Chapter III: Condition of Unmarried Women.—love

The condition of an Athenian lady it is far more important and, in proportion, more difficult to describe. Extremely erroneous impressions appear to exist on the subject, several writers of eminence having adopted the theory that they lived in total seclusion, and were little less ignorant and degraded than Oriental women are commonly supposed to be. My own opinion is somewhat different. After very patiently investigating the matter, the conclusions at which I have arrived are as follow:—

In delineating a picture of this kind, positive testimonies are unquestionably required; but I appeal to the impartial reader, whether very great, I had almost said the greatest weight, should not, after all, be attributed to that conviction which grows up, gradually and silently, in the mind, during a long and habitual intercourse with the subject. In this way, new authorities are formed, for to have examined minutely and attentively what others have written, to have weighed authorities and scrupulously sifted their several pretensions, may be allowed to entitle a man, if anything can, to express an opinion of his own.

The notion appears to prevail extensively, even among writers not otherwise ill-informed, that women occupied, among the Ionians generally, and more especially among the Athenians, a very mean position, were neglected and despised, and, consequently, exerted little or no influence on manners, morals, literature, or public affairs. With what design this error has been propagated it is not difficult to comprehend. But to pervert history for party purposes is, after all, an useless undertaking, since the facts always remain, and it is never too late to rescue truth from the fangs of sophistry.

That the women of Athens were in the condition for which nature designed them, I will not affirm; a little more converse with the world might have improved their understandings, they might have been rendered more pleasing companions; but what they gained as social, they would probably have lost as domestic beings. No woman was ever rendered better as a wife or as a mother by that indiscriminate enjoyment of society, which, it is supposed, the gentlewomen of Athens lost so much by being deprived of.

To form, however, a correct conception of their station, and the happiness within their reach, we must take into consideration several circumstances peculiar to ancient society. In those times something very different was understood by the word education from the meaning now attached to it. It signified rather the disciplining of the mind to certain habits than the imparting of different kinds of knowledge. It was the culture of the intellectual powers, and the sowing of the seed, rather than the transplanting of notions, half-grown, from one mind to another. More care was bestowed on the building up, than on the furnishing, of the mind. There was by far less acquisition, less accomplishment than in modern times; but the faculties were more surely impregnated, quickened sooner, and ripened into more vigorous maturity. Hence, among the ancients, there were few dreamers, either men or women. Exquisitely alive to all the peculiarities of their situation, they were, in the best sense of the word, a poetical people, gifted, indeed, with imagination, but possessing, too, the power to rein it in, to shape its course, and, on most occasions, to render it subservient to the dictates of judgment.

Of the management of infancy I have already spoken. At the age of seven the sexes were separated, the girls still remaining in the nursery, while governors, kept expressly for the purpose, conducted the boys to the public schools.[1140] Too little is known of the material circumstances attending the mental and bodily training of the girls, or at what age they were taught to read and write. Much, however, in those ages was communicated orally. Their mothers imparted to them whatever notions they possessed of religion, performed in their presence several sacrifices and other pious rites, and gradually prepared them for officiating in their turn at their country’s altars.[1141] In a certain sense, therefore, every Athenian woman was a priestess, and though their piety was imperfect and their faith corrupt, it will still be admitted that important benefits must have been derived from imbuing the youthful mind with some principles of religion.

Footnote 1140:

From a passage in Terence (Phorm. i. 2. 30. sqq.) Perizonius
concludes that even girls were sent to school. But he applies to
Athenian maidens of free birth what in the Roman poet is related of
a servile music girl: Ea serviebat lenoni impurissimo.—(Not. ad
Ælian. Hist. Var. iii. 21.) It appears, however, from this passage,
as Kuhn has already observed, that there existed public schools for
girls at Athens, whatever might be the condition of the persons who
frequented them. In Lambert Bos’s Antiquitates, (Pars. iv. c. 5. p.
216,) the error of Perizonius is repeated; that is, in the note;
for, according to the text, the Attic virgins were closely confined
to the house.

Footnote 1141:

Πολλὰς ἑορτὰς αἱ γυναῖκες ἔξω τῶν δημοτελῶν ἦγον ἰδία
συνερχόμεναι.—Sch. Aristoph. Lysist. i. In Homer we find the Trojan
women performing sacrifice to Athena—Il. ζ. 277. 310, just as the
Athenian matrons did on the Acropolis.—Aristoph. Lysistr. 179.

The performance of these pious duties commenced very early. Immediately on attaining the age of five years, they might be called on to officiate, clothed in saffron robes,[1142] in the rites of Artemis Brauronia, when a she-goat was sacrificed to the goddess, while professed rhapsodists chaunted select passages from the Iliad. Here they were initiated in the mysteries of their national piety,[1143] accompanied by all the charms of music, and of a style of declaiming no less impressive than that of the theatre. At this festival, celebrated every five years, all the ceremonies were performed by virgins, none of whom could be above ten years old;[1144] we must, therefore, infer that they underwent much previous training, and were instructed carefully respecting the object of the rites. Another religious festival at which youthful virgins only officiated, was the Arrhephoria, celebrated in honour of Athena or Herse. The ceremonies performed on this occasion appear to have required something more of preparation, since it was necessary that the youthful sacrificers should, at least, be seven years old and not exceed eleven. Four, selected for their noble birth and training, presided, and other two were chosen to weave the sacred peplos, while engaged in which they resided in the Sphæresterion, on the rock of the Acropolis, habited in white garments with ornaments of gold.[1145] The bread which they eat during their seclusion was called Anastatos.[1146]

Footnote 1142:

Suid. v. ἄρκτος. t. i. p. 425. c.—Sch. Aristoph. Lysistr.
645.—Meurs. Græc. Fer. lib. ii. p. 67.—During the dances performed
in honour of this goddess, the women commonly played on brazen
castanets.—Athen. xiv. 39.

Footnote 1143:

As Plato in his Republic appropriates to each sex a separate class
of songs, it may be inferred that both in Athens and elsewhere in
Greece, men and women habitually sung the same lays.—De. Legg. vii.
t. viii. p. 30.

Footnote 1144:

Pollux. viii. 107.—Cf. Herod. vi. 138. Women practised various
dances, to perform which with skill constituted a branch of their
accomplishments. One of these dances was called the Apokinos, or
Mactrismos, of which Cratinos made mention in his Nemesis,
Cephisodoros in his Amazons, and Aristophanes in his Centaurs. These
dances, however, appear to have been a particular class, and
obtained the name of Marctypiæ. Athen. xiv. 26.

Footnote 1145:

Etym. Mag. 149, 13. sqq.—Suid. v. Ἁῤῥηνηφ. t. i. p. 222. c.
Ἀῤῥηφορια—ἐπειδὴ τὰ ἀῤῥητα ἐν κίσταις ἔφερον τῇ θεῷ ὡι παρθένοι.
idem. t. i. p. 423. c. et v. χαλκεῖα t. ii. p. 110 d. Harpocrat. v.
ἀῤῥηφόρειν. p. 48 Maussac.—Aristoph. Lysistr. 643. et. schol.—Lys.
Mun. Accept. Apollog. §. 1.—Plut. Vit. Dec. Orat. iv. t. v. p.
145.—Cf. Sch. Aristoph. Acharn. 241. In several religious
processions the women except the canephori, followed not the
pageant, but looked upon it from the housetop.

Footnote 1146:

Athen. iii. 80.

I own it is not a little remarkable, that in proving the women of Athens to have received what in our times are regarded as the humblest elements of education, we should be compelled to rely on indirect evidence, or on mere inferences, or, indeed, that the point should require proof at all.[1147] This fact itself is decisive of their comparative seclusion. Had they mingled much in society, more occasions would have occurred of dwelling on their acquirements, and in dramatic compositions of representing them delivering opinions, and exhibiting tastes and preferences, obviously incompatible with an uncultivated intellect. But, though the difficulty of the investigator be augmented by the paucity and indistinct manner of the witnesses, we are still not left entirely without ground for coming to a decision, and if writers have, hitherto, so far as I know, overlooked some of the principal testimonies, that must be regarded only as an additional cause for bringing them forward now.[1148]

Footnote 1147:

Muretus has brought forward several passages to prove that learned
women bore but an indifferent character in antiquity.—Var. Lect.
viii. 21. The Hetairæ of course were taught to read. Of this we have
abundant proof: τὰ ἐπὶ τῶν τοίχων γεγγραμμένα ἐν τῷ κεραμεικῷ
ἀναγνοθὶ, ὅπου κατεστηλίτευται ὑμῶν τὰ ὀνομάτα—says the jealous
lover to Melitta in Lucian.—Diall. Hetair. iv. 2. Nay even the
servant maid of this Hetaira Acis is able to read; for desirous to
ascertain whether there was any thing in the report of her lover,
Melitta sends forth the girl to examine the walls, who discovers and
reads the words “Melitta loves Hermotimos,” &c. which written there
in jest by some wag had proved the cause of her lover’s jealousy and
the quarrel that ensued.

Footnote 1148:

Cf. Telet. ap. Stob. Florileg. Tit. 108. 83. Gaisf.

A report current in antiquity, and preserved by Marcellinus in his Life of Thucydides,[1149] represents the daughter of that great historian as the continuator of her father’s work, and as, in fact, the author of the whole eighth book. The biographer does not, indeed, receive the legend, but in rejecting it his assigned reasons are not that in the days of Thucydides Athenian ladies were not taught to read, and were, therefore, incapable of any species of literary exertion, but that the portion in question of the history bears evident marks of the same lofty and masculine mind to which we owe the rest, and no-wise resembles the productions of a woman. Had Marcellinus known the art of writing to have formed no part of an Athenian lady’s education, that could have been the proper reason to assign for his doubt. He might, under such circumstances, have ridiculed the folly of such a supposition. But no such objection occurred to him. He knew well that they could and did write, and had, therefore, recourse to the proper argument for establishing his point.

Footnote 1149:

P. xxi. For Plato’s views on the education of women, see De Legg. t.
viii. p. 36.—Cf. Xen. Conviv. ii. 9, 10.

Again, in that fragment of the oration of Lysias which he wrote for the children of Diodotos, an Athenian woman of rank is introduced defending, under very distressful circumstances, the rights of her children against her own father. Diodotos, it seems, had married his niece, and by her had several children. He was at length required by the commonwealth to proceed on a military expedition, during which he fell under the walls of Ephesos. Diogeiton, father of his wife, having been appointed guardian of the children, endeavours to defraud them of their property, and their mother, calling in the aid of impartial arbiters, pleads before them her children’s cause, and the orator, addressing one of the tribunals of Athens, does not hesitate to put in her mouth language worthy of a rhetorician. This, however, I am aware, cannot be regarded as a proof. But, in the course of her speech she discloses a circumstance which must be so considered. During the period of her stay in her fathers house, the old man removed from one street to another, and in the confusion a small memorandum book, dropped from among his papers, was picked up by one of the children and brought to their mother.[1150] It happened to contain the account of the money her husband had left on departing for the army; this she reads,[1151] and thus discovers the state in which the affairs of the family had been left on the departure of her husband.

Footnote 1150:

Lys. Cont. Diog. § 5. By τοὺς παῖδας: Reiske, however, understands
the servants of Diogeiton, though these would have been more likely
to carry the book to their master.

Footnote 1151:

See also in Demosthenes the account of a wife and husband examining
a will.—Adv. Spud. § 8.

Another proof that writing formed one of the accomplishments of women occurs in Xenophon. Ischomachos is laying open the road to domestic happiness and wealth. He enters, as elsewhere will be shown, into a variety of interesting details, and among other things, discusses the character and duties of a housekeeper; for in Greece the principal care of the household was always committed to women. Thus, going back to the Heroic ages, we find Euryclea the housekeeper of Odysseus,[1152] and Hector’s palace in Troy is also placed under the care of a woman.[1153] In the Cretan states, moreover, even the public tables had female inspectors,[1154] and at Athens, where domestic economy was so much better understood than in the rest of Greece, women necessarily obtained the government of the household,[1155] which men would have certainly managed more imperfectly. But in well-regulated families, the supreme control of everything rested with the wife, whom Xenophon[1156] represents engaging with her husband in taking a list of all the moveables in the house, and this afterwards remains in her hands as a check upon the housekeeper, which, had she not known how to read, it would not have been. Besides, she is spoken of as aiding in writing the catalogue, and displays throughout the dialogue so much ability and knowledge that it would not surprise us to find her discoursing with Socrates on household affairs. There is, moreover, a remark of Plato[1157] subversive at the same time of another error on this same subject, which exhibits women exercising their judgment in literary matters. Children, he says, may find comedy more agreeable, but educated women, youths, and the majority indeed of mankind, will prefer tragedy. Here we find the opinion corroborated that both the comic and tragic theatres were open to them, otherwise it could not have been known which they would prefer. But of this more elsewhere.

Footnote 1152:

Odyss. α. 428. β. 345, 361.

Footnote 1153:

Iliad. ζ. 381. 390.

Footnote 1154:

Athen. iv. 22.

Footnote 1155:

In the household of Pericles, however, we find mention made of a
steward, and learn that the regulation of affairs was taken out of
the hands of the women.—Plut. Pericl. § 16.

Footnote 1156:

Œconom. ix. 10. p. 57, Schneid. Similar business habits prevailed
among our neighbours, the Dutch, while they enjoyed the advantages
of republican institutions. Among the causes of their prosperity Sir
Josiah Child enumerates, “the education of their children, as well
daughters as sons, all which, be they of never so great quality or
estate, they always take care to bring up to write perfect good
hands, and to have the full knowledge and use of arithmetic and
merchants’ accounts, the well understanding and practice whereof,
doth strangely infuse into most that are the owners of that quality,
of either sex, not only an ability for commerce of all kinds, but a
strong aptitude, love and delight in it; and in regard the women are
as knowing therein as the men, it doth encourage their husbands to
hold on in their trades to their dying days. Knowing the capacity of
their wives to get in their estates and carry on their trades after
their deaths; whereas if a merchant in England arrive at any
considerable estate, he commonly withdraws his estate from trade,
before he comes near the confines of old age, reckoning that if God
should call him out of the world while the main of his estate is
engaged abroad in trade, he must lose one third of it, through the
inexperience and inaptness of his wife to such affairs, and so it
usually falls out.”—Discourse of Trade, p. 4.

Footnote 1157:

De Legg. l. ii. t. vii. p. 243. Bekk.—Ἐὰν δέ γ᾿ οἱ μείζους παῖδες,
τὸν τὰς κωμῳδίας· τραγωδίαν δὲ αἵ τε πεπαιδευμέναι τῶν γυναικῶν καὶ
τὰ νέα μειράκια καὶ σχεδὸν ἴσως τὸ πλῆθος πάντων.

In all countries, a great part of a woman’s education takes place after marriage. But at Athens, where they entered so early[1158] into the connubial state, marriage itself must be reckoned among the principal causes of their mental developement. They came into the hands of their husbands unformed, but pliable and docile. The little they had been taught seemed rather designed to fit them to receive his instructions than to dispense with them.[1159] Their seclusion from the world preserved their character unfixed and impressionable. They passed from the nursery, as it were, to the bridal chamber, timid, unworldly, unsophisticated, and the husband, if he desired it, might fashion their mind and opinions as he pleased. In the women of Athens we, accordingly, observe the most remarkable contrast to the Spartans. Their influence, in effect greater, perhaps, acted invisibly, warming and impelling the ruder masculine clay, but without humbling their lords or exposing them to the ridicule of living under petticoat government. Yet in Themistocles we have an example of the sway they exercised. Fondling one day his infant son he observed, sportively, but with that ambitious consciousness of power ever present to the mind of a Greek—"This little fellow is the most influential person I know." His friends inquired his meaning—"Why, replied Themistocles, he completely governs his mother, while she governs me, and I the whole of Greece."[1160]

Footnote 1158:

The Roman ladies entered still earlier into the married state; at
the age of twelve, says Plutarch, or under. Parall. Num. et Lycurg.
§ 4.

Footnote 1159:

Xenoph. Œconom. vii. 5. 6. sqq.

Footnote 1160:

Plut. Themist. § 18.

The steps by which an Athenian girl might arrive at so envied a position are not unworthy our attention. From the age of fifteen she might look to become the mistress of a family; and it is probable that the maxim of Cleobulos,[1161] that women should approach their nuptials young in years but old in understanding, often governed their conduct. Love no doubt was not the only matchmaker at Athens.[1162] In general the heart, as in modern times, followed in the train of prudential calculation. But this arose, not so much from any impracticability[1163] of obtaining interviews, as from the habitual preference for gold, which, in all ages, has been found to actuate the conduct of the majority. To this day, in every country in Europe, marriage in the upper classes is too frequently a matter of mere bargain and sale, in which the feelings remain altogether unconsulted. And it was the same at Athens, though to suppose with Müller that interest was always the sole motive would be palpably to embrace an error, alike uncountenanced by history and philosophy.

Footnote 1161:

Diog. Laert. i. 6. 4.

Footnote 1162:

In Greece, as everywhere else, portionless girls had few admirers.
Diog. Laert. v. 4. 1.

Footnote 1163:

Examples occur in the comic poets, of men choosing for themselves.
Thus in Terence a young man declines the lady offered him by his
father, and proposes to marry the mistress of his choice, to which
both parents agree. Heautontimor. v. 5. sub. fin.

When it is said that virgins in all Ionic states led an extremely secluded life, we are not thence to conclude that no opportunity of beholding, or even conversing with them, was enjoyed by men.[1164] It has already been seen that from the age of five years various ceremonies of their ancestral religion[1165] led females into the street, that they walked leisurely, arrayed with every resource of art and magnificence, in frequent processions to the temples, and it is known that numerous private occasions, such as funerals, marriages, &c., exposed them to the indiscriminate gaze of the public. Thus, we have in Terence a youth who from beholding a young lady with face uncovered and dishevelled hair lamenting at her mother’s funeral, falls desperately in love;[1166] and the wife in Lysias, whose frailty led to the murder of Eratosthenes,[1167] was first seen and admired under similar circumstances. Excuses, in fact, were never wanting to be in public, and occasions unknown to us were clearly afforded men for becoming acquainted with the temper and character of their future spouses, since we find Socrates conversing with men well acquainted with their country’s manners, jocularly feigning to have chosen Xantippe for her fierce, untameable spirit.[1168]

Footnote 1164:

Athen. xiii. 29.

Footnote 1165:

The religious rites in which the women of Athens officiated were
numerous and important: 1. The orgiastic ceremonies in honour of Pan
were performed with shouts and clamour, it not being permitted to
approach that divinity in silence.—Sch. Aristoph. Lysistr. 2. They
celebrated sacred rites in honour of Aphrodite Colias, id. ibid. 3.
Another divinity, in whose honour they congregated together, was
Ginesyllis a goddess in the train of Aphrodite, who obtained the
name ἀπὸ τῆς γενέσεως τῶν παίδων. id. ibid. Cf. Luc. Amor. § 42. 4.
The part they took in the orgies of Dionysos is well known. 5. They,
too, were the principal actors in the festival of Adonis. Plut.
Alcib. § 18. and to mention no more they may strictly be said to
have constituted the principal attraction of the Panathenaic
procession.

Footnote 1166:

Phorm. 2. 2. 40. sqq.

Footnote 1167:

Lys. De Cæd. Eratosth. § 2.

Footnote 1168:

Diog. Laert. ii. 5. 18.

It has been supposed by many distinguished scholars, that, at Athens,[1169] the theatre—that great bazaar of female beauty in modern states—was closed against the women, at least the comic theatre. One principal ground of this opinion is the coarse and licentious character of the old comedy which, with its broad humour, political satire, and reckless disregard of decency, appears fitted for men only, and those not the most refined. But there are strange contradictions in human nature. The very religion of Greece teemed with indecency. Phallic statues crowded the temples and the public streets. Phallic emblems entered into many of the sacred ceremonies at which women, even in their maiden condition, assisted, and the poems chaunted at sacrifices, where they associated in every rite, were, in many parts, broader than an Utopian legislator would consider permissible. Besides, to prove the nullity of this objection, we need only note the history of our own stage. English women refused not, when they were in fashion, to behold, under the protection of a mask,[1170] the comedies of Massinger, Wycherly, Beaumont and Fletcher. They still read, and, on the stage, admire, Shakespeare, and from these the interval is not wide to Aristophanes, the lewdest and most shameless of ancient comic writers.[1171] And, further, it should never be forgotten, that their perverted religion flung its protecting wing over the stage. Plays exhibited during the festivals of Bacchos were, like our old mysteries and moralities, strictly sacred shows, and, consistently, women could no more have been excluded from them than from the other exhibitions connected with public worship.

Footnote 1169:

To prove the presence of the women at the theatre among the other
Greeks, ample testimonies might be collected. Thus, when in Æolis, a
certain Alexander exhibited dramatic performances, the people
flocked thither from all the neighbouring towns and villages, upon
which he surrounded the theatre with soldiers, made prisoners both
men, women, and children, and only released them on payment of a
large ransom.—Polyæn. Stratagem. vi. 10.

Footnote 1170:

To this Pope alludes:

“And not a mask went unimproved away.”

See also Swift, Tale of a Tub, § ix.

Footnote 1171:

On the coarseness of the German theatre, in the eighteenth century,
frequented by the empress and the first ladies of the court, see
Lady Montague’s Letters, ix.

As on many other points, however, the positive and direct testimonies to be adduced in proof of the position I maintain are scanty, and of modern authorities nearly all are against me. Still, truth is not immediately to be deserted because there happens to be much difficulty in defending it. It will be time enough to run when we have exhausted all our resources. An unknown writer, but still a Greek,[1172] relates that, during the acting of the Eumenides, that awe-inspiring and terrible drama of Æschylus, the sight of the furies rushing tumultuously, like dogs of hell, upon the stage, with their frightful masks and blood-dripping hands, shed so deep a terror over the theatre, that children were thrown into fits, and pregnant women seized with premature birth-pangs. This, if admitted, would be evidence decisive as regards the tragic stage. But, because it is impossible to elude its force, modern critics boldly assume the privilege to treat the whole passage contemptuously, opposing scorn when they have no counterproof to oppose. Such a mode of arguing, however, by whomsoever pursued, must clearly bear upon the face of it the mark of sophistry, for in that way there is no position which might not be overthrown or established.

Footnote 1172:

Τινες δὲ φάσιν, ἐν τῇ ἐπιδείξει τῶν Εὐμενίδων σποράδην εἰσαγαγόντα
τὸν χορὸν, τοσοῦτον ἐκπλῆξαι τὸν δῆμον, ὥστε τὰ μὲν νήπια ἐκψύξαι,
τὰ δὲ ἔμβρυα ἐξαμβλωθῆναι.—Vit. Æschyl. p. 6.

But our anonymous authority has not been left to encounter the attacks of the critics and historians alone. Other ancient authors, though their corroborative testimonies have, hitherto, been generally overlooked, furnish incidental hints and revelations which, duly weighed, will, I make no doubt, be admitted to amount to positive proof. Describing the temple of Demeter at Eleusis, Strabo observes, that so vast were its dimensions, that during the celebration of the mysteries, it would contain the whole multitude usually assembled at the theatre.[1173] Now, in the mysteries, we know that the Athenians of both sexes, and of all ages above childhood, were present, so that, if men only had been admitted to the theatre, it need not have been half the size of the Eleusinian temple, and, consequently, would have furnished the geographer with no proper subject of comparison. Again, in the passage quoted above, from Plato, the presence of women at both the tragic and comic theatres is indubitably presumed, since, to judge of both these kinds of exhibitions, it was necessary either to see them, or to read the plays. If they read the plays there could be no reason for restraining them from the theatre, since, whatever they contained of objectionable matter would thus be equally placed within their reach. It is to be presumed, therefore, even from this passage, that the theatre was free to women.

Footnote 1173:

Ὄχλον θέατρου δέξασθαι δυνάμενον.—Strab. ix. i. p. 238.—We have in
Pollux, ii. 56. and iv. 121., θεάτρια “a spectatress,” and
συνθεάτρια “a fellow spectatress,” a word used by Aristophanes, and,
doubtless, applied to women forming part of a theatrical audience.

But the philosopher is elsewhere more explicit. Treating in his Dialogue on Laws expressly of tragic poetry, and speaking always in reference to his imaginary state, he respectfully and with many flattering compliments proscribes this branch of the mimetic arts, not, however, without assigning his reasons. Assuming for the moment the part of leader of the legislative chorus, he informs the tragedians, that “we, also, in our way, are poets, and aim at producing a perfect representation of human life. You must regard us, therefore, as your rivals, and believe that we labour at the composition of a drama, which it is within the competence of perfect law only to achieve. You must not, accordingly imagine, that, as jealous rivals, we shall readily admit you into our city to pitch your tents in our agora, and, through the voice of loud-mouthed, actors to imbue our wives and children and countrymen with manners the very opposite to ours.”[1174] Now, what point, or, indeed, what sense would there be in this, if in the commonwealths actually existing dramatic poets had always been prohibited from addressing themselves to the women? Would it not have been just such another novelty as an ingenious philosopher of our days would hit upon, were he in a state of his own invention, to propose, as a great improvement on existing customs, that women should go to church?

Footnote 1174:

Plat. de Legg. vii. t. viii. p. 59. Bekk. Compare with this the song
of the φαλλοφόρος..—Athen. xiv. 16.

Σοὶ, Βάκχε, τάνδε μοῦσαν αγλαΐζομεν,
Ἁπλοῦν ῥυθμὸν χεόντες αἰόλῳ μέλει,
Καὶ μὰν, ἀπαρθένευτον. κ. τ. λ.

His songs and his acting were, no doubt, little suited to the taste
of a virgin; but if virgins had never frequented the theatre, and
the comic theatre, too, where would have been the necessity for any
such remark?

This, therefore, were there no other proof, would, to me, appear convincing; but a still stronger remains. It is well known that the theatre was, among the ancients, parcelled out into several divisions, some more, some less honourable; and of these one whole division, by the decree of Sphyromachos, was appropriated to the female citizens, who would appear previously to have sat indiscriminately among the men and female strangers. To the latter the upper ranges of seats would appear to have been appropriated.[1175] On this point, therefore, the opinion received among the generality of writers is erroneous. Women were not debarred the amusement or instruction of the theatre,[1176] which, for good or for evil, influenced their education, and rendered their minds subservient or otherwise to the designs of the legislator and the welfare of the state.

Footnote 1175:

Aristoph. Eccles. 22. et Schol.

Ἐνταῦθα περὶ τὴν ἐσχάτην δεῖ κερκίδα
Ὑμᾶς καθιζούσας βεωρεῖν ὡς ξένας.
Alexis, ap. Poll. ix. 44.

Footnote 1176:

An anecdote related by Plutarch, would of itself, in my opinion,
suffice to prove the presence of women at the theatre, as well as
that Athenian ladies habitually went abroad attended by a single
maid-servant. For on one occasion, when an actor who played the part
of a queen would have refused to appear upon the stage unless
furnished with a splendid costume and a large suite of attendants,
Melanthios, the manager, pushed him on the boards, saying, “Don’t
you see the wife of Phocion constantly going abroad attended by but
one maid? And wouldst thou affect superior pomp and corrupt our
wives?” It is evident that the pride of this actor could not have
exercised any evil influence on the women had they not been present
to witness his ostentation. We must necessarily infer, therefore,
that they were, and that they joined the theatre in the thunders of
applause with which it received the observation of Melanthios, who
had spoken so loud as to be heard by the whole audience.—Plut. Phoc.
§ 19. The passage of Alexis had not escaped Casaubon, who, in his
notes on Theophrastus’ Characters, p. 165, has discussed the point
with his usual learning and ability. A passage in the
Thesmophoriazusæ of Aristophanes, seems however, but only seems, to
make against this opinion. There a woman says that when men returned
from seeing a play of Euripides, a “Woman-hater,” they used to
search the house in quest of lovers; but when Euripides’ plays were
acted they might be supposed to remain at home from pique.

From all which it will be apparent that the sexes enjoyed at Athens abundant occasions of meeting; and in the other Ionian states similar customs and similar manners prevailed. For this we are reduced to rely on no obscure scholiast or grammarian. Thucydides himself, describing the second purification of Delos by the Athenians, and the institution of the Delian games, observes, that from very remote times the people of Ionia and the neighbouring islands had been accustomed to come with their wives and children to the sacred festivals there celebrated in honour of Apollo. On these occasions gymnastic exercises and musical contests took place; and of the chorusses who chaunted the praises of the god some were female. The whole of the ceremonies are described in the Homeric hymns to the tutelar divinity, where the poet very animatedly recapitulates the principal features of the games.

To thee, O Phœbos! most the Delian isle
Gives cordial joy, excites the pleasing smile,
When gay Ionians flock around thy fane,
Men, women, children,—a resplendent train:
Where flowing garments sweep the sacred pile,—
Where youthful concourse gladdens all the isle,—
Where champions fight,—where dancers beat the ground,—
Where cheerful music echoes all around,
Thy feast to honour, and thy praise to sound.[1177]

Footnote 1177:

Thucyd. iii. 104. The version is Dr. Smith’s. Cf. Hom. Hymn. in
Apoll. 146. sqq.

Footnote 1178:

I have, as the reader will perceive, adopted the verse proposed by
Barnes:—

Δηλιάδες δὲ τε κοῦραι Ἀπόλλωνος θεράπαιναι.

Though Ernesti is perhaps right in supposing no addition necessary.
See his note on v. 165. Franke, in his recent edition of the Hymns,
has, with Ernesti, rejected the verse.

The great historian who quotes this hymn, and unhesitatingly attributes it to Homer, brings forward to prove the occurrence of musical contests another passage, in which, as he observes, the poet speaks of himself:—

But now, Apollo, with thy sister fair,
Smile as the lingering bard prefers his prayer;
And ye, O Delian nymphs,[1178] who guard the fane
Of Phœbos, listen to my parting strain;
Should some lone stranger, when my lay no more
Floats on the breezes of the sacred shore,
Demand who best, with soul-entrancing song,
Earned blithe your praise, and bore your hearts along?
Then answer with a warm approving smile—
“The blind old man of Chios’ rocky isle.”[1179]

Footnote 1179:

Of these verses (Hymn. in Apol. v. 165. 172) I give my own
translation, the last line excepted, which Byron had somewhere done
ready to my hand.

And down to the period of the Peloponnesian war similar games and sacred rites were performed at Ephesos, at which the Ionians with their wives and children were usually present.

The Doric historian, to whom all these circumstances must be familiarly known, makes, however, no account of them, but consistently with his theory, if not with facts, remembers no well-authenticated instance in the annals of Attica of a person’s marrying for love. What he would admit to be well authenticated it were difficult to say. He rejects, whenever his particular notions seem to require it, the testimonies both of Herodotus and Thucydides, so that for a narrative resting on the authority of Polyænus, Plutarch, and Valerius Maximus, we can expect no quarter. Nevertheless, as these writers are at least faithful in their delineations of manners, the following romantic incident may be hazarded even on their authority. Thrasymedes, an Athenian youth, entertaining a strong passion for the daughter of the tyrant Peisistratos, had the hardihood one day as she walked in a religious procession to kiss her openly in the street. Her brothers, young men of a fiery temper, regarded the act as an affront almost inexpiable, and were apparently preparing to take vengeance on the offender, when the old prince allayed their anger by observing,—"If we punish men for loving us, how shall we conduct ourselves towards our enemies?" Escaping thus, Thrasymedes still cherished his love. He therefore determined on carrying away the lady by force; and gaining over a number of his associates, he seized the occasion of a sacrifice on the sea-shore in which the maiden was officiating, and rushing, attended by his followers with drawn swords, through the crowd, he succeeded in conveying her to a boat, and set sail for Ægina. Unfortunately, however, for his design, Hippias, eldest son of Peisistratos, happened at this moment to be cruising in the bay on the lookout for pirates, and perceiving a bark putting hastily out to sea, he bore down upon it, took the young men prisoners, and conducted them together with his sister back to Athens. Thrasymedes and his companions being brought before the tyrant, abated not a jot of their courage, but bade him, in determining their punishment, use his own discretion, since from the moment they resolved on the enterprise they had made light, they said, of life. Peisistratos, tyrant though he was, regarded their loftiness of soul with admiration, freely bestowed his daughter on Thrasymedes, and won them to his interest by gentleness and friendship. In this, says Polyænus, acting the part of a good father and a popular citizen rather than of a tyrant.[1180]

Footnote 1180:

Polyæn. Strat. v. 14. Meurs. Peisist. vi. p. 46. seq. Plutarch. in
Apophthegm. Peisist. § 3. who calls the young man Thrasybulos.
Valer. Max. v. 1.

But supposing no instances remained on record, who can doubt that the heart prompted, and the hand followed its promptings, at Athens as elsewhere? Its walls, its columns, every plane-tree in the Academy, the Cerameicos, and other public walks, glowed with the language of the passions, and the names of virgins beloved for their beauty. There was, no doubt, some want of delicacy in this; but the manners of the Athenians, though they presented no insuperable bar to so much of intercourse as might serve to enkindle affection,[1181] opposed, nevertheless, that facility of communication which at Sparta existed, and in our own country is common. However, had the beloved been incapable of reading, to what purpose should her name, coupled with endearing epithets, have illuminated the bark of the smilax, or the marble skreens of the gymnasia? It was traced there in order that her bright eyes might peruse it, and learn who of all the youth of Athens, had singled her forth from the world to be the object of his love. Lucian, in his sarcastic humour, represents a mad lover of the goddess Aphrodite carving every tree and end of wall with her name.[1182] From a fragment of Callimachos it would seem too as if men had sometimes written the beloved syllables on the leaves of trees;[1183] which may well have been, since in our own days we have seen the English people inscribing in letters of gold the name of their youthful queen on leaves of laurel. Euripides, who lost no opportunity of venting his aversion for the sex, introduces one of his characters protesting that his opinion of women would not be bettered though every pine in Mount Ida were covered with their names.[1184]

Footnote 1181:

Schol. in Aristoph. Acharn. 144. Vesp. 98. Young men in love would
appear to have played at dice, with fortune, to discover whether
they should be successful or otherwise. Luc. Amor. § 16. Speaking of
Ameipsias’ Sphendone, or Jewelled Ring, Hemsterhuis observes:—“Nomen
habere potuerit hæc comedia ab annulo mutui amoris signo, atque
arrha, cujus in palâ fuerit insculpta, quod haud apud antiquos
insolens, amoris figura, quæque vario ut modo per aliorum manus
vagata.” ad Poll. ix. 96. t. vi. p. 1123.

Footnote 1182:

Amor. § 16. Τοῖχος ἄπας ἐχαράσσετο, καὶ πᾶς μαλακοῦ δένδρου φλοιὸς
Ἀφροδίτην καλὴν ἐκήρυσσεν.

Footnote 1183:

Callim. Frag. xxv. p. 241. Spanh.—Theoc. Epithal. Hell. 48.

Footnote 1184:

Ap. Eustath. Iliad, ζ. 490. Potter, Archæol. ii. 244.

Another mode of declaring love, not quite unknown in modern times, was to clothe the language of the heart in verse. Poets, we are told, often disguised their own feelings by attributing them to the actors in a feigned narrative, which they would compose as an offering to the object of their attachment who, it is very obvious, to appreciate such a gift, must have been able to read it.[1185] They had likewise another fashion, particularly Greek, of making known their sentiments, which was to suspend garlands of flowers, or perform sacrifice before the door where the person possessing their heart resided.[1186] Sometimes they repaired to the spot and poured forth libations of wine as at the entrance of a temple, a practice alluded to by the Scholiast on Aristophanes, who relates that a number of Thessalian gentlemen being in love with Laïs,[1187] betrayed their passion by publicly sprinkling her doors with wine. Among the symptoms which disclosed the condition of the feelings, a garland loosely thrown upon the head was one.[1188] Women suffered their secret to escape them by being discovered wreathing garlands for their hair.[1189]

Footnote 1185:

Philostrat. Epist. xx. p. 921. Hermann. Com. in Arist. Poet. p. 87.

Footnote 1186:

Athen. xv. 9.

Footnote 1187:

Cf. Naïs according to Harpocrat. in v. p. 203. Sch. Aristoph. Plat.
179. Cf. Athen. xiii. 51.

Footnote 1188:

Athen. xv. 9.

Footnote 1189:

Aristoph. Thesmoph. 400.

But in whatever way the existence of passion was externally manifested, a more interesting question is the modification which the passion[1190] itself underwent in the Greek mind.[1191] Numerous circumstances concur to mislead our judgment on this subject. In the first place, the writers who sprang up like fungi amid the corruption and profligacy which attended the decay of Hellenic society, standing nearer to us, obstruct our view. Among them a coarse unhealthy craving after excitement led to nefarious perversions of sentiment, and to countenance their own excesses they threw back their vile polluting shadows upon the loftier and brighter moral station of their forefathers. Even so early as the age of Æschylus this culpable practice began to prevail, for this great poet scrupled not to attribute to Achilles vices, which, in the Homeric period, were evidently unknown.[1192]

Footnote 1190:

Σὲ δέσποινα τῶν ὑπὲρ σοῦ λόγων, Ἀφροδίτη, σὲ βοηθὸν αἱ ἐμαὶ δεήσεις
καλοῦσιν. Luc. Amor. § 19.

Footnote 1191:

See the whole question treated with peculiar ability by Maximus
Tyrius viii. 105. sqq. Homer, in the opinion of this writer,
exhibits especial felicity in his description of love, from the
cool, timid dawn of passion to its fervid noon, pourtraying its
operations, the age at which it is experienced, its forms, its
feelings, chaste or unchaste. See too Lycophron Cassand. 104. with
the commentary of Meursius, p. 1184. 1186. sqq.

Footnote 1192:

The friendship of Achilles for Patroclos is celebrated by Maximus
Tyrius, viii. 106. Cf. Luc. Amor. 20.

But rightly to comprehend the spirit of an age, we must by no means confide in the interpretation of the succeeding, or even in any one class of contemporary writers. Least of all, in the authors of comedy, who seldom paint men as they are, but run into exaggeration and caricature for the sake of effect. To the imaginative, spiritual, impassioned must we have recourse, if we would learn what the impassioned, spiritual and imaginative felt, and to such only in any age or country, is love, in the poetical sense of the word, familiar or indeed intelligible.

In the apprehension of several modern writers, love among the Greeks, was not merely based upon physical elements, as it must everywhere be, but included little or nothing else.[1193] It had there, they suppose, none of these romantic features, nothing of that heroic self-devotion or lofty intercommunion of soul with soul, which among northern nations, more particularly in fiction, characterises this powerful and mysterious principle, which binds together in indissoluble union individuals of different sexes, and renders throughout life the contentment and happiness of the one, dependent on the well-being of the other.

Footnote 1193:

Maximus Tyrius has, on the origin of love, a very beautiful passage.
“Its well-spring is the beauty of the soul gleaming upward through
the body. And as flowers seen under water appear still more
brilliant and exquisite than they are, so mental excellence seems to
manifest additional splendour when invested with corporeal
loveliness.” ix. 113. Euripides, whatever he may have written in his
old age, was once an enthusiastic panegyrist of love, of which he
has left a brilliant description. Athen. xiii. 11. In the gymnasia
the statue of Eros was placed beside those of Hermes and
Hercules—eloquence and strength. Love festivals Ἐρωτίδια were
celebrated by the Thespians. Athen. xiii. 12. Before entering battle
the Cretans and Spartans sacrificed to Eros, Id. xiii. 12. Alexis
imitates Plato in describing this passion. Eros had two bows, the
one of the graces producing happiness, the other engendering
violence and wrong. Id. xiii. 14. On the power of love see § 74.
Cleisophos of Selymbria fell in love at Samos with a statue of
Parian marble. § 84.

But I can discover in the Greeks nothing which, on this point, can distinguish them from other civilised races, except, perhaps, that there was in their love, more of earnestness and reality and less of dreaminess and fantastic affectation, than might be brought home to several modern nations. Their fables, however, and their poetry teem with ideas and examples of the loftiest and purest love, such love, I mean, as is natural to mankind, as harmonises with the structure of their minds, and the object and tendency of their passions, growing like the oak out of earth, but springing upward and rearing its majestic stature and beautiful foliage towards heaven. Thus Odysseus in Homer prefers the sunshine of a wife’s affection to immortality[1194] and the smiles of a sensual goddess. Hæmon with a tenderness carried to excess, spurns the blandishment of empire, nay, the very laws of duty and nature, that he may cling to the form of Antigone[1195] and join her in the grave. And Alcestis, rising above them all, quits in youth and health and beauty

“The warm precincts of the cheerful day,”

that she may preserve the existence of one beloved still more than life.[1196]

Footnote 1194:

Καὶ τὴν Πηνελόπην ἄλλως Ὀδυσσεὺς ὁρᾷ, ἄλλως ὁ Εὐρύμαχος.—Max. Tyr.
ix. 115.

Footnote 1195:

Soph. Antig. 635. sqq.—Καὶ ἐν εὐτυχίαις συνευτύχει καὶ ἀποθανόντι
συναποθνήσκει, Max. Tyr. ix. 116. We discover the same idea in our
own marriage ceremony, where husband and wife are said to be joined
together, “for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness
and in health.”

Footnote 1196:

Even Lucian could discover that there was something holy in love.
Κοινὸν οὖν ἀμφοτέρῳ γένει πόθον ἐγκερασαμένη, συνέζευξεν ἄλληλοις
θεσμὸν ἀνάγκης ὅσιον. Amor. § 19.

Nay, to prove the elevated conceptions of love that prevailed in earlier Greece, we find a personification of this passion reckoned among the most ancient gods of its mythology. Altars were erected, festivals instituted, sacrifices offered up to it, as to a power, in its origin and nature divine.[1197] It breathed the breath of life into their poetry, it was supposed to elicit music and verse from the coldest human clay, like the sun’s rays from the fabulous Memnon—it allied itself in its energies with freedom—to love, in the imagination of a Greek, was to cease to be a slave,[1198]—it emancipated and rendered noble whomsoever it inspired,—it floated winged through the air, and descended even in dreams[1199] upon the mind of men or women, revealing to sight the forms of persons unknown, annihilating distance, trampling over rank, confounding together gods and men by its irresistible force.[1200] Much of the beauty of their fables is concealed from us by the atmosphere of triteness and familiarity with which our injudicious education invests them. Every puling sonneteer babbles of Eros. And Aphrodite, a creature of the imagination brighter and lovelier than her own star, has been rendered more common in modern verse, than the most celebrated of her priestesses in ancient Corinth. But the poets of Greece possessed the art of clothing their gods in colours warm as life, varied as the rainbow; and as to Love, never was his influence more delicately shadowed forth than by him who introduces Endymion slumbering with unclosed lids on Mount Latmos, that the divinity of sleep might enjoy the brightness of his eyes![1201]

Footnote 1197:

See too in Stobæus, the addresses of a bereaved husband to
philosophy—ὦ φιλοσοφία, τυραννίκά σου τὰ επιτάγματα· λεγεις φίλει·
κᾄν ἀποβάλῃ τις, λέγεις, μὴ λύπου. 34. Cf. Senec. Epist. 99.
Scheffer, ad Ælian. 27. p. 471.

Footnote 1198:

Max. Tyr. x. 119. This author observes that the love depicted by the
tragedians was a piece of ill-regulated passion rarely leading to
happiness. Id. 123. 124. Cf. Luc. Amor. § 37.

Footnote 1199:

Ἐξ ὀνείρων ἐραστης. Max. Tyr. x. 126.

Footnote 1200:

See the invocation to Love in Lucian: σὺ γὰρ ἐξ ἀφανοῦς καὶ
κεχυμένης ἀμορφίας τὸ πᾶν ἐμόρφωσας. κ. τ. λ. Amor. § 32.

Footnote 1201:

This thought occurs in a fragment of Licymnios

Ὕπνος δὲ χαίρων ὀμμάτων
αὐγαῖς, ἀναπεπταμένοις ὄσσοις,
ἐκοίμιζεν κούρον.

Athen. xiii. 17.

=END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.=

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Minor punctation errors and inconsistencies in the footnote apparatus have been corrected with no further mention here.

Those errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original. Corrections within notes are denote with ‘n’ and the original note number.

6.n1 Steph. Byzant. _v._ [Ἀ/Α]ἰτωλ. p. 71. Replaced. a. 23.24 not wide enough to contain[.] the whole Removed. 49.14 that were band[i]ed to and fro Inserted. 49.21 _petits-ma[í/î]tres_ Replaced. 54.34 like a huge uncrenalated _sic_: uncrenelated 68.14 but Sir Willia[n/m] Gell Replaced. 78.4 couchant s[y/p]hynxes Replaced. 155.35 like those of Hindùs[s]tân Removed. 166.29 the love of glory and independ[a/e]nce Replaced. 170.4 and where[-e]ver else it was thought fit Removed. 174.n1 Cf. Dion. Ch[r]ysost. Inserted. 176.6 to the latest times[,/.] Replaced. 178.n7 aremus osseo.[”] Added. 178.n8 calamis superata degit.[”] Added. 186.26 its moaning sounds to hear.[”] Added. 213.30 by heroic and fabulous associa[a]tions. Removed. 222.n2 as the Calydo[do]nian boar in Ovid Removed. 225.32 from his ophthalmia and his headach[e] Added. 234.32 εὐφυεῖς καὶ [ἰ/ἱ]κανοὶ Breathing corrected. 288.1 Bacchanalian character.[”] Added. 343.33 had the merit of extreme boldness[.] Added. 263.29 [ὄ/ὅ]τι ἀμαθία μὲν θάρσος Breathing corrected. 347.4 full of unstem[m]able currents Added. 359.15 By these means, likewise, Inserted. tran[s]gressors 360.8 in the case of lesser tran[s]gressions Inserted. 361.32 which only incidena[ta/at]lly Transposed. 371.n2 ὀφθαλμο[ι\ὶ] μεγάλοι τε καὶ διαυγεῖς Replaced. 357.37 it is a clumsy throw of her[’]s Removed. 379.16 the list of their occupations[,/.] Replaced. 391.32 τρεῖς υ[ἰ/ἱ]οὺς ἄφρουρον Breathing corrected. 393.14 regal in loftiness[s] of stature. Removed. 409.7 decisive of their comparative Added. seclusion[.] 418.n2 per aliorum manus vagata.[”] Added. 423.n1_1 συν[εζεἠ/έζευ]ξεν Replaced. 423.n1_2 ἄλληλοις θεσμὸν ἀνάγκ[ὴ/η]ς ὅσιον. Replaced.