Chapter II: Women of Doric States

The women of Sparta were even in Greece remarkable for their personal beauty. Their education and exercises promoting their health and physical energies, aided, at the same time, the natural developement of the frame, with all its inherent symmetry and proportion. It is probable, however, that the charms of Helen may have led on this point to some misapprehension; but Helen belonged to the old heroic race, with which the Dorians of Sparta had nothing in common, that is, like so many other women celebrated by the poets of after times for their beauty, was an Achæan. Still, lovely they were, well-formed, brilliant of complexion, with features of much regularity, and eyes into which exuberant health infused a sparkling brightness irresistibly pleasing. But it would require to be peculiarly constituted to pronounce them the most beautiful women in all Greece.[1089] They were what in modern phrase would be termed fine women, but exceeding considerably what we deem true feminine proportions, being, in fact, a sort of female grenadiers, robust, vigorous, bull-stranglers, as Lysistrata[1090] somewhat ironically expresses it, their beauty was rather that of men, than of women. Some among the Greeks preferred, it is true, ladies of this large growth. Thus, we find Xenophon, in the Anabasis, expressing his apprehension that should his countrymen become acquainted with the fine tall women of Persia, they would, like the Lotos-eaters, forget the way to their country and their home.[1091] But this was a taste which never became general. The beauty which excited most admiration, where beauty constituted the noblest object of literature and art, was a kind totally different in character, exquisitely feminine, gentle, soft, retiring, modest, instinct with grace and delicacy, the parasite of the moral creation, clinging round man for support, but imparting more than it receives.

Footnote 1089:

See Müll. Dor. ii. 296.

Footnote 1090:

Ὧ φιλτάτη Λάκαινα, χαῖρε.
οἷον τὸ κάλλος, γλυκυτάτη, σοῦ φαίνεται.
ὡς δ᾽ εὐχροεῖς, ὡς δὲ σφριγᾷ τὸ σῶμά σου,
κἂν ταῦρον ἄγχοις.

Which may be thus translated:

Beloved Laconian, welcome!
How glorious is thy beauty, love! how ruddy
The tint of thy complexion! Vigour and health
So brace thy frame that thou a bull couldst throttle.

Aristoph. Lysist. 78 sqq.

Footnote 1091:

Anab. iii. 2. 25.—Ἀλλὰ γὰρ δέδοικα μὴ, ἂν ἅπαξ μάθωμεν ἀργοὶ ζῇν,
καὶ ἐν ἀφθόνοις βιοτεύειν, καὶ Μήδῶν δὲ καὶ Περσῶν καλαῖς καὶ
μεγάλαις γυναιξὶ καὶ παρθένοις ὁμιλεῖν, μὴ, ὣσπερ οἱ λωτοφάγοι,
ἐπιλαθώμεθα τῆς οἴκαδε ὁδοῦ.—And again, in the Cyropædia, Araspes
praises Panthea for her majestic size. It appears from Homer that
when Athena was desirous of making Penelope appear more lovely than
ordinary, she added to her height.—Odyss. σ. 194.

Such beauty, however, would have been inconsistent with the aim of Lycurgus. Like a well-known modern despot, this great legislator aimed solely at creating a nation of grenadiers, and to effect this, both the education, laws, and manners of Sparta received a military impress. Everything there breathed of the camp. The girls from their tenderest years, instead of being instructed as in other communities to entwine all their feelings round the domestic hearth, and expect their chiefest happiness at home, were systematically undomesticated, brought incessantly into contact with men, initiated in immoral habits, subversive of the female character,[1092] and taught to consider themselves designed to be the wives of the state rather than of individuals. Nature, the legislator was aware, has implanted the principles of love and modesty deep in the female heart; in general also, to eradicate one, is to root up the other; and both in the sense in which we contemplate them, being inimical to the purpose which his constitution was intended to promote, he sought to subvert the power of love by obliterating from the female mind every trace of maidenly modesty.

Footnote 1092:

Athen. xiii. 79.—Even Plutarch denominates the system of discipline
observed by the Spartan women ἀναπεπταμένη καὶ ἄθηλυς,—"lax and
unfeminine,"—and confesses that it afforded the poets an
inexhaustible fund for ridicule. Ibycos, for example, called them
φαινομηρίδες: and Euripides ἀνδρομανεῖς. Their education, in fact,
rendered them coarse and domineering, “bold and mannish;”
θρασύτεραι, and ἀνδριοδεῖς, are the words of Plutarch, who observes
that they desired not only to rule by violence at home, but even
audaciously to meddle with public affairs.—Compar. Lycurg. cum Num.
§ 3.

The power of political institutions over the feelings of the heart, over manners, over habits, over conscience, and opinions, was never so strikingly exemplified as at Sparta. Whatever the legislator determined to be good was good.[1093] Example, affection, nature pleaded in vain. An iron system, strong as fate, encircled the whole scope of life, repressing every aspiration tending above the point prescribed, guiding every wish into a given channel, curbing every passion inconsistent in its full developement with the views of the legislator. Aristotle, indeed, maintains that while the men of Sparta conformed to the design of the constitution, the women refused to bend their neck to the yoke, and persisted in the enjoyment of a freedom constantly degenerating into licentiousness.[1094] He probably, however, supposes the existence in Lycurgus of a moral purpose, far loftier than he really aimed at. The virtues of a camp—and Sparta was nothing else—are never too rigid, nor must we look among female camp-followers for much of that delicacy, reserve, self-control, or keen sense of what is just and upright, of which none judge more accurately than well educated women. Doubtless the Doric lawgiver cherished no other design than to promote the happiness of his countrymen. It would be unjust to suppose otherwise. But how far the regulations by which he sought to effect this purpose were calculated to ensure success, is what we have to inquire.

Footnote 1093:

Philosophers, also, were found in antiquity as in modern times, who
theoretically maintained this doctrine. Thus Archelaos contended,
καὶ τὸ δίκαιον εἶναι καὶ τὸ αἰσχρὸν οὐ φύσει, ἀλλὰ νόμῳ.—Diog.
Laert. ii. 4. 3. Here we discover the fundamental maxim upon which
the whole system of Hobbes was constructed.

Footnote 1094:

Polit. ii. 9.

It may at once be observed that Lycurgus’s system of female education was the furthest possible removed from common place. He contemplated both the sexes in nearly the same point of view. Their form he saw; and in many points their character, their affections, their virtues, their vices, bear a close resemblance; and in his conception, perfection would be attained, if all such discriminating marks as nature has set up could be removed, and every quality of what he considered the superior sex transferred to the inferior. Much misapprehension appears to exist on this point. Writers pretend that among the Dorians the female character stood in high estimation, while the reverse they suppose to have been the case in Ionic States. But the Dorians betrayed their contempt for women as they came from the hands of nature, by endeavouring to convert them into men; their neighbours the reverse, by contenting themselves with their purely feminine qualities, which among people of Ionic race were cultivated and improved, perhaps, as far as was consistent with domestic happiness.

In the harems of the East the whip is of great service in maintaining order, and the same, it is evident, was the case at Sparta. Both youths and virgins from their tenderest years were subjected to a severe discipline; regular floggers, as at our own great schools, always attended the inspectors of public instruction; and in this the system was wise, that habits were more regarded than acquisitions.[1095] But of the habits cherished by the Spartan system we cannot always approve. Like the boys, the virgins frequented the gymnasia, where, naked as at their birth, they exercised themselves in wrestling, running, pitching the quoit, and throwing the javelin.[1096] To these accomplishments, others, according to a Roman poet, still less feminine were added. They contended, he says, in the ring with men, bound the cestus on their clenched fists, and boxed their future husbands like so many prize-fighters. No wonder that the partners of such women were henpecked. Horsemanship, the sword exercise, and the rough sports of the chase, affected by women of similar character in our own country, completed the circle of female studies,[1097] and rendered the Spartan maids something more than a match for their worse halves, whether after marriage or before.[1098]

Footnote 1095:

Jamblich. vit. Pythag. xi. 5. 6.—Müller. Dor. ii. 317.

Footnote 1096:

Plut. Lycurg. §. 14. Compare the remarks of Ubbo Emmius who adopts,
however, too implicitly the notions of Plutarch.—iii. 22. seq.

Footnote 1097:

Propert. iii. 12. p. 261. iv. 13. p. 88. Jacob.—Cicero, after
quoting certain verses from an old poet, describing the exercises of
the female Spartans, adds in his own words: “ergo his laboriosis
excercitationibus et dolor intercurrit nonnumquam; impelluntur,
ponuntur, abjiciuntur, cadunt: et ipse labor quasi callum quoddam
obducit dolori.” Tuscul. Quæst. ii. 36.—In remoter ages we find
women celebrated for their skill in hunting, and there were those
who in later times sought to recommend this taste to their
countrywomen:—Οὐ μόνον δὲ, ὅσοι ἄνδρες κυνηγεσίων ἡράσθησαν,
ἐγένοντο ἀγαθοὶ ἀλλὰ καὶ αἱ γυναῖκες, αἷς ἔδωκεν ἡ θεὸς ταῦτα
Ἄρτεμις, Ἀταλάντη, καὶ Πρόκρις, καὶ εἴ τις ἄλλη. Xen. de Venat.
xiii. 18. 345. Schneid. Cf. Callim. Hymn. in Dian. 209. 215. Spanh.

Footnote 1098:

Alluding to the political power of women at Sparta, Aristotle
inquires: what signifies it whether women govern or men be governed
by women? Polit. ii. 9.

Some pains have in our own days been taken to pare away the roughnesses, and obliterate the peculiar features of the Doric educational institutions, in order to bring them into greater uniformity with modern notions. There is no probability, we are told, that either youths or men were permitted to be present at the extraordinary exhibition of the female gymnasia.[1099] But whence is this inference derived? From the delicacy of Spartan manners in other respects? And are we in fact reduced on this curious point to depend on inferences and probabilities? On the contrary, we are informed by antiquity that besides the personal advantages of health and vigour, derived to the women themselves, the legislator contemplated others little less important, the promotion of marriage and the recreation of all the useful portion of the citizens. For while the married men and youths intent on connubial happiness, enjoyed the free entry to these gymnasia,[1100] those sullen egotists called bachelors were very properly excluded. The former had some property in the young ladies, who were their daughters, sisters, or future spouses, but persons avowedly indifferent to the seductive influence of female charms could have no business there.

Footnote 1099:

Müll. Dor. ii. 333.

Footnote 1100:

Plut. Lycurg. § 14. 15. Müller, with the amusing partiality of an
apologist, overlooks the passage, and introduces Plutarch affirming
“that they only witnessed the processions and dances of the young
(wo)men.” Note K. Dor. ii. p. 328. Here though _men_ be the printed
word in the English translation women must be clearly meant. Even
so, however, the assertion is unfounded, since we find that even
strangers were admitted:—ἐπαινεῖται δὲ καὶ τῶν Σπαρτιατῶν τὸ ἔθος τὸ
γυμνοῦν τὰς παρθένους τοῖς ξένοις. Athen. xiii. 20. The islanders of
Chios would appear to have imitated this laudable practice, since
the sophist speaks of it as a most pleasant spectacle to behold the
youths and virgins wrestling together in the public place of
exercise. Ibid.

Admitting, therefore, that when the Spartan virgins[1101] performed in the gymnasia, for we must consider their exercises partly in the light of scenic exhibitions, the whole city, bachelors excepted, could be present, it remains to be seen what other accomplishments they could display for the public entertainment. Singing and dancing it has been shown were practised publicly by ladies of rank in the heroic ages, and this feature of ancient manners was preserved at Sparta, where not youths and maidens only, but even the grave and aged joined, during several great festivals, in the dance and the song.[1102] But we must beware how we apply to these performances the ideas suggested by those of modern times, or the gay and graceful movements of Ionian women. To dance at Sparta required great physical force.[1103] The maidens, unencumbered by dress, bounded aloft like an Anatole or a Taglioni, but instead of twirling round with one foot on earth, and the other suspended at right angles in air, the supreme merit of her performance consisted in slapping the back part of the body with her heel for the greatest possible number of times in succession.[1104] In this feat, which resembles strongly a Caribbee or Iroquois accomplishment, whole troops of men and women often united; an exhibition which with the shouts of laughter arising from the bystanders, the grins of the girls, and the wilful mistakes of young men who might send their feet in the wrong direction, must convey a curious idea of Spartan gravity. Such, however, was the celebrated dance called _Bibasis_,[1105] upon the frequent execution of which a Laconian girl prided herself no less than a modern lady on her activity in the indecent waltz.

Footnote 1101:

Cf. Plato. De Legg. t. viii. p. 85.

Footnote 1102:

Plut. Lycurg. §. 21.

Footnote 1103:

As now among the Galaxidiotes. Dodwell. i. 133. seq.

Footnote 1104:

Aristoph. Lysistr. 82.

Footnote 1105:

Pollux. iv. 102.

But the other dances in which the Spartan maidens excelled were numerous. Among them was the _Dipodia_[1106] of which the nature is not exactly known, but it was accompanied by music and song and apparently consisted of a series of orgiastic movements, like those of the Bacchantes when, inspired by wine, they bounded fawnlike with dishevelled hair along the mountains.[1107] On other occasions their movements were designed to express certain passions of the mind, sometimes, as in the _Calabis_,[1108] highly wanton and licentious, though the latitudinarian spirit of paganism contrived to admit them among the religious ceremonies, and that too in honour of Artemis. Another of these lewd dances performed in the worship of Apollo and his sister, and accompanied by songs, conceived no doubt in the same spirit, was the _Bryallicha_[1109], which the historian of the Doric race finds some difficulty to reconcile with the worship of Apollo, as if their deity had been himself free from the inherent vices of the Olympian dynasts. There was another dance called the _Deicelistic_[1110], a kind of rude pantomime intermingled with songs supposed to have been performed by unmarried women[1111].

Footnote 1106:

Scaliger’s idea of the dance is peculiar: Erat et διποδία, in quâ
junctis pedibus labore plurimo et conatu picas imitabantur. Poet. i.
18. p. 69.

Footnote 1107:

Aristoph. Lysistr. 1303. sqq.

Footnote 1108:

Athen. xiv. 29.

Footnote 1109:

Poll. iv. 104. Hesych. v. Βρυδαλίχα.

Footnote 1110:

Etym. Mag. 260. 42.

Footnote 1111:

Müll. Dor. ii. 335.

To these dances may be added the _Hyporchematic_, which was executed by a chorus, while singing, for which reason Bacchylides says, “This is not the work of slowness or inactivity.” By Pindar it is described as a dance performed by Spartan girls; but in fact both young men and women united in the Hyporchema, and as this dance is said to have resembled or been identical with the Cordax[1112], it will assist us in forming a notion of female delicacy at Sparta, where young women could execute publicly in company with the other sex a dance scarcely less indelicate than the fandango or bolero[1113].

Footnote 1112:

Cf. Nonn. Dionys. xix. 265. sqq. Etym. Mag. 712. 53. 635. 2. Scalig.
Poet. i. 18. Poll. iv. 99.

Footnote 1113:

Athen. xiv. 30.

From such an education and such habits tastes essentially unfeminine would naturally spring. Accordingly we find Laconian ladies of the first rank,—Cynisca daughter of king Archidamos, for example,—attending to the breed of horses, and sending chariots to contend at the Olympic games. Nor was her masculine ambition condemned by the Greeks. A statue of the lady herself, together with her chariot, and charioteer, existed among other Olympian monuments in the age of Pausanias. Afterwards many other women, but chiefly among the half barbarous Macedonians, followed the example of Cynisca and Euryleonis another Spartan dame who had been honoured with a statue at Olympia for the success of her chariot at the games.[1114]

Footnote 1114:

Pausan. iii. 15. 1. 17. 6. Cf. Vandal. Dissert. vii. p. 562. seq.

In strict keeping with the rough manners and masculine bearing of these ladies was the habit of swearing,[1115] to which in common with most other Greek women they were grievously addicted. At Athens, however, gentlewomen swore by Demeter, Persephone and Agraulos,[1116] an oath by divinities of their own sex[1117] being considered more suitable to female lips; but the viragos of Sparta spiced their conversation with oaths by Castor and Polydeukes. According, moreover, to the poet whose testimony is commonly adduced against the Athenian ladies, the women of Sparta drank[1118] as well as swore, and we know from authority altogether indisputable, that in the age of Socrates their licentiousness had already become universally notorious in Greece.[1119] A scholar, and a diligent inquirer, whose merits are too often overlooked, observes very justly that it was probably the austerity, or more properly the pedantry of Lycurgus’s institutions that gave rise to the notion that chastity was a common virtue at Sparta.[1120] It was supposed because occasionally subjected to violent exercise, that they must necessarily be temperate in their pleasures. But we might _à priori_ have inferred the contrary, and the uniform testimony of antiquity proves it. Their wantonness and licentiousness knew no bounds. Even during the ages immediately succeeding the establishment of their constitution, that is at the time of the Messenian wars, to preserve for any length of time their chastity while their husbands were absent in the field was beyond their power, and substitutes were selected and sent home to become the husbands of the whole female population.[1121]

Footnote 1115:

Aristoph. Lysistr. 81. sqq.

Footnote 1116:

Sch. Aristoph. Thesmophor. 533.

Footnote 1117:

But men we find likewise swore—Κατὰ ταῖν θεαῖν καὶ τῆς
Πολιάδος..—Lucian. Diall. Hetair. vii. 1.

Footnote 1118:

Aristoph. Lysistr. 198. seq.

Footnote 1119:

Plat. de Legg. i. t. vii. p. 201. Bekk.

Footnote 1120:

Goguet. Orig. des Loix. t. v. p. 429.

Footnote 1121:

Dion. Chrysostom. Orat. i. 278. Justin. iii. 4.

But for this ungovernable sway of temperament the institutions of the state were chiefly to blame.[1122] We have seen by the whole tenor of their education, modesty and virtue were sapped and undermined; no merit, it was visible, attached to them in the eye of the law; and shrewdly gifted as they were with good sense, they must quickly have discovered that marriage was a mere unmeaning ceremony, and that provided they gave good citizens to the state it would be of little consequence who might be their fathers.[1123] The ceremonies attending that lax union which for lack of a better term we must call marriage, resembled closely those which have been found to prevail among other savages in very distant parts of the world.

Footnote 1122:

Plut. Compar. Lycurg. cum. Num. § 3. Aristot. Polit. ii. 9. who
observes:—ζῶσι ἀκολαστῶς πρὸς ἅπασαν ἀκολασίαν καὶ τρυφερῶς.—Hermann
in his Political Antiquities § 27, reasoning consistently with these
ancient authorities, observes that the system of Lycurgus “gradually
effaced every characteristic of female excellence from the Spartan
women.”

Footnote 1123:

βουλόμενος γὰρ ὁ νομοθέτης ὡς πλείστους εἴναι τοὺς Σπαρτιάτας,
προάγεται τοὺς πολίτας ὄτι πλείστους ποιεῖσθαι παῖδας· ἔστι γὰρ
αὐτοῖς νόμος τὸν μὲν γεννήσαντα τρεῖς υἱοὺς ἄφρουρον εἶναι, τὸν δὲ
τέτταρας ἀτελή πάντων.—Arist. Polit. ii. 9. Cf. Ælian. Var. Hist.
vi. 6, who substitutes the number five for four.

Having gone through the ceremony of betrothment,[1124] in which the bride’s interest was represented by her father or brother, the lover chose some fitting occasion to seize and carry her away from amongst her companions. She was then received into the house of the bridesmaid, where her hair was cut short and her dress exchanged for that of a young man, after which custom directed that she should be left reclining on a pallet bed, in a dark chamber, alone. Thither the bridegroom repaired by stealth, and, afterwards, with equal secresy, returned to his companions, among whom he continued for some time to live as if no change in his condition had taken place. During this period, therefore, their union must be regarded rather as a clandestine intercourse than a marriage, since the husband continued, as at first, to steal secretly into the company of his wife and to effect his escape with equal care, it being considered disreputable for them to be seen together. Even the children springing from this connexion have been supposed to have ranked as bastards; but of this there is no sufficient proof.

Footnote 1124:

Cf. Xen. de Rep. Lac. i. 6. Plut. Lycurg. § 15.—Ubbo Emmius. Descr.
Reip. Lacon. p. 96. seq.

A different account is given by other authors of the marriage ceremony at Sparta, but, if properly examined, both relations may very well be reconciled. The above, in fact, appears to have been the ordinary mode when young women of property who had dowries[1125] to bestow upon their husbands, were to be disposed of. But the portionless girls, excepting, perhaps, the more beautiful, finding some difficulty in providing themselves with helpmates, a contrivance was hit upon by the legislator, calculated to give a fair chance to all. The unmarried damsels of the city, thus circumstanced, were shut up in the dark, in a spacious edifice,[1126] into which the young unmarried men were introduced to scramble for wives, the understanding being, that each was to remain content with the maiden he happened to seize upon. And it would appear that the awards of chance were, in most cases, satisfactory, since we read of no one but Lysander who abandoned the wife he had thus chosen. He, however, having been presented, by fortune, with a maiden of homely features, immediately deserted her for one more beautiful. The bad example thus set was not without its evil consequences, for the men who married his daughters put them away in like manner after his death.[1127] But, in both cases, fines for contumacy were exacted by the Ephori. According to the laws of Sparta, men were likewise fined for leading a life of celibacy,[1128] for marrying late, or for marrying unsuitably. Thus, king Archidamos was fined for selecting a little woman to be his queen, as if there was something regal in loftiness of stature.[1129]

Footnote 1125:

According to Justin, indeed, the Spartan legislator abolished the
usage of dowries: Virgines sine dote nubere jussit, ut uxores
eligerentur, non pecuniæ; severiusque matrimonia sua viri
coërcerent, cum nullis dotis frœnis tenerentur, iii. 3. But
Aristotle, who had deeply studied the polity of Sparta, gives a very
different account:—ἔστι δὲ καὶ τῶν γυναικῶν σχεδὸν τῆς πάσης χώρας
τῶν πέντε μερῶν τὰ δύο, τῶν τ᾽ ἐπικλήρων πολλῶν γινομένων, καὶ διὰ
τὸ προῖκας διδόναι μεγάλας.—Polit. ii. 9.

Footnote 1126:

Athen. xiii. 2.

Footnote 1127:

Plut. Lysand. § 30.

Footnote 1128:

Athen. xiii. 1.

Footnote 1129:

Plut. Agis, § 2. Athen. xiii. 20. It was not without reason,
perhaps, that the Ephori interfered with the marriages of their
kings, since royalty has everywhere been capricious. But these
honest magistrates were sometimes tyrannical in their ordinances and
behaviour. Thus, when Anaxandrides married his niece for love,
because she had no children he was compelled by them to take a
second wife. When the first wife was confined they, fearing
imposition, or feigning incredulity, sat about her bed.—Herod. v.
39–41.

On almost every point connected with Spartan marriages the accounts transmitted to us are contradictory. Thus, we are by some told, as has been seen above, that the union of the bride and bridegroom took place secretly, and remained for some time almost unknown. Nevertheless, there are not wanting those who speak of public ceremonies which took place on the occasion, as for example Sosibios,[1130] who informs us, that the cake, called cribanos, shaped like the female breast, was eaten at that repast which the Lacedæmonian women gave in honour of a betrothed maiden when her youthful companions assembled in chorus to chaunt her praises. At Argos, another Doric state, it was customary before the bride joined her husband for her to send him, as a present, the cake called creion, which his friends were invited to partake of with honey. It was baked upon the coals as cakes are still in the East.

Footnote 1130:

Athen. xiv. 54.

When at Sparta the state had recognised the marriage, by permitting cohabitation, no man could call his wife his own. Any person might legally claim the favour of borrowing her for a certain time, in order, if he did not choose to be burdened with a wife, to have a family by her while she remained in the house of her lord. An elderly man was sure to have his connubial privileges invaded in this way, and the most able and philosophical advocates of Lycurgus’s institutions inform us that the Spartan ladies highly approved of all these arrangements. Yet, famous and learned authors undertake to break a lance for the chastity of the Spartan dames, and maintain with infinite complacency that adultery was unknown among them. The truth is that the Spartan laws recognised no such offence.[1131] It was legal, common, of every day occurrence, though, from many circumstances, it would appear, that such Lacedæmonians as travelled into other parts of Greece, and learned in what light manners and morals so lax were by them viewed, blushed for their country’s institutions, and, in defence of them, put in practice those arts of delusion and hypocrisy which constituted so distinguished a part of their education.

Footnote 1131:

Xenoph. de Rep. Laced. i. 7. 8. 9.

Much has been said of the stern virtue and patriotism of the Spartan women, and high praise has been bestowed on the callous indifference which they sometimes exhibited on learning the death of their sons;[1132] but English mothers, who have given birth to sons as brave as ever fought or bled for Sparta, will, I think, agree with me in rating very low their boasted stoicism, which, if properly analysed, might prove to be nothing more than a coarse and unnatural apathy. The reader of the Greek Anthologia will here remember her who meeting her son a fugitive among the flying from a victorious enemy, inflicted on him with her own hands the death he sought to shun. Had Nature, which is but the voice of God indistinctly heard, anything to do with virtue such as that? Supposing the youth to have been a coward, which the fact of his flying before the enemy by no means proves, was it for the hands that had nursed him to become his executioners? A mother, deserving of the name, would no doubt have sorrowed not to find her boy numbered among the brave, but her maternal heart would not the less have yearned towards the unhappy youth; she would have fled with him into obscurity, and uttered her mild reproaches and shed her tears there.

Footnote 1132:

Cic. Tusc. Quæst. i. 49.

As often happens, however, these female stoics who were so lavish of the blood of their children, displayed no readiness to set them the example of making light of death when the fortunes of war afforded them an occasion of putting their heroic maxims in practice; for when the Theban army[1133] burst forth from the depths of the Menelaion, and swept down the valley of the Eurotas like a torrent, wasting everything before them with fire and sword, the women of Sparta, who had never before seen the smoke of an enemy’s camp, lost in a moment their presence of mind, and, instead of encouraging their sons and husbands calmly to rely upon their valour, ran to and fro through the streets, filling the air with their effeminate wailings, and distracting and impeding the movements of their natural protectors. Very different from this was the conduct of the female citizens of Argos. For when Cleomenes and Demaratos, after having defeated the Argive army, approached the city in the expectation of being able to take it by storm, the poetess Telesilla armed her countrywomen, who, hastening to the defence of the walls, repulsed the Lacedæmonian kings, and preserved the state. In commemoration of this event a festival was annually celebrated, in which the ladies appeared in male attire while the men concealed their heads beneath the female veil.[1134]

Footnote 1133:

Aristot. Polit. ii. 9. Xenoph. Hellen. vi. v. 27. It should be
remarked, however, that on a future occasion, when Sparta was
besieged by King Pyrrhus, the female disciples of Lycurgus behaved
with more fortitude and energy; for when it was debated in the
senate whether they should not convey their wives and children to
Crete, and then, deriving courage from despair, determine to conquer
or perish on the spot, Archidamia, daughter of the king, entered
their assembly sword in hand, opposed their resolution, saying, it
behoved the women of Sparta to live and die with their husbands. The
female population was, in consequence, suffered to remain; and by
digging with the men in the trenches, sharpening the arms, and
attending on the wounded, so strongly excited the courage of the
Spartans, that they at length succeeded in repulsing the Macedonians
from their city. Cf. Plut. Pyrrh. § 27.—Polyæn. Stratagem. vii. 49.

Footnote 1134:

Plut. de Mulier. Virtut. t. ii. p. 195. Polyæn. Stratagem. viii. 33.

Again, when the Thebans broke into Platæa during the night, the women, instead of delivering themselves up pusillanimously to fear, joined the men in defence of the city, casting stones and tiles from the housetops upon the enemy. Yet when defeated and flying for their lives, it was one of these same women who, with the characteristic humanity of her sex, supplied them with a hatchet to cut their way through the gates.[1135]

Footnote 1135:

Thucyd. ii. 4.

But the most remarkable instance of self-devotion furnished by women in the whole history of Greece was, perhaps, that which is related of the Phocian ladies,[1136] who, when their countrymen, under the command of Diophantos, were about to engage with the Thessalians in a battle which it was felt must finally determine the destiny of Phocis, strenuously, with the concurrence of their children, exhorted him to persevere in the design he had formed, of causing them to be consumed by fire should the battle be lost. Examples of this terrible expedient for preserving the honour of women occur but too frequently in the history of India, where it is termed performing _johur_; and the Romans, in their Spanish wars, witnessed a similar act of self-sacrifice at Numantia.

Footnote 1136:

Plut. de Mulier. Virtut. t. ii. p. 192.

It should, nevertheless, by no means be concealed that the annals of Sparta also contain some brilliant examples of female heroism, of which the most striking, perhaps, is that furnished by the wife of Panteus and her companions after the death of Cleomenes at Alexandria. “When the report of his death,” says Plutarch,[1137] “had spread over the city, Cratesiclea, though a woman of superior fortitude, sank under the weight of the calamity; she embraced the children of Cleomenes, and wept over them. The elder of them, disengaging himself from her arms, got unsuspected to the top of the house, and threw himself down headlong. He was not killed, however, though much hurt; and when they took him up he loudly expressed his grief and indignation that they would not suffer him to destroy himself. Ptolemy was no sooner informed of these things than he ordered the body of Cleomenes to be flayed, and nailed to a cross, and his children to be put to death, together with his mother and the women her companions. Among these was the wife of Panteus, a woman of great beauty and most majestic presence. They had been but lately married, and their misfortune overtook them amid the first transports of love. When her husband went with Cleomenes from Sparta, she was desirous of accompanying him, but was prevented by her parents, who kept her in close custody. Soon afterwards, however, she provided herself with a horse and a little money, and making her escape by night, rode at full speed to Tænaros, and there embarked on board a ship bound for Egypt. She reached her husband safely, and readily and cheerfully shared with him in all the inconveniences of a foreign residence. When the soldiers came to take Cratesiclea to the scaffold, she led her by the hand, assisted in bearing her robe,[1138] and desired her to exert all her courage, though she was far from being afraid of death, and desired no other favour than that she might die before her children. But when they arrived at the place of execution the children suffered before her eyes; and then Cratesiclea was despatched, uttering in her extreme distress only these words: ‘Oh! my children! whither are you gone?’

“The wife of Panteus, who was tall and strong, girt her robe about her and in a silent and composed manner paid the last offices to each woman that lay dead, winding up the bodies as well as her present circumstances would admit. Last of all she prepared herself for the poniard by letting down her robe about her and adjusting it in such a manner as to need no assistance after death, then, calling the executioner to do his office, and permitting no other person to approach her, she fell like a heroine. In death she retained all the decorum which she had preserved in life, and the decency which had been so sacred with this excellent woman still remained about her. Thus in this bloody tragedy in which the women contended to the last for the prize of courage with the men, Lacedæmon evinced that it is impossible for fortune to conquer virtue.”

Footnote 1137:

Cleomen. § 38. I have here made use of the translation of Langhorne,
because it would be no easy matter to furnish a better.

Footnote 1138:

Πέπλος.

Another brief narrative given by the same historian exhibits in the most touching manner, the tenderness and self-devotion of a Spartan woman. Cleombrotos, in conjunction with other conspirators, had dethroned king Leonidas his father-in-law and possessed himself of the crown. Events afterwards restored the old man to his kingdom, upon which burning with resentment he hurried to take vengeance on his son-in-law. "Chelonis, the daughter of Leonidas, had looked upon the injury done to her father as done to herself, and when Cleombrotos robbed him of the crown she left him in order to console her father in his misfortune. As long as he remained in sanctuary she stayed with him, and when he fled, sympathising with his sorrow, and full of resentment against Cleombrotos, she attended him in his flight. But when the fortunes of her father changed she changed too. She joined her husband as a suppliant, and was found sitting by him with great marks of tenderness, and her two children one on each side at her feet. The whole company were much struck at the sight, and could not refrain from tears when they considered her goodness of heart and uncommon strength of affection.

"Chelonis, then, pointing to her mourning habit and her dishevelled hair thus addressed Leonidas. ‘It was not my dear father compassion for Cleombrotos which put me in this habit and gave me this look of misery. My sorrows took their date with your misfortune and your banishment, and have ever since remained my familiar companions. Now you have conquered your enemies and are again king of Sparta should I still retain these ensigns of affliction or assume festival and royal ornaments, while the husband of my youth whom you yourself bestowed upon me falls a victim to your vengeance? If his own submission, if the tears of his wife and children cannot propitiate you he must suffer a severer punishment for his offences than even you require, he must see his beloved wife die before him. For how can I live and support the sight of my own sex, after both my husband and my father have refused to hearken to my supplications, when it appears that both as a wife and a daughter I am born to be miserable with my family. If this poor man had any plausible reasons for what he did I invalidated them all by forsaking him to follow you. But you furnish him with a sufficient apology for his misbehaviour by showing that a crown is so bright and desirable an object that a son-in-law must be slain and a daughter totally disregarded when it is in question.’

“Chelonis, after this supplication, rested her cheek upon her husband’s head, and with an eye dim and languid through sorrow looked round on the spectators; Leonidas consulted his friends upon the point, and then commanded Cleombrotos to rise and go into exile, but he desired Chelonis to stay and not to forsake so affectionate a father who had kindly granted her husband’s life. Chelonis, however, would not be persuaded. When her husband had risen from the ground she put one child into his arms and took the other herself, and after having paid due homage at the altar where they had taken sanctuary went with him into banishment. So that had not Cleombrotos been corrupted by the love of false glory he must have thought exile with such a woman a greater happiness than a kingdom without her.”[1139]

Footnote 1139:

Plut. Agis §§ 17. 18. Moore in his Lalla Rookh has expressed the
same idea.

Fly to the desert, fly with me,
Our Arab tents are rude for thee;
But ah! the choice what heart can doubt,
Of tents with love or thrones without?