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Transcriber's note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
The illustrations of Queens Elizabeth, Mary, and Anne were accompanied
by a reproduction of the royal signature below the illustration and its
caption. This has been denoted in the text version by the annotation:
"(reproduction of signature of Queen ----)."
The following changes were made to repair apparently typographical
errors:
p.41 "incantations to recal her spirit" recal changed to recall
p.67 "seducing Althelwold into a" Althelwold changed to Athelwold
p.195 "her, and did not like it." closing quotation mark added
p.211 "discriminative in the extinct eulogies" extinct changed to
extant
p.227 "than two hundred Scotticisms." closing quotation mark added
p.227 "compositions of Metastasio." closing quotation mark added
p.233 "anyrate no common phenomenon" anyrate changed to any rate
p.236 "BORN 1750. DIED 1728." 1728 changed to 1828
p.240 "BORN 1758. DIED 1848." 1758 changed to 1750
p.240 "ninty-seventh anniversary of her" ninty changed to ninety
p.270 "in 1709, after a visit the poetess" 1709 changed to 1809
p.303 "what she eat during these last six weeks" eat changed
to ate
The biography of Jane Shore refers to Edward the Fifth. This should
probably be Edward the Fourth.
[Illustration: From a Miniature by Holbein in the Collection of Samuel
Rogers Esq.
(reproduction of signature of Queen Elizabeth)]
WOMEN OF HISTORY:
SELECTED FROM THE
_WRITINGS OF STANDARD AUTHORS._
BY THE
EDITOR OF "MEN OF HISTORY."
"_Biography is the most universally pleasant and universally
profitable of all reading._"
EDINBURGH:
W. P. NIMMO, HAY, & MITCHELL.
1890.
MORRISON AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
PREFACE.
Women of History is a further development of the idea which suggested
the companion volume, MEN OF HISTORY, viz.: "To exhibit views of the
world's great men and women, as set forth in the best words of the best
authors--to convey, as it were, at once impressions of History and
Literature, and lessons in Biography and Style."
In the present case, it has not been considered necessary to attempt a
classification of the subjects in the manner followed in the preceding
volume, from the fact that the feelings and motives which generally
influence the lives of celebrated women are of a nature different from
those of the opposite sex, and from the consequent want of a standard
sufficiently distinct to adhere to. A chronological arrangement,
however, has been adopted, which, it is hoped, will to a considerable
extent supply the want of classification.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
LUCRETIA, _Bayle_, 9
SAPPHO, _Mure_, 12
ASPASIA OF PERICLES, _Grote_, 16
XANTIPPE, _Brucker_, 20
ASPASIA OF CYRUS, _Bayle_, 22
CORNELIA, THE MOTHER OF THE GRACCHI, _Plutarch_, 25
PORTIA, _Plutarch_, 28
OCTAVIA, _Bayle_, 31
CLEOPATRA, _Merivale_, 34
MARIAMNE, _Merivale_, 39
JULIA DOMNA, _Gibbon_, 41
ZENOBIA, _Gibbon_, 43
VALERIA, _Gibbon_, 47
EUDOCIA, _Gibbon_, 50
HYPATIA, _Brucker_, 54
THE WIFE OF MAXIMUS, _Gibbon_, 57
THE LADY ROWENA, _Verstegan_, 60
OLGA, _Gibbon_, 62
THE LADY ELFRIDA, _Hume_, 65
THE COUNTESS OF TRIPOLI, _Sismondi_, 68
JANE, COUNTESS OF MOUNTFORT, _Hume_, 70
LAURA DE SADE, _Sismondi_, 74
THE COUNTESS OF RICHMOND, _Tytler_, 77
ELIZABETH WOODVILLE, _Hume_, 79
JOAN OF ARC, _De Quincey_, 81
JANE SHORE, _Hume_, 85
CATHARINE OF ARRAGON, _Tytler_, 88
ANNE BOLEYN, _Tytler_, 91
MARGARET ROPER, _Ballard_, 94
ELIZABETH LUCAS, _Ballard_, 97
GASPARA STAMPA, _Hallam_, 99
ANNE ASKEW, _Hume_, 102
QUEEN ELIZABETH, _Hume--Macaulay_, 105
LADY JANE GREY, _Hume_, 110
TARQUINIA MOLZA, _Hilarion de Coste_, 114
MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, _Robertson_, 117
GABRIELLE D'ESTREES, _Davenport Adams_, 120
ANNE, DUCHESS OF PEMBROKE, _Bishop Rainbow_, 125
ESTHER INGLIS, _Ballard_, 128
MARGARET, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE, _Ballard_, 131
LADY PAKINGTON, _Ballard_, 133
NOOR MAHAL, _James Mill_, 136
POCAHONTAS, _Dr Hugh Murray_, 139
LUCY HUTCHINSON, _Jeffrey_, 143
LADY FANSHAWE, _Jeffrey_, 146
DOROTHY OSBORNE, _Macaulay_, 148
CATHERINE PHILIPS, _Ballard_, 151
MADAME DE MAINTENON, _St Simon_, 154
COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT, _Count A. Hamilton_, 157
MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE, _Davenport Adams_, 161
MADAME DACIER, _Hallam_, 164
LADY MASHAM, _Ballard_, 166
ANNE KILLIGREW, _Ballard_, 169
QUEEN ANNE, _Miss Strickland_, 172
ESTHER JOHNSON, _Jeffrey_, 177
ESTHER VANHOMRIGH, _Sir Walter Scott_, 181
MARY ASTELL, _Ballard_, 185
MADAME DES URSINS, _St Simon_, 188
LADY GRIZEL JERVISWOODE, _Anderson_, 192
MADAME DE PONTCHARTRAIN, _St Simon_, 196
ELIZABETH HALKETT, _Conolly_, 198
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU, _Jeffrey_, 200
MADAME DU DEFFAND, _Jeffrey_, 204
PHOEBE BENTLEY, _Cumberland_, 207
MARQUISE DU CHATELET, _Professor Craik_, 208
LADY HUNTINGDON, _Isaac Taylor_, 211
MARIA THERESA, _Carlyle_, 214
META MOLLER, _Letters_, 217
ELIZABETH BLACKWELL, _James Bruce_, 221
LAETITIA BARBAULD, _Johnstone_, 224
HANNAH MORE, _Professor Craik_, 226
ANNA SEWARD, _Sir Walter Scott_, 229
CATHERINE COCKBURN, _Professor Craik_, 232
ELIZABETH BERKELEIGH, _Temple Bar_, 236
CAROLINE HERSCHEL, _Professor Craik_, 240
MADAME D'ARBLAY, _Macaulay_, 242
MADAME ROLAND, _Carlyle_, 245
MARIE ANTOINETTE, _Carlyle_, 248
SARAH SIDDONS, _Cunningham_, 252
MRS GRANT, _Professor Craik_, 256
ELIZABETH INCHBALD, _Cunningham_, 260
ELIZABETH HAMILTON, _Professor Craik_, 263
COUNTESS DE VEMIEIRO, _Sismondi_, 267
JOANNA BAILLIE, _Professor Spalding_ 269
JOSEPHINE, _Alison_, 271
ANNE RADCLIFFE, _Edinburgh Review_, 273
MISS EDGEWORTH, _Jeffrey_, 276
CHARLOTTE CORDAY, _Carlyle_, 279
MADAME DE STAEL, _Jeffrey_, 283
MADAME DE LA ROCHEJAQUELEIN, _Jeffrey_, 286
MADAME RECAMIER, _Davenport Adams_, 290
MARY BRUNTON, _Dr Brunton_, 293
FELICIA HEMANS, _Jeffrey_, 297
AUGUSTINA SARAGOZA, _Alison_, 299
CHARLOTTE BRONTE, _Mrs Gaskell_, 301
WOMEN OF HISTORY.
LUCRETIA.
[B.C. 500.]
BAYLE.
A Roman dame, illustrious for her beauty and the nobleness of her birth,
and more for her virtue. She was married to one Collatinus, a relative
of Tarquin, king of Rome. Her tragic story runs thus: Tarquin, not
having been able to render himself master of the town of Ardea so
promptly as he had calculated, besieged it in form, and the languidness
of the operation comported very well with the inclination of the princes
to amuse themselves in the way princes are in the habit of doing. At one
of the suppers given by Sextus to his two brothers, and to Collatinus
their kinsman, a question was raised, not as to the beauty of their
mistresses, as is the custom in our day, but as to that of their
respective wives. Each maintained that his wife was fairer than those of
his companions; and the dispute rising high, Collatinus suggested a
means of terminating it. "What is the use of so many words," said he,
"we can in a very short time have the proof of the superiority of my
Lucretia. Let us mount our horses; let us surprise our wives; and the
decision of our question will be the more easy that they are not
prepared for us." Inflamed by wine, the princes accepted the proposal,
and they rode to Rome at the top of their horses' speed. They there
found sitting at table the fair daughters of Tarquin, who were engaged
in pleasure with companions of their own age. They next went to
Collatium; and though it was now late at night, they found Lucretia in
the midst of her servants, engaged in needlework. They all agreed that
she carried off the palm, and thereupon returned to the camp; but
Sextus, without uttering a word of his purpose, found his way secretly
back to Collatium, and was received by Lucretia with that attention and
civility that was due to the eldest son of the king, and without the
slightest suspicion that he entertained any purpose other than what was
honest and good.
After he had supped, he was conducted to the chamber intended for
him--not to sleep, for he had other intentions. As soon as he thought
that all had repaired to their beds, he stept, sword in hand, into the
private chamber of the unsuspecting Lucretia, and after having
threatened to kill her if she made any noise, he told her his
passion--bringing to serve his purpose prayers the most tender, and
menaces the most terrible; in short, employing all the arts by which an
impassioned man might attack the heart of a woman. All was in vain:
Lucretia was firm, and persisted in her firmness, altogether undismayed
by the fear of death; but she trembled at the threat which he made to
expose her to the last infamy of woman. He declared that, after
despatching her, he would kill a slave, put his dead body on her bed,
and make it be believed that the double murder had been the punishment
of the adultery in which they had been surprised. Having accomplished
his purpose, he retired, as pleased with himself and as proud of his
triumph as if it had been a feat of honest war, and all conformable to
the rules of gallantry.
Plunged in the deepest grief, Lucretia sent a message to her father, who
was at Rome, and her husband, who was at the siege, praying that they
might come to her immediately. They obeyed the message; she straightway
informed them of all the circumstances of her dishonour, and entreated
them to revenge her wrong. They promised that they would comply with her
request, and set about endeavouring to console her by what means that
were within their power; but she resisted all their efforts of
consolation, and, drawing forth a dagger which she had concealed in her
clothes, she plunged it into her heart. Brutus, who was present at this
spectacle, found in it an occasion for which he had longed to deliver
Rome from the tyranny of Tarquin, and he made such excellent use of it,
that the royalty was abolished.
SAPPHO.
[B.C. 568.]
MURE.
According to established data, the more brilliant portion of Sappho's
career may be placed in the first half of the sixth century before
Christ, while her childhood and early youth belong to the close of the
seventh. Her birthplace, according to the more trustworthy authorities,
was Mitylene, the metropolis of the isle of Lesbos. Others make her a
native of the neighbouring town of Eresus. Whether Sappho was ever
married is doubtful; but the balance of evidence is strongly on the
negative side of the question. She is familiarly alluded to by Horace as
the "Lesbian maiden;" nor is there any notice of a husband, but on a
single recent and very questionable authority, where the broadly
indecent etymology of the names, both of the man on whom the honour is
conferred, and of his birthplace, sufficiently proves them to be
fictitious. How far the circumstance of her having had a daughter can be
considered as admissible evidence of her having been married, is a point
the settlement of which must depend on a closer inquiry into her moral
habits. That such was the fact, however, is stated on respectable
authority. The name assigned to the maiden is Cleis, the same as that of
Sappho's reputed mother.
Sappho is described, by the only authors who have transmitted any
distinct notices on the subject, as not distinguished for personal
beauty, but as short of stature, and of dark, it may be understood
swarthy, complexion. The laudatory commonplace of kale, or "fair," which
Plato and others incidentally connect with her name, no way militates
against this account, as implying nothing more, perhaps less, than does
the English phrase by which the Greek epithet has above been rendered,
and which is as frequently bestowed in familiar usage on plain as on
handsome women. Alcaeus describes her simply as "dark haired" and
"sweetly smiling." No notice is taken of her actual beauty, which an
admiring lover would hardly have passed over in silence had it offered
matter for warmer eulogy.
Of the extent to which Sappho was brought under the sway of the tender
passion which, in one shape or other, formed the theme, with little
exception, of her collective works, sufficient evidence exists in her
only remaining entire composition, the first ode in the published
collections. She there describes herself, in the most touching and
impassioned strains, as the victim of an unrequited love, and implores
the aid of Venus to ease her pangs by melting the heart of the obdurate
or inconstant object of her affection. The person to whom this ode is
supposed to refer, or who at least obtained, in the popular tradition,
the chief and longest sway over the affections of Sappho, was a Lesbian
youth called Phaon, distinguished for his personal attractions and
irresistible power over the female heart. For a time he is described as
having corresponded to her ardour; but, after cohabiting with her during
some years, he deserted her, leaving her in a state of despair, for
which the only remedy that suggested itself was that habitually resorted
to in such cases--a leap from the summit of the Leucadian promontory
into the sea. That she actually carried this purpose into effect was the
popular opinion of antiquity, from the age, at least, of Menander
downwards, and seems to have passed current as an authentic fact, even
with the more intelligent authorities.
Both these points in the history of the poetess, her love for Phaon, and
her leap from the Leucadian cliff, have been questioned with more or
less plausibility by distinguished critics of the present age. In
respect to the first, it has been denied not only that Phaon was the
name of the hero of this tragical drama, but that such a person ever
existed. The Leucadian leap of Sappho, though ranked by various modern
commentators, like the name of her lover, among the mythical elements of
her biography, will not perhaps be found, on a critical estimate of the
circumstances connected with it, to offer any serious ground of
scepticism.
Sappho, in the portrait of her character jointly exhibited in her own
works and in the notices of her more candid and intelligent countrymen,
appears as a woman of a generous disposition, affectionate heart, and
independent spirit, unless when brought under the sway of those tender
passions, which lorded over every other influence in her bosom. Of a
naturally ardent and excitable temperament, she seems from her earliest
years to have been habituated to the enjoyments rather than to the
duties, much less the restraints, of Greek female life. Her chief or
early occupations were the exercise and display of her brilliant
poetical talents and elegant accomplishments; and her voluptuous habits
are testified by almost every extant fragment of her poems. Her
susceptibility to the passion of love formed, above all, the dominant
feature of her life, her character, and her muse. Her indulgence,
however, of this, as of every other appetite, sensual or intellectual,
while setting at nought all moral restraints, was marked by her own
peculiar refinement of taste, exclusive of every approach to low excess
or profligacy.
In the portrait presented to us by the popular authorities of the
present day, all the less favourable features of the above sketch are
effaced; while the colouring of the remainder has been heightened to a
dazzling extreme of beauty and brilliancy, exhibiting a model of
perfection, physical and moral, such as was never probably exemplified
in woman, and least of all in the prioress of an association of votaries
of Venus and the Muses, in one of the most voluptuous states of Greece.
The following is the summary of her various excellences, given by one of
the popular organs of this amiable but fallacious theory: "In Sappho, a
warm and profound sensibility, virgin purity, feminine softness, and
delicacy of sentiment and feeling, were combined with the native probity
and simplicity of the AEolian character; and, although endued with a fine
perception of the beautiful and brilliant, she preferred genuine
conscious rectitude to every other source of human enjoyment."
ASPASIA OF PERICLES.
[B.C. 470.]
GROTE.
Aspasia, daughter of Axiochus, was a native of Miletus, beautiful,
well-educated, and ambitious. She resided at Athens, and is affirmed,
though upon very doubtful evidence, to have kept slave-girls to be let
out as courtesans. Whatever may be the case with this report, which is
probably one of the scandals engendered by political animosity against
Pericles, it is certain that, so remarkable were her own fascinations,
her accomplishments, and her powers, not merely of conversation, but
even of oratory and criticism, that the most distinguished Athenians of
all ages and characters--Socrates among the number--visited her, and
several of them took their wives along with them to hear her also. The
free citizen-women of Athens lived in strict and almost Oriental
recluseness, as well after being married as when single: everything
which concerned their lives, their happiness, or their rights, was
determined or managed for them by male relatives; and they seem to have
been destitute of all mental culture and accomplishments. Their society
presented no charm nor interest, which men accordingly sought for in the
company of the class of women called Hetaerae, or courtesans, literally
female companions who lived a free life, managed their own affairs, and
supported themselves by their powers of pleasing. These women were
numerous, and were doubtless of every variety of personal character; but
the most distinguished and superior among them, such as Aspasia and
Theodote, appear to have been the only women in Greece, except the
Spartan, who either inspired strong passion or exercised mental
ascendancy.
Pericles had been determined in his choice of a wife by those family
considerations which were held almost obligatory at Athens, and had
married a woman very nearly related to him, by whom he had two sons,
Xanthippus and Paralus. But the marriage, having never been comfortable,
was afterwards dissolved by mutual consent, according to that full
liberty of divorce which the Attic law permitted, and Pericles concurred
with his wife's male relations (who formed her legal guardians) in
giving her away to another husband. He then took Aspasia to live with
him; had a son by her, who bore his name; and continued ever afterwards
on terms of the greatest intimacy and affection with her. Without
adopting those exaggerations which represent Aspasia as having
communicated to Pericles his distinguished eloquence, or even as having
herself composed orations for public delivery, we may well believe her
to have been qualified to take interest and share in that literary and
philosophical society which frequented the house of Pericles, and which
his unprincipled son Xanthippus, disgusted with his father's regular
expenditure as withholding from him the means of supporting an
extravagant establishment, reported abroad with exaggerated calumnies,
and turned into derision. It was from that worthless young man, who died
of the Athenian epidemic during the lifetime of Pericles, that his
political enemies and the comic writers of the day were mainly furnished
with scandalous anecdotes to assail the private habits of this
distinguished man. The comic writers attacked him for alleged intrigues
with different women; but the name of Aspasia they treated as public
property, without any mercy or reserve: she was the Omphale, the
Dejanira, or the Here, to the great Heracles or Zeus of Athens. At
length one of these comic writers, Hermippus, not contented with scenic
attacks, indicted her before the dikastery for impiety, as participant
in the philosophical discussions held, and the opinions professed, in
the society of Pericles by Anaxagoras and others. Against Anaxagoras
himself, too, a similar indictment is said to have been preferred,
either by Cleon or by Thucydides, son of Milesias, under a general
resolution recently passed in the public assembly at the instance of
Diopeithes. And such was the sensitive antipathy of the Athenian public,
shown afterwards fatally in the case of Socrates, and embittered in this
instance by all the artifices of political faction, against philosophers
whose opinions conflicted with the received religious dogmas, that
Pericles did not dare to place Anaxagoras on his trial. The latter
retired from Athens, and a sentence of banishment was passed against him
in his absence. But Pericles himself defended Aspasia before the
dikastery: in fact, the indictment was as much against him as against
her. One thing alleged against her, and also against Pheidias, was the
reception of free women to facilitate the intrigues of Pericles.
He defended her successfully, and procured a verdict of acquittal; but
we are not surprised to hear that his speech was marked by the strongest
personal emotions, and even by tears. The dikasts were accustomed to
such appeals to their sympathies, sometimes even to extravagant excess,
from ordinary accused persons; but in Pericles, so manifest an outburst
of emotion stands out as something quite unparalleled, for constant
self-mastery was one of the most prominent features in his character.
XANTIPPE.
[B.C. 390.]
BRUCKER.
The woman who could teach Socrates the virtue of patience deserves to be
remembered. Xantippe, concerning whom writers relate so many amusing
tales, was certainly a woman of a high and unmanageable spirit. But
Socrates, while he endeavoured to curb the violence of her temper,
improved his own. When Alcibiades expressed his surprise that his friend
could bear to live in the same house with so perverse and quarrelsome a
companion, Socrates replied, that being daily inured to ill-humour at
home, he was the better prepared to encounter perverseness and injury
abroad. After all, however, it is probable that the infirmities of this
good woman have been exaggerated, and that calumny has had some hand in
finishing her picture; for Socrates himself, in a dialogue with his son
Lamprocles, allows her many domestic virtues, and we find her afterwards
expressing great affection for her husband during his imprisonment. She
must, indeed, have been as deficient in understanding as she was froward
in disposition, if she had not profited by the daily lessons which for
twenty years she received from such a master.
News being at length brought of the return of the ship from Delos, the
officers to whose care Socrates was committed, delivered to him early
in the morning the final order for his execution, and immediately,
according to the law, set him at liberty from his bonds. His friends,
who came early to the prison that they might have an opportunity of
conversing with their master through the day, found his wife sitting by
him with a child in her arms. As soon as Xantippe saw them, she burst
into tears and said, "Oh, Socrates, this is the last time your friends
will ever speak to you, or you to them." Socrates, that the tranquillity
of his last moments might not be disturbed by her unavailing
lamentations, requested that she might be conducted home. With the most
frantic expressions of grief, she left the prison. An interesting
conversation then passed between Socrates and his friends, which chiefly
turned upon the immortality of the soul. After a short interval, during
which he gave some necessary instructions to his domestics, and took his
last leave of his children, the attendant of the prison informed him
that the time for drinking the poison was come. The executioner, though
accustomed to such scenes, shed tears as he presented the fatal cup.
Socrates received it without change of countenance, or the least
appearance of perturbation; then, offering up a prayer to the gods that
they would grant him a prosperous passage into the invisible world, with
perfect composure he swallowed the poisonous draught. His friends around
him burst into tears. Socrates alone remained unmoved. He upbraided
their pusillanimity, and entreated them to exercise a manly constancy
worthy of the friends of virtue. He continued walking till the chilling
operation of the hemlock obliged him to lie down upon his bed. Then,
covering himself with his cloak, he expired.
ASPASIA OF CYRUS.
[B.C. 421.]
BAYLE.
This celebrated woman was of Photia, and daughter of one Hermotomus.
According to the portrait left us by AElian, she was very accomplished,
both in body and mind. Her name, before she went to Cyrus, was Milto,
for which the king substituted that of the famous mistress of Pericles.
Her rearing under her father, who lost her mother when the child was
born, was proportioned to his limited means; and, when very young, she
was the cause of a peculiar grief to him, insomuch as, while she was
extremely beautiful, she was rendered almost hideous by a tumour which
grew upon her chin. The doctor to whom her father had sent her to get
the tumour removed, returned the patient in the same condition in which
she went, for the reason that he had got no fee; and Milto was
consequently plunged in grief, every now and then examining her face in
the mirror. It was said that she discovered in a dream the means of her
cure; and when this was accomplished, her features were restored to
their natural proportions, so that she became the fairest maiden of her
time. She has been represented as having blonde hair, with a natural
curl; large eyes; a nose slightly aquiline; small ears; a delicate skin,
partaking of the rose and the lily; red lips; pearly teeth; her legs
and arms formed in perfection; and a voice so mellifluous as to rival
that of the sirens. These qualities, which were the gift of nature, were
unadorned by artifice, for neither the inclination nor the ability of
her father permitted of extraneous decoration.
It happened that some of those officers who commanded under Cyrus, son
of the king of Persia, had observed Milto, and, considering her charms,
sent her, against her own consent and that of her father, to their
master, along with some other beautiful girls of Greek descent. When
they presented her to Cyrus, he rose from the table and proceeded to
amuse her by endeavouring to get her to drink according to the custom of
the country. The three Greek girls who were with her were not of the
humour of Milto; for, retaining in remembrance the instructions of their
nurses, they played the _role_ allotted to them, allowing themselves to
be decked out for the occasion, and manifesting pleasure when Cyrus
approached them, caressed them, or kissed them. They even vied with each
other in the success of their powers of attraction; but Milto exhibited
so much repugnance to the usage to which she had been so strangely
destined, that it was not without force that she was made to submit to
the necessary decoration of her person. Nor when these others were
enjoying themselves with the mirth and laughter of their emulation to
please the prince, did Milto cease to weep, not daring even to lift her
eyes, in the shame of the situation in which she found herself placed.
When Cyrus would request any of the others to sit near him, the request
did not require to be repeated; but as for Aspasia, she paid no
attention to it. While they allowed him to fondle them, she resisted
even the touch of his finger, and used menaces in her defence, in the
way of offended women. At length Cyrus put his hand upon her, when,
rising indignantly from the table, she endeavoured to escape. But Cyrus
did justice to her virtue, declaring that of all the girls who had been
sent him, she alone had displayed the beauty of innocence and modesty;
and he thenceforth loved her more than he had done any other woman.
Nor was it only by the qualities of her person that Aspasia exercised an
influence over Cyrus: she ruled him also by her counsels. He consulted
her on all occasions, even on the most difficult subjects, and never had
cause to repent the advice which she offered him. It was indeed
difficult to say whether she excelled more in the gifts of her person or
those of her mind; and as influence such as hers goes a great way, she
might have swayed the sovereignty if she had had greater mind to such
kind of ambition. As for all that concerns rank and dignity, she was
treated by Cyrus as his legitimate queen; and so far as could be known,
he limited his affections to Aspasia, and her alone; so we might cease
to wonder if this grand elevation of a poor Greek girl should make a
noise at the court of the great king. Nor was this reputation of small
service to her; for after Cyrus was slain, Aspasia was diligently sought
after by Artaxerxes. She was found sorrowful and desolate, and it was
not without resistance that she allowed herself to be dressed in the
habit which he had sent her. At the first interview, Artaxerxes fell
deep in love with her; but it was long before she could be prevailed
upon to return his affection.
CORNELIA, THE MOTHER OF THE GRACCHI.
[B.C. 230.]
PLUTARCH.
Tiberius Gracchus, though once honoured with the censorship, twice with
the consulate, and led up two triumphs, yet derived still greater
dignity from his virtues. Hence, after the death of that Scipio who
conquered Hannibal, he was thought worthy to marry Cornelia, the
daughter of that great man, though he had not been upon any terms of
friendship with him, but rather always at variance. It is said that he
once caught a pair of serpents upon his bed, and that the soothsayers,
after they had considered the prodigy, advised him neither to kill them
both, nor let them both go. If he killed the male serpent, they told him
his death would be the consequence; if the female, that of Cornelia.
Tiberius, who loved his wife, and thought it more suitable for him to
die first who was much older than she, killed the male, and set the
female at liberty. Not long after this he died, leaving Cornelia with no
fewer than twelve children.
The care of the house and the children now entirely devolved upon
Cornelia, and she behaved with such sobriety, so much parental affection
and greatness of mind, that Tiberius seemed not to have judged ill in
choosing to die for so valuable a woman. For though Ptolemy, king of
Egypt, paid his addresses to her, and offered her a share in his
throne, she refused him. During her widowhood she lost all her children
except three, one daughter, who was married to Scipio the younger, and
two sons, Tiberius and Caius. Cornelia brought them up with so much
care, that though they were without dispute of the noblest family, and
had the happiest genius and disposition of all the Roman youth, yet
education was allowed to have contributed more to their perfection than
nature. When her son Tiberius entered upon those public employments
which plunged the family into so many misfortunes, some blamed his
mother Cornelia, who used to reproach her sons, that she was still
called the mother-in-law of Scipio, not the mother of the Gracchi.
Cornelia is reported to have borne all her misfortunes, including the
murder of her two sons, with a noble magnanimity, and to have said of
the consecrated places, in particular where her sons lost their lives,
that "they were monuments worthy of them." She took up her residence at
Misenum, and made no alteration in her manner of living. As she had many
friends, her table was always open for the purposes of hospitality.
Greeks, and other men of letters, she had always with her; and all the
kings in alliance with Rome expressed their regard by sending her
presents, and receiving the like civilities in return. She made herself
very agreeable to her guests, by acquainting them with many particulars
of her father Africanus, and his manner of living. But what they most
admired in her was, that she could speak of her sons without a sigh or a
tear, and recount their actions and sufferings as if she had been giving
a narrative of some heroes. Some, therefore, imagined that age and the
greatness of her misfortunes had deprived her of her understanding and
sensibility. But those who are of that opinion seem rather to have
wanted understanding themselves, since they knew not how much a noble
mind may, by a liberal education, be enabled to support itself against
distress, and that though, in the pursuit of rectitude, fortune may
often defeat the purposes of virtue, yet virtue, in bearing affliction,
can never lose her prerogative.
PORTIA.
[B.C. 42.]
PLUTARCH.
Portia, the daughter of Cato of Utica, was learned in philosophy, had a
great and lofty spirit, joined to good sense and remarkable prudence.
She was much attached to her husband Brutus. Of this latter one
extraordinary instance is on record. She had reason to know that
something weighed heavily on the mind of her husband, but she did not
wish to interrogate him until she could prove by experience what she was
able to suffer in her own person. With this view she took a small
instrument with which the barbers of the time used to pare the nails;
and, having dismissed from her presence her woman and servants, she
inflicted a deep wound in her thigh, with the consequence of a great
effusion of blood. The severe pain threw her into a fever, and Brutus
having been thrown thereby into great grief, she addressed him
thus:--"I, the daughter of Cato, was given to you, Brutus, not to be a
partner of your bed and table only as a concubine, but to be the
personal sharer in your fortunes, whether good or bad. As to your part
of our contract of marriage, I have no cause to complain; but, on my
side, what proof have I to offer of my devotedness to you, and how I
could prove my love to you, if I did not know how to bear with constancy
a secret infliction or a misfortune, which there might be any reason
for keeping from the knowledge of others? I know that the feeble nature
of women unfits them for keeping a secret; but good training, Brutus,
and the conversation of good and virtuous people, exercise an influence
over women's minds; and, as for me, I have that advantage in being the
daughter of Cato and the wife of Brutus. Yet even to that I could not
trust myself, until I had satisfied myself by experience that I was
myself superior to pain and suffering." And having finished these words,
she showed him her wound, and told him how she had inflicted it to prove
herself. Brutus was astonished when he heard these words; and, lifting
up his hands, prayed heaven for success to his enterprise, that he might
be worthy of such a wife as Portia, whom he accordingly proceeded to
comfort according to his power.
Soon afterwards Caesar was killed, and Brutus, despairing of a fortunate
issue to the affair, resolved to quit Italy, and so betook himself on
foot to Elia, situated on the sea-board. There Portia, being to part
from him and return to Rome, she tried to conceal the sorrow which
preyed upon her heart; nor would she have failed in this, had not a
picture which she saw proved too much for her resolution. The subject
was taken from the Greek history, where Andromache accompanied Hector to
that part of the city from which he was to issue for the war, and the
representation included the incident, that while Hector returned into
her hands their infant, the eyes of Andromache were fixed upon him. The
similarity of the position of the parties to her own forced her to weep,
and every time she returned to take another look, the tears burst again
from her eyes.
When she heard of her husband's death, Portia made up her mind to die,
and her intention by some means having become known to her friends,
they watched her that they might avert so fearful a catastrophe; but she
found means to elude their surveillance, and the device was strange. She
snatched from the fire a handful of red-hot charcoal, and forcing it
into her mouth, which, with wonderful resolution, she held firmly shut,
she was choked to death.
OCTAVIA.
[B.C. 11.]
BAYLE.
The grand-niece of Julius Caesar and sister of Augustus, was one of the
most illustrious dames of ancient Rome. She was married first to
Claudius Marcellus, who was consul in the year of Rome 704; and very
soon after his death she married Marc Antony, a union very much desired
by the friends of both the parties, as likely to conciliate Antony and
Caesar, and thereby promote peace. Octavia, herself a highly virtuous
woman, was well formed to promote this desirable object; but her husband
afterwards so completely abandoned himself to his passion for Cleopatra,
that he seemed to have lost all rational control over himself. Before he
fell under this slavery of an unholy love, Octavia by her counsels
exercised much power over him for good; but now matters were changed,
and he left her in Italy, when in 717 he sailed from Tarentum for the
East. Some time after, she went forth upon the world to try to find him;
but having learned from letters received from him that he desired she
should stop at Athens, she arrested her steps at that city, even while
she was aware that he was merely deceiving and laughing at her. She then
returned to Rome, but would not, though recommended by Augustus, remove
from the house of her husband; there she remained, taking upon her
domestic cares and managing all things as if she still had in the
faithless Antony an object of admiration. She evinced towards his
children by Fulvia, his former wife, the same affection she had hitherto
shown them, and reared and educated them with the same vigilance. She
was willing to suffer all, but that the injuries she received at the
hands of her husband should be the cause of a civil war, and in
subsequently obeying his command to leave his house, her only regret was
that she saw that it would be held to be the cause of political
commotion. By such conduct she injured the character of Antony, even
while she was not aware of the effects of her conduct; for the natural
consequence was an increase of the indignation and contempt for the man
who could leave such a woman for such another as Cleopatra.
The war which followed terminated, as every one knows, by the entire
ruin of Marc Antony. Subsequently fortune seemed to promise Octavia a
high measure of happiness. She had a son of great promise, who married
the daughter of Augustus, and was viewed as the heir of the Empire; but
he died in the flower of his age, and this was a shock to Octavia for
which she would receive no consolation. She plunged herself into
solitude and incurable melancholy. She could bear to see no image of
Marcellus her son, nor even to hear his name mentioned. Hating all
mothers, she raved principally against Livia, to whose son passed the
honours and glory that were promised to her own. Sunk in darkness and
solitude, she would not even see her brother Augustus, nor would she
hear the songs of praise which had been offered to the many virtues of
the son she had so dearly loved. Not even the glory of her brother had
any influence in ameliorating her melancholy, if it was not that she
viewed his success with aversion; and thus segregated from all human
sympathies, she lived only in the exercise of the solemn offices of
religion.
CLEOPATRA.
[BORN B.C. 68. DIED B.C. 29.]
MERIVALE.
Her personal talents were indeed of the most varied kind; she was an
admirable singer and musician; she was skilled in many languages, and
possessed intellectual accomplishments rarely found among the staidest
of her sex, combined with the archness and humour of the lightest. She
exerted herself to pamper her lover's [Antony's] sensual appetites, to
stimulate his flagging interests by ingenious surprises, nor less to
gratify the revival of his nobler propensities with paintings and
sculptures, and works of literature. She encouraged him to take his seat
as gymnasiarch, or director of the public amusements, and even to vary
his debauches with philosophy and criticism. She amused him by sending
divers to fasten salt-fish to the bait of his angling-rod; and when she
had pledged herself to consume the value of ten millions of sesterces at
a meal, amazed him by dissolving, in the humble cup of vinegar set
before her, a pearl of inestimable price.
Her lover attended upon her in the forum, at the theatre, and the
tribunals; he rode with her, or followed her chariot on foot, escorted
by a train of eunuchs; at night he strolled with her through the city,
in the garb of a slave, and encountered abuse and blows from the rabble
of the streets; by day he wore the loose Persian robe, and girded
himself with the Median dagger, and he designated as his palace the
praetorium or general's apartment. Painters and sculptors were charged to
group the illustrious pair together, and the coins of the kingdom bore
the heads and names of both conjointly. The Roman legionary, with the
name of Cleopatra inscribed upon his shield, found himself transformed
into a Macedonian body-guard. Masques were presented at the court, in
which the versatile Plancus sank into the character of a stage buffoon,
and enacted the part of the sea-god Glaucus in curt cerulean vestments,
crowned with the feathery heads of the papyrus, and deformed with the
tail of a fish.
But when Cleopatra arrayed herself in the garb and usurped the
attributes of Isis, and invited her paramour to ape the deity Osiris,
the portentous travesty assumed a deeper significance. It had been the
policy of the Macedonian sovereigns to form an alliance between the
popular superstitions of their Greek and Egyptian subjects. Ptolemaeus
Soter had prevailed on the native priesthood to sanction the
consecration of a new divinity, Serapis, who, if not really of Grecian
origin, was confidently identified by the Greeks with their own Pluto,
or perhaps with Zeus. The Macedonians had admitted with little scruple
their great hero's claims to be the offspring of Ammon, the king of
gods, who was worshipped in the Oasis of the desert. The notion that a
mere man might become exalted into union with deity, favoured by the
rationalising explanations of their popular mythology already current
among the learned, had gradually settled into an indulgent admission of
the royal right of apotheosis. Antony had assumed the character of
Bacchus at Athens. In the metropolis of Grecian scepticism this could
only be regarded as a drunken whim; but when he came forward in
Alexandria as the Nile-God Osiris, the Bacchus or fructifying power of
the Coptic mythology, he claimed as a present deity the veneration of
the credulous Egyptians.
Another scene follows the death of Antony. When the ceremonies of
interment were finished, Cleopatra allowed herself to be led to the
palace of her ancestors. Exhausted with fever by the vehemence of her
passionate mourning, she refused the care of her physician, and declared
that she would perish by hunger. Octavius [the conqueror of Antony] was
alarmed at the avowal of this desperate resolution. He could only
prevail upon her to protract her existence by the barbarous threat of
murdering her children. He held out also the hope of a personal
interview, and again her vanity whispered to her not yet to despair. The
artless charms of youth which, as she at least deemed, had enchained the
great Julius at a single interview, had long since passed away; the more
mature attractions which experience had taught her to cultivate for the
conquest of her second lover, might fail under the disastrous ravages of
so many years of indulgence and dissipation; but time had not blighted
her genius; her distresses claimed compassion; and from pity, she well
knew, there is but one step to love. In the retirement of the women's
apartments she decked her chamber with sumptuous magnificence, and threw
herself on a silken couch in the negligent attire of sickness and woe.
She clasped to her bosom the letters of her earliest admirer, and
surrounded herself with his busts and portraits, to make an impression
on the filial piety of one who claimed to inherit his conquests and
sympathise with his dearest interests. When the expected visitor
entered, she sprang passionately to meet him, and threw herself at his
feet; her eyes were red with weeping, her whole countenance was
disordered, her bosom heaved, and her voice trembled with emotion. The
marks of blows inflicted on her breast were visible in the disorder of
her clothing. She addressed him as her lord, and sighed as she
transferred to a stranger the sovereign title she had so long borne
herself, and which she had first received from her conqueror's father.
The young Roman acknowledged the charms of female beauty, and had often
surrendered to them; but he knew also his own power of resisting them,
which he had already sternly practised, and he now guarded himself
against her seductions by fixing his eyes obdurately on the ground.
Despairing of conquest, she threw herself upon his mercy, handed to him
the list of her treasures, and pleaded piteously for bare life. A slave,
interrogated and threatened perhaps with torture, declaring that some of
her effects were still withheld, she flew at him and tore his face with
her nails. Cleopatra had tasked her powers of fascination, and she knew
that they had failed. She heard without surprise that even within three
days she was to be conveyed away with her children, to adorn the
conqueror's triumph. She formed her plan with secresy and decision. She
directed her attendants to make ready for the voyage, and repaired with
her female companions to Antony's mausoleum. She gave orders for a
banquet to be served, and in the meanwhile embraced the dead man's bier,
and mingled her tears with the wine she poured upon it. Soon after, she
commanded all her attendants to leave her except her two favourite
women, Iras and Charmion, and at the same time she sent a sealed packet
to be delivered to Octavius. It contained only a brief and passionate
request to be buried with her lover. His first impulse was to rush to
the spot and prevent the catastrophe it portended; but in the next
moment the suspicion of a trick to excite his sympathy flashed across
him, and he contented himself with sending persons to inquire. The
messengers made all haste; but they arrived too late; the tragedy had
been acted out, and the curtain was falling. Bursting into the tomb,
they beheld Cleopatra lying dead on a golden couch in royal attire. Of
her two women, Iras was dying at her feet, and Charmion, with failing
strength, was replacing the diadem on her mistress's brow. The manner of
Cleopatra's death was never certainly known.
MARIAMNE.
[B.C. 28.]
MERIVALE.
History hardly presents a more tragic situation than that of the devoted
Mariamne, the miserable object of a furious attachment on the part of
the monster [Herod the Great] who had slain before her eyes her uncle,
her brother, and her grandfather. Herod doted upon her beauty, in which
she bore away the palm from every princess of her time; the blood which
flowed in her veins secured to him the throne which he had raised upon
the ruins of her father's house; but her personal and political claims
upon the royal regard made her doubly obnoxious to the sister [Salome]
of the usurper, who felt alike humiliated by either. Mariamne was
imperious: she despised the meaner parentage both of Herod and Salome,
and was disgusted with the endearments of her husband, stained with the
blood of her murdered kinsmen. She rebuked him impetuously for his
barbarities, repelled his caresses, and denied him his rights over her
person, while she maintained inviolate against all others the dignity of
her conjugal virtue.