Famous Women of Antiquity.
It has been so often asserted that women are incompetent to form any
thing like correct opinions on civil or political questions, or to
govern with discretion, even when by chance the reins are committed to
their control for a brief season; and that they have always been found
so; and, also, that they are naturally incapable of a sufficiently great
degree of mental effort to entitle them to celebrity,--that the
statement has come to be regarded as a fact by the masses, who have
lacked either the ability or the desire to investigate the matter. With
the majority of men, as such assertions fostered their love of power,
and the idea of their own self-consequence, it was natural for them to
accept them without question, as undoubted truth. With women, until
within the present century, the facilities for acquiring an education
have been so meagre that, except where they were possessed of both a
large fortune and an unlimited amount of perseverance, they had slight
opportunities for acquiring accurate information on that or any other
subject. What their fathers, husbands, or brothers told them, they might
believe if they chose; for the rest, to the very large majority of
women, history was a sealed book; so that, for want of correct
information, they were not in a position to contradict any assertion,
however extravagant, untruthful, or absurd it might be.
In the foregoing pages of this treatise, it has been maintained that the
statements concerning the alleged mental inferiority of women are
untruthful; and that history, both ancient and modern, proves them to be
so. In order, therefore, to establish this proposition more fully, the
following sketches have been added, giving an account of a few women
eminent for the founding of colonies, for piety, for patriotism, and for
attainments in science, literature, and arts; and some, alas! for
wickedness.
ELISA, OR DIDO, FOUNDER OF CARTHAGE.
Carthage, one of the most noted nations of antiquity, was founded by a
woman, and flourished under her rule. A Tyrian princess, Dido--or Elisa,
as she is indiscriminately named in history--was in jeopardy from the
tyranny and oppression of an unnatural brother, who, not content with
what he had inherited from his father, had cast covetous eyes upon the
immense possessions of his sister's husband, whose death he compassed.
All the powers of mind which had hitherto lain dormant within her, being
roused by the horrid act of her brother, Dido at once set about
rescuing her treasure from his grasp, and her retainers from his
unbridled fury. Not choosing to seek protection from any of the princes
of the surrounding countries, and knowing herself to be unsafe while in
the vicinity of her brother, she, as speedily as possible, and with the
utmost secresy, gathered what she was possessed of together, and, with
her followers, embarked in search of some country where she might live
free from tyranny and oppression. Undaunted by the dangers, real and
imaginary, which beset the paths of the early navigators of the
Mediterranean, the little band of adventurers pursued their course,
steering westward, ever westward; away past Egypt, and past Libya, until
they came in sight of a peninsula on the northern coast of Africa
hitherto unknown to history, but ever afterward to be famous as the
landing-place of the heroic woman. At a point only a short distance from
the site of the present city of Tunis, Dido, with her followers,
established herself; not taking possession of the territory on which
she set her foot, as became the fashion some time later, but purchasing
it from the natives at a given price. According to the usage of the
times, she at once set about founding a city; and one hundred years
before the founding of Rome--its after rival and destroyer--the work of
building Carthage, or the New City, as Dido named it, began. The city
being advantageously situated for commerce, and the rule of Dido more
mild than that of Pygmalion, her brother, hundreds of the Tyrians
flocked to her standard. These men of Tyre brought with them their old
home-love of commercial enterprise and maritime adventure; and, in a
marvelously short time, Carthage took high rank among the nations of the
world; and it was conceded, by one of the most renowned philosophers of
Greece, that it enjoyed one of the most perfect governments of
antiquity.
It is told of Dido, that she was not only capable and brave, but
also--like many of the opposite sex--somewhat sharp in a bargain; and
that she tricked the Africans into giving her more territory than they
designed doing. The story is--though it is not generally believed--that
having bargained with the natives for as much land as an ox-hide would
encompass, she cut it up into the smallest possible strips, and by this
means made it capable of surrounding a large extent of ground; and, as a
bargain is a bargain, she gained possession of the inclosure by agreeing
to pay an annual tribute for it. But whether or not this rather
improbable story be true, avarice and tyranny on the part of a brother
seems to have roused the dormant power in Dido's nature; and the
indomitable perseverance, fortitude, and faculty for government
displayed by the outraged woman, were the forces which brought about the
founding of a powerful nation. King Pygmalion is only remembered because
he was the brother of the illustrious Queen Dido.
CLEOPATRA.
The character of Cleopatra forms a striking contrast to that of Dido, in
many particulars: the one the first princess and founder of a nation
destined to live in history ages after it had ceased to exist; the other
the last princess of a land equally famed in story, whose kingdom was to
suffer extinction, in a great measure in consequence of her vices--not
because she was too weak to sway the scepter, but because she was too
wicked to rule justly.
The last representative of the dynasty of the Ptolemies, she seemed to
possess an undue share of the evil propensities of an evil race; and,
with this, the gift of rare beauty, added to very winning manners and
remarkable powers of fascination. In her constitution was blended a
dangerous combination of varied charms and varied vices. The learning of
the Egyptian schools she had mastered; there were none of the then
modern accomplishments of which she had not made herself mistress;
wealth and regal honors were hers; and yet what a sad picture she
presents! Evil passions were allowed to rankle in her breast unchecked,
till she became one of the vilest creatures, in a country become the
vilest and basest of nations. The powers of mind with which she was
endowed, used for the benefit of her country, might have been the means
of its salvation; but instead of appealing to the patriotism of her
people--if, indeed, they then possessed any--she chose rather to court
the favor of the rising Roman general, and gain by flattery and crime
what might have been denied to virtue. Though her kingdom was in danger,
and her own position and the inheritance of her children were at stake,
she reveled in sinful pleasure with the enemy. By the power of her
charms, she effected a compromise with the first Caesar, which left her
in possession of Egypt; but not on honorable terms. How could terms,
dictated on the one side and agreed to on the other by base passion, be
aught but shameful and humiliating?
Caesar in the west, and the Roman legions far away, Cleopatra paid no
more regard to the treaty between them than if it had never been made.
Such a violation of contract the Romans never forgave; and Mark Antony,
who had striven to rise to the supreme power after the assassination of
Julius Caesar, as soon as he had leisure from his other ambitious
schemes, bent his steps toward Egypt, to punish the faithless queen.
Again she had recourse to her personal charms. The stern but vicious
general, though in name a conqueror, became an easy victim of her wiles;
and was himself in fact the conquered one. If Cleopatra had been Mark
Antony's most bitter foe, she could not more surely have lured him on to
utter, hopeless ruin.
At last, the crisis came. Augustus Caesar had arrived upon the shores
of Egypt to avenge his sister's wrongs. Mark Antony's fate was sealed.
Once more the wretched woman tried her powers of fascination; but youth
and sprightliness were gone. She failed to captivate Augustus by her
winning manners, or move him by a display of her distress. Her power,
she realized at last, was gone; but grace his triumph in Rome she was
determined she would not. As a crowned queen she had lived; as one she
would die. The deadly asp, it is said, became the executioner of her
wicked will; and when the victor came to stay the act which would rob
him of a part of his revenge, he found the work accomplished. Cleopatra
would try her wiles no more.
Here was a woman who, by her adroitness and tact and a passionate will,
wielded an almost incredible power over some of the greatest men of that
age; whom she brought under her influence, and for years led them
whither she would, according to the whim which possessed her. Which was
the weaker mentally, Mark Antony or Cleopatra? It is for the historical
student to determine for himself. In licentiousness, they certainly were
on a par.
LUCRETIA.
Contrast the depravity of the wretched Cleopatra with the virtue of
Lucretia, wife of Collatinus, a distinguished Roman. Beautiful and, for
the time in which she lived, highly accomplished, she was the idol of
her husband. Loving and faithful to him, and attentive to the ordering
of her household, she was pronounced a model Roman dame. Virtue was
pre-eminently a characteristic of the Roman matron. A heartless
libertine, annoyed that Lucretia should stand so high, and fired by wine
and evil passion, determined to accomplish her downfall; and, while she
was helplessly in his power, effected his vile purpose. The outraged
woman waited till her husband and father could be summoned; and, having
told her dreadful tale, and entreated them to avenge her dishonor, she
plunged a dagger to her heart. A heathen, she knew not there was sin in
suicide, and preferred death to a tarnished reputation.
PORTIA.
Like Lucretia, Portia was a Roman matron of noble lineage, and still
nobler powers of mind. The daughter of Cato and wife of Brutus, it was
her ambition to prove herself worthy of such a sire and such a husband;
and, after the pagan fashion of the time, she subjected herself to an
exceedingly painful physical ordeal, in order to test her powers of
endurance. Having established the fact beyond a doubt that she was fully
equal to her husband in fortitude and strength of character, she became
his confidant and counselor, sharing his trials and misfortunes as
readily as she had shared his prosperity. The ambition of Brutus,
together with the jealous rivalries of the time, effected his ruin; and,
finding his case hopelessly desperate, he caused himself to be mortally
wounded, and expired shortly after. Portia had been so fondly attached
to her husband that her friends feared she would determine not to
survive him, and in consequence took measures to prevent her from taking
her own life; but she foiled all their prudent forethought by swallowing
a handful of live coals. Faithful to her husband to the last, according
to her idea of fidelity, one can but lament that she had not the
knowledge of a purer faith than that of paganism. She was worthy of a
better fate and brighter age.
ZENOBIA.
Lucretia and Portia adorned private life, and--except in the manner of
their respective deaths--were model matrons, the equals of their
husbands in integrity and understanding. Zenobia takes a somewhat
higher rank; though no more virtuous--that being impossible--she was
called to exercise her talents in a different sphere. Though born in
Asia, she claimed descent from the Macedonian kings of Egypt. In her
youth, notwithstanding the restraints put upon her sex, she acquired a
liberal education, and made herself mistress of the Latin, Greek,
Egyptian, and Syriac literature.
She took an active part in the promotion of learning, and even compiled
an epitome of Oriental history for her own use. Palmyra, "the gem of the
desert," was favored in possessing such a princess. As beautiful as she
was accomplished, she might in these respects be compared to her famous
ancestress, Cleopatra; but here the resemblance ended. She was as famous
for her virtues as was Cleopatra for her vices.
Arrived at maturity, she united her destiny with that of Odenathus, a
man who had risen from an obscure position to the highest rank in the
land. An intrepid general, he had not only subdued the neighboring
tribes of the desert, but had, in a measure, humbled the haughty Persian
king, and avenged the cruelty practiced upon the unfortunate Valerian,
which the dissensions among the Romans prevented them from doing
themselves, and had made himself master of the dominion of the East. In
Zenobia he found a true helpmeet. She inured herself to hardships in
order that she might accompany her husband in his hazardous
undertakings, and assist him by her counsels or cheer him by her
presence. To her prudence and fortitude Odenathus owed much of his
success, both as a general and a monarch; so that in a few years, from
the small possessions adjoining Palmyra, he had extended his territory
from the Euphrates to the frontiers of Bithynia. During the intervals
between the wars in which he engaged from time to time, he spent much of
his leisure in hunting or other wild sports; and in these active
amusements his wife also accompanied him. She even marched, when the
occasion required it, at the head of their troops. For years every thing
went prosperously; then Odenathus was snatched away by death, and the
entire responsibility of the Government devolved upon Zenobia alone. The
Romans, now grown stronger than they had been for some time after the
defeat of Valerian, disputed the right of the widow of Odenathus to
assume the reins of government, and sent out generals to compel her to
submit to the dictum of the Senate. One of these she met, and obliged to
retreat with the loss of his army, his mortification at defeat being
increased by the fact that he had been beaten by a woman.
By judicious tact, she attached both her subjects and her soldiers to
her cause, and enlarged the borders of her dominion very considerably.
Even Egypt yielded to her prowess, and haughty Persia solicited an
alliance with her. She was, in fact, as powerful as any of the Eastern
potentates, if not the most powerful. No petty passion or malice was
allowed to mark her conduct in the treatment of her subjects. The good
of her country was her principal object in government, and for the good
of the State she would forgive, or at least not punish, a personal
injury. And, though surrounding herself with all the splendors of
royalty, she yet managed the financial affairs of her realm with
economy.
But the prosperity of her kingdom, and her own success as a sovereign,
only increased the envy and resentment of the Romans. Aurelian had
gained the supreme power in Rome, and, once established in his
authority, he determined to make good the old boast--once so true--that
Rome was mistress of the world. Zenobia was a powerful rival, and her he
determined to humble. Finding her kingdom menaced by so powerful a foe,
she set herself to defend it, and met the approaching enemy a hundred
miles from her capital. Here the tide of fortune turned against the
hitherto prosperous queen. In two successive battles she suffered
defeat, and then she shut herself up in Palmyra, hoping to starve
Aurelian into leaving her in peace; but his star was yet in the
ascendant, the last obstacle was overcome, and Palmyra fell.
Zenobia, with some of her attendants, fled; but was overtaken and
brought back a prisoner, destined to grace the triumph of her conqueror.
She who had for more than five years ruled a powerful nation so nobly
and so well, was henceforth to be subjected to the indignities of a
captive.
With Zenobia, fell the dominion of the East, and its once beautiful
capital dwindled into insignificance.
HYPATIA.
Rather more than a century had passed since the subjugation of Zenobia
and her Empire by pagan Rome, when Hypatia, the philosopher of
Alexandria, attracted the attention of the then civilized world by her
marvelous talents and varied accomplishments. The daughter of Theon, the
celebrated mathematician of Alexandria, she possessed unusual
facilities--for a woman--for acquiring knowledge; and especially for
becoming acquainted with the abstruse sciences. Of these facilities she
availed herself with commendable earnestness; and at an early age she
had made herself mistress of both Geometry and Astronomy, as far as
either science was then understood or taught in any of the schools. As
is the case with less profound natures, the mind grew on what it fed
upon; reasoning, and the elucidation of knotty mathematical problems,
became her delight; and, by general consent, she ranked as one of the
first philosophers of her time, if not indeed the very first.
It has often been asserted that the possession of great mental power
unfits the woman possessing it for the common amenities of life. That
it does not necessarily do any thing of the kind, is sufficiently
evidenced in the life of Hypatia. Though elevated to the very pinnacle
of fame, in consequence of her mental attainments, she was nevertheless
gentle and courteous in her manners, toward those by whom she was
surrounded. She was very beautiful, yet without vanity; indeed, true
strength of mind precludes the idea of vanity, for few but the mentally
weak are vain; and she was as chaste as she was mentally strong and
physically beautiful.
Convinced of her superior merits, the authorities of the School of
Philosophy in which Plotinus and his successors had expounded their
theories, importuned her to become preceptress therein; and, overcoming
her natural diffidence, she consented. Thenceforth, instead of the
frivolous adornments, considered too foolish to be worn by men, but
quite fitting and becoming for women, she was arrayed in the cloak of
the philosopher, and took her proper position as head of the most noted
school in a city distinguished as the chief seat of learning of that
age. As a public speaker--for her lectures were not altogether confined
to her school--she was fluent. Her elocution may be said to have been
faultless, and her manner of address pleasing; and these, combined with
the very remarkable amount of information which she was capable of
conveying in her lectures, drew crowds of warm admirers and
enthusiastically devoted students to listen to her.
Was it possible that one so gifted, so beautiful and pure, could arouse
malicious envy, or make an enemy by the exercise of talents God had
given her?
Ah, yes! She knew more than Cyril--a professedly Christian bishop, who
then filled the patriarchal chair. Thenceforth she was marked as his
prey.
Allied to the State, the Church had lost its purity, and become the
bitterest of persecutors; and Cyril was one of the bitterest of these.
The Jews had enjoyed a degree of liberty in Alexandria, which latterly
had been denied them elsewhere; and this the haughty spirit of the
arrogant bishop could not brook; and, assuming that his power as an
ecclesiastic was in consequence superior to the civil authority, he,
after treating the Jews with most outrageous cruelty, banished them from
the city. The Jews had been allowed to inhabit Alexandria from the time
of its foundation, and had materially contributed to its prosperity;
therefore, the civil authorities were not willing to see them suffer
such indignities without raising their voice against the oppressive act.
Orestes, Prefect of the city, appealed to the emperor on their behalf.
He, trammeled with his Church connections, and yet not wishing to break
with the prefect, declined to interfere in the matter, thus leaving them
to settle the dispute by themselves; and soon the ecclesiastics and the
citizens joined issue. Orestes, being attacked by a party of monks as he
was peaceably pursuing his way through the streets in his carriage, was
succored by the citizens, who came to his relief; and in the affray a
monk was taken prisoner, whom the justly exasperated Orestes ordered to
be executed. The sentence was carried into effect, and Cyril caused the
name of the would-be murderer to be enrolled among the martyrs.
Hypatia was neither Jew nor Christian; but her love of truth and justice
caused her to espouse the side of the persecuted victims of
ecclesiastical tyranny. She had previously been the object of Cyril's
bitter hatred, because her mental attainments were superior to his own.
Now, that hatred was intensified to the highest degree of malignity. She
had openly and boldly censured the conduct of the bishop, and was deemed
the friend of Orestes; therefore she must die. Having committed no
crime, she could not be brought before the civil tribunal for
condemnation; therefore, as her death had been determined upon, _murder_
was the next resort.
She was surrounded and seized by a mob in the interest of Cyril, as she
was one day returning from her school, and hurried into the Caesarian
church, where she was brutally murdered, every barbarity being practiced
upon her which monks were capable of inventing, even to tearing her limb
from limb, and afterward burning her; and Cyril, if indeed he did not
sanction the murder by his actual presence while it was being committed,
sanctioned the horrid deed by his protection of the perpetrators when
the infuriated populace would have avenged her death.
Thus tragic was the end of one of the most highly gifted women the world
has ever produced. She flourished in the reign of the Emperor Theodosius
II, in the early part of the fifth century.
The record of the Famous Women of Antiquity might be lengthened out
indefinitely: Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, so famous in Roman
history; Octavia, the deeply injured wife of Mark Antony; Eudosia, the
wife of Theodosius, with her equally famous sister-in-law, Pulcheria;
the Aspasia of Pericles, who is represented by some writers as having
composed many of the orations given to the world as those of her
husband; the Aspasia of Cyrus, so famous for her gentle modesty and wise
counsels; and Marianne, the last and most unfortunate princess of the
illustrious line of the Maccabees, and wife of the monster, Herod the
Great. Each of these, to do justice to their merits, or to the
transactions which rendered them famous, would require a biography. The
mere mention of their names must suffice just here. Who has not read or
heard of Sappho, the Greek poetess, concerning whose life and moral
character there has been so much controversy--one class of writers
condemning in unstinted measure, as all and utterly vile; the other
class applauding her as being possessed of every virtue? Says one of the
latter: "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 Eolian 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." It is probable a medium between these two extremes would
give the true character of this remarkable woman.
Many scores of names, besides those given, might be added to the list of
eminent women; but the examples cited suffice to prove the assertion
made--so far as the women of antiquity are concerned--that they were
capable of an equal amount of mental effort with the men with whom they
were contemporary; and that, where they arose to the supreme power, they
governed as wisely and as well as the kings of the same period.