that his children, his mother, and the women that were with her, should
be put to death. Among these was the wife of Panteus, still very young
and exquisitely beautiful, who had but lately been married. Her parents
would not suffer her to embark with Panteus for Egypt so soon after they
had been married, though she eagerly desired it, and her father had shut
her up and kept her forcibly at home. But she found means of escape. A
few days after Panteus's departure, she slipped out by night, mounted a
horse and rode to Taenarum, and there embarked on a vessel sailing for
Egypt, where she soon found her husband, and with him cheerfully endured
all the sufferings and hardships that befell them in a hostile country.
She was now the moral support of the whole company of helpless women.
She moved about among them, comforting and consoling. She gave her hand
to Cratesiclea, as the latter was being led out by the soldiers to
execution, held up her robe, and begged her to be courageous, being
herself not in the least afraid of death, and desiring nothing else than
to be killed before the children were put to death. When they reached
the place of execution, the children were first killed before
Cratesiclea's eyes; and afterward she herself suffered death, with these
pathetic words on her lips: "O children, whither are you gone?"
Panteus's wife, as her husband did for the men, performed the last
offices for the women. In silence and perfect composure, she looked
after every one that was slain, and laid out the bodies as decently as
circumstances would permit. And then, after all were killed, adjusting
her own robe so that she might fall becomingly, she courageously
submitted to the stroke of the executioner.
Thus ended the second great movement for the reformation of Sparta, and
henceforth Sparta, as an independent State; disappears from history. The
story of the fall of Sparta owes its human interest chiefly to the women
involved, and Plutarch recognizes this fact when, in concluding his
story of Cleomenes, he, with the Greek dramatic contests before his
mind, says: "Thus Lacedaemon, exhibiting a dramatic contest in which the
women vied with the men, showed in her last days that virtue cannot be
insulted by fortune."
Chilonis, Agesistrata, Agiatis, Cratesiclea, the wife of Panteus,--what
a pity that we do not know her name!--constitute the most admirable
feminine group that Greek history offers us. What especially charms us
is that they unite with the strength and self-abnegation of the ancient
Spartan matron a sweetness, a tenderness, a womanliness, which we have
not been accustomed to attribute to Spartan women. They are Spartans,
but they are, above all, women.
VIII
THE ATHENIAN WOMAN
Divergent views have been entertained by writers who have discussed the
social position of woman at Athens and the estimation in which she was
held by man. Many scholars have asserted that women were held in a
durance not unlike that of the Oriental harem, that their life was a
species of vassalage, and that they were treated with contempt by the
other sex; while the few have contended that there existed a degree of
emancipation differing but slightly from that of the female sex in
modern times. As is usually the case, the truth lies in the golden mean
between these two extremes; and a careful perusal of Greek authors, with
the judgment directed to the spirit of their references to women rather
than to a literal interpretation of disparate passages, will show that
the status of the freeborn Athenian woman, while by no means ideal or
conforming to our present standards, was far better than is usually
conceded by the writers upon Greek life.
It cannot be denied, however, that the social position of the Athenian
woman was far inferior to that of the woman of the Heroic Age, and that,
despite the boasted democracy and freedom of thought of the period,
woman's status in the years of republican Athens was a reproach to the
advanced culture and love of the good and the beautiful of which the
city of the violet crown was the exponent. There had been a revolution
in the habits of life of the Greeks since the days when Homer sang of
the women of heroic Greece, and the student does not have to search far
to discover the principal causes of the change.
The chief of these is the Greek idea of the city-state, which reached
its highest development in Athens. Citizenship was, as a rule,
hereditary, and every possible legal measure was taken to preserve its
purity. The main principle of this hereditary citizenship was that the
union from which the child was sprung must be one recognized by the
State. This was accomplished by requiring a legitimate marriage, either
through betrothal by a parent or guardian, or through assignment by a
magistrate. Pericles revised the old conditions, which had become lax
during the tyranny, by passing a measure limiting citizenship to those
who were born of two Athenian parents. Greater stress was laid on the
citizenship of the mother than on that of the father, as the child was
regarded as belonging naturally to the mother. It was possible to
increase the citizen body by a vote of the people; but in the best days
of Athens her citizenship was regarded as so high a privilege that the
franchise was most jealously guarded. Consequently, in the fifth century
we see in Athens and Attica a population of about four hundred thousand,
of which not more than fifty thousand were citizens; the rest consisted
of minors, of resident aliens numbering some fifteen thousand, and of
slaves, of whom there were about two hundred thousand in the Periclean
Age.
To preserve the purity of the citizenship in so large a population of
residents, increased by thousands of visitors and strangers who
frequented the metropolis, every precaution was taken that the daughters
of Athens should not be wedded to foreigners, and that no spurious
offspring should be palmed off on the State. Hence marriage by a citizen
was restricted to a union with a legitimate Athenian maiden with full
birthright. The marriage of an Athenian maiden with a stranger, or of a
citizen with a foreigner, was strictly forbidden, and the offspring of
such a union was illegitimate.
Under such a conception of polity, marriage lay at the very basis of the
State; and respect for the local deities, obligations of citizenship,
and regard for one's race and lineage, demanded that every safeguard
should be thrown about it, and that the women of Athens should conform
to those enactments and customs which would fit them to be the mothers
of citizens and would keep from them every entangling intrigue with
strangers.
The result of this polity was a singular phenomenon: there were in
Athens two classes of women--one carefully secluded and restricted,
under the rigid surveillance of law and custom; the other, free to do
whatever it pleased, except to marry citizens. Yet the latter class
would gladly have exchanged places with the former; while the former, no
doubt, envied the freedom and social accomplishments of the latter. The
one class consisted of the highborn matrons of Athens, glorying in their
birthright, and rulers of the home; the other, of the resident aliens of
the female sex, unmarried, emancipated intellectually as untrammelled
morally, who could become the "companions" of the great men of the city.
Thus, owing to the Athenian conception of the city-state, the natural
functions of woman--domesticity and companionship, which should be
united in one person, were divided, the Athenian man looking to his wife
merely for the care of the home and the bearing and rearing of children,
and to the hetaera for comradeship and intellectual sympathy. This evil
was the canker-worm which gnawed out the core of the social life of
Athens and caused the unhappiness of the female sex.
At the birth of a girl in Athens, woollen fillets were hung upon the
door of the house to indicate the sex of the child, the olive wreath
being used to proclaim the birth of a boy. This custom demonstrates the
relative importance of son and daughter in the eyes of the parents and
the public. The son was destined for all the victories that public life
and the prestige of the State can give; therefore, the olive, symbol of
victory, served to make known his advent. The daughter's life was to be
one of domestic duties, hence the band of wool, with its connotation of
spinning and weaving, was a fitting emblem of the career for which the
babe was destined. The plan of a Greek house indicates how secluded
woman's whole life was to be. In the interior part of the Greek mansion,
separated from the front of the building by a door, lay the
_gyncaeconitis_, or women's apartments, usually built around a court.
Here were bedrooms, dining-rooms, the nursery, the rooms for spinning
and weaving, where the lady of the house sat at her wheel. This was, in
brief, the feminine domain.
In the seclusion of the _gyncaeconitis_, the girl-child was reared by its
mother and nurse. Her playthings--dishes, toy spindles, and dolls--were
such as to cultivate her taste for domestic duties. No regular public
and systematized instruction was provided for a girl; no education was
deemed necessary, for her life was to be devoted to the household, away
from the world of affairs. But though there were no schools for maidens
to attend, reading and writing and the fundamentals of knowledge were
regularly imparted by a loving mother or a faithful nurse. The frescoed
walls made the girls acquainted with the stories of mythology, and music
and the recitation of poetry were frequent sources of instruction and
recreation in the homes of the well-to-do. The maidens were, above all,
made proficient in the strictly feminine arts of housekeeping, spinning,
weaving, and embroidery. They were rigidly excluded from any intercourse
with the other sex, and their contact with the outside world was
confined to participation in the religious festivals, which occupied so
large a part in the everyday life of the Greeks. "When I was seven years
of age," says the chorus of Athenian women in the _Lysistrata_ of
Aristophanes, "I carried the mystic box in the procession; then, when I
was ten, I ground the cakes for our patron goddess; and, clad in a
saffron-colored robe, I was the bear at the Brauronian festival; and I
carried the sacred basket when I became a beautiful girl." Such were the
opportunities granted to the highborn Athenian maiden for occasional
glimpses of the splendor and activity of her native city; and can we
doubt that on such occasions she was impressed by the sublimity of the
temples and works of art, and that there were cast many modest glances
at the handsome youths on horseback, who, in turn, were fascinated by
the beauty and freshness of these tenderly nurtured maidens?
The seclusion of Athenian girls and the careful rearing which they
received at the hands of mothers and nurses were such as to fit them to
rule the home. The Athenian maiden was noted throughout Hellas for her
modesty and sweetness. The intelligence was not cultivated, but the
heart and sensibilities had ample scope for development in the duties
and recreations of the _gynaeconitis_ and in the participation in
religious exercises. Such a simple and peaceful rearing tended to
preserve the delicacy of the soul and to keep unstained innocence and
purity. When comparison is instituted with the Spartan system,
preference must be given to the Athenian method of education, with all
its defects. The sweet modesty imparted by seclusion was far more
womanly than the boldness of bearing acquired by athletic exercises in
the presence of young men. The Spartan system trained the woman for
public life, to be the patriotic mother of warriors; the Athenian system
prepared the maiden to be the guardian of the home, the affectionate and
devoted mother.
When the maiden reached the age of fifteen, her parents began
negotiations for her marriage. An Athenian marriage was essentially a
matter of convenience, and was usually arranged by contract between the
respective fathers of the youth and maiden. Equality of birth and
fortune were generally the chief considerations in the selection of the
son-in-law or the daughter-in-law; and in an atmosphere where the
attractions of a maiden were so little known, a professional matchmaker
frequently brought the interested parties together. Thus the rustic
Strepsiades, in Aristophanes's _Clouds_, expresses the wish that the
feminine matchmaker had perished miserably who had induced him to marry
the haughty, luxurious, citified niece of aristocratic Megacles, son of
Megacles.
The Homeric custom of bringing valuable presents or of performing
valiant deeds to win a maiden's hand had long passed away, and, in the
great days of Athens, the father had to provide a dowry consisting
partly of cash, partly of clothes, jewelry, and slaves. Solon, who, as
Plutarch tells us, wished to have marriages contracted from motives of
pure love or kind affection, and to further the birth of children,
rather than for mercenary considerations, decreed that no dowries should
be given and that the bride should have only three changes of clothes;
but this good custom had passed away with the era of simple living. So
distinctly was the dowry the indispensable condition of marriage, that
poor girls were often endowed by generous relatives, or the State
itself would provide a wedding portion for the daughters of men
deserving well of their country. For example, when the Athenians heard
that the granddaughter of Aristogiton, the Tyrannicide, was in needy
circumstances in the isle of Lemnos, and was so poor that nobody would
marry her, they brought her back to Athens, married her to a man of good
birth, and gave her a farm at Potamos for a marriage portion. The dowry
was generally secured to the wife by rigid restrictions; in most cases
of separation, the dowry reverted to the wife's parents; and though the
husband's fortune might be confiscated, the marriage portion of the wife
was exempt.
Of the ceremonies and formalities of marriage, the solemn betrothal was
the first and most important, as it established the legality of the
union; and it was at this ceremony that the dowry was settled upon the
bride. In the presence of the two families, the father of the maiden
addressed the bridegroom in the following formula: "That legitimate
children may be born, I present you my daughter." The betrothed then
exchanged vows by clasping their right hands or by embracing each other,
and the maiden received a gift from her affianced as a token of love.
The marriage usually followed close upon the betrothal.
The favorite month for the ceremony was named Gamelion, or the "marriage
month"; this included part of our January and part of February. On the
eve of the wedding, the good will of the divinities protecting marriage,
especially Zeus Teleios, Hera Teleia, and Artemis Eukleia, was invoked
by prayer and sacrifices.
Strange to say, the wedding itself, though given a religious character
by its attendant ceremonies, was neither a religious nor a legal act.
The legality of the marriage was established by the betrothal, while
its religious aspect was found solely in the rites in honor of the
marriage gods.
A second ceremony, universally observed, was the bridal bath, taken
individually by both bride and bridegroom previously to their union. In
Athens, from time immemorial, the water for this bath was taken from the
sacred fountain, Callirrhoe, called since its enclosure by Pisistratus
"Enneacrunus," or "the Nine Spouts." Authorities differ as to whether a
boy or a girl served as water carrier on this occasion; but the latter
supposition is supported by an archaic picture on a hydria, representing
the holy fountain Callirrhoe flowing from the head of a lion under a
Doric superstructure. A girl, holding in her hand branches of laurel or
myrtle, looks musingly down on a hydria, which is being filled with the
bridal water. Five other maidens are grouped about the fountain, some
with empty pitchers awaiting their turn, others about to go home with
their filled pitchers. No doubt it is in the month of marriage, and many
maidens are preparing for the happy event.
On the wedding day, toward dark, a feast was held at the parental home,
at which were gathered all the bridal party--for this was one of the few
occasions in Athenian life when men and women dined together. Here the
bride and groom appeared, clad in purple and crowned with flowers sacred
to Aphrodite. The distinctive mark of the bride was the veil, which
covered her head and partly concealed her face. All the guests wore
wreaths in honor of the joyous event. With her own hand the bride
plucked the poppies and sesame which were to crown her forehead, for it
would have been an ill omen to wear a nuptial wreath that had been
purchased.
Soon the banquet is concluded with libations and prayer, just as night
begins to fall. Then the bride leaves the festively adorned parental
home, and takes her place in a chariot, between the bridegroom and his
best man, for the wedding journey to her new abode. The place of honor
in the procession that follows is held by the bride's mother, who walks
behind the chariot, carrying the wedding torches, which have been
kindled at the family hearth, that the bride may have the sacred fire of
her own home continued in her new dwelling. The festal company join in
singing the wedding song to Hymenaeus to the sound of flutes as the
chariot leads slowly toward the bridegroom's house. At the close of the
_Birds_ of Aristophanes, when occurs the wedding of Pisthetaerus and
Basileia, the chorus attends the wedded pair with the following lines:
"Jupiter, that god sublime,
When the Fates in former time
Matched him with the Queen of Heaven
At a solemn banquet given,
Such a feast was held above,
And the charming God of Love
Being present in command,
As a bridegroom took his stand
With the golden reins in hand,
Hymen, Hymen, Ho!"
The new home, like that of the bride's father, is adorned with garlands
of laurel and ivy--the laurel for the husband, as the symbol of victory,
and the delicate and graceful ivy for the bride, embodying her
attachment for her husband, as that of the ivy for the sturdy oak. At
the door, the bridegroom's mother is awaiting the young couple, with the
burning torches in her hand. As the spouses enter, a shower of
sweetmeats is poured upon their heads, partly in jest, partly to
symbolize the abundance and prosperity invoked upon them. To typify the
bride's new duties as mistress of the house, a pestle used for bruising
corn has been hung up near the bridal chamber; and in conformity to
another custom, prevailing since the days of Solon, she is expected to
eat a quince, which was considered to be a symbol of fruitfulness. Soon
the bridegroom's mother attends the couple to the _thalamos_, or nuptial
chamber, where, for the first time, the bride unveils herself to her
husband. Meanwhile, before the door, the bride's attendants, crowned
with hyacinth, join in the epithalamium, or marriage hymn, a
characteristic specimen of which we possess in the bridal hymn to Helen,
by Theocritus:
"Slumberest so soon, sweet bridegroom?
Art thou overfond of sleep?
Or hast thou leaden-weighted limbs?
Or hast thou drunk too deep
When thou didst fling thee to thy lair?
Betimes thou shouldst have sped,
If sleep were all thy purpose,
Unto thy bachelor's bed,
And left her in her mother's arms,
To nestle and to play,
A girl among her girlish mates,
Till deep into the day:--
For not alone for this night,
Nor for the next alone,
But through the days and through the years
Thou hast her for thine own."
And it ends thus:
"Sleep on, and love and longing
Breathe in each other's breast,
But fail not when the morn returns
To rouse you from your rest;
With dawn shall we be stirring,
When, lifting high his fair
And feathered neck, the earliest bird
To clarion to the dawn is heard.
O God of brides and bridals,
Sing, 'Happy, happy pair!'"
A fragment of Anacreon has preserved for us an example of the morning
nuptial chant, sung by the chorus to greet the bride and groom on their
awakening:
"Aphrodite, queen of goddesses; Love, powerful conqueror; Hymen, source
of life: it is of you that I sing in my verses. 'Tis of you I chant,
Love, Hymen, and Aphrodite. Behold, young man, behold thy wife! Arise, O
Straticlus, favored of Aphrodite, husband of Myrilla, admire thy bride!
Her freshness, her grace, her charms, make her shine among all women.
The rose is queen of flowers; Myrilla is a rose midst her companions.
Mayst thou see grow in thy house a son like to thee!"
Then begins a second fete day for the bridal pair. Husband and wife
receive visits and gifts from relatives and friends, and exchange
presents with each other. The festivities are concluded with a banquet
in the husband's home, at which the wife's position in the clan of her
husband's family is recognized; and she may now appear without her veil,
as the mistress of her new home.
Wedding scenes are frequently the subject of illustration in antique
art. The most remarkable of these is the splendid wall painting known as
the _Aldobrandini Wedding_, preserved in the Vatican. It represents,
painted on one surface, three different scenes of the marriage ceremony.
The central picture represents a chamber of the _gynoe onitis_, where
the bride, chastely veiled, reclines on a beautiful couch; "Peitho, the
goddess of persuasion, sits by her side, as appears from the crown on
her head and from the many-folded peplus falling over her back. She
pleads the bridegroom's cause, and seems to encourage the timorous
maiden. A third female figure, to the left of the group, leaning on a
piece of a column, seems to expect the girl's surrender; for she is
pouring ointment from an alabastron into a vase made of shell, so as to
have it ready for use after the bridal bath. Most likely she represents
the second handmaiden of Aphrodite, Charis, who, according to the myth,
bathed and anointed her mistress with ambrosial oil in the holy grove of
Paphos. The pillar at the back of Charis indicates the partition wall
between this chamber and the one next to it on the left. We here see a
large basin filled with water, standing on a columnar base. The water is
perhaps that of the well Callirrhoe, fetched by the young girl standing
close by for the nuptial bath. The girl seems to look inquiringly at the
matronly figure approaching the basin on the other side, and putting her
fingers into the water as if to test its warmth. Her sublime form and
priestly dress, together with the leaf-shaped instrument in her hand
(probably the instrument used at lustrations), seem to portray her as
Hera Teleia, the protecting goddess of marriage, in the act of examining
and blessing the bridal bath. The third scene of the picture is placed
at the entrance of the bride's house. The bridegroom, crowned with vine
branches, is sitting on the threshold, as if listening impatiently for
the close of the ceremony inside the house. In front of him is a group
of three maidens, one of whom seems to be making an offering at a
portable altar, while the other two begin the hymenaeus to the
accompaniment of the cithara."
With the completion of the marriage ceremonies, the maiden has passed
from the _gynaeconitis_ of her father to that of her husband; but, though
still under masculine control, she is absolute mistress of her limited
sphere; yet she is expected to refrain from manifesting interest in the
public affairs of her husband and to confine her attention to her
domestic duties.
"Good women must abide within the house;
Those whom we meet abroad are nothing worth,"