WOMEN.

CHAPTER I.

WOMEN IN THE HEROIC AGES.

There is no question connected with Grecian manners more difficult

than that which concerns the character and condition of women.[1050]

On so many points did they differ in this matter from us, that, unless

we can conceive ourselves to be in the wrong, the condemnation of the

whole Hellenic theory of female rights and interests and influence

must, as a matter of course, ensue. I do not say that, after all, this

is not the conclusion we should come to. Reason may possibly be on our

side; but certainly it appears to me, that too little pains has

hitherto been taken to arrive at the truth; and as it is a

consideration by no means unimportant, I have bestowed on it more than

ordinary attention in the hope of letting in additional light, however

little, on this obscure and unheeded department of antiquities.

Footnote 1050:

Describing the approach to the temple of Aphrodite, Lucian says:

εὐθὺς ἡμῖν ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ τοῦ τεμένους Ἀφροδίσιοι προσέπνευσαν

αὖραι.—Amor. § 12. These gentle airs should breathe into the style

and language of the author who treats of the women of Greece; but,

in my own case, research I fear and the effects of fifty-two degrees

of north latitude will prevent this consummation so devoutly to be

wished.

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 denominate 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,[1051] and even when the cunning of their

hand was most felicitous, even when loveliness and grace and all the

poetry of womanhood appeared to breathe from their marbles, the

inferiority of their imitations to the creations of God, in properties

belonging to form, in mere contour, in the grouping and developement

of features, must have sufficed to impress even upon Pheidias, that

high priest of art, the conviction of how childish it were to dream of

rising above nature. The beauty of Greece was, indeed, a creature of

earth, but suggested aspirations beyond it. Every feature in the

countenance uttered impassioned language, was rife with tenderness,

instinct with love. The pulses of the heart, warm and rapid, seemed to

possess ready interpreters in the eye. But, radiant over all, the

imagination shed its poetic splendour, communicating a dignity, an

elevation, a manifestation of soul, which lent to passion all the

moral purity and enduring force that belong to love, when love is

least tainted with unspiritual and ignoble selfishness.

Footnote 1051:

On the beauty of the modern Greek women I can speak from my own

observation; but most travellers are of the same opinion, and Mr.

Douglas, in particular, gives the following testimony in their

favour: “Though the delicacy of her form is not long able to sustain

the heat of the climate and the immoderate use of the warm bath, I

can scarcely trust myself to describe the beauty of a young Greek

when arriving at the age which the ancients have so gracefully

personified as the Χρυσοστέφανος Ἥβη. Were we to form our ideas of

Grecian women from the wives of Albanian peasants we should be

strangely deceived; but the islands of Andro, Tino, and, above all,

that of Crete, contain forms upon which the chisel of Praxiteles

would not have been misemployed.”—Essay, &c. p. 159.

I despair, however, of representing by words what neither Pheidias nor

Polycletos could represent in marble or ivory. The women of Greece

were neither large nor tall. The whole figure, graceful but not

slender, left the imagination nothing to desire. It was satisfied with

what was before it. Limbs exquisitely moulded,[1052] round, smooth,

tapering, a _torso_ undulating upwards in the richest curves to the

neck, a bosom somewhat inclined to fulness, but in configuration

perfect, features in which the utmost delicacy was blended with

whatever is noblest and most dignified in expression. Both blue eyes

and black[1053] were found in Greece, but the latter most commonly.

Even Aphrodite, spite of her auburn hair, comes before us in the Iliad

with large black eyes, beaming with humid fire. No goddess but the

Attic virgin has the cold blue eye of the North, becoming her maidenly

character, reserved, firm, affectionate, with a dash of shrewishness.

The nose was straight and admirably proportioned, without anything of

that breadth which in the works of inferior sculptors creates an idea

of Amazonian fierceness. Beauty itself had shaped the mouth and chin,

and basked and sported in them. In these, above all, the Grecian woman

excelled the barbarians. Other features they might have resembling

hers, but seldom that Attic mouth, that dimpled, oval, richly-rounded

chin, which imprinted the crowning characteristic of womanhood upon

her face, and stamped her mistress of man and of the world.

Footnote 1052:

Cf. Winkelmann, iv. 4. 44.

Footnote 1053:

Plat. Repub. iv. t. vi. p. 167.—That black eyes were most common

among the Greeks may be inferred from this, that, in describing the

parts of the eye, they called the iris τὸ μέλαν, which is sometimes

of one colour, and sometimes of another.—Arist. Hist. Anim. I. viii.

2. He observes, further on, that some persons had black eyes, others

deep blue, others gray, others of the colour of goats.—§4. Other

animals have eyes of one colour, except the horse, which has

sometimes one blue eye. Eyes moderate in size and neither sunken nor

projecting were esteemed the best.—§. 5. Large eyes, likewise, were

greatly admired. Hence Hera is called βοῶπις by Homer. Aristœnetos,

describing his Laïs, says: ὀφθαλμοὶ μεγάλοι τε καὶ διαυγεῖς καὶ

καθαρῷ φωτὶ διαλάμποντες.—Scheffer ad Æl. Hist. Var. xii. 1. With

respect to the colour of the hair see Winkelmann, iv. 4. 38. It was,

of course, considered a great beauty to have it long, and,

therefore, Helen, in honour of Clytemnæstra, cut off the points

only.—Eurip. Orest. 128. seq.

A creature thus fashioned and gifted with an intellect which, if less

robust and comprehensive, is equally active with that of man and still

more flexible, could scarcely be degraded into a domestic drudge and

slave, and in Greece was not.[1054] Already, in the heroic ages, women

occupied a commanding position in society, somewhat less honourable

than is their due, but, in many respects, higher and more to be envied

than was appropriated to them in the ignorant and corrupt times of

chivalry which the Homeric period has been thought greatly to

resemble. In those days, though fashion required more reserve in the

female character than is consistent with the spirit of modern manners,

persons of different sexes could meet and converse together without

scandal. Gentlewomen of the highest rank went abroad under their own

guidance. On the arrival of a foreign ship upon the shore we find an

Argive princess descending without any male protector to cheapen

articles of dress and trinkets, which however, as the event proved,

was not without danger, for both she herself and a number of her maids

were carried away captives by the perfidious strangers.[1055]

Footnote 1054:

On the respect paid to women, see Demosth. in Ev. et Mnes. § 11.

Footnote 1055:

Herodot. i. 1.

Homer abounds with proofs both of the liberty women enjoyed and the

high estimation in which they were held. They were quite as much as is

consistent with prudence and delicacy the companions of men.[1056] And

in more than one particular, as in the bathing[1057] and perfuming of

distinguished male guests, the manners of those times allowed of or

rather enjoined familiarities greater than the customs of any

civilised modern nations permit. Ladies lived at large with their

husbands and families in the more frequented parts of the house, dined

and drank wine with them, rode or walked out in their company, or,

attended by a female servant, and were, in fact, in the modern sense

of the word, mistresses of the house and everything it contained.

Footnote 1056:

Athen. i. 18.

Footnote 1057:

Describing the beauty of Hippodameia, daughter of Anchises, Homer

says, she excelled all the maidens of her age in beauty, skill in

female accomplishments, and endowments of the mind, for which reason

Alcathoos, the noblest man in Troy, chose her to be his wife.—Iliad,

ε. 480. sqq. He must necessarily, therefore, have enjoyed

opportunities of studying her character. Another illustration of the

freedom of heroic female manners is furnished by the author of the

Little Iliad, who relates that, when Aias and Odysseus were

contending for the armour of Achilles, the Greeks, by the advice of

Nestor, sent certain scouts to listen beneath the battlements of

Troy to the conversation of the virgins who, in the cool of the

evening, it may be presumed, were wont to walk upon the ramparts and

converse frankly of the exploits of their illustrious enemies.—Sch.

Aristoph. Equit. 1051. Cf. Il. ζ. 239.

When the husband happened to be absent it was not, indeed, considered

delicate, if the mansion was filled with youthful and petulant guests,

for the wife to be seen much among them,[1058] though it still appears

to have been incumbent upon married ladies to exercise the rites of

hospitality, which sometimes, as in the case of Helen, opened the way

to intrigue and elopement. A similar event, veiled in mythological

obscurity, shipwrecked the virtue of Alcmena.[1059] Clytemnæstra, too,

and Ægialeia the wife of Diomede, fell before the temptations afforded

by the absence of their lords,[1060] while Penelope surrounded with

youthful suitors, assailed by reports of her husband’s death,

alternately soothed and menaced, remained true to her vows and became

to all ages the pattern of conjugal fidelity.

Footnote 1058:

Hom. Odyss. α. 330. sqq.

Footnote 1059:

Apollod. ii. 4. 8.

Footnote 1060:

Ovid. Ibis. 349. seq. Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 384. 1093.

The examples are many of the facility of their intercourse with

strangers. Sthenobœa wife of Prœtos, king of Argos, must have enjoyed

numerous occasions of being alone with Bellerophon before she could,

like the wife of Potiphar, have tried his honour and forfeited her

own.[1061] Helen after her return to Sparta, banquets and associates

freely with strangers at the table of her husband, where, by her

conversation and remarks, we discover how quick and penetrating the

understanding of women was in those ages supposed to be. Nothing could

be further from the mind of those heroic warriors than the idea of

regarding woman merely as an object of desire, or as a household

drudge.[1062] If she receives praise for her beauty, or industrious

habits, still more is she celebrated for her mental endowments, for

her wisdom, for her maternal love. Where in fiction or in life shall

we find a lady more gentle, more graceful, more accomplished, more

gifted with every charm of womanhood than Helen, who, nevertheless,

falls a prey to seduction! Where more feminine tenderness, or truer

love than in Andromache? Where more matronly sweetness and dignity

than in the Phæacian Arete; more unblameable vivacity, blithe

unreserve, greater sensibility, united with the noblest maiden

modesty, self command and proud consciousness of virtue, than in that

loveliest of poetical creations her daughter Nausicaa.

Footnote 1061:

Apollod. ii. 3. 7. Sch. Aristoph. Ran. 1041.

Footnote 1062:

Hesiod suggests a luxurious picture of female life in the heroic

ages.—Opp. et Dies. 519. seq.

Homer himself felt all the charm of this exquisite creation and

lingered over it with the fondness of a parent. She is the very flower

of the heroic age. In the rapid glimpse afforded us of her life, we

discover what the condition and occupations of a noble virgin were in

those primitive times, a felicitous mixture of splendour and

simplicity, approaching nature in the rough energy of the passions,

with feelings healthy and vigorous and happy in the utter absence of

sickly sentimentality. Though daughter to a king Nausicaa does not

disdain to care for the family wardrobe. Her nuptial day is not far

distant, and, agreeably to the nature of her sex in all ages, she is

desirous that her dress should on that occasion appear to the best

advantage, but to her father modestly feigns to think principally of

her brothers.[1063] Alcinoos aware of the feint, smiles inwardly while

he approves of her solicitude. With his ready permission she piles the

garments on the royal car drawn by mules, and then, mounting the seat

whip in hand, departs for the distant rivulet accompanied by her

maids. Of these girls, the poet says, two, clothed by the graces with

loveliness, used to sleep in the Princess’s chamber one on either side

the door.

On reaching the secluded spot, the umbrageous embouchure of a mountain

brook where they usually performed their lowly task, it was their

first care to unharness the mules, which were turned loose to graze on

the shore. Their labours occupy them but a portion of the morning, and

these concluded, they dine sumptuously enough, in some shady nook

overlooking the stream, on wine and viands brought along with them

from the palace. To remove every idea of sordid toil and fatigue Homer

is careful to represent them full of life and animal spirits, bounding

sportively along the meadows, having first bathed and lubricated their

limbs with fragrant oils. The game which engages them while their

robes and veils are drying on the pebbly beach received in later ages

the name of Phæninda,[1063] and consisted in throwing a ball

unexpectedly from one individual to another of a large party scattered

over a field. As it was uncertain to whom the person in possession of

the ball would cast it, every one was on the watch, and much of the

sport arose from the eagerness of each to catch it.

Footnote 1063:

See Book II. v2-Chapter III.

In this game the princess takes part, laughing and singing with the

rest, and it is a clumsy throw of hers which sends the ball into the

river that excites the loud exclamation from her maids which awakens

Odysseus. Her conversation with the hero thereupon ensuing suggests a

high notion of female education at the period. The maids of honour

terrified at his strange and grotesque appearance, unclothed, and

deformed with ooze and mud, take to flight, but Nausicaa relying on

the respect due to her father maintains her ground. Odysseus

reverencing her youth and beauty prefers his petition from a distance.

She grants far more than he seeks, and with many indications of female

gentleness mingles so much self-possession, forethought, compassion

for misfortune, consideration of what is due to her own character, and

confidence in the generosity and unsuspicious goodness of her parents,

that we are constrained to suppose the existence of much instruction,

mental training, and knowledge of the world. And if such

qualifications had not at that time been found in women, Homer had

much too keen a sense of propriety to have hazarded his reputation and

his bread by supposing their prevalence in his poems.[1064]

Footnote 1064:

Clytemnæstra, again, in Æschylus exhibits considerable knowledge of

geography, which she could only have acquired from conversation with

travellers or from the songs of the poets.—Agamemn. 287. sqq.

How the women of the heroic times received their instruction it is not

difficult to comprehend, though there has come down to us very little

positive information on the subject. The poets, those prophetic

teachers of the infancy of humanity, had already commenced their

revelations of the good and beautiful. Wandering from town to town,

under the immediate direction of Providence, they scattered far and

near the seeds of civilisation. Their songs were in every mouth: both

youths and maidens imbibed the wisdom they contained, and with their

sprightly strains, as in the case of Nausicaa, enlivened their lighter

moments when alone, or delighted the noble and numerous guests at

their fathers’ board. Homer, indeed, nowhere introduces a lady singing

at an entertainment, excepting in Olympos, where the Muses represent

the sex; but Æschylus, a poet profoundly versed in antiquity, speaks

of Iphigenia as performing this sweet office in her father’s

hall.[1065] The daughter of Alcinoos, however, shares in the

amusements and instruction supplied by the bard during the

entertainment described by Homer, and converses freely with their

illustrious guest.[1066]

Footnote 1065:

And Theocritus enumerates among the accomplishments of Helen, that

she could sing and play upon the cithara.—Eidyll. xviii. 35. sqq. et

Kiesling ad Theocrit. Cf. Æneid. vi. 647.

Footnote 1066:

Odyss. θ. 457. sqq.

Footnote 1067:

Apophthegms, Old and New, § 278.

We have above seen that women in those ages were not creatures of mere

luxury or show. Possessing considerable physical power and energy, and

much skill in the elegant and useful arts of life, they were deterred

by no false pride or ignorant prejudices from converting their

capacity to the use of their families. The magnificence of their

attire, their costly ornaments, or the consciousness of the highest

personal beauty, nowise interfered with their thrifty habits; and Lord

Bacon[1067] tells a very good anecdote to show that the same in former

days was the case in England. There was a lady of the West country, he

says, who gave great entertainments at her house to most of the

gallant gentlemen of her neighbourhood, among whom Sir Walter Raleigh

was one. This lady, though otherwise a stately dame, was a notable

good housewife, and in the morning betimes she called to one of her

maids that looked to the swine, and asked, “Is the piggy served?” Sir

Walter’s chamber being near the lady’s, he heard this homely inquiry.

A little before dinner the lady came down in great state to the

drawing-room, which was full of gentlemen, and as soon as Sir Walter

Raleigh saw her, “Madam,” says he, “is the piggy served?” To which the

lady replied, “You know best whether you have had your breakfast.”

An Homeric princess resembled this stately dame of the West, in

thinking nothing beneath her which could contribute to the comfort or

elegant adornment of those she loved. The employments of women in

those ages, however, included some things which, in the present state

of the useful arts, would seldom fall to their share, and among these

were the labours of the loom, to excel in which was evidently

considered one of their chiefest accomplishments and most necessary

duties.[1068] In this occupation they took refuge from anxiety and

sorrow; to this we find Hector with rough tenderness urging his

beloved wife to have recourse, when her affection would withdraw him

from his post;[1069] and Telemachus, in a tone somewhat too

authoritative, recommends, in the Odyssey, the same course to his

mother:[1070] and in the Eastern world the same tastes and habits

continued to prevail down to a very late age. When Sisygambis, the

captive Persian queen, was presented, however, by Alexander with

purple and wool, she sank into an agony of grief and tears: they

reminded her of happier days. But the conqueror, misunderstanding her

feelings, and desirous to remove the notion that he was imposing any

servile task, observed:—"This garment, mother, which you see me wear,

is not merely the gift but the work also of my sisters."[1071] Similar

presents passed between near relations in Persia; for in Herodotus we

find Amestris, the queen of Xerxes, conferring upon her husband, as a

gift of price, a richly variegated and ample pelisse, which the

labours of her own fair hands had rendered valuable.[1072] Augustus,

too, even when all simplicity of manners had expired with the

republic, affected still to bring up the females of his family upon

the antique model, and wore no garments but such as were manufactured

in his own house.[1073]

Footnote 1068:

Alexand. ab Alexand. iv. 8.

Footnote 1069:

Iliad, ζ. 491.

Footnote 1070:

Odyss. α. 357.

Footnote 1071:

Q. Curt. v. 2. 18.

Footnote 1072:

Herod. ix. 188.

Footnote 1073:

Suet. in Vit. § 64. Conf. Feith. Antiq. Homer. iv. 34.

To return: constant practice and the delight which familiar and

voluntary labour inspires, had already in the heroic ages, enabled the

Grecian ladies to throw much splendour and richness of invention into

their fabrics. The desire also, perhaps, of excelling in works of this

kind the ladies of Sidon, communicated an additional impulse to their

industry. At all events, Homer makes it abundantly clear that they

understood how to employ with singular felicity the arts of design,

and to represent in colours brilliant and varied, cities, landscapes,

human figures, and all the complicated movements of war.[1074] We

must, no doubt, allow something for the poet’s own skill in painting;

but, after every reasonable deduction, enough will remain still to

prove that at the period of the Trojan war Greece had made remarkable

progress in every art which tends to ameliorate and embellish human

life.

Footnote 1074:

In northern Greece and Macedonia women could depict such scenes from

the life, since they learned the use of arms, and engaged personally

in war.—Athen. xiii. 10. Tradition relates that Queen Matilda and

her maids wrought the tapestry of Bayeux, representing the conquest

of England by her husband.

Carding, also, and spinning entered into the list of their

occupations. Even Helen though frail as fair, is laborious as a

Penelope, plying her shuttle or her golden distaff, and surrounded

habitually by a troop of she-manufacturers.[1075] Arete, queen of

Phæacia, is likewise depicted sitting at the fire, distaff in hand,

encircled by her maids;[1076] and the wife of Odysseus, famed for her

household virtues, is seen in the Odyssey at her own door spinning the

purple thread.[1077] The work-baskets of the ladies of that period, if

we can rely on a poet’s word, were such as more modern dames might

envy, formed of beaten gold and chased with figures richly wrought,

and grouped with infinite taste and judgment.[1078] In these their

balls of purple were deposited when spun, though probably reed baskets

or osier work contented the ambition of ladies less aspiring than

Europa.

Footnote 1075:

Iliad, ζ. 491.—Odyss. δ. 131.—Theocrit. Eidyll. xviii. 32. sqq.

Footnote 1076:

Odyss. ζ. 491. 38.—Feith by mistake introduces the name of Nausicaa

instead of that of her mother.—Ant. Hom. iv. 3. 2.

Footnote 1077:

Odyss. υ. 97.

Footnote 1078:

Mosch. Eidyll. ii. 37. seq.

Women also, but chiefly slaves, performed in those primitive times all

the operations of the kitchen. They even in the great establishment of

Alcinoos work at the mill, as they do also in the palace of Odysseus,

where guided perhaps by the nature of the climate we find the young

women preferring for this operation the cool of the night.[1079] Even

in later ages, when juster ideas of what is due to the sex prevailed,

this severe toil sometimes devolved upon female slaves, though in

general it was the males, and of these the most worthless, who worked

the mills, regarded at length almost in the light of correctional

establishments.[1080] But the making of bread was very properly

appropriated to women almost throughout the East. The Egyptians,

indeed, an effeminate and servile people, very early, as we learn from

Genesis, confounded the offices of the sex; but among the Lydians,

even in the palace of Crœsos, we meet with a female baker,[1081] and

the Persian armies carried along with them women to bake their bread

in their longest and most dangerous expeditions.[1082] In Greece to

preside over the oven, was up to a very late period the prerogative of

the fair. One hundred and ten women had the honour of being locked up

with the handful of warriors who during three years baffled the whole

force of the Peloponnesos from the glorious walls of Platæa,[1083] and

in the primitive ages of Macedonia the queen herself prepared the

bread distributed among the royal shepherds.[1084]

Footnote 1079:

Odyss. η. 103. seq.—ο. 107.

Footnote 1080:

Theoph. Char. c. v.

Footnote 1081:

Herod. i. 51.

Footnote 1082:

Herod. vii. 187.

Footnote 1083:

Thucyd. ii. 78.

Footnote 1084:

Herod. viii. 139.

The Sacred Scriptures have rendered familiar and reconciled to us the

simplicity of patriarchal manners. To behold the daughter of Bethuel

or of Laban coming forth to draw water for her flock, does not strike

us as at all out of keeping with the opulence or dignity of her

father, or with her own feminine delicacy; and we know that at this

present day the wealthiest Bedouin Sheikh of the desert, though lord

of a thousand camels, discovers nothing in his daughter’s condition

which should relieve her from this healthful employment. Similar

notions prevailed among the Greeks of the Heroic Age. For though in

many cases slave-maidens[1085] are found engaged in drawing water from

the springs, virgins of noble birth, nay the daughters themselves of

kings, descend to the fountain with their urns, mingling there with

female captives and young women of inferior rank. Thus, for example,

the princess of the Lestrygons in Homer goes forth with her

water-jar[1086] to the well, and even among the Athenians, where

refinement of manners first sprang up, and civilisation made most

rapid strides, the daughters of the citizens in early times used to

descend to the fountain of Callirrhoe to draw water.[1087] But the

task was commonly allotted to female captives and other slaves.

Euryclea, Odysseus’ house-keeper, sends a troop of girls on this

errand with orders to be quick in their movements, and Hector, in his

deep fear for Andromache, already in apprehension beholds her toiling

at the fountains of Argos.[1088]

Footnote 1085:

Eurip. Electr. 107. 309. sqq.

Footnote 1086:

Odyss. κ. 105.

Footnote 1087:

Herod. vi. 137—The historian uses the name of Enneacrounos given to

the fountain by the tyrants. A similar practice is noticed by

Arrian.—Anab. Alexand. ii. 3

Footnote 1088:

Odyss. φ. 153. seq.—Iliad. ζ. 59. seq.

CHAPTER II.

WOMEN OF DORIC STATES.

The women of Sparta were even in Greece remarkable for their personal

beauty. Their education and exercises promoting their health and

physical energies, aided, at the same time, the natural developement

of the frame, with all its inherent symmetry and proportion. It is

probable, however, that the charms of Helen may have led on this point

to some misapprehension; but Helen belonged to the old heroic race,

with which the Dorians of Sparta had nothing in common, that is, like

so many other women celebrated by the poets of after times for their

beauty, was an Achæan. Still, lovely they were, well-formed, brilliant

of complexion, with features of much regularity, and eyes into which

exuberant health infused a sparkling brightness irresistibly pleasing.

But it would require to be peculiarly constituted to pronounce them

the most beautiful women in all Greece.[1089] They were what in modern

phrase would be termed fine women, but exceeding considerably what we

deem true feminine proportions, being, in fact, a sort of female

grenadiers, robust, vigorous, bull-stranglers, as Lysistrata[1090]

somewhat ironically expresses it, their beauty was rather that of men,

than of women. Some among the Greeks preferred, it is true, ladies of

this large growth. Thus, we find Xenophon, in the Anabasis, expressing

his apprehension that should his countrymen become acquainted with the

fine tall women of Persia, they would, like the Lotos-eaters, forget

the way to their country and their home.[1091] But this was a taste

which never became general. The beauty which excited most admiration,

where beauty constituted the noblest object of literature and art, was

a kind totally different in character, exquisitely feminine, gentle,

soft, retiring, modest, instinct with grace and delicacy, the parasite

of the moral creation, clinging round man for support, but imparting

more than it receives.

Footnote 1089:

See Müll. Dor. ii. 296.

Footnote 1090:

Ὧ φιλτάτη Λάκαινα, χαῖρε.

οἷον τὸ κάλλος, γλυκυτάτη, σοῦ φαίνεται.

ὡς δ᾽ εὐχροεῖς, ὡς δὲ σφριγᾷ τὸ σῶμά σου,

κἂν ταῦρον ἄγχοις.

Which may be thus translated:

Beloved Laconian, welcome!

How glorious is thy beauty, love! how ruddy

The tint of thy complexion! Vigour and health

So brace thy frame that thou a bull couldst throttle.

Aristoph. Lysist. 78 sqq.

Footnote 1091:

Anab. iii. 2. 25.—Ἀλλὰ γὰρ δέδοικα μὴ, ἂν ἅπαξ μάθωμεν ἀργοὶ ζῇν,

καὶ ἐν ἀφθόνοις βιοτεύειν, καὶ Μήδῶν δὲ καὶ Περσῶν καλαῖς καὶ

μεγάλαις γυναιξὶ καὶ παρθένοις ὁμιλεῖν, μὴ, ὣσπερ οἱ λωτοφάγοι,

ἐπιλαθώμεθα τῆς οἴκαδε ὁδοῦ.—And again, in the Cyropædia, Araspes

praises Panthea for her majestic size. It appears from Homer that

when Athena was desirous of making Penelope appear more lovely than

ordinary, she added to her height.—Odyss. σ. 194.

Such beauty, however, would have been inconsistent with the aim of

Lycurgus. Like a well-known modern despot, this great legislator aimed

solely at creating a nation of grenadiers, and to effect this, both

the education, laws, and manners of Sparta received a military

impress. Everything there breathed of the camp. The girls from their

tenderest years, instead of being instructed as in other communities

to entwine all their feelings round the domestic hearth, and expect

their chiefest happiness at home, were systematically undomesticated,

brought incessantly into contact with men, initiated in immoral

habits, subversive of the female character,[1092] and taught to

consider themselves designed to be the wives of the state rather than

of individuals. Nature, the legislator was aware, has implanted the

principles of love and modesty deep in the female heart; in general

also, to eradicate one, is to root up the other; and both in the sense

in which we contemplate them, being inimical to the purpose which his

constitution was intended to promote, he sought to subvert the power

of love by obliterating from the female mind every trace of maidenly

modesty.

Footnote 1092:

Athen. xiii. 79.—Even Plutarch denominates the system of discipline

observed by the Spartan women ἀναπεπταμένη καὶ ἄθηλυς,—"lax and

unfeminine,"—and confesses that it afforded the poets an

inexhaustible fund for ridicule. Ibycos, for example, called them

φαινομηρίδες: and Euripides ἀνδρομανεῖς. Their education, in fact,

rendered them coarse and domineering, “bold and mannish;”

θρασύτεραι, and ἀνδριοδεῖς, are the words of Plutarch, who observes

that they desired not only to rule by violence at home, but even

audaciously to meddle with public affairs.—Compar. Lycurg. cum Num.

§ 3.

The power of political institutions over the feelings of the heart,

over manners, over habits, over conscience, and opinions, was never so

strikingly exemplified as at Sparta. Whatever the legislator

determined to be good was good.[1093] Example, affection, nature

pleaded in vain. An iron system, strong as fate, encircled the whole

scope of life, repressing every aspiration tending above the point

prescribed, guiding every wish into a given channel, curbing every

passion inconsistent in its full developement with the views of the

legislator. Aristotle, indeed, maintains that while the men of Sparta

conformed to the design of the constitution, the women refused to bend

their neck to the yoke, and persisted in the enjoyment of a freedom

constantly degenerating into licentiousness.[1094] He probably,

however, supposes the existence in Lycurgus of a moral purpose, far

loftier than he really aimed at. The virtues of a camp—and Sparta was

nothing else—are never too rigid, nor must we look among female

camp-followers for much of that delicacy, reserve, self-control, or

keen sense of what is just and upright, of which none judge more

accurately than well educated women. Doubtless the Doric lawgiver

cherished no other design than to promote the happiness of his

countrymen. It would be unjust to suppose otherwise. But how far the

regulations by which he sought to effect this purpose were calculated

to ensure success, is what we have to inquire.

Footnote 1093:

Philosophers, also, were found in antiquity as in modern times, who

theoretically maintained this doctrine. Thus Archelaos contended,

καὶ τὸ δίκαιον εἶναι καὶ τὸ αἰσχρὸν οὐ φύσει, ἀλλὰ νόμῳ.—Diog.

Laert. ii. 4. 3. Here we discover the fundamental maxim upon which

the whole system of Hobbes was constructed.

Footnote 1094:

Polit. ii. 9.

It may at once be observed that Lycurgus’s system of female education

was the furthest possible removed from common place. He contemplated

both the sexes in nearly the same point of view. Their form he saw;

and in many points their character, their affections, their virtues,

their vices, bear a close resemblance; and in his conception,

perfection would be attained, if all such discriminating marks as

nature has set up could be removed, and every quality of what he

considered the superior sex transferred to the inferior. Much

misapprehension appears to exist on this point. Writers pretend that

among the Dorians the female character stood in high estimation, while

the reverse they suppose to have been the case in Ionic States. But

the Dorians betrayed their contempt for women as they came from the

hands of nature, by endeavouring to convert them into men; their

neighbours the reverse, by contenting themselves with their purely

feminine qualities, which among people of Ionic race were cultivated

and improved, perhaps, as far as was consistent with domestic

happiness.

In the harems of the East the whip is of great service in

maintaining order, and the same, it is evident, was the case at

Sparta. Both youths and virgins from their tenderest years were

subjected to a severe discipline; regular floggers, as at our own

great schools, always attended the inspectors of public instruction;

and in this the system was wise, that habits were more regarded than

acquisitions.[1095] But of the habits cherished by the Spartan

system we cannot always approve. Like the boys, the virgins

frequented the gymnasia, where, naked as at their birth, they

exercised themselves in wrestling, running, pitching the quoit, and

throwing the javelin.[1096] To these accomplishments, others,

according to a Roman poet, still less feminine were added. They

contended, he says, in the ring with men, bound the cestus on their

clenched fists, and boxed their future husbands like so many

prize-fighters. No wonder that the partners of such women were

henpecked. Horsemanship, the sword exercise, and the rough sports of

the chase, affected by women of similar character in our own

country, completed the circle of female studies,[1097] and rendered

the Spartan maids something more than a match for their worse

halves, whether after marriage or before.[1098]

Footnote 1095:

Jamblich. vit. Pythag. xi. 5. 6.—Müller. Dor. ii. 317.

Footnote 1096:

Plut. Lycurg. §. 14. Compare the remarks of Ubbo Emmius who adopts,

however, too implicitly the notions of Plutarch.—iii. 22. seq.

Footnote 1097:

Propert. iii. 12. p. 261. iv. 13. p. 88. Jacob.—Cicero, after

quoting certain verses from an old poet, describing the exercises of

the female Spartans, adds in his own words: “ergo his laboriosis

excercitationibus et dolor intercurrit nonnumquam; impelluntur,

ponuntur, abjiciuntur, cadunt: et ipse labor quasi callum quoddam

obducit dolori.” Tuscul. Quæst. ii. 36.—In remoter ages we find

women celebrated for their skill in hunting, and there were those

who in later times sought to recommend this taste to their

countrywomen:—Οὐ μόνον δὲ, ὅσοι ἄνδρες κυνηγεσίων ἡράσθησαν,

ἐγένοντο ἀγαθοὶ ἀλλὰ καὶ αἱ γυναῖκες, αἷς ἔδωκεν ἡ θεὸς ταῦτα

Ἄρτεμις, Ἀταλάντη, καὶ Πρόκρις, καὶ εἴ τις ἄλλη. Xen. de Venat.

xiii. 18. 345. Schneid. Cf. Callim. Hymn. in Dian. 209. 215. Spanh.

Footnote 1098:

Alluding to the political power of women at Sparta, Aristotle

inquires: what signifies it whether women govern or men be governed

by women? Polit. ii. 9.

Some pains have in our own days been taken to pare away the

roughnesses, and obliterate the peculiar features of the Doric

educational institutions, in order to bring them into greater

uniformity with modern notions. There is no probability, we are told,

that either youths or men were permitted to be present at the

extraordinary exhibition of the female gymnasia.[1099] But whence is

this inference derived? From the delicacy of Spartan manners in other

respects? And are we in fact reduced on this curious point to depend

on inferences and probabilities? On the contrary, we are informed by

antiquity that besides the personal advantages of health and vigour,

derived to the women themselves, the legislator contemplated others

little less important, the promotion of marriage and the recreation of

all the useful portion of the citizens. For while the married men and

youths intent on connubial happiness, enjoyed the free entry to these

gymnasia,[1100] those sullen egotists called bachelors were very

properly excluded. The former had some property in the young ladies,

who were their daughters, sisters, or future spouses, but persons

avowedly indifferent to the seductive influence of female charms could

have no business there.

Footnote 1099:

Müll. Dor. ii. 333.

Footnote 1100: