SOCIAL STATUS OF THE NURSE
_From Homer to Herodotus_
The Homeric poems deal wholly with the life of the upper classes. Hence
we do not get from them a complete picture of how all classes lived.
Even for the aristocrat therein described, the habits of life were
simple. Mothers nursed their own children: thus Hecuba speaks to her
son, Hector:
Ἕκτορ, τέκνον ἐμόν, τάδε τ’ αἴδεο καὶ μ’ ἐλέησον
αὐτήν, εἴ ποτέ τοι λαθικηδέα μαζὸν ἐπέσχον.[16]
Still, there is one instance which points to a different practice.
Odysseus in addressing his old nurse Eurycleia says:
μαῖα, τίη μ’ ἐθέλεις ὀλέσαι; σὺ δέ μ’ ἔτρεφες αὐτὴ
τῷ σῷ ἐπὶ μαζῷ.[17]
The expression ἐπὶ μαζῷ here employed is used in another place of the
relation between mother and child:
πάις δέ οἱ ἦν ἐπὶ μαζῷ
νήπιος, ὅς που νῦν γε μετ’ ἀνδρῶν ἵζει ἀριθμῷ[18]
However this may be, nurses were employed as the attendants of the
children whom they amused and brought up as long as they remained in the
house of the parents.
Whatever function she performed, the Homeric nurse was a slave, either a
captive:
τήν ποτ’ Ἀπείρηθεν νέες ἤγαγον ἀμφιέλισσαι.[19]
or purchased as an ordinary slave:
τήν ποτε Λαέρτης πρίατο κτεάτεσσιν ἑοῖσι,
πρωθήβην ἔτ’ ἐοῦσαν, ἐεικοσάβοια δ’ ἔδωκεν.[20]
The Phrygian nurse of Hector’s son may be taken as a model of the Greek
nurse of an infant. Nothing is said as to her social standing, but we
infer from her occupation[21] that she was a slave.
The Phoenician woman, nurse to Eumaeus, gives us an instance of the
nurse of an older child. She had been captured and sold as a slave to a
master, whose hard bonds she feared:
ἀλλά μ’ ἀνήρπαξαν Τάφιοι ληίστορες ἄνδρες
ἀγρόθεν ἐρχομένην, πέρασαν δέ τε δεῦρ’ ἀγαγόντες
τοῦδ’ ἀνδρὸς πρὸς δώμαθ’· ὁ δ’ ἄξιον ὦνον ἔδωκε.
· · · · ·
μή τις ποτὶ δῶμα γέροντι
ἐλθὼν ἐξείπῃ, ὁ δ’ ὀϊσάμενος καταδήσῃ
δεσμῷ ἐν ἀργαλέῳ, ὑμῖν δ’ ἐπιφράσσετ’ ὄλεθρον.[22]
In striking contrast to this unfaithful slave is Eurycleia, the nurse of
the grown son, whose rank is higher than that of the ordinary slave, for
she had general supervision over the fifty female slaves of the
household and assisted the mistress in teaching them:
πεντήκοντά τοί εἰσιν ἐνὶ μεγάροισι γυναῖκες
δμωαί, τὰς μέν τ’ ἔργα διδάξαμεν ἐργάζεσθαι,
εἴριά τε ξαίνειν κὰι δουλοσύνην ἀνέχεσθαι.[23]
It is she, too, who fills the important office of ταμίη.[24] Indeed, she
is treated as a member of the family, is the friend and confidante of
the mistress who shows her great deference.[25]
The nurse of the grown daughter is seen in Eurymedusa who had been a
captive, the prize of King Alcinous.[26]
Penelope’s nurse, Eurynome, has much the same office as Eurycleia.[27]
Like her, she is a trusted slave devoted to her mistress.
In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, the duties which the goddess takes upon
herself when she assumes the form of a nurse are identical with those
performed by Eurycleia in the Odyssey:
καί κεν παῖδα νεογνὸν ἐν ἀγκοίνῃσιν ἔχουσα
καλὰ τιθηνοίμην, καὶ δώματα τηρήσαιμι,
καί κε λέχος στορέσαιμι μυχῷ θαλάμων εὐπήκτων
δεσπόσυνον, καί κ’ ἔργα διδασκήσαιμι γυναῖκας.[28]
Still, she is not the slave of the people for whom she works, and is
promised such compensation (θρεπτήρια) for her services as would make
her an object of envy to the women of the household.[29]
Aphrodite learned Anchises’ language from her Trojan nurse:
γλῶσσαν δ’ ὑμετέρην καὶ ἡμετέρην σάφα οἶδα·
Τρῳὰς γὰρ μεγάρῳ με τροφὸς τρέφεν, ἡ δὲ διαπρό
σμικρὴν παῖδ’ ἀτίταλλε φίλης παρὰ μητρὸς ἑλοῦσα.[30]
The nurse is probably a slave, for wherever slave-trading was known it
must have been usual to employ a foreign nurse.
The historians naturally have but little occasion to speak of domestic
life. Herodotus, however, introduces into his narrative not only
political history, but also matters of purely social interest. Hence we
are not surprised to find a nurse in his sixth book.[31] This nurse is
presumably a slave, for she receives the commands of the parents to show
the child to no one.
_In Tragedy._
The nurses of Tragedy are old women who have spent years in the service
of their masters (παλαιὸν οἴκων κτῆμα).[32] Even after the child they
had nursed had grown up, they were still retained in the household.[33]
There can be no doubt that like the nurses of Homer they were
slaves.[34] Medea’s nurse is addressed as κτῆμα δεσποίνης[35] and when
speaking to the παιδαγωγός, she calls herself σύνδουλος.[36] Then, too,
the fall of the mistress involved that of the nurse, a calamity hinted
at in Hippolytus:
οὐ δῆθ’ ἑκοῦσά γ’, ἐν δὲ σοὶ λελείψομαι;[37]
and in Medea:
χρηστοῖσι δούλοις ξυμφορὰ τὰ δεσποτῶν
κακῶς πίτνοντα, καὶ φρενῶν ἀνθάπτεται.[38]
Hecuba, bewailing her fate, foresees that she who had once been Queen of
Troy will be forced to become the nurse of children.[39]
_In Athens_
But it was not only captives and slaves who nursed children. In the
fourth century we find at Athens free women performing the office of
nurse. Euxitelos in pleading against Eubolides answers the reproach they
attach to his mother of having been a nurse. He says that his father had
gone to the war, leaving his mother with two small children to support.
Hence she was obliged to take Cleinias to nurse: αὐτὴ δ’ οὖ σ’ ἐν
ἀπορίαις, ἠναγκάσθη τὸν Κλεινίαν τὸν τοῦ Κλειδίκου τιτθεῦσαι.[40] He
admits that it is a mean employment, but affirms that he can give the
names of free-born women, who, like his mother, were compelled by stress
of poverty to become nurses: καὶ γὰρ νῦν ἀστὰς γυναῖκας πολλὰς εὑρήσετε
τιτθευούσας.[41]
In another Oration of Demosthenes, In Evergum, there is an instance of
an old and poor nurse living with the man she had nursed as a child. The
father of this person, in recompense for her care, had given her her
freedom: καὶ μετ’ αὐτῆς τίτθή τις ἐμοὶ γενομένη πρεσβυτέρα, ἄνθρωπος
εὔνους καὶ πιστή, καὶ ἀφειμένη ἐλευθέρα ὑπὸ τοῦ πατρὸς τοῦ ἐμοῦ.[42] She
married and on the death of her husband returned to her nursling, who
received her all the more willingly inasmuch as he was about to leave
home and was pleased to have such a sure companion for his wife. When
Euvergus and his accomplices break into the house, they find the old
woman seated at table with the mistress and children. The nurse, trying
to conceal a vase in her dress, is seen by the robbers who fall upon her
and beat her until she gives it up. Some days afterwards she dies from
injuries received, but not before having been cared for by a doctor
summoned especially for her.
No instance is given by Plato or Aristotle of the manumission of a
nurse. The former, on the contrary, speaks of the δούλεια ἤθη
τροφῶν.[43]
The nurse of New Comedy is usually a slave; still she sometimes receives
her freedom, as in the case of Moschio’s nurse in the Samia of Menander:
τοῦ δὲ Μοσχίωνος ἦν
τίτθη τις αὕτη πρεσβυτέρα, γεγονυῖ’ ἐμὴ
θεράπαιν’, ἐλευθέρα δὲ νῦν.[44]
“Though emancipated, she yet remained in the service of her former
master,” her status being similar to that of the metic.[45] We also have
inscriptional evidence that women belonging to the metic class were
employed as nurses who being free-born must have received wages:
Ἀπολλοδώρου ἰσοτέλου θυγάτηρ Μέλιττα τίτθη.[46]
_Foreign Nurses_
Though the Athenians had a natural repugnance to the severity of the
Spartan discipline, still the aversion was not so intense but that some
of the Lacedemonian customs found ready acceptance in Athens.
Aristophanes, Birds, 1281,[47] makes it clear that the Athenians were
“Spartan-mad.” For this reason, no doubt, Spartan women whose robust
health was famed throughout Greece,[48] were sought to inaugurate that
regimen peculiar to the Spartan nurse. Hence Plutarch: Διὸ καὶ τῶν
ἔξωθεν ἔνιοι τοῖς τέκνοις Λακωνικὰς ἐωνοῦντο τιτθάς,[49] and he also
records that Amycla, the nurse of Alcibiades was a Spartan: Ἀλκιβιάδου
δὲ καὶ τίτθην, γένος Λάκαιναν, Ἀμύκλαν ὄνομα.[50] The virtue of these
Spartan women and the esteem in which they were generally held are
attested to by a monument erected by Diogeitus to the nurse of his
children. On it we find the following inscription:
Ἐνθάδε γῆ κατέχει τίτθην παιδίων Διογείτου ἐκ
Πελοποννήσου τὴν δὲ δικαιοτάτην.
Μαλίχα Κυθηρία.[51]
But it was not only from Sparta that the Athenians obtained nurses for
their children. We have an inscription from the monument of the
Corinthian nurse Φάνιον.[52] And there is an epigram of Callimachus on a
Phrygian nurse whose master cared for her during her life-time, and when
she was dead set up her statue, that posterity might see how the old
woman received in full the thanks for her nurture.[53] Thrace, too,
furnished its share of types of nurses:
καί μ’ ἁ Θευχαρίδα Θρᾷσσα τροφὸς ἁ μακαρῖτις
ἀγχίθυρος ναίοισα, κατεύξατο καὶ λιτάνεσε
τὰν πομπὰν θάσασθαι.[54]
Such was the honor in which they were held that one Cleita was
considered worthy of a monument, as we learn from an epigram of
Theocritus:
ὁ μίκκος τόδ’ ἔτευξε τᾷ Θραΐσσᾳ,
Μήδειος τὸ μνᾶμ’ ἐπὶ τᾷ ὁδῷ κἠπέγραψε Κλείτας.[55]
The fact that the Greeks employed foreign nurses may also be inferred
from the essay, De Liberis Educandis, attributed to Plutarch, in which
the author loudly inveighs against the practice of entrusting children
to any nurse whatsoever. He insists on her being selected with the
utmost care, laying down as a fundamental qualification that she be of
the Greek race: ἀλλὰ τάς γε τίτθας καὶ τὰς τροφούς, οὐ τὰς τυχούσας,
ἀλλ’ ὡς ἔνι μάλιστα σπουδαίας, δοκιμαστέον ἐστί. πρῶτον μὲν τοῖς ἤθεσιν
Ἑλληνίδας.[56] According to the same author these women received wages
for their work: αἱ τίτθαι δὲ καὶ αἱ τροφοὶ τὴν εὔνοιαν ὑποβολιμαίαν καὶ
παρέγγραπτον ἔχουσιν, ἅτε μισθοῦ φιλοῦσαι.[57]
Such was the social status of this Greek nurse, a picture necessarily
composite since the details are drawn from so many sources; but from
what has been said, it may be concluded that the nurse, though usually a
slave, was sometimes manumitted, that a preference was frequently shown
at Athens for the foreign-bred nurse and that on occasion free women
resorted to nursing as a means of gaining a livelihood.