slain in battle. She became at once the slave of the conqueror, to be
dealt with as he wished. Hector draws a gloomy picture of the fate of
Andromache in case he should be slain: "Yea, of a surety I know this in
heart and soul; the day shall come for holy Ilium to be laid low, and
Priam and the folk of Priam of the good ashen spear. Yet doth the
anguish of the Trojans hereafter not so much trouble me, neither
Hecuba's own, neither King Priam's, neither my brethren's, the many and
brave that shall fall in the dust before their foemen, as doth thine
anguish in the day when some mail-clad Achaean shall lead thee weeping
and rob thee of the light of freedom. So shalt thou abide in Argos and
ply the loom at another woman's bidding, and bear water from Fount
Messeis or Hyperia, being grievously entreated, and sore constraint
shall be laid upon thee. And then shall one say that beholdeth thee
weep: 'This is the wife of Hector, that was foremost in battle of the
horse-training Trojans, when men fought about Ilium.' Thus shall one say
hereafter, and fresh grief will be thine for lack of such an husband as
thou hadst to ward off the day of thraldom. But me in death may the
heaped-up earth be covering, ere I hear thy crying and thy carrying into
captivity." Similar lamentations over the harsh treatment of the widows
and the sad lot of the orphans, when the natural protector had been
slain, occur again and again. When taken captive, the noblest ladies
became the concubines of the victor, and were disposed of at his
pleasure. Briseis is a striking instance of this. She was a maiden of
princely descent, whose husband and brother had been slain by Achilles.
Yet she looked upon her position as a captive as quite in the natural
order of things. She manifestly became much attached to her captor, and
left "all unwillingly" when she was carried off to Agamemnon's tent.
When she was restored to Achilles, she laments the fallen Patroclus, who
had promised to make her godlike Achilles's wedded wife.
Many female slaves of noble descent are mentioned by Homer, and their
positions in the households of their mistresses are frequently of
importance. Thus Euryclea, who had nurtured Odysseus and reared
Telemachus, was practically at the head of the domestic affairs of the
palace, and her relations with Penelope were most affectionate. The
other slaves were divided into several classes, according to their
different qualities and abilities. To some were assigned the menial
offices, such as turning the handmills, drawing the water, and preparing
the food for their master; while others were engaged in spinning and
weaving, under the direct oversight of their lady mistress.
It is but natural that the great ladies of heroic times, reared in the
luxury of courts, attended by numerous slaves, and exercising an
elevating influence over their husbands through their personal charms,
should devote great attention to the elegancies of the costume and the
toilet. The Greek love of beauty led to love of dress. Numerous
epithets point to this characteristic of Homeric ladies; as "with
beautiful peplus," "well-girdled," "with beautiful zone," "with
beautiful veil," "with beautiful sandal," and the like; and care in
dressing the hair is seen in such phrases as "with goodly locks," "with
glossy locks."
The Homeric poems describe for us the dress of the AEolico-Ionians down
to the ninth or eighth centuries before Christ, and it differs in many
important particulars from that of the classical period as seen in the
Parthenon marbles.
The women wore only one outer garment, the peplus, brought to Hellas
from Asia by the Aryans, which garment the Dorian women continued to
wear until a late period. The peplus in its simplest form consisted of
an oblong piece of the primitive homemade woollen cloth, unshapen and
unsewn, open at the sides, and fastened on the shoulders by _fibulae_,
and bound by a girdle; but, undoubtedly, as worn by Homeric princesses
it assumed a much more regular pattern and was richly embroidered. The
pharos was probably a linen garment of Egyptian origin, which was
sometimes worn instead of the peplus. Thus the nymph Calypso "donned a
great shining pharos, light of woof and gracious, and about her waist
she cast a fair golden girdle, and a veil withal on her head." Both
these garments left the arms bare, and, while frequently of some length
behind, as seen in the epithet "the robe-trailing Trojan dames," were
short enough in front to allow the feet to appear.
As the peplus was open at the sides, the girdle was the second most
important article of feminine attire. This was frequently of gold, as in
Calypso's case, and adorned with tassels, as was Hera's girdle with its
hundred tassels "of pure gold, all deftly woven, and each one worth an
hundred oxen." But the girdle of girdles was the magic cestus of golden
Aphrodite, which Hera borrowed in order to captivate Zeus. The tightened
girdle made the dress full over the bosom, so that the epithet
"deep-bosomed"--that is, with full, swelling bosom--became frequent.
Another characteristic article of dress was the _kredemnon_, a kind of
veil, of linen or of silk, in color generally white, though at times
dark blue. It was worn over the head, and allowed to fall down the back
and the sides of the head, leaving the face uncovered. There was no
garment, like a cloak, to be worn over the peplus. For freer movement
women would cast off the mantle-like _kredemnon_, which answered all the
purposes of a shawl. Thus Nausicaa and her companions, when preparing
for the game of ball, "cast off their tires and began the song," and
Hecuba, in her violent grief, "tore her hair and cast from her the
shining veil." There were also metal ornaments for the head, the
_stephane_, or coronal, and the _ampyx_, a headband or frontlet. The
_kekryphalos_ was probably a caplike net, bound by a woven band;
Andromache "shook off from her head the bright attire thereof, the net,
and woven band." Other feminine ornaments were: the _isthmion_, a
necklace, fitting close to the neck; the _hormos_, a long chain,
sometimes of gold and amber, hanging from the nape of the neck over the
breast; and _peronae_, or brooches, and ear-rings of various shapes,
either globular, spiral, or in the form of a cup, Helen, for example,
"set ear-rings in her pierced ear, ear-rings of three drops and
glistening; therefrom shone grace abundant."
To embrace in one general description these various articles of feminine
attire, "we may think of Helen as arrayed in a colored peplus, richly
embroidered and perfumed, the corners of which were drawn tightly over
the shoulders and fastened together by the _perone_. The waist was
closely encircled by the zone, which was, no doubt, of rich material
and design. Over her bosom hung the _hormos_ of dark red amber set in
gold. Her hair hung down in artificial plaits, and on her head was the
high, stiff _kekryphalos_, of which we have spoken above, bound in the
middle by the _plekte anadesme_. Over the forehead was the shining
_ampyx_, or tiara, of gold; and from the top of the head fell the
_kredemnon_, or veil, over the shoulders and back, affording a quiet
foil to the glitter of gold and jewels."
Such is the picture of the Heroic Age as drawn for us by Homer. It is a
bright picture in the main, though the treatment of the widows and the
captive maidens throws on it dark shadows. But when we become acquainted
with the heroines of this age, and study their characters in the
environment in which Homer places them, we shall be all the more
impressed with the high status maintained by the gentler sex at the dawn
of Greek civilization.
Before treating of the heroines of Homer, however, let us briefly notice
the maidens and matrons of Greek mythology who do not figure so
conspicuously in the Chronicles of the Trojan War, but who have won a
permanent place in art and in literature.
We should not fail to mention the mortal loves who became through Zeus
the mothers of heroes,--Europa, whom he wooed in the form of a white
bull, and carried away to Crete, where she became the mother of Minos,
Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon; Semele, who was overcome with terror when
Zeus appeared in all his godlike array, and who gave birth to Dionysus,
god of the vine; Leda, wooed by Zeus in the guise of a snow-white swan,
the mother of Helen, and of Castor and Pollux; Alcmene, mother of
Heracles; Callisto, changed, with her little son Arcas, because of the
jealousy of Hera, into the constellations known as the Great and the
Little Bear; and, finally, Danae, daughter of Acrisius, King of Argos,
locked up by her tyrannical father in a brazen tower, but visited by
Zeus as a golden shower. The offspring of this union was the hero
Perseus. King Acrisius, in dread of a prophecy that he was destined to
be slain by his grandson, had the mother and helpless infant enclosed in
an empty cask, which was consigned to the fury of the sea. Terrified at
the sound of the great waves beating over their heads, Danae prayed to
the gods to watch over them and bring them to some friendly shore. Her
piteous prayers were answered, and mother and child were rescued and
found a hospitable haven on the island of Seriphos,
"When rude around the high-wrought ark
The tempests raged, the waters dark
Around the mother tossed and swelled;
With not unmoistened cheek she held
Her Perseus in her arms and said:
'What sorrows bow this hapless head!
Thou sleepst the while, thy gentle breast
Is heaving in unbroken rest,
In this our dark, unjoyous home,
Clamped with the rugged brass, the gloom
Scarce broken by the doubtful light
That gleams from yon dim fires of night.
But thou, unwet thy clustering hair,
Heedst not the billows raging wild,
The moanings of the bitter air,
Wrapt in thy purple robe, my beauteous child!
Oh! seemed this peril perilous to thee,
How sadly to my words of fear
Wouldst thou bend down thy listening ear!
But now sleep on, my child! sleep thou, wide sea!
Sleep, my unutterable agony!
Oh! change thy counsels, Jove, our sorrows end!
And if my rash, intemperate zeal offend,
For my child's sake, his father, pardon me!'"
The god Apollo, too, had his mortal loves: the fair maiden Coronis, whom
in a fit of jealousy he shot through the heart,--the mother of
AEsculapius, the god of healing; Daphne, the beautiful nymph, who would
not listen to his entreaties, and was finally changed into a laurel
tree; and the muse Calliope, by whom he became the father of Orpheus,
who inherited his parent's musical and poetical gifts. The story of the
loves of Orpheus and his beautiful wife, Eurydice, is one of the most
touching in all literature: how she died from the bite of a venomous
serpent, and her spirit was conducted down to the gloomy realms of
Hades, leaving Orpheus broken-hearted; how Zeus gave him permission to
go down into the infernal regions to seek his wife; how he appeased even
Cerberus's rage by his music, and Hades and Proserpina consented to
restore Eurydice to life and to her husband's care, but on the one
condition that he should leave the infernal regions without once turning
to look into the face of his beloved wife; and how he observed the
mandate until just before he reached the earth, when he turned, only to
behold the vanishing form of the wife he had so nearly snatched from the
grave. The rest of his days were passed in sadness, and finally some
Bacchantes, enraged at his sad notes, tore him limb from limb, and cast
his mangled remains into the river Hebrus. "As the poet-musician's head
floated down the stream, the pallid lips still murmured 'Eurydice!' for
even in death he could not forget his wife; and as his spirit floated on
to join her, he incessantly called upon her name, until the brooks,
trees, and fountains he had loved so well caught up the longing cry and
repeated it again and again."
The story of Niobe is one of the best-known Greek legends, because of
its exquisite portrayal in art. Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, the mother
of fourteen children,--seven manly sons and seven beautiful
daughters,--in her pride taunted the goddess Latona, mother of Apollo
and Artemis, because her offspring numbered only two. She even went so
far as to forbid her people to worship the two deities, and ordered that
all the statues of them in her kingdom should be torn down and
destroyed. Enraged at the insult, Latona called her children to her, and
bade them slay all the children of Niobe. Apollo, therefore, coming upon
the seven lads as they were hunting, slew them with his unfailing
arrows; and while the mother was grieving for the loss of her sons,
Artemis began to slay her daughters. In vain did the mother strive to
protect them, and one by one they fell, never to rise again. Then the
gods, touched by her woe, changed her into stone just as she stood, with
upturned face, streaming eyes, and quivering lips.
Three other heroines of mythology deserve to be enrolled within this
brief chronicle: Andromeda, Ariadne, and Atalanta. The Princess
Andromeda, a lovely maiden, was being offered as a sacrifice to a
terrible sea monster who was devastating the coast. She was chained fast
to an overhanging rock, above the foaming billows that continually
dashed their spray over her fair limbs. As the monster was about to
carry her off as his prey, the hero Perseus, returning from his conquest
of Medusa, suddenly appeared as a deliverer, slew the monster, freed
Andromeda from her chains, restored her to the arms of her overjoyed
parent, and thus won the princess as his bride.
Far more pathetic is the story of the Princess Ariadne, daughter of King
Minos of Crete, who fell in love with the Athenian hero Theseus when he
came to rescue the Athenian youths and maidens from the terrible
Minotaur. She provided him with a sword and with a ball of twine,
enabling him to slay the monster and to thread his way out of the
inextricable mazes of the labyrinth. Theseus in gratitude carried her
off as his bride; but on the island of Naxos he basely deserted her,
and Ariadne was left disconsolate. Violent was her grief; but in the
place of a fickle mortal lover, she became the fair bride of an
immortal, the genial god Dionysus, who discovered her on the island and
wooed and won her.
Atalanta, the third of this illustrious group, the daughter of Iasius,
King of Arcadia, was a famous runner and sportswoman. She took part with
Meleager in the grand hunt for the Calydonian boar, and it was she who
at last brought the boar to bay and gave him a mortal wound. When
Atalanta returned to her father's court, she had numberless suitors for
her hand; but, anxious to preserve her freedom, she imposed the
condition that every suitor should engage with her in a footrace: if he
were beaten, his life was forfeited; if successful, she would become his
bride. Many had thus lost their lives. Finally, Hippomenes, a youth
under the protection of Aphrodite, who had bestowed on him three golden
apples, desired to race with the princess. Atalanta soon passed her
antagonist, but, as she did so, a golden apple fell at her feet. She
stooped to pick it up, and Hippomenes regained the lead. Again she
passed him, and again a golden apple caused her to pause, and Hippomenes
shot ahead. Finally, just as she was about to reach the goal, the third
golden apple tempted her to stop once more, and Hippomenes won the race
and a peerless bride.
III
WOMEN OF THE ILIAD
The reader of the Iliad and the Odyssey finds himself in an atmosphere
altogether human. As he peruses these pages, so rich in pictures of the
life and manners of heroic times, it matters little to him whether the
men and women of epic song had merely a mythical existence, or were, in
fact, historical figures. The contemporaries of Homer and later Greeks
had an unshaken belief in the reality of those men and women; and the
poet has breathed into them the breath of genius, which gives life and
immortality.
We have in these poems the most ancient expression of the national
sentiment of the Greeks, and from them we can form a correct idea of the
relations of men and women in prehistoric times, and of the character
and status of woman in the childhood of the Greek world.
It is a noteworthy fact that the plots of both the Iliad and the
Odyssey--as well as the most interesting episodes they contain--turn
upon love for women; and a clear idea of the importance of woman in the
Heroic Age could not be given better than by briefly reviewing the
brilliant panorama of warlike and domestic scenes in which woman
figures.
We are first introduced to a Greek camp in Troy land. During ten long
years the hosts of the Achaeans have been gathered before the walls of
Ilium. What is the cause of this long struggle? A woman! Paris, son of
King Priam, had carried off to his native city Queen Helen, wife of
Menelaus, King of Sparta. Aided by the wiles of Aphrodite, to whom he
had awarded the golden apple as the fairest in the contest of the three
goddesses, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, Paris succeeded in winning the
heart of this fairest of Greek women and in persuading her to desert
husband and daughter to follow the fortunes of a handsome stranger. On
the isle of Cranae their nuptial rites were celebrated, and after much
voyaging they reached their new home in Troy, where King Priam,
fascinated with the beauty and grace of this new daughter, in spite of
his dread of the consequences, graciously received the errant pair. The
Greek chieftains bound themselves by an inviolable oath to assist the
forsaken husband to recover his spouse, and, marshalling their forces,
they entered upon the long and tedious war. Thus, a woman was the cause
of the first great struggle between Orient and Occident, of the
assembling of the mighty hosts of the Achaeans under King Agamemnon, of
ten years of siege and struggle and innumerable wars, of the hurling of
many valiant souls to Hades, of the fall of Troy, and of the varied
wanderings and dire fortunes of the surviving heroes and heroines of the
epic story.
The Iliad does not tell the whole story of the Trojan War; Homer invites
the muse to sing of but one episode thereof--the dire wrath of Achilles.
The cause of that violent outburst is also a woman. The Greek chieftains
are gathered in the place of assembly, along the banks of the Scamander.
In their midst is an aged priest of the town of Chryse, bearing in his
hand the fillets of Apollo, the Far-darter, upon a golden staff. He
beseeches the Greeks to restore to him his dear child, the maiden
Chryseis, their captive, and to accept in return the proffered ransom,
reverencing the god. There is a sympathetic murmur among the chieftains,
who urge the granting of the petition; but the thing pleases not the
heart of Agamemnon, king of men, who had received the beautiful captive
as his own share of the booty, and for love of her will not give her up.
So he roughly sends the old man away, and lays stern charge upon him not
to be seen again near the ships of the Achaeans. Outraged in his dignity
as a priest and in his tenderness as a father, the aged sire prays to
Apollo, who at once sends dire pestilence upon the Greeks; and the pyres
of the dead burn continually in multitude. Nine days speed the god's
shafts throughout the host, and on the tenth the valiant warrior
Achilles summons the folk to assembly, and bids Calchas, "most excellent
of augurs," declare the cause of the pestilence. Calchas, after much
hesitation, responds that the Far-darter has brought war upon the Greeks
because Agamemnon has done despite to the priest, and has not set his
daughter free and accepted the ransom.
Agamemnon is violently enraged at the seer; his dark heart within him is
greatly filled with anger, and his eyes are like flashing fire. He
charges the seer with never saying anything that is pleasant for him to
hear. And as for Chryseis, he would fain keep her himself in his
household; for he prefers her even before Clytemnestra, his wedded wife,
to whom she is nowise inferior, neither in favor nor stature nor wit nor
skill. Yet if she be taken away from him for the good of the people, he
demands another prize forthwith, that alone of the Greeks he may not be
without reward. Then is the valiant Achilles enraged at the covetousness
of his chief, and a violent quarrel ensues. At last, Agamemnon asserts
that he will send back Chryseis, but he will come and take in return
Achilles's meed of honor, Briseis of the fair cheeks, that Achilles may
know how far the mightier is he and that no other may hereafter dare to
rival him to his face.
Then is the son of Peleus the more enraged, and, had not the goddess
Athena appeared and restrained his wrath, he would have assailed
Agamemnon on the spot. However, he speaks again with bitter words and
declares that hereafter longing for Achilles will come upon the Achaeans
one and all; for no more will he fight with the Greeks against the
Trojans. So the assembly breaks up, after this battle of violent words
between the twain. Achilles returns to his huts and trim ships, with
Patroclus and his company; and Agamemnon sends forth Odysseus and others
on a fleet ship to bear back to her father the lovely Chryseis, and to
offer a hecatomb to Apollo. Thus Chryseis is restored to her father's
arms, and appears no more in the story.
But Atrides ceases not from the strife with which he has threatened
Achilles. He summons straightway two heralds, and bids them go to the
tent of Achilles and take Briseis of the fair cheeks by the hand and
lead her to him. Unwillingly they go on their mission, and find the
young warrior sitting sorrowfully beside his hut and black ship. He
knows wherefore they come, and bids his friend Patroclus bring forth the
damsel and give them her to lead away. And Patroclus hearkens to his
dear companion, and leads forth from the hut Briseis of the fair cheeks,
and gives her to the heralds. And the twain take their way back along
the ships of the Achaeans and with them goes the maiden, all unwilling.
In this moment of grief at the loss of the woman he loves, Achilles
bethinks him of his dear mother, the Nereid Thetis, and, stretching
forth his hand toward the sea, he prays to her to hearken to him. His
lady mother hears him as she sits in the sea depths beside her aged
sire, and with speed she arises from the gray sea, and sits down beside
him and strokes him with her hand and inquires the cause of his sorrow.
Into her sympathetic ear he tells all the story of his wrongs, and the
goddess shows herself the tenderest and most loving of mothers. He bids
her seek justice for him at the throne of mighty Zeus, with whom she is
potent on account of favors she has done him. She bewails with her son
that she has borne him to brief life and evil destiny; but she bids him
continue wroth with the Achaeans, and refrain utterly from battle, while
she will early fare to Zeus's palace upon Mount Olympus, and she thinks
to win him. True to her promise, she betakes herself to sunny Olympus
and finds the father of gods and men sitting apart from all the rest
upon the topmost peak. She clasps his knees with one hand as a suppliant
and with the other strokes his chin, and prays him to do honor to her
son and exalt him with recompense for the gross wrong he has suffered.
And Zeus, though he knows that it will lead to strife with Lady Hera,
his spouse, promises to heap just vengeance upon Agamemnon.
Thus, upon the very threshold of the Iliad, the chord of maternal
affection is struck; and when the wild passions of early manhood have
led to sorrow and humiliation, the mother appears, affording sympathy
and comfort, and is ready to traverse sea and earth and heaven to
intercede for her wronged and grief-stricken son.
Achilles remains away from battle, sulking beside the ships. The odds
are now in favor of the Trojans in the conflict that is being waged.
Both sides are weary of continual fighting, and a single combat is
arranged between Menelaus and Paris, the wronged husband and the
present lord of Helen. The meed of victory is to be Helen herself, with
all her treasures, she now appearing for the first time in the Epos.
Helen is summoned from her palace to witness the combat. So she hastens
from her chamber, attended by two handmaidens, and comes to the place of
the Scaean gates, where are gathered King Priam and the elders of the
city.