Plut. Lycurg. § 14. 15. Müller, with the_The History of the Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece, Volume 1 (of 3)

apologist, overlooks the passage, and introduces Plutarch affirming

“that they only witnessed the processions and dances of the young

(wo)men.” Note K. Dor. ii. p. 328. Here though _men_ be the printed

word in the English translation women must be clearly meant. Even

so, however, the assertion is unfounded, since we find that even

strangers were admitted:—ἐπαινεῖται δὲ καὶ τῶν Σπαρτιατῶν τὸ ἔθος τὸ

γυμνοῦν τὰς παρθένους τοῖς ξένοις. Athen. xiii. 20. The islanders of

Chios would appear to have imitated this laudable practice, since

the sophist speaks of it as a most pleasant spectacle to behold the

youths and virgins wrestling together in the public place of

exercise. Ibid.

Admitting, therefore, that when the Spartan virgins[1101] performed in

the gymnasia, for we must consider their exercises partly in the light

of scenic exhibitions, the whole city, bachelors excepted, could be

present, it remains to be seen what other accomplishments they could

display for the public entertainment. Singing and dancing it has been

shown were practised publicly by ladies of rank in the heroic ages,

and this feature of ancient manners was preserved at Sparta, where not

youths and maidens only, but even the grave and aged joined, during

several great festivals, in the dance and the song.[1102] But we must

beware how we apply to these performances the ideas suggested by those

of modern times, or the gay and graceful movements of Ionian women. To

dance at Sparta required great physical force.[1103] The maidens,

unencumbered by dress, bounded aloft like an Anatole or a Taglioni,

but instead of twirling round with one foot on earth, and the other

suspended at right angles in air, the supreme merit of her performance

consisted in slapping the back part of the body with her heel for the

greatest possible number of times in succession.[1104] In this feat,

which resembles strongly a Caribbee or Iroquois accomplishment, whole

troops of men and women often united; an exhibition which with the

shouts of laughter arising from the bystanders, the grins of the

girls, and the wilful mistakes of young men who might send their feet

in the wrong direction, must convey a curious idea of Spartan gravity.

Such, however, was the celebrated dance called _Bibasis_,[1105] upon

the frequent execution of which a Laconian girl prided herself no less

than a modern lady on her activity in the indecent waltz.

Footnote 1101:

Cf. Plato. De Legg. t. viii. p. 85.

Footnote 1102:

Plut. Lycurg. §. 21.

Footnote 1103:

As now among the Galaxidiotes. Dodwell. i. 133. seq.

Footnote 1104:

Aristoph. Lysistr. 82.

Footnote 1105:

Pollux. iv. 102.

But the other dances in which the Spartan maidens excelled were

numerous. Among them was the _Dipodia_[1106] of which the nature is

not exactly known, but it was accompanied by music and song and

apparently consisted of a series of orgiastic movements, like those

of the Bacchantes when, inspired by wine, they bounded fawnlike with

dishevelled hair along the mountains.[1107] On other occasions their

movements were designed to express certain passions of the mind,

sometimes, as in the _Calabis_,[1108] highly wanton and licentious,

though the latitudinarian spirit of paganism contrived to admit them

among the religious ceremonies, and that too in honour of Artemis.

Another of these lewd dances performed in the worship of Apollo and

his sister, and accompanied by songs, conceived no doubt in the same

spirit, was the _Bryallicha_[1109], which the historian of the Doric

race finds some difficulty to reconcile with the worship of Apollo,

as if their deity had been himself free from the inherent vices of

the Olympian dynasts. There was another dance called the

_Deicelistic_[1110], a kind of rude pantomime intermingled with

songs supposed to have been performed by unmarried women[1111].

Footnote 1106:

Scaliger’s idea of the dance is peculiar: Erat et διποδία, in quâ

junctis pedibus labore plurimo et conatu picas imitabantur. Poet. i.

18. p. 69.

Footnote 1107:

Aristoph. Lysistr. 1303. sqq.

Footnote 1108:

Athen. xiv. 29.

Footnote 1109:

Poll. iv. 104. Hesych. v. Βρυδαλίχα.

Footnote 1110:

Etym. Mag. 260. 42.

Footnote 1111:

Müll. Dor. ii. 335.

To these dances may be added the _Hyporchematic_, which was executed

by a chorus, while singing, for which reason Bacchylides says, “This

is not the work of slowness or inactivity.” By Pindar it is described

as a dance performed by Spartan girls; but in fact both young men and

women united in the Hyporchema, and as this dance is said to have

resembled or been identical with the Cordax[1112], it will assist us

in forming a notion of female delicacy at Sparta, where young women

could execute publicly in company with the other sex a dance scarcely

less indelicate than the fandango or bolero[1113].

Footnote 1112:

Cf. Nonn. Dionys. xix. 265. sqq. Etym. Mag. 712. 53. 635. 2. Scalig.

Poet. i. 18. Poll. iv. 99.

Footnote 1113:

Athen. xiv. 30.

From such an education and such habits tastes essentially

unfeminine would naturally spring. Accordingly we find Laconian

ladies of the first rank,—Cynisca daughter of king Archidamos, for

example,—attending to the breed of horses, and sending chariots to

contend at the Olympic games. Nor was her masculine ambition

condemned by the Greeks. A statue of the lady herself, together

with her chariot, and charioteer, existed among other Olympian

monuments in the age of Pausanias. Afterwards many other women,

but chiefly among the half barbarous Macedonians, followed the

example of Cynisca and Euryleonis another Spartan dame who had

been honoured with a statue at Olympia for the success of her

chariot at the games.[1114]

Footnote 1114:

Pausan. iii. 15. 1. 17. 6. Cf. Vandal. Dissert. vii. p. 562. seq.

In strict keeping with the rough manners and masculine bearing of

these ladies was the habit of swearing,[1115] to which in common with

most other Greek women they were grievously addicted. At Athens,

however, gentlewomen swore by Demeter, Persephone and Agraulos,[1116]

an oath by divinities of their own sex[1117] being considered more

suitable to female lips; but the viragos of Sparta spiced their

conversation with oaths by Castor and Polydeukes. According, moreover,

to the poet whose testimony is commonly adduced against the Athenian

ladies, the women of Sparta drank[1118] as well as swore, and we know

from authority altogether indisputable, that in the age of Socrates

their licentiousness had already become universally notorious in

Greece.[1119] A scholar, and a diligent inquirer, whose merits are too

often overlooked, observes very justly that it was probably the

austerity, or more properly the pedantry of Lycurgus’s institutions

that gave rise to the notion that chastity was a common virtue at

Sparta.[1120] It was supposed because occasionally subjected to

violent exercise, that they must necessarily be temperate in their

pleasures. But we might _à priori_ have inferred the contrary, and the

uniform testimony of antiquity proves it. Their wantonness and

licentiousness knew no bounds. Even during the ages immediately

succeeding the establishment of their constitution, that is at the

time of the Messenian wars, to preserve for any length of time their

chastity while their husbands were absent in the field was beyond

their power, and substitutes were selected and sent home to become the

husbands of the whole female population.[1121]

Footnote 1115:

Aristoph. Lysistr. 81. sqq.

Footnote 1116:

Sch. Aristoph. Thesmophor. 533.

Footnote 1117:

But men we find likewise swore—Κατὰ ταῖν θεαῖν καὶ τῆς

Πολιάδος..—Lucian. Diall. Hetair. vii. 1.

Footnote 1118:

Aristoph. Lysistr. 198. seq.

Footnote 1119:

Plat. de Legg. i. t. vii. p. 201. Bekk.

Footnote 1120:

Goguet. Orig. des Loix. t. v. p. 429.

Footnote 1121:

Dion. Chrysostom. Orat. i. 278. Justin. iii. 4.

But for this ungovernable sway of temperament the institutions of the

state were chiefly to blame.[1122] We have seen by the whole tenor of

their education, modesty and virtue were sapped and undermined; no

merit, it was visible, attached to them in the eye of the law; and

shrewdly gifted as they were with good sense, they must quickly have

discovered that marriage was a mere unmeaning ceremony, and that

provided they gave good citizens to the state it would be of little

consequence who might be their fathers.[1123] The ceremonies attending

that lax union which for lack of a better term we must call marriage,

resembled closely those which have been found to prevail among other

savages in very distant parts of the world.

Footnote 1122:

Plut. Compar. Lycurg. cum. Num. § 3. Aristot. Polit. ii. 9. who

observes:—ζῶσι ἀκολαστῶς πρὸς ἅπασαν ἀκολασίαν καὶ τρυφερῶς.—Hermann

in his Political Antiquities § 27, reasoning consistently with these

ancient authorities, observes that the system of Lycurgus “gradually

effaced every characteristic of female excellence from the Spartan

women.”

Footnote 1123:

βουλόμενος γὰρ ὁ νομοθέτης ὡς πλείστους εἴναι τοὺς Σπαρτιάτας,

προάγεται τοὺς πολίτας ὄτι πλείστους ποιεῖσθαι παῖδας· ἔστι γὰρ

αὐτοῖς νόμος τὸν μὲν γεννήσαντα τρεῖς υἱοὺς ἄφρουρον εἶναι, τὸν δὲ

τέτταρας ἀτελή πάντων.—Arist. Polit. ii. 9. Cf. Ælian. Var. Hist.

vi. 6, who substitutes the number five for four.

Having gone through the ceremony of betrothment,[1124] in which the

bride’s interest was represented by her father or brother, the lover

chose some fitting occasion to seize and carry her away from amongst

her companions. She was then received into the house of the

bridesmaid, where her hair was cut short and her dress exchanged for

that of a young man, after which custom directed that she should be

left reclining on a pallet bed, in a dark chamber, alone. Thither the

bridegroom repaired by stealth, and, afterwards, with equal secresy,

returned to his companions, among whom he continued for some time to

live as if no change in his condition had taken place. During this

period, therefore, their union must be regarded rather as a

clandestine intercourse than a marriage, since the husband continued,

as at first, to steal secretly into the company of his wife and to

effect his escape with equal care, it being considered disreputable

for them to be seen together. Even the children springing from this

connexion have been supposed to have ranked as bastards; but of this

there is no sufficient proof.

Footnote 1124:

Cf. Xen. de Rep. Lac. i. 6. Plut. Lycurg. § 15.—Ubbo Emmius. Descr.

Reip. Lacon. p. 96. seq.

A different account is given by other authors of the marriage ceremony

at Sparta, but, if properly examined, both relations may very well be

reconciled. The above, in fact, appears to have been the ordinary mode

when young women of property who had dowries[1125] to bestow upon

their husbands, were to be disposed of. But the portionless girls,

excepting, perhaps, the more beautiful, finding some difficulty in

providing themselves with helpmates, a contrivance was hit upon by the

legislator, calculated to give a fair chance to all. The unmarried

damsels of the city, thus circumstanced, were shut up in the dark, in

a spacious edifice,[1126] into which the young unmarried men were

introduced to scramble for wives, the understanding being, that each

was to remain content with the maiden he happened to seize upon. And

it would appear that the awards of chance were, in most cases,

satisfactory, since we read of no one but Lysander who abandoned the

wife he had thus chosen. He, however, having been presented, by

fortune, with a maiden of homely features, immediately deserted her

for one more beautiful. The bad example thus set was not without its

evil consequences, for the men who married his daughters put them away

in like manner after his death.[1127] But, in both cases, fines for

contumacy were exacted by the Ephori. According to the laws of Sparta,

men were likewise fined for leading a life of celibacy,[1128] for

marrying late, or for marrying unsuitably. Thus, king Archidamos was

fined for selecting a little woman to be his queen, as if there was

something regal in loftiness of stature.[1129]

Footnote 1125:

According to Justin, indeed, the Spartan legislator abolished the

usage of dowries: Virgines sine dote nubere jussit, ut uxores

eligerentur, non pecuniæ; severiusque matrimonia sua viri

coërcerent, cum nullis dotis frœnis tenerentur, iii. 3. But

Aristotle, who had deeply studied the polity of Sparta, gives a very

different account:—ἔστι δὲ καὶ τῶν γυναικῶν σχεδὸν τῆς πάσης χώρας

τῶν πέντε μερῶν τὰ δύο, τῶν τ᾽ ἐπικλήρων πολλῶν γινομένων, καὶ διὰ

τὸ προῖκας διδόναι μεγάλας.—Polit. ii. 9.

Footnote 1126:

Athen. xiii. 2.

Footnote 1127:

Plut. Lysand. § 30.

Footnote 1128:

Athen. xiii. 1.

Footnote 1129:

Plut. Agis, § 2. Athen. xiii. 20. It was not without reason,

perhaps, that the Ephori interfered with the marriages of their

kings, since royalty has everywhere been capricious. But these

honest magistrates were sometimes tyrannical in their ordinances and

behaviour. Thus, when Anaxandrides married his niece for love,

because she had no children he was compelled by them to take a

second wife. When the first wife was confined they, fearing

imposition, or feigning incredulity, sat about her bed.—Herod. v.

39–41.

On almost every point connected with Spartan marriages the accounts

transmitted to us are contradictory. Thus, we are by some told, as has

been seen above, that the union of the bride and bridegroom took place

secretly, and remained for some time almost unknown. Nevertheless,

there are not wanting those who speak of public ceremonies which took

place on the occasion, as for example Sosibios,[1130] who informs us,

that the cake, called cribanos, shaped like the female breast, was

eaten at that repast which the Lacedæmonian women gave in honour of a

betrothed maiden when her youthful companions assembled in chorus to

chaunt her praises. At Argos, another Doric state, it was customary

before the bride joined her husband for her to send him, as a present,

the cake called creion, which his friends were invited to partake of

with honey. It was baked upon the coals as cakes are still in the

East.

Footnote 1130:

Athen. xiv. 54.

When at Sparta the state had recognised the marriage, by permitting

cohabitation, no man could call his wife his own. Any person might

legally claim the favour of borrowing her for a certain time, in

order, if he did not choose to be burdened with a wife, to have a

family by her while she remained in the house of her lord. An elderly

man was sure to have his connubial privileges invaded in this way, and

the most able and philosophical advocates of Lycurgus’s institutions

inform us that the Spartan ladies highly approved of all these

arrangements. Yet, famous and learned authors undertake to break a

lance for the chastity of the Spartan dames, and maintain with

infinite complacency that adultery was unknown among them. The truth

is that the Spartan laws recognised no such offence.[1131] It was

legal, common, of every day occurrence, though, from many

circumstances, it would appear, that such Lacedæmonians as travelled

into other parts of Greece, and learned in what light manners and

morals so lax were by them viewed, blushed for their country’s

institutions, and, in defence of them, put in practice those arts of

delusion and hypocrisy which constituted so distinguished a part of

their education.

Footnote 1131:

Xenoph. de Rep. Laced. i. 7. 8. 9.

Much has been said of the stern virtue and patriotism of the Spartan

women, and high praise has been bestowed on the callous indifference

which they sometimes exhibited on learning the death of their

sons;[1132] but English mothers, who have given birth to sons as brave

as ever fought or bled for Sparta, will, I think, agree with me in

rating very low their boasted stoicism, which, if properly analysed,

might prove to be nothing more than a coarse and unnatural apathy. The

reader of the Greek Anthologia will here remember her who meeting her

son a fugitive among the flying from a victorious enemy, inflicted on

him with her own hands the death he sought to shun. Had Nature, which

is but the voice of God indistinctly heard, anything to do with virtue

such as that? Supposing the youth to have been a coward, which the

fact of his flying before the enemy by no means proves, was it for the

hands that had nursed him to become his executioners? A mother,

deserving of the name, would no doubt have sorrowed not to find her

boy numbered among the brave, but her maternal heart would not the

less have yearned towards the unhappy youth; she would have fled with

him into obscurity, and uttered her mild reproaches and shed her tears

there.

Footnote 1132:

Cic. Tusc. Quæst. i. 49.

As often happens, however, these female stoics who were so lavish of

the blood of their children, displayed no readiness to set them the

example of making light of death when the fortunes of war afforded

them an occasion of putting their heroic maxims in practice; for when

the Theban army[1133] burst forth from the depths of the Menelaion,

and swept down the valley of the Eurotas like a torrent, wasting

everything before them with fire and sword, the women of Sparta, who

had never before seen the smoke of an enemy’s camp, lost in a moment

their presence of mind, and, instead of encouraging their sons and

husbands calmly to rely upon their valour, ran to and fro through the

streets, filling the air with their effeminate wailings, and

distracting and impeding the movements of their natural protectors.

Very different from this was the conduct of the female citizens of

Argos. For when Cleomenes and Demaratos, after having defeated the

Argive army, approached the city in the expectation of being able to

take it by storm, the poetess Telesilla armed her countrywomen, who,

hastening to the defence of the walls, repulsed the Lacedæmonian

kings, and preserved the state. In commemoration of this event a

festival was annually celebrated, in which the ladies appeared in male

attire while the men concealed their heads beneath the female

veil.[1134]

Footnote 1133:

Aristot. Polit. ii. 9. Xenoph. Hellen. vi. v. 27. It should be

remarked, however, that on a future occasion, when Sparta was

besieged by King Pyrrhus, the female disciples of Lycurgus behaved

with more fortitude and energy; for when it was debated in the

senate whether they should not convey their wives and children to

Crete, and then, deriving courage from despair, determine to conquer

or perish on the spot, Archidamia, daughter of the king, entered

their assembly sword in hand, opposed their resolution, saying, it

behoved the women of Sparta to live and die with their husbands. The

female population was, in consequence, suffered to remain; and by

digging with the men in the trenches, sharpening the arms, and

attending on the wounded, so strongly excited the courage of the

Spartans, that they at length succeeded in repulsing the Macedonians

from their city. Cf. Plut. Pyrrh. § 27.—Polyæn. Stratagem. vii. 49.

Footnote 1134:

Plut. de Mulier. Virtut. t. ii. p. 195. Polyæn. Stratagem. viii. 33.

Again, when the Thebans broke into Platæa during the night, the women,

instead of delivering themselves up pusillanimously to fear, joined

the men in defence of the city, casting stones and tiles from the

housetops upon the enemy. Yet when defeated and flying for their

lives, it was one of these same women who, with the characteristic

humanity of her sex, supplied them with a hatchet to cut their way

through the gates.[1135]

Footnote 1135:

Thucyd. ii. 4.

But the most remarkable instance of self-devotion furnished by women

in the whole history of Greece was, perhaps, that which is related of

the Phocian ladies,[1136] who, when their countrymen, under the

command of Diophantos, were about to engage with the Thessalians in a

battle which it was felt must finally determine the destiny of Phocis,

strenuously, with the concurrence of their children, exhorted him to

persevere in the design he had formed, of causing them to be consumed

by fire should the battle be lost. Examples of this terrible expedient

for preserving the honour of women occur but too frequently in the

history of India, where it is termed performing _johur_; and the

Romans, in their Spanish wars, witnessed a similar act of

self-sacrifice at Numantia.

Footnote 1136:

Plut. de Mulier. Virtut. t. ii. p. 192.

It should, nevertheless, by no means be concealed that the annals of

Sparta also contain some brilliant examples of female heroism, of

which the most striking, perhaps, is that furnished by the wife of

Panteus and her companions after the death of Cleomenes at Alexandria.

“When the report of his death,” says Plutarch,[1137] “had spread over

the city, Cratesiclea, though a woman of superior fortitude, sank

under the weight of the calamity; she embraced the children of

Cleomenes, and wept over them. The elder of them, disengaging himself

from her arms, got unsuspected to the top of the house, and threw

himself down headlong. He was not killed, however, though much hurt;

and when they took him up he loudly expressed his grief and

indignation that they would not suffer him to destroy himself. Ptolemy

was no sooner informed of these things than he ordered the body of

Cleomenes to be flayed, and nailed to a cross, and his children to be

put to death, together with his mother and the women her companions.

Among these was the wife of Panteus, a woman of great beauty and most

majestic presence. They had been but lately married, and their

misfortune overtook them amid the first transports of love. When her

husband went with Cleomenes from Sparta, she was desirous of

accompanying him, but was prevented by her parents, who kept her in

close custody. Soon afterwards, however, she provided herself with a

horse and a little money, and making her escape by night, rode at full

speed to Tænaros, and there embarked on board a ship bound for Egypt.

She reached her husband safely, and readily and cheerfully shared with

him in all the inconveniences of a foreign residence. When the

soldiers came to take Cratesiclea to the scaffold, she led her by the

hand, assisted in bearing her robe,[1138] and desired her to exert all

her courage, though she was far from being afraid of death, and

desired no other favour than that she might die before her children.

But when they arrived at the place of execution the children suffered

before her eyes; and then Cratesiclea was despatched, uttering in her

extreme distress only these words: ‘Oh! my children! whither are you

gone?’

“The wife of Panteus, who was tall and strong, girt her robe about her

and in a silent and composed manner paid the last offices to each

woman that lay dead, winding up the bodies as well as her present

circumstances would admit. Last of all she prepared herself for the

poniard by letting down her robe about her and adjusting it in such a

manner as to need no assistance after death, then, calling the

executioner to do his office, and permitting no other person to

approach her, she fell like a heroine. In death she retained all the

decorum which she had preserved in life, and the decency which had

been so sacred with this excellent woman still remained about her.

Thus in this bloody tragedy in which the women contended to the last

for the prize of courage with the men, Lacedæmon evinced that it is

impossible for fortune to conquer virtue.”

Footnote 1137:

Cleomen. § 38. I have here made use of the translation of Langhorne,

because it would be no easy matter to furnish a better.

Footnote 1138:

Πέπλος.

Another brief narrative given by the same historian exhibits in the

most touching manner, the tenderness and self-devotion of a Spartan

woman. Cleombrotos, in conjunction with other conspirators, had

dethroned king Leonidas his father-in-law and possessed himself of the

crown. Events afterwards restored the old man to his kingdom, upon

which burning with resentment he hurried to take vengeance on his

son-in-law. "Chelonis, the daughter of Leonidas, had looked upon the

injury done to her father as done to herself, and when Cleombrotos

robbed him of the crown she left him in order to console her father in

his misfortune. As long as he remained in sanctuary she stayed with

him, and when he fled, sympathising with his sorrow, and full of

resentment against Cleombrotos, she attended him in his flight. But

when the fortunes of her father changed she changed too. She joined

her husband as a suppliant, and was found sitting by him with great

marks of tenderness, and her two children one on each side at her

feet. The whole company were much struck at the sight, and could not

refrain from tears when they considered her goodness of heart and

uncommon strength of affection.

"Chelonis, then, pointing to her mourning habit and her dishevelled

hair thus addressed Leonidas. ‘It was not my dear father compassion

for Cleombrotos which put me in this habit and gave me this look of

misery. My sorrows took their date with your misfortune and your

banishment, and have ever since remained my familiar companions. Now

you have conquered your enemies and are again king of Sparta should I

still retain these ensigns of affliction or assume festival and royal

ornaments, while the husband of my youth whom you yourself bestowed

upon me falls a victim to your vengeance? If his own submission, if

the tears of his wife and children cannot propitiate you he must

suffer a severer punishment for his offences than even you require, he

must see his beloved wife die before him. For how can I live and

support the sight of my own sex, after both my husband and my father

have refused to hearken to my supplications, when it appears that both

as a wife and a daughter I am born to be miserable with my family. If

this poor man had any plausible reasons for what he did I invalidated

them all by forsaking him to follow you. But you furnish him with a

sufficient apology for his misbehaviour by showing that a crown is so

bright and desirable an object that a son-in-law must be slain and a

daughter totally disregarded when it is in question.’

“Chelonis, after this supplication, rested her cheek upon her

husband’s head, and with an eye dim and languid through sorrow looked

round on the spectators; Leonidas consulted his friends upon the

point, and then commanded Cleombrotos to rise and go into exile, but

he desired Chelonis to stay and not to forsake so affectionate a

father who had kindly granted her husband’s life. Chelonis, however,

would not be persuaded. When her husband had risen from the ground she

put one child into his arms and took the other herself, and after

having paid due homage at the altar where they had taken sanctuary

went with him into banishment. So that had not Cleombrotos been

corrupted by the love of false glory he must have thought exile with

such a woman a greater happiness than a kingdom without her.”[1139]

Footnote 1139:

Plut. Agis §§ 17. 18. Moore in his Lalla Rookh has expressed the

same idea.

Fly to the desert, fly with me,

Our Arab tents are rude for thee;

But ah! the choice what heart can doubt,

Of tents with love or thrones without?

CHAPTER III.

CONDITION OF UNMARRIED WOMEN.—LOVE.

The condition of an Athenian lady it is far more important and, in

proportion, more difficult to describe. Extremely erroneous

impressions appear to exist on the subject, several writers of

eminence having adopted the theory that they lived in total seclusion,

and were little less ignorant and degraded than Oriental women are

commonly supposed to be. My own opinion is somewhat different. After

very patiently investigating the matter, the conclusions at which I

have arrived are as follow:—

In delineating a picture of this kind, positive testimonies are

unquestionably required; but I appeal to the impartial reader, whether

very great, I had almost said the greatest weight, should not, after

all, be attributed to that conviction which grows up, gradually and

silently, in the mind, during a long and habitual intercourse with the

subject. In this way, new authorities are formed, for to have examined

minutely and attentively what others have written, to have weighed

authorities and scrupulously sifted their several pretensions, may be

allowed to entitle a man, if anything can, to express an opinion of

his own.

The notion appears to prevail extensively, even among writers not

otherwise ill-informed, that women occupied, among the Ionians

generally, and more especially among the Athenians, a very mean

position, were neglected and despised, and, consequently, exerted

little or no influence on manners, morals, literature, or public

affairs. With what design this error has been propagated it is not

difficult to comprehend. But to pervert history for party purposes is,

after all, an useless undertaking, since the facts always remain, and

it is never too late to rescue truth from the fangs of sophistry.

That the women of Athens were in the condition for which nature

designed them, I will not affirm; a little more converse with the

world might have improved their understandings, they might have been

rendered more pleasing companions; but what they gained as social,

they would probably have lost as domestic beings. No woman was ever

rendered better as a wife or as a mother by that indiscriminate

enjoyment of society, which, it is supposed, the gentlewomen of Athens

lost so much by being deprived of.

To form, however, a correct conception of their station, and the

happiness within their reach, we must take into consideration several

circumstances peculiar to ancient society. In those times something

very different was understood by the word education from the meaning

now attached to it. It signified rather the disciplining of the mind

to certain habits than the imparting of different kinds of knowledge.

It was the culture of the intellectual powers, and the sowing of the

seed, rather than the transplanting of notions, half-grown, from one

mind to another. More care was bestowed on the building up, than on

the furnishing, of the mind. There was by far less acquisition, less

accomplishment than in modern times; but the faculties were more

surely impregnated, quickened sooner, and ripened into more vigorous

maturity. Hence, among the ancients, there were few dreamers, either

men or women. Exquisitely alive to all the peculiarities of their

situation, they were, in the best sense of the word, a poetical

people, gifted, indeed, with imagination, but possessing, too, the

power to rein it in, to shape its course, and, on most occasions, to

render it subservient to the dictates of judgment.

Of the management of infancy I have already spoken. At the age of

seven the sexes were separated, the girls still remaining in the

nursery, while governors, kept expressly for the purpose, conducted

the boys to the public schools.[1140] Too little is known of the

material circumstances attending the mental and bodily training of the

girls, or at what age they were taught to read and write. Much,

however, in those ages was communicated orally. Their mothers imparted

to them whatever notions they possessed of religion, performed in

their presence several sacrifices and other pious rites, and gradually

prepared them for officiating in their turn at their country’s

altars.[1141] In a certain sense, therefore, every Athenian woman was

a priestess, and though their piety was imperfect and their faith

corrupt, it will still be admitted that important benefits must have

been derived from imbuing the youthful mind with some principles of

religion.

Footnote 1140:

From a passage in Terence (Phorm. i. 2. 30. sqq.) Perizonius

concludes that even girls were sent to school. But he applies to

Athenian maidens of free birth what in the Roman poet is related of

a servile music girl: Ea serviebat lenoni impurissimo.—(Not. ad

Ælian. Hist. Var. iii. 21.) It appears, however, from this passage,

as Kuhn has already observed, that there existed public schools for

girls at Athens, whatever might be the condition of the persons who

frequented them. In Lambert Bos’s Antiquitates, (Pars. iv. c. 5. p.

216,) the error of Perizonius is repeated; that is, in the note;

for, according to the text, the Attic virgins were closely confined

to the house.

Footnote 1141:

Πολλὰς ἑορτὰς αἱ γυναῖκες ἔξω τῶν δημοτελῶν ἦγον ἰδία

συνερχόμεναι.—Sch. Aristoph. Lysist. i. In Homer we find the Trojan

women performing sacrifice to Athena—Il. ζ. 277. 310, just as the

Athenian matrons did on the Acropolis.—Aristoph. Lysistr. 179.

The performance of these pious duties commenced very early.

Immediately on attaining the age of five years, they might be called

on to officiate, clothed in saffron robes,[1142] in the rites of

Artemis Brauronia, when a she-goat was sacrificed to the goddess,

while professed rhapsodists chaunted select passages from the Iliad.

Here they were initiated in the mysteries of their national

piety,[1143] accompanied by all the charms of music, and of a style

of declaiming no less impressive than that of the theatre. At this

festival, celebrated every five years, all the ceremonies were

performed by virgins, none of whom could be above ten years

old;[1144] we must, therefore, infer that they underwent much

previous training, and were instructed carefully respecting the

object of the rites. Another religious festival at which youthful

virgins only officiated, was the Arrhephoria, celebrated in honour

of Athena or Herse. The ceremonies performed on this occasion appear

to have required something more of preparation, since it was

necessary that the youthful sacrificers should, at least, be seven

years old and not exceed eleven. Four, selected for their noble

birth and training, presided, and other two were chosen to weave the

sacred peplos, while engaged in which they resided in the

Sphæresterion, on the rock of the Acropolis, habited in white

garments with ornaments of gold.[1145] The bread which they eat

during their seclusion was called Anastatos.[1146]

Footnote 1142:

Suid. v. ἄρκτος. t. i. p. 425. c.—Sch. Aristoph. Lysistr.

645.—Meurs. Græc. Fer. lib. ii. p. 67.—During the dances performed

in honour of this goddess, the women commonly played on brazen

castanets.—Athen. xiv. 39.

Footnote 1143:

As Plato in his Republic appropriates to each sex a separate class

of songs, it may be inferred that both in Athens and elsewhere in

Greece, men and women habitually sung the same lays.—De. Legg. vii.

t. viii. p. 30.

Footnote 1144:

Pollux. viii. 107.—Cf. Herod. vi. 138. Women practised various

dances, to perform which with skill constituted a branch of their

accomplishments. One of these dances was called the Apokinos, or

Mactrismos, of which Cratinos made mention in his Nemesis,

Cephisodoros in his Amazons, and Aristophanes in his Centaurs. These

dances, however, appear to have been a particular class, and

obtained the name of Marctypiæ. Athen. xiv. 26.

Footnote 1145:

Etym. Mag. 149, 13. sqq.—Suid. v. Ἁῤῥηνηφ. t. i. p. 222. c.

Ἀῤῥηφορια—ἐπειδὴ τὰ ἀῤῥητα ἐν κίσταις ἔφερον τῇ θεῷ ὡι παρθένοι.

idem. t. i. p. 423. c. et v. χαλκεῖα t. ii. p. 110 d. Harpocrat. v.

ἀῤῥηφόρειν. p. 48 Maussac.—Aristoph. Lysistr. 643. et. schol.—Lys.

Mun. Accept. Apollog. §. 1.—Plut. Vit. Dec. Orat. iv. t. v. p.

145.—Cf. Sch. Aristoph. Acharn. 241. In several religious

processions the women except the canephori, followed not the

pageant, but looked upon it from the housetop.

Footnote 1146:

Athen. iii. 80.

I own it is not a little remarkable, that in proving the women of

Athens to have received what in our times are regarded as the humblest

elements of education, we should be compelled to rely on indirect

evidence, or on mere inferences, or, indeed, that the point should

require proof at all.[1147] This fact itself is decisive of their

comparative seclusion. Had they mingled much in society, more

occasions would have occurred of dwelling on their acquirements, and

in dramatic compositions of representing them delivering opinions, and

exhibiting tastes and preferences, obviously incompatible with an

uncultivated intellect. But, though the difficulty of the investigator

be augmented by the paucity and indistinct manner of the witnesses, we

are still not left entirely without ground for coming to a decision,

and if writers have, hitherto, so far as I know, overlooked some of

the principal testimonies, that must be regarded only as an additional

cause for bringing them forward now.[1148]

Footnote 1147:

Muretus has brought forward several passages to prove that learned

women bore but an indifferent character in antiquity.—Var. Lect.

viii. 21. The Hetairæ of course were taught to read. Of this we have

abundant proof: τὰ ἐπὶ τῶν τοίχων γεγγραμμένα ἐν τῷ κεραμεικῷ

ἀναγνοθὶ, ὅπου κατεστηλίτευται ὑμῶν τὰ ὀνομάτα—says the jealous

lover to Melitta in Lucian.—Diall. Hetair. iv. 2. Nay even the

servant maid of this Hetaira Acis is able to read; for desirous to

ascertain whether there was any thing in the report of her lover,

Melitta sends forth the girl to examine the walls, who discovers and

reads the words “Melitta loves Hermotimos,” &c. which written there

in jest by some wag had proved the cause of her lover’s jealousy and

the quarrel that ensued.

Footnote 1148:

Cf. Telet. ap. Stob. Florileg. Tit. 108. 83. Gaisf.

A report current in antiquity, and preserved by Marcellinus in his

Life of Thucydides,[1149] represents the daughter of that great

historian as the continuator of her father’s work, and as, in fact,

the author of the whole eighth book. The biographer does not, indeed,

receive the legend, but in rejecting it his assigned reasons are not

that in the days of Thucydides Athenian ladies were not taught to

read, and were, therefore, incapable of any species of literary

exertion, but that the portion in question of the history bears

evident marks of the same lofty and masculine mind to which we owe the

rest, and no-wise resembles the productions of a woman. Had

Marcellinus known the art of writing to have formed no part of an

Athenian lady’s education, that could have been the proper reason to

assign for his doubt. He might, under such circumstances, have

ridiculed the folly of such a supposition. But no such objection

occurred to him. He knew well that they could and did write, and had,

therefore, recourse to the proper argument for establishing his point.

Footnote 1149:

P. xxi. For Plato’s views on the education of women, see De Legg. t.

viii. p. 36.—Cf. Xen. Conviv. ii. 9, 10.

Again, in that fragment of the oration of Lysias which he wrote for

the children of Diodotos, an Athenian woman of rank is introduced

defending, under very distressful circumstances, the rights of her

children against her own father. Diodotos, it seems, had married his

niece, and by her had several children. He was at length required by

the commonwealth to proceed on a military expedition, during which he

fell under the walls of Ephesos. Diogeiton, father of his wife, having

been appointed guardian of the children, endeavours to defraud them of

their property, and their mother, calling in the aid of impartial

arbiters, pleads before them her children’s cause, and the orator,

addressing one of the tribunals of Athens, does not hesitate to put in

her mouth language worthy of a rhetorician. This, however, I am aware,

cannot be regarded as a proof. But, in the course of her speech she

discloses a circumstance which must be so considered. During the

period of her stay in her fathers house, the old man removed from one

street to another, and in the confusion a small memorandum book,

dropped from among his papers, was picked up by one of the children

and brought to their mother.[1150] It happened to contain the account

of the money her husband had left on departing for the army; this she

reads,[1151] and thus discovers the state in which the affairs of the

family had been left on the departure of her husband.

Footnote 1150:

Lys. Cont. Diog. § 5. By τοὺς παῖδας: Reiske, however, understands

the servants of Diogeiton, though these would have been more likely

to carry the book to their master.

Footnote 1151:

See also in Demosthenes the account of a wife and husband examining

a will.—Adv. Spud. § 8.

Another proof that writing formed one of the accomplishments of women

occurs in Xenophon. Ischomachos is laying open the road to domestic

happiness and wealth. He enters, as elsewhere will be shown, into a

variety of interesting details, and among other things, discusses the

character and duties of a housekeeper; for in Greece the principal

care of the household was always committed to women. Thus, going back

to the Heroic ages, we find Euryclea the housekeeper of

Odysseus,[1152] and Hector’s palace in Troy is also placed under the

care of a woman.[1153] In the Cretan states, moreover, even the public

tables had female inspectors,[1154] and at Athens, where domestic

economy was so much better understood than in the rest of Greece,

women necessarily obtained the government of the household,[1155]

which men would have certainly managed more imperfectly. But in

well-regulated families, the supreme control of everything rested with

the wife, whom Xenophon[1156] represents engaging with her husband in

taking a list of all the moveables in the house, and this afterwards

remains in her hands as a check upon the housekeeper, which, had she

not known how to read, it would not have been. Besides, she is spoken

of as aiding in writing the catalogue, and displays throughout the

dialogue so much ability and knowledge that it would not surprise us

to find her discoursing with Socrates on household affairs. There is,

moreover, a remark of Plato[1157] subversive at the same time of

another error on this same subject, which exhibits women exercising

their judgment in literary matters. Children, he says, may find comedy

more agreeable, but educated women, youths, and the majority indeed of

mankind, will prefer tragedy. Here we find the opinion corroborated

that both the comic and tragic theatres were open to them, otherwise

it could not have been known which they would prefer. But of this more

elsewhere.

Footnote 1152:

Odyss. α. 428. β. 345, 361.

Footnote 1153:

Iliad. ζ. 381. 390.

Footnote 1154:

Athen. iv. 22.

Footnote 1155:

In the household of Pericles, however, we find mention made of a

steward, and learn that the regulation of affairs was taken out of

the hands of the women.—Plut. Pericl. § 16.

Footnote 1156:

Œconom. ix. 10. p. 57, Schneid. Similar business habits prevailed

among our neighbours, the Dutch, while they enjoyed the advantages

of republican institutions. Among the causes of their prosperity Sir

Josiah Child enumerates, “the education of their children, as well

daughters as sons, all which, be they of never so great quality or

estate, they always take care to bring up to write perfect good

hands, and to have the full knowledge and use of arithmetic and

merchants’ accounts, the well understanding and practice whereof,

doth strangely infuse into most that are the owners of that quality,

of either sex, not only an ability for commerce of all kinds, but a

strong aptitude, love and delight in it; and in regard the women are

as knowing therein as the men, it doth encourage their husbands to

hold on in their trades to their dying days. Knowing the capacity of

their wives to get in their estates and carry on their trades after

their deaths; whereas if a merchant in England arrive at any

considerable estate, he commonly withdraws his estate from trade,

before he comes near the confines of old age, reckoning that if God

should call him out of the world while the main of his estate is

engaged abroad in trade, he must lose one third of it, through the

inexperience and inaptness of his wife to such affairs, and so it

usually falls out.”—Discourse of Trade, p. 4.

Footnote 1157:

De Legg. l. ii. t. vii. p. 243. Bekk.—Ἐὰν δέ γ᾿ οἱ μείζους παῖδες,

τὸν τὰς κωμῳδίας· τραγωδίαν δὲ αἵ τε πεπαιδευμέναι τῶν γυναικῶν καὶ

τὰ νέα μειράκια καὶ σχεδὸν ἴσως τὸ πλῆθος πάντων.

In all countries, a great part of a woman’s education takes place

after marriage. But at Athens, where they entered so early[1158] into

the connubial state, marriage itself must be reckoned among the

principal causes of their mental developement. They came into the

hands of their husbands unformed, but pliable and docile. The little

they had been taught seemed rather designed to fit them to receive his

instructions than to dispense with them.[1159] Their seclusion from

the world preserved their character unfixed and impressionable. They

passed from the nursery, as it were, to the bridal chamber, timid,

unworldly, unsophisticated, and the husband, if he desired it, might

fashion their mind and opinions as he pleased. In the women of Athens

we, accordingly, observe the most remarkable contrast to the Spartans.

Their influence, in effect greater, perhaps, acted invisibly, warming

and impelling the ruder masculine clay, but without humbling their

lords or exposing them to the ridicule of living under petticoat

government. Yet in Themistocles we have an example of the sway they

exercised. Fondling one day his infant son he observed, sportively,

but with that ambitious consciousness of power ever present to the

mind of a Greek—"This little fellow is the most influential person I

know." His friends inquired his meaning—"Why, replied Themistocles, he

completely governs his mother, while she governs me, and I the whole

of Greece."[1160]

Footnote 1158:

The Roman ladies entered still earlier into the married state; at

the age of twelve, says Plutarch, or under. Parall. Num. et Lycurg.

§ 4.

Footnote 1159:

Xenoph. Œconom. vii. 5. 6. sqq.

Footnote 1160:

Plut. Themist. § 18.

The steps by which an Athenian girl might arrive at so envied a

position are not unworthy our attention. From the age of fifteen she

might look to become the mistress of a family; and it is probable that

the maxim of Cleobulos,[1161] that women should approach their

nuptials young in years but old in understanding, often governed their

conduct. Love no doubt was not the only matchmaker at Athens.[1162] In

general the heart, as in modern times, followed in the train of

prudential calculation. But this arose, not so much from any

impracticability[1163] of obtaining interviews, as from the habitual

preference for gold, which, in all ages, has been found to actuate the

conduct of the majority. To this day, in every country in Europe,

marriage in the upper classes is too frequently a matter of mere

bargain and sale, in which the feelings remain altogether unconsulted.

And it was the same at Athens, though to suppose with Müller that

interest was always the sole motive would be palpably to embrace an

error, alike uncountenanced by history and philosophy.

Footnote 1161:

Diog. Laert. i. 6. 4.

Footnote 1162:

In Greece, as everywhere else, portionless girls had few admirers.

Diog. Laert. v. 4. 1.

Footnote 1163:

Examples occur in the comic poets, of men choosing for themselves.

Thus in Terence a young man declines the lady offered him by his

father, and proposes to marry the mistress of his choice, to which

both parents agree. Heautontimor. v. 5. sub. fin.

When it is said that virgins in all Ionic states led an extremely

secluded life, we are not thence to conclude that no opportunity of

beholding, or even conversing with them, was enjoyed by men.[1164] It

has already been seen that from the age of five years various

ceremonies of their ancestral religion[1165] led females into the

street, that they walked leisurely, arrayed with every resource of art

and magnificence, in frequent processions to the temples, and it is

known that numerous private occasions, such as funerals, marriages,

&c., exposed them to the indiscriminate gaze of the public. Thus, we

have in Terence a youth who from beholding a young lady with face

uncovered and dishevelled hair lamenting at her mother’s funeral,

falls desperately in love;[1166] and the wife in Lysias, whose frailty

led to the murder of Eratosthenes,[1167] was first seen and admired

under similar circumstances. Excuses, in fact, were never wanting to

be in public, and occasions unknown to us were clearly afforded men

for becoming acquainted with the temper and character of their future

spouses, since we find Socrates conversing with men well acquainted

with their country’s manners, jocularly feigning to have chosen

Xantippe for her fierce, untameable spirit.[1168]

Footnote 1164:

Athen. xiii. 29.

Footnote 1165:

The religious rites in which the women of Athens officiated were

numerous and important: 1. The orgiastic ceremonies in honour of Pan

were performed with shouts and clamour, it not being permitted to

approach that divinity in silence.—Sch. Aristoph. Lysistr. 2. They

celebrated sacred rites in honour of Aphrodite Colias, id. ibid. 3.

Another divinity, in whose honour they congregated together, was

Ginesyllis a goddess in the train of Aphrodite, who obtained the

name ἀπὸ τῆς γενέσεως τῶν παίδων. id. ibid. Cf. Luc. Amor. § 42. 4.

The part they took in the orgies of Dionysos is well known. 5. They,

too, were the principal actors in the festival of Adonis. Plut.

Alcib. § 18. and to mention no more they may strictly be said to

have constituted the principal attraction of the Panathenaic

procession.

Footnote 1166:

Phorm. 2. 2. 40. sqq.

Footnote 1167:

Lys. De Cæd. Eratosth. § 2.

Footnote 1168:

Diog. Laert. ii. 5. 18.

It has been supposed by many distinguished scholars, that, at

Athens,[1169] the theatre—that great bazaar of female beauty in modern

states—was closed against the women, at least the comic theatre. One

principal ground of this opinion is the coarse and licentious

character of the old comedy which, with its broad humour, political

satire, and reckless disregard of decency, appears fitted for men

only, and those not the most refined. But there are strange

contradictions in human nature. The very religion of Greece teemed

with indecency. Phallic statues crowded the temples and the public

streets. Phallic emblems entered into many of the sacred ceremonies at

which women, even in their maiden condition, assisted, and the poems

chaunted at sacrifices, where they associated in every rite, were, in

many parts, broader than an Utopian legislator would consider

permissible. Besides, to prove the nullity of this objection, we need

only note the history of our own stage. English women refused not,

when they were in fashion, to behold, under the protection of a

mask,[1170] the comedies of Massinger, Wycherly, Beaumont and

Fletcher. They still read, and, on the stage, admire, Shakespeare, and

from these the interval is not wide to Aristophanes, the lewdest and

most shameless of ancient comic writers.[1171] And, further, it should

never be forgotten, that their perverted religion flung its protecting

wing over the stage. Plays exhibited during the festivals of Bacchos

were, like our old mysteries and moralities, strictly sacred shows,

and, consistently, women could no more have been excluded from them

than from the other exhibitions connected with public worship.

Footnote 1169:

To prove the presence of the women at the theatre among the other

Greeks, ample testimonies might be collected. Thus, when in Æolis, a

certain Alexander exhibited dramatic performances, the people

flocked thither from all the neighbouring towns and villages, upon

which he surrounded the theatre with soldiers, made prisoners both

men, women, and children, and only released them on payment of a

large ransom.—Polyæn. Stratagem. vi. 10.

Footnote 1170:

To this Pope alludes:

“And not a mask went unimproved away.”

Plut. Lycurg. § 14. 15. Müller, with the amusing partiality of an