The Nurse in Greek Life

The helpless condition of infancy has always called for special offices to tide the child over the first years of life. These offices are performed either by mother or nurse. Among the Greeks, the nurse was a familiar figure in the household; and although our knowledge of Greek domestic life must necessarily be limited from the fact that the women’s apartments are so persistently closed against us, nevertheless from side-lights furnished by our threefold source of information—the literature, the art and the inscriptions—we cannot help being impressed by the important place which the nurse held in the family.

Let us now turn to a more exact consideration of the various duties of the nurse in relation to the children, to the grown daughter, the grown son and lastly to the household. In this way we shall be led to a clearer conception of the general characteristics which marked the nurse’s dealings with her charge.

DUTIES TO THE CHILD

Bathing

Among the principal duties incumbent on the nurse of an infant was the giving of the bath. That it was given immediately after birth, we infer from Lycophron’s Alexandra, 309, where a child dies πρὶν ἐκ λοχείας γυῖα χυτλῶσαι δρόσῳ, and also from Plautus, Amphitryo, 1103: “Postquam peperit pueros lavere iussit nos.” The heroine nymphs of Libya, acting as nurses, bathed Athena when she leaped in gleaming armor from the head of Zeus.^[58] Some nurses preferred pure water;^[59] others, like the Spartans, bathed the child in wine as a test of its strength, they being of the opinion that the weakly ones would faint, but the more vigorous would acquire firmness and hardness after a bath of this kind.^[60] On a vase portraying the life of Achilles one of the scenes shows the nurse giving the infant son of Thetis his first bath.^[61] The vessel in which this bath is given is mentioned by Pindar:

Swaddling Clothes

Attic nurses wrapped the infant in swaddling clothes (σπάργανα).^[63] As far as we can gather from the grave-reliefs these seem to have been long narrow strips of cloth bound like bandages around the child’s body, which they completely covered from head to foot, leaving nothing but the face uncovered.^[64] White,^[65] purple,^[66] and saffron^[67] are mentioned as colors of these bands. The practice of swaddling children is alluded to by Hesiod,^[68] and frequent reference is made to it by the Tragedians.^[69] The Theban children given over to the state were swaddled.^[70] The nurse in the Amphitryo complained that Hercules was so large she could not swathe him.^[71] How long the children were kept thus bound we do not know; but we can hardly suppose that it was until they had reached the age of two years, as Plato advises.^[72] The Spartan nurses dispensed with these bands, allowing the children to grow up unrestrained in limb and form.^[73] Exposed children were sometimes recognized by the swaddling clothes.^[74]

The child was suckled either by mother^[75] or nurse.^[76] Naturally the practice of employing wet-nurses prevailed chiefly among well-to-do mothers.^[77] The author of the De Liberis Educandis counsels mothers to nurse their own children, and dilates on the advantages accruing therefrom; nevertheless he permits the employment of wet-nurses wherever the mothers cannot perform the duty themselves.^[78] Antiphanes considered the Scythians the wisest of men because they fed their children on mare’s and cow’s milk, and did not entrust them to nurses as did the Greeks.^[79] In the Menaechmi of Plautus distinction is made between “mater quae mammam dabat” and “mater quae pepererat,”^[80] and in the Adelphi of Terence the services of a nurse are secured for a courtesan.^[81] We have ample evidence from Demosthenes that this employment was resorted to by poor women as a means of livelihood during the hard times which followed the Peloponnesian War.^[82] We read besides that nurses were allowed to nurse but one child at a time.^[83] Plato refers to definite laws regarding the nurture of children,^[84] and speaks of the time when they were fed with milk: ἐκ νέων παίδων ἔτι ἐν γάλαξι τρεφόμενοι.^[85] In the community of wives and children, he would have the mothers, from a feeling of humanity, assisted in the nurture of the children by wet-nurses: καὶ ἄλλας γάλα ἐχούσας ἐκπορίζοντες.^[86] Aristotle associates infantile maladies with the physical condition of the nurse: εἴωτε δὲ τὰ παιδία τὰ πλεῖστα σπασμὸς ἐπιλαμβάνειν καὶ μᾶλλον τὰ εὐτραφέστερα καὶ γάλακτι χρώμενα πλείονα ἢ παχυτέρῳ καὶ τίτθαις εὐσάρκοις,^[87] and φύει δὲ πρῶτον τοὺς προσθίους, καὶ τὰ μὲν τοὺς ἄνωθεν πρότερον, τὰ δὲ τοὺς κάτωθεν. πάντα δὲ θᾶττον φύουσιν, ὅσων αἱ τίτθαι θερμότερον ἔχουσι τὸ γάλα.^[88] He objects to the use of wine for young children,^[89] and deems it unsuitable for the nurses as well: διὸ τοῖς παιδίοις οὐ συμφέρουσιν οἱ οἶνοι, οὐδὲ ταῖς τίτθαις.^[90] Dion Chrysostom speaks of its use: ὥσπερ ὑπὸ τίτθης γάλακτι καὶ οἴνῳ καὶ σιτίοις,^[91] but Hippocrates says: ἀμεῖνον εἶναι τοῖς παιδίοισιν τὸν οἶνον ὡς ὑδαρέστατον διδόναι.^[92] After being weaned,^[93] children were fed on milk,^[94] and honey.^[95] According to Athenaeus, young children thrive well on the juice of figs.^[96] They were also fed on morsels: “αἱ τὰ παιδία ψωμίζουσι τροφοί.”^[97] The practice of first chewing the food before giving it to the child seems to have been usual, for we have several allusions to it. Democrates likens the orators to nurses αἱ τὸ ψώμισμα καταπίνουσαι, τῷ σιάλῳ τὰ παιδία παραλείφουσι,^[98] and Sextus Empiricus has a similar statement: εἰκότως ταῖς τίτθαις, αἱ μικρὸν τοῦ ψωμίσματος τοῖς παιδίοις διδοῦσαι τὸ ὅλον καταπίνουσι.^[99] Nor did it escape the ridicule of Aristophanes who says:

Athenaeus tells the absurd story of a man who had his nurse chew his food for him all his life: Σάγαριν τὸν Μαριανδυνὸν ὑπὸ τοῦ τρυφῆς σιτεῖσθε μὲν μέχρι γήρως ἐκ τοῦ τῆς τίτθης στόματος, ἵνα μὴ μασώμενος πονήσειεν.^[101]

The Child in the Nurse’s Arms

In the beautiful idyllic scene of Iliad, vi, 389 ff., where Hector bids farewell to Andromache and his darling son, it is to the familiar arms of the nurse that the child turns when frightened by the glancing helm:

In those arms he had been carried,^[103] and when tired out from his childish play there he had slept on a soft cushion satisfied with every comfort:

In the Odyssey, too, the faithful Eurycleia is spoken of as carrying Odysseus and laying him in the arms of his grandsire, that the latter might choose for him a name.^[105] The author of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter puts these words into the mouth of the goddess-nurse:

The nurse in Herodotus carried the child each day to the temple of Helen.^[107] Iphigenia speaking of Orestes says that she left him at home a young child in the arms of his nurse:

At the festival of the Amphidromia, it was the nurse who carried the child around the hearth;^[109] and in the Nurse-festival (τιθηνίδια) at Sparta, the nurses carried the male children to the temple of Artemis.^[110] We know that nurses walked the floor with fretful children in order to soothe them. A good instance of this is given in Menander’s Samia, 26–30 (Capps), where an old nurse fondles a child to her heart’s content, kissing it and calling it soft names, walking around with it until it is quieted. “The homeopathic cure of morbid ‘enthusiasm’ by means of music was, it may be incidentally observed, known to Plato. In a passage of the Laws,^[111] where he is laying down the rules for the management of infants, his advice is that infants should be kept in perpetual motion, and live as if they were always tossing at sea. He proceeds to compare the principle on which religious ecstasy is cured by a strain of impassioned music, with the method of nurses, who lull their babes to sleep not by silence but by singing, not by holding them quiet, but by rocking them in their arms.... An external agitation (κίνησις) is employed to calm and counteract an internal. But Plato recognized the principle only as it applied to music and to the useful art of nursing.”

This perpetual motion used by the nurse is referred to in the Timaeus,^[112] and Aristotle thinks “it is of advantage to have all the movements made (of the bodies of infants) that it is possible to have made in the case of creatures so young.”^[113] Plato lays down regulations for the nurses to carry the children into the fields, to the temples, and on visits to their acquaintances until they are able to stand alone. He would have them carried until the end of the third year, lest their limbs should be distorted by standing on them too soon: καὶ δὴ καὶ τὰς τροφοὺς ἀναγκάζωμεν νόμῳ ζημιοῦντες τὰ παιδία ἢ πρὸς ἀγροὺς ἢ πρὸς ἱερὰ ἢ πρὸς ὀικείους ἀεί πῃ φέρειν, μέχριπερ ἂν ἱκανῶς ἵστασθαι δυνατὰ γίγνηται, καὶ τότε διευλαβουμένας, ἔτι νέων ὄντων μή πῃ βίᾳ ἐπερειδομένων στρέφηται τὰ κῶλα ἐπιπονεῖν φερούσας, ἕως ἂν τριέτες ἀποτελεσθῇ τὸ γενόμενον;^[114] This is doubtless the reason why there is no mention made of a contrivance to keep the children’s limbs straight like the “serperastra”^[115] in use among the Romans.^[116] The Greeks were careful to develop the body and to have it well-shapen. In the Pseudo-Plutarchian Essay, De Liberis Educandis, the writer thinks it necessary for the members of children to be shapen aright as soon as they are born: ὥσπερ γὰρ τὰ μέλη τοῦ σώματος εὐθὺς ἀπὸ γενέσεως πλάττειν τῶν τέκνων ἀναγκαῖόν ἐστι.^[117] In the De Virtute, the author tells us that this is the work of the nurses: αἱ τίτθαι ταῖς χερσὶ τὸ σῶμα πλάττουσι.^[118] Plato, speaking of the influence of stories on the minds of children, says that we must persuade the nurses and the mothers to form the souls of their children by these stories πολὺ μᾶλλον ἢ τὰ σώματα ταῖς χερσὶν.^[119] This practice continued down to the days of Galen as is shown from the following: τὰ κῶλα διαπλάττουσι αἱ τροφοὶ τῶν βρεφῶν ὥσπερ κήρινα.^[120]

Cradles

The nurse had various contrivances in which to place the children after they were lulled to sleep. We read that Alcmena cradled her children in a shield:

The scholiast on Callimachus, Jove, 48, alluding to this passage of Theocritus, says that military men were accustomed to place their children in shields after birth that they might become vigorous and strong. A specimen of a Greek cradle, that of the infant Hermes, a little two-handled basket shaped like a shoe, is seen on a vase.^[122] The σκάφη, another kind of cradle, is mentioned as being instrumental in the ἀναγνώρισις of children: καὶ οἶνον ἐν τῇ Τυροῖ διὰ τῆς σκάφης.^[123] Children were also exposed in a σκάφη: ἐνθέμενος οὖν εἰς σκάφην τὰ βρέφη.^[124] Adrasteia, the nurse of Zeus, lulled him to sleep in a golden winnowing-fan:

It was considered an omen of future wealth and prosperity to place children in these λίκνα.^[126] Bacchus is called λικνίτης,^[127] and is represented as carried in a λίκνον between a faun and a Bacchante.^[128] Hermes is conceived to have been cradled in the same manner.^[129] Another kind of cradle shown on a vase looks like a bed on rollers,^[130] and answers very well to the description given by Plutarch, Fragm. in Hesiod, 45: οἷά τισιν εὐκίνητα κλινίδια μεμηχάνηται πρὸς τὴν τῶν παιδίων εὐνήν. The rocking of the cradle is mentioned by Athenaeus: ἡ τροφὸς ... ἐτίθει αὐτὸ ἐν σκάφῃ ... ὅτε δὲ κλαίοι ... τὴν σκάφην ἐκίνει καὶ κατεκοίμιζεν αὐτό.^[131]

Amusements Furnished by the Nurse

It was natural for the nurse to amuse the children with the various kinds of toys in use in antiquity. Of these, both the literature and the art of Greece furnish many examples. We shall here consider only the toys which are mentioned in direct connection with the nurse. That the nurse sometimes made toys for the children, we learn from Apollonius Rhodius, iii, 131 ff., where the wonderful ball of Zeus τὸ οἷ ποίησε φίλη τροφὸς Ἀδράστεια is described. The shaking of rattles (κρόταλα) before children by the nurse is spoken of by Stobaeus,^[132] and Pollux has preserved a passage dealing with the same subject: τὸ κρόταλον καὶ τὸ σεῖστρον, ᾧ καταβαυκαλῶσιν αἱ τίτθαι ψυχαγωγοῦσαι τὰ δυσυπνοῦντα τῶν παιδίων.^[133] We have a vase-painting which portrays a nurse holding in her arms a child, while before its face she dandles a fruit.^[134] Plutarch’s little daughter used to ask her nurse to give her dolls the breast.^[135] We learn from Plautus that the nurses took the children to the theatres:

And in the Poenulus, the nurses are bidden to refrain from bringing the children to that play.^[137] In Vitruvius’ account of the origin of the Corinthian Capital, there is mention made of a Corinthian nurse who gathers in a basket the playthings which had served for the amusement of her nursling in life, in order to adorn the tomb with them after death.^[138]

General Care Over Children

To keep the child clean and to attend to all its wants were the principal occupations of the nurse. Cilissa recalls in touching terms the childhood of her dear nursling whose death she had just learned. She ran to him by night, at his least cry, anticipating all his wishes and foreseeing all his needs. Careful for the child’s cleanliness, she washes its garments and its linen:

With less vividness Moschio’s nurse recalls the days of his infancy.

Suidas suggests another duty in an anonymous passage: μειράκια, ταῖς τίτθαις ἀπομύττειν ... ἀποπέμψατε, and the same thing is referred to in the first book of the Republic: περιορᾷ καὶ οὐκ ἀπομύττει.^[141] After the children were washed and dressed by the nurses, they were brought to their mothers who took them up and played with them.^[142] This fondling of children is mentioned in Agamemnon:

and in Orestes:

That it was resorted to by the nurses, we gather from Samia, 29 ff., where we also learn that the nurse used pet names in speaking to the children. Aeschines says that Demosthenes acquired the nickname βάταλος from his nurse.^[145]

In learning to walk the children must have had many a tumble; but the nurse was always at hand to pick them up, and clean them, and tidy their dress and afterwards find fault with and correct them: καὶ γὰρ αἱ τίτθαι τοῖς παιδίοις πεσοῦσιν οὐ λοιδορησόμεναι προστρέχουσιν, ἀλλ’ ἤγειραν καὶ κατέστειλαν, εἶθ’ οὕτως ἐπιπλήττουσι καὶ κολάζουσι.^[146] Epictetus speaks of a nurse beating the stone which had caused a child to stumble.^[147] Philoctetes, miserably crawling along the ground to obtain food, likens himself to a child without its kind nurse:

Plato speaks of a method nurses had of finding out what children want. When anything is brought to an infant and he is silent, then he is supposed to be pleased, but when he weeps and cries out, then he is not pleased.^[149] Aristotle thinks that the crying of infants should not be restrained since it is conducive to their growth: συμφέρουσι γὰρ πρὸς αὔξησιν,^[150] but Plutarch in his De Cohibenda Ira says: ὅπερ οὖν αἱ τίτθαι πρὸς τὰ παιδία λέγουσι “μὴ κλαῖε καὶ λήψῃ” τοῦτο πρὸς τὸν θυμὸν οὐκ ἀχρήστως.^[151] By means of amulets and charms the nurses sedulously guarded the children against the pernicious influence of witchcraft and the evil eye. Demeter, in the Homeric Hymn, promises the mother that no harm shall come to the child from witchcraft:

The amulets were usually of a grotesque character that the sight being diverted to them should not make so strong an impression on the child.^[153] On the approach of a stranger, a nurse in charge of a sleeping infant would spit towards him as if to keep off from the child a possibly evil influence.^[154] Another charm against the evil eye is preserved by St. John Chrysostom: βόρβορον αἱ γυναῖκες ἐν τῷ βαλανείῳ λαμβάνουσαι τροφοὶ καὶ θεραπαινίδες καὶ τῷ δακτύλῳ χρίσασαι κατὰ τοῦ πετώπου τυποῦσι τοῦ παιδίου κἂν ἔρηταί τις, τί βούλεται ὁ βόρβορος τὶ δὲ ὁ πηλός; ὀφθαλμὸν πονηρὸν ἀναστρέφει, φασί, καὶ βασκανίαν καὶ φθόνον.^[155]

At what age the children left the care of the nurses is not certain. Chrysippus allows three years to them,^[156] and according to Plato, the boys and girls were separated at six.^[157] It seems clear that the boys, at least, were sent early to school to keep them out of harm’s way: ἐπεὶ καὶ αἱ τίτθαι τοιάδε λέγουσι περὶ τῶν παιδίων ὡς ἀπιτέον αὐτοῖς ἐς διδασκάλου. καὶ γὰρ ἂν μηδέπω μαθεῖν ἀγαθόν τι δύνωνται, ἀλλ’ οὖν φαῦλον οὐδὲν ποιήσουσιν ἐκεῖ μένοντες.^[158]

The Nurse and the Grown Daughter

The tie between nurse and child might continue strong in later years. She often remained in the family as the attendant and sometimes as the confidante of the young maiden. Thus Nausicaa’s old nurse lights her fire and prepares her evening meal:

The same nurse who had tended Phaedra as an infant remained in her service until the death of her mistress. Her devotion, introduced mainly as a dramatic expedient, is nevertheless lifelike. Indeed it is the blindness, even to precipitancy, of her love of Phaedra which must be held accountable for the method employed by her to cure the distemper of her mistress. This she herself acknowledges in her answer to Phaedra:

We read that the nurse accompanied the young maiden out of doors, guarded her well, looking askance at admirers who were attracted by the girl’s beauty: “Thou old nurse of a loved one, why do you bark at me while approaching you, and harshly throw me into twice as many pains? For you are leading a very beautiful virgin in whose steps I am treading. See, how I am going along my own path. It is sweet merely to look upon her form. What grudging of eyes is there, thou wretched one! We look upon the forms of even the immortals....”^[161]

Still, she is sometimes the go-between in the maiden’s love affairs, as in the tale of Acontius and Cydippe.^[162] So, too, the old nurse of Hero dries the tears of her love-sick charge and receives her confidence.^[163] The power and influence of Polyxo, the aged nurse of Hypsiple, are evidenced by the fact of her being consulted in an affair of state.^[164] That these old nurses were wont to comfort and console their charges when grown up, we learn from the following:

The Nurse and the Grown Son

Outside of Homer, we do not find the nurse as actively engaged in duties towards the grown son as towards the daughter. Eurycleia continued her care of Telemachus until he came to man’s estate. She accompanied him to his chamber, folded and smoothed his clothes, and having hung them up, carefully closed the door after her.^[166] She welcomed him as a son on his return from Pylos,^[167] and is sought by him as his faithful friend.^[168] She gently reproved him for having blamed his mother where there was no blame,^[169] yet she was anxious to see him established in his rights.^[170] She is the first to recognize her old master and former nursling, Odysseus.^[171] On the recognition, he addresses her by the old name of his childhood, μαῖα, which Telemachus also uses.^[172]

The grief of Cilissa for Orestes shows that her love for him had endured beyond the nursery days.^[173] The unfortunate woodcutter in Callimachus’ Demeter, who had offended the goddess, was bewailed by the nurse by whom he had been suckled.^[174] Moschio’s nurse still retained loving thoughts of her dear child, Moschio, and was much interested in the son for the sake of the father.^[175] The old nurse in Demosthenes’ In Evergum was welcomed by her former nursling as a safe companion for his wife during his absence, and his care of her after the robbery is an evidence of the esteem in which she was held.^[176] A further indication of the love and gratitude evinced by young men for the nurses of their childhood is shown in the relatively large number of monuments and epigrams dedicated to them.^[177]

The Nurse in the Household

When the nurse was not occupied with the child, she owed towards the household, duties which are specifically mentioned in Homer; but not so clearly defined in later authors. Thus the nurse of Eumaeus is engaged in washing when she is seduced by the pirates.^[178] Eurycleia is the mainstay of the house in Ithaca, having complete charge of the domestic arrangements. In the morning, she gives her directions for the day’s work to the female slaves^[179] over whom she has joint supervision with the mistress.^[180] These, she taught how to perform the various works of the house—making beds, strewing couches, carding wool, setting tables and cleaning rooms. Besides, she is the stewardess of the household: