THE SPARTAN WOMEN.
When we pass from Homer, we enter a new region. We do not know how far
Homer’s characters are historical. We cannot doubt that the manners
and ways of the men and women whom he describes were like those of
the real men and women amongst whom he lived. He may have idealized a
little, but even his idealizations are indicative of the current of his
age. But we know little of the modes in which the various States of
Greece were constituted, and of the relations which subsisted between
them. We have to pass over a long period which is a practical blank,
and then we come to historical Greece. In historical Greece we have no
unity of the Greek nation. We have men of Greek blood, but these men
did not dream of forming themselves into one nation, ruled by the same
laws, and mutually helpful of each other. The Greek mind regarded the
city as the greatest political organization possible, or at any rate
compatible with the adequate discharge of the functions of a State.
And accordingly if we could give a full account of woman in Greece, we
should have to detail the arrangements made in each particular State.
There are no materials for such an account if we wished to give it;
but even if there had been, it is probable that we should not have
learned much more than we learn from the histories of the two most
prominent of those States, Sparta and Athens. It is to the position and
influence of women in these States that we must turn our attention.
To form anything like a just conception of the Spartan State, we must
keep clearly in view the notion which the ancients generally and the
Spartans in particular had of a State. The ancients were strongly
impressed with the decay and mortality of the individual man; but
they felt equally strongly the perpetuity of the race through the
succession of one generation after another. Accordingly, when a State
was formed, the most prominent idea that pervaded all legislation was
the permanence of the State, and the continuance of the worship of
the gods. They paid little regard to individual wishes. They thought
little of individual freedom. The individual was for the State, not
the State for the individual, and accordingly all private and personal
considerations must be sacrificed without hesitation to the strength
and permanence of the State. A peculiar turn was given to this idea in
Sparta.
From the circumstances in which the Spartans were placed, they had
to make up their minds to be a race of soldiers. They had numerous
slaves in their possession to do everything requisite for procuring
the necessaries of life. They therefore had no call to labour. But
if they were to retain their slaves and keep their property against
all comers, they must be men of strong bodily configuration, hardy,
daring, resolute. And as women were a necessary part of the State, they
must contribute to this result. The regulations made for this purpose
are assigned by the ancients to Lycurgus; but whether he was a real
person, or how far our information in regard to him is to be trusted,
is a matter of no consequence to us at present; for there can be no
doubt that his laws were in force during the best period of Sparta’s
existence. And the laws bear on their front the purpose for which they
were made. All the legislation that relates to women has one sole
object--to procure a first-rate breed of men. The one function which
woman had to discharge was that of motherhood. But this function was
conceived in the widest range in which the Spartans conceived humanity.
In fact no woman can discharge effectively any one of the great
functions assigned her by nature without the entire cultivation of all
parts of her nature. And so we see in this case. The Spartans wanted
strong men: the mothers therefore must be strong. The Spartans wanted
brave men: the mothers therefore must be brave. The Spartans wanted
resolute men--men with decision of character: the mothers must be
resolute. They believed, with intense faith, that as are the mothers,
so will be the children. And they acted on this faith. They first
devoted all the attention and care they could to the physical training
of their women.
From their earliest days the women engaged in gymnastic exercises; and
when they reached the age of girlhood, they entered into contests with
each other in wrestling, racing, and throwing the quoit and javelin.
Some writers[24] assert that they engaged in similar contests even
with the young men, and, like them, divesting themselves of the slight
garments which they were in the habit of wearing in their warm climate,
they showed before assembled multitudes what feats of strength and
agility they could perform. In this way the whole body of citizens
would come to know a girl’s powers; there could be no concealment
of disease; no sickly girl could pass herself off as healthy. But
it was not only for the physical strength, but for the mental tone,
that the girls had to go through this physical exercise. The girls
mingled freely with the young men. They came to know each other well.
Long before the time of marriage they had formed attachments and knew
each other’s characters. And in the games of the young men nothing
inspirited them so much as the praise of the girls, and nothing was
so terrible as the shouts of derision which greeted their failures.
The same influence made itself felt when they fought in battle. The
thought that, when they came home, they would be rapturously welcomed
by mother and sister, nerved many an arm in the hour of danger. All the
training anterior to marriage was deliberately contrived to fit the
Spartan women to be mothers. And it is needless to say that all the
arrangements in connexion with marriage were made solely for the good
of the State. All the Spartan girls had to marry. No one ever thought
of not marrying. There was one exception to this. No sickly woman was
allowed to marry. The offspring must be healthy. And, indeed, if she
had had to consult her own feelings in Sparta, the sickly girl would,
of her own accord, have refrained from marriage. For the State claimed
a right over all the children. They were all brought very soon after
birth before a committee appointed by Government, which examined into
the form and probable healthiness of the child, and if the committee
came to the conclusion that the child was not likely to be strong its
death was determined on.
But there must have been very few sickly women among the Spartans. If
a girl survived this first inspection, she had, as we have seen, her
trials to go through, and only the strong could outlive the gymnastic
exercises and the exposure of their persons in all weathers during
religious processions, sacred dances, and physical contests. The
age of marriage was also fixed, special care being taken that the
Spartan girls should not marry too soon. In all these regulations the
women were not treated more strictly than the men. The men also were
practically compelled to marry. The man who ventured on remaining
a bachelor was punished in various ways. If a man did not marry
on reaching a certain age, he was forbidden to be present at the
exercises of the young girls. The whole set of them were taken one
wintry day in each year, and, stripped of their clothing, went round
the agora singing a song that told how disgraceful their conduct was
in disobeying the laws of their country--a spectacle to gods and
men. The women also, at a certain festival, dragged these misguided
individuals round an altar, inflicting blows on them all the time.[25]
Men were punished even for marrying too late, or for marrying women
disproportionately young or old.
Such was the Spartan system. What were the results of it? For about
four or five hundred years there was a succession of the strongest men
that possibly ever existed on the face of the earth. The legislator was
successful in his main aim. And I think that I may add that these men
were among the bravest. They certainly held the supremacy in Greece
for a considerable time through sheer force of energy, bravery, and
obedience to law. And the women helped to this high position as much as
the men. They were themselves remarkable for vigour of body and beauty
of form. A curious illustration of this fact occurs in one of the plays
of Aristophanes. An Athenian lady resolves to put an end to the war
between the Athenians and Lacedæmonians by combined action on the part
of the wives from all parts of Greece. She has summoned a meeting of
them, and as Lampito, the Lacedæmonian wife, comes in, she thus accosts
her: “O dearest Spartan, O Lampito, welcome! How beautiful you look,
sweetest one; how fresh your complexion, how vigorous your body. You
could throttle an ox.” “Yes,” says she, “I think I could, by Castor
and Pollux, for I practise gymnastics and leap high.”[26] They were
not, however, merely strong in body, but took a deep interest in all
matters that concerned the State. They sank everything, even maternal
feeling, in their care for the community. Many stories and sayings to
this effect have been preserved. A Spartan mother sent her five sons
to war, and, knowing that a battle had taken place, she waited for the
news on the outskirts of the city. Some one came up to her and told
her that all her sons had perished. “You vile slave,” said she, “that
is not what I wanted to know; I want to know how fares my country.”
“Victorious,” said he. “Willingly, then,” said she, “do I hear of the
death of my sons.”
Another, when burying her son, was commiserated by an old woman, who
cried out, “Oh, your fate!” “Yes, by the gods,” said she, “a glorious
fate, for did not I bear him that he might die for Sparta?”
And their courage was not merely of a daring and physical character. It
was a moral courage. A Spartan had been wounded in battle and compelled
to crawl on all fours; he seemed to feel ashamed of the awkwardness of
his position. “How much better it is,” said his mother, “to rejoice on
account of bravery, than be ashamed on account of ignorant laughter!”
It might be supposed that the peculiar training to which the women were
subjected might make them licentious and forward, but the testimony is
strong that no such results followed from free intercourse with the
young men. Adultery was almost entirely unknown.
Plutarch[27] tells the story that a stranger asked Geradas, one of the
very old Spartans, what punishment their law appointed for adulterers.
He answered, “O stranger, there is no adulterer in our country.” The
stranger said, “What if there should be one?” “He pays a fine,” says
Geradas, “of a bull so large that stooping over Taygetus it will drink
out of the Eurotas.” When the stranger expressed his surprise, and
said, “But how could there ever be so large a bull?” Geradas replied,
with a smile, “And how could there ever be an adulterer in Sparta?”
This language is perhaps too strong, and there were certain practices
allowable which would not be allowed in our communities. The one object
of marriage was to produce strong children, and any deviation from the
ordinary arrangement by which one woman was married to one man was not
only deemed legitimate, but praiseworthy if it secured strong children.
In this way a weak man might lend his wife to a stronger, and some
women had two husbands. There is only one case on record of a Spartan
having two wives, and the case was singular. A greater latitude must
have been allowed to women. But all these cases must have been quite
exceptional. The wives were true to their husbands, the husbands fond
and proud of their wives. A poor maiden was asked what dowry she could
give to her lover. “Ancestral purity,” she said. A person was sent to
try to persuade a Lacedæmonian woman to aid in some evil practice.
“When I was a girl,” she said, “I was taught to obey my father, and
I obeyed him; and when I became a wife I obeyed my husband; if,
therefore, you have anything just to urge, make it known to him first.”
Such were these Spartan women for many generations. No word of reproach
can be brought against them. It is true that the free intercourse
of the young men with the young women and the slightness of the
female garments shocked the ordinary Athenian, and expressions to
this effect occur in some writers, especially Euripides.[28] But the
general purity of the Spartan women is guaranteed by all the principal
writers who have discussed the constitution of Sparta as it was during
its supremacy--by Plato,[29] Xenophon, and Plutarch. No doubt the
system laboured under a radical defect. It was exclusive. It drove
away all strangers; it discouraged the higher culture at least in the
case of the men; and it suspected all the higher arts as tending to
luxury. And when the crisis came and the old manners gave way, vice
and weakness rushed in, and men and women became equally bad. It is
in the latter period that the words of blame are heard. Plato justly
criticizes one marked defect in the Spartan treatment of women. The
lawgiver had looked on woman only as a mother. He had lost sight
of every other function. But women cannot spend their whole lives
as mothers. When their infants grew into boyhood they were handed
over to the instruction of Spartan men. And then what function had
the women to discharge? Lycurgus, or the Spartan law-givers, took
no thought of this. The men were under strict regulation to the end
of their days. They dined together on the fare prescribed by the
State. They were continually out on military service. They had other
employments assigned to them. But no regulations were made for the
women. They might live as they liked; there was nothing to restrain
their luxury, and they were not taught the military art like the men.
This neglect of the half of the city, Aristotle affirms, was followed
by dire consequences. In his day the Spartan women were incorrigible
and luxurious. He also affirms that the Spartan system threw a great
deal of land into the hands of the women, so that they possessed
two-fifths of it; and finally he accuses the Spartan women of ruling
their husbands. Warlike men, he thinks, are apt to be passionately fond
of the society of women. “And what difference,” he says,[30] “does it
make whether the women rule or the rulers are ruled by the women? for
the result is the same.” There seems to have been some truth in this
last accusation. Many of the wives were better educated than their
husbands, and the fact was noticed by others. “You of Lacedæmon,” said
a strange lady to Gorgo, wife of Leonidas, “are the only women in the
world that rule the men.” “We,” she replied, “are the only women that
bring forth men.” There is a great deal of point in what Gorgo said. If
women bring forth and rear _men_, they are certain to receive from
them respect and tenderness, for there is no surer test of a man’s real
manhood than his love for all that is noblest, highest, and truest in
woman, and his desire to aid her in attaining to the full perfection of
her nature.
The student of the history of woman is continually reminded of the
fact that when men lose their dignity and eminence, woman disappears
from the scene, but when they rise into worth, she again comes on the
stage in all her power and tenderness. We have an instance before us.
Sparta became degenerate. Her name almost vanishes from the pages of
the historian. But she was not to die without a final struggle. In
the middle of the third century before Christ two kings of Sparta in
succession dreamt of putting down the luxury, and restoring the old
Spartan discipline and the old Lycurgan laws. And in the midst of their
vigorous and heroic efforts to effect this great change, women again
play their part with energy and devotion. The earliest of the two kings
was the young and gentle Agis,[31] and almost the first person whom he
consulted on his projected reforms was his mother Agesistrata, a woman
of great wealth and influence. She was at first utterly taken aback,
for the project included the surrender of all her wealth. But at length
she admired her son’s noble ambition, and set her mind, with the aid of
some other like-minded women, on procuring the support of the women of
Sparta. The importance of such support could not be overestimated.
“They well knew,” says Plutarch, “that the Lacedæmonian men were
always obedient to their wives, and that they allowed them to meddle
in public matters more than they allowed themselves to meddle in
private affairs.” Besides, the women had a great deal of property.
Would they surrender their wealth? Would they give up their luxurious
habits? Would they return to the old Spartan simplicity? No, the
movement seemed to have come too late. Some were willing to sacrifice
everything, but others would yield nothing, and a strong party was
formed against Agis. At first this party was put down with a high
hand. Leonidas, the leader, was driven into exile. The daughter of
this man, Chelonis, is one of the great characters that emerged during
these troublous times. She had been married to Cleombrotus, who took
the side of Agis. Chelonis was in straits what to do, but she chose
to follow the path where gentleness and tenderness were required. She
left her husband and tended her father in distress, relieving his
wants, soothing his troubles, and supplicating the victorious party
in his behalf. At length the wheel of fortune turned round. Leonidas
became master of the situation. Agis and Cleombrotus were in his hands.
Chelonis at once fled from her father and took her place beside her
husband. In the wretched robes which she had worn when pleading for her
father, she pleaded for her husband. After much entreaty she prevailed,
and the life of her husband was spared, but he was condemned to exile.
Chelonis had again to make her choice. Her father urged her to stay
with him, reminding her of the kindness he showed her in sparing her
husband, and promising every comfort. But Chelonis did not hesitate. As
Cleombrotus rose to go, she gave him one of her children, and, taking
the other in her arms and kissing the altar of the goddess, she walked
out with him to degradation and poverty.
Justly does Plutarch add the remark that if Cleombrotus had not been
entirely corrupted by vainglory, he would have deemed exile with such a
woman a greater blessing than any kingdom. The fate of pure-minded Agis
was worse than that of Cleombrotus. No mercy was shown him, and he was
put to death by strangulation. His mother, Agesistrata, waited to hear
what was to become of him. The officer, who knew that Agis was dead,
delusively told her that no violence would be done him. She wished to
see him, and take her old mother with her. Permission was granted. The
two women entered the prison. The doors were shut. The grandmother
was requested to go into the chamber where Agis was. She went in, and
was strangled. Then Agesistrata entered, and saw her son lying on the
ground and her mother hanging by a rope. She calmly helped to take the
dead body down, and, stretching her alongside of Agis, laid both the
bodies out and covered them; and, falling upon her son and kissing
him, she said, “O my son, it is your gentleness and goodness that have
ruined you.” “If that is your opinion,” said the officer, “you had
better go the same way.” She bravely held out her neck, and said, “May
this turn out for the good of Sparta!” And thus was stamped out the
first effort for the reformation of Sparta.
The second is also remarkable for the nobility of the women who aided
it. Cleomenes,[32] a man of great vigour and capacity, the son of
Leonidas mentioned above, came to the throne. His father had compelled
him to marry Agiatis, the widow of Agis; but he soon began to love the
noble and gentle lady. They talked much together about Agis and his
projects, and Cleomenes at length resolved to carry out the projected
reforms. Again the young prince was helped most effectively by his
mother, Cratesicleia, who supplied him with resources, and even married
again for his sake, for she thereby secured the support of one of the
most influential men in Sparta. But again destiny was too powerful for
the reformer. He did, indeed, succeed in introducing his reforms into
Sparta, and in again giving her the foremost place in Peloponnesus. But
he awoke the jealousy of Aratus, the head of the Achæan League; the
Macedonian stranger was called in, and after a fatal battle Cleomenes
had to flee. During the course of his struggles his noble wife Agiatis
died, and was bitterly lamented. His mother, Cratesicleia, was always
ready to help him, and stood by him to the last. At one time he
required the alliance of Ptolemy, king of Egypt, but Ptolemy would
not agree to it unless the Spartan king sent his mother and child as
hostages. Cleomenes did not venture to mention this proposal to his
mother, but the mother’s keen eye observed that he was keeping some
secret from her. At last she prevailed on him to disclose it, and on
hearing it she laughed loudly and said, “Will you not send immediately
this body where it is likely to be most useful to Sparta, before it
is dissolved by old age?” After she had gone to Egypt she heard that
Cleomenes was afraid to take certain measures because Ptolemy held his
mother and child as hostages, and she at once wrote to him, “Do what is
proper, and never mind what becomes of an old woman and a little child.”
The fate of Cleomenes was as tragic as that of Agis. He had sought
shelter in Egypt, but found a prison there instead of a home. He and
his companions determined to overpower the sentinels, break through
the place of confinement, and rouse the inhabitants to assert their
liberty. They easily broke through their place of confinement, but they
could not rouse the inhabitants, and so they resolved to die. Each one
killed himself except Panteus, the youngest and most beautiful among
them. He had been ordered by the king to wait till all had killed
themselves. And so he did. He went round all the bodies to see that
they were dead, and then, kissing Cleomenes and throwing his arms
around him, he also killed himself. The Egyptian king ordered the
execution of all the women connected with the Spartans. The mother
was brought forth and stabbed. Other women also were put to death.
But most touching of all was the end of the wife of Panteus. She was
still very young and exquisitely beautiful, and she was still in the
raptures of first love. When her husband left Sparta for Egypt, her
father had refused to let her go with him, and confined her. But she
found means of escape. She mounted a horse and rode to Tænarus, and
then embarked on a vessel sailing for Egypt. Now she moved about the
women, encouraging and consoling. She led Cratesicleia by the hand to
the place of execution. She decently laid out the bodies of the women
who were slain. And then, adjusting her own robe so that she might
fall becomingly, she offered herself to the executioner without fear.
Thus ended the second effort at Spartan reformation, and henceforth
autonomous Sparta and her women disappear from history. We may well
conclude the story with the closing words of Plutarch, who, thinking of
the dramatic contests that were held in Greece, says, “Thus Lacedæmon,
exhibiting a dramatic contest in which the women vied with the men,
showed in her last days that virtue cannot be insulted by Fortune.”