[1176] The most illustrious lady of this age was Phila, wife of Demetrius Poliorcetes (her third marriage). She acted the part of political adviser and ambassadress; and was amiable and pacific as well as intellectual; Plutarch, Demetrius; Diodorus Sic., xx, 93. A flatterer of D. raised a temple to her, and called it the Philaeum; Athenaeus, vi, 65.
[1177] Justin, xxxix, 1, 2.
[1178] Ibid., 4. These queens flourished c. 100 B.C.
[1179] Justin, xxvi, 3. He was called Demetrius the Handsome, son of the D. above-named, but not by Phila. She stood at the door of the chamber, while the ministers of her vengeance were operating within, calling out to them to spare her mother (c. 250 B.C.). Her own fate was to be put to death by her son, Ptolemy IV of Egypt, in 221 B.C.
[1180] That is, her hair cut off and suspended in the temple of Aphrodite to propitiate divine favour for her husband (Ptolemy III), during his Syrian war, c. 245 B.C. It became a constellation according to the adulators of the day, as is shown in the poem of Catullus, a translation from the Greek of Callimachus.
[1181] The constitution of the Roman family can be apprehended readily by running through the consecutive expositions in Muirhead’s Private Law of Rome, Edin., 1886, pp. 24, 64, 115, 248, 345, 514. In law the mother and children were practically the slaves of the paterfamilias: he could divorce his wife at pleasure, and yet 500 years elapsed before a husband made use of this power, so potent was the high ethical code which sustained the Republic.
[1182] The story or legend of Cloelia used to be well known. Being delivered as a hostage, with a number of other maidens, to Porsena, she encouraged them to escape, and headed the band in swimming across the Tiber. But they were all punctiliously returned (c. 508 B.C.); Livy, ii, 13; Plutarch, Publicola, etc.
[1183] Portia, daughter of Cato, and wife of Brutus, the assassin of Caesar, aspired to be the confidante of her husband, but, distrusting her feminine nature, she refrained from soliciting him to trust her, until, by stabbing herself in the thigh, she felt satisfied of possessing sufficient masculine strength of mind to become the repository of state secrets (44 B.C.); Plutarch, Brutus, etc. See Shakespeare’s delineation of her in Julius Caesar, where she recounts her action to Brutus.
[1184] The accomplishments of Cornelia, the fifth wife of Pompey, are given in detail by Plutarch. She was well read in literature, played the lyre, had made progress in geometry, and fortified herself by the study of philosophy. Julia, the mother of Mark Antony, is called “a most learned woman” by Cicero, Catiline, iv, 6. Greek culture was fashionable at this time among the Romans. But an earlier Cornelia (c. 330 B.C.) became famous in infamy as the centre of a female society for poisoning men of note; Livy, viii, 18.
[1185] Tacitus, Ann., xiii, 5.
[1186] Hist. Aug. Heliogabalus, 2, et seq. She “lived the life of a prostitute,” and she also instituted a “petty senate” of females, which prescribed the fashions of the day to women. Manners, dress, jewellery, style of carriages, choice of draught-animals, horses, asses, or oxen, etc., were the subject of their jurisdiction.
[1187] Ibid., 17, et seq. Both were murdered, and their bodies dragged through the streets by the Praetorian guard, before their reign had lasted quite four years.
[1188] She was a daughter of the great Theodosius. The turning-point in the fall of the Western Empire was the sacking of Rome by Alaric in 410. From about 425 her authority was paramount at Ravenna, the provisional capital or rather refuge of the mouldering government. Most information about her is contained in Zosimus, vi, 12, and Procopius, De Bel. Vand., i, 3, et seq.
[1189] I have several times had occasion to mention this princess. There is no consecutive history of this period, but merely scraps to be collected from brief chronicles, Church historians, and fragments of lost works, etc.
[1190] See pp. 103, 302.
[1192] Jn. Malala, xv.; Theophanes, an. 5967, et seq.
[1193] Tacitus, Ann., iv, 19; the case of Sosia Galla. Cf. the account of Salonina and her gorgeous appearance, riding in the van of the army with her husband Caecina; ibid., Hist., ii, 20.
[1194] Tacitus, Ann., iii, 33.
[1195] Ibid., i, 69.
[1196] Ibid., ii, 55, 74; iii, 17, etc. As she acted with the secret approval of the Court, she was acquitted at a mock trial (20), but a dozen years later, on the death of her accessories, she anticipated her fate by suicide; ibid., vi, 26.
[1197] Ibid., iii, 33. Plutarch (De Mul. Virt.), has collected twenty-seven instances of the notable doings of women, and Polyaenus (Stratagemata, viii) has repeated most of them, and added almost as many more. The latter record extends up to about 170.
[1198] Herodotus, i, 199. This applies to Babylon and Cyprus, but there were several other places, and the custom was carried by the Semites as far west as Sicca Veneria, in Numidia, N. Africa; Valerius Max., ii, 6 (15). See the commentators on the passage of Herodotus; Strabo, XVI, i, 20, etc. At all times the simplicity of devout females was liable to be abused, several instances of which are recounted. For example, an ancient rite ordained that a Phrygian damsel should on the eve of her marriage bathe in the Scamander, whilst invoking the river-god to accept her virginity. In this custom on one occasion a youth of the neighbourhood found his opportunity. Hearing of the nuptials of a young lady who was socially unapproachable to him, but of whom he had long been enamoured, he bedizened himself with reeds and water-flowers and posted himself in a recess to await her coming. On her entering the water he came forward thus in the guise of the divinity she was supposed to meet, and the guileless maid permitted him to embrace her without resistance, devoutly unconscious of anything being wrong. Subsequently, as she was walking in the bridal procession, her eyes fell upon him among the spectators, whereupon she made him a profound obeisance and pointed him out to those who accompanied her as the genius of the sacred stream; Aeschines, Epist., 10. This was an isolated and comparatively blameless case, but later on some of the semi-Christian charlatans managed such matters wholesale; see the account of Marcus in Irenaeus, i, 13.
[1199] Strabo, VIII, vi, 20
[1200] Athenaeus, xiii, 25. St. Augustine was of the same opinion: “Aufer meretrices de rebus humanis, turbaveris omnia libidinibus”; De Ordine, ii, 4 (in Migne, i, 1000).
[1201] Athenaeus, xiii, 46. Nicarete of Megara is noted as being a disciple of Stilpo of the same town, a philosopher who achieved a great and lasting reputation; ibid., 70; Diogenes Laert. in Vita, “A wife is legally countenanced in sulking and keeping to the house, but a hetaira knows that it is only by her social talents that she can attach friends to herself”; Athenaeus, xiii, 7.
[1202] The names of these biographers are preserved, viz., Aristophanes of Byzantium, Apollodorus, Antiphanes, Ammonius, and Gorgias of Athens, but their works are lost; Athenaeus, xiii, 21, 46. The first-named composed as many as 135 lives, and Apollodorus exceeded even this number. The gist of their writings, however, seems to have been preserved by Athenaeus in his thirteenth book; and among the moderns, Jacobs has attempted to reconstruct all the principal biographies; Attische Museum, 1798-1805. The accounts of them are almost wholly made up of anecdotes as to their witty remarks and rejoinders. But at least one modern author has written biographies of courtesans; see Devaux-Mousk, Fleurs du Persil, Paris, 1887 (with portraits and autographs).
[1203] Plutarch, Pericles, etc. At the same time it was not beneath her to become a procuress, and it is said that all Greece was supplied with girls by her agency. It was even maintained that the immediate cause of the Pelopennesian war was the abduction of one of these girls imported from Megara; Athenaeus, xiii, 25; Plutarch, loc. cit. Parallels to Aspasia are not altogether wanting in very recent times. Thus of Cora Pearl (née Crouch, of Plymouth) we read: “For some time she excited the greatest interest among all classes of Parisian society, and ladies imitated her dress and manners”; Dict. Nat. Biog., sb. nom.
[1204] Memorabilia, iii, 11.
[1205] Diogenes Laert., Epicurus; Cicero, De Nat. Deor., i, 33; see an imaginary letter of hers in Alciphron, ii, 2.
[1206] Athenaeus, xiii, 37, 38, 56. Timotheus, when it was thrown in his teeth that his mother was a prostitute, replied that he was very much obliged to her for making him the son of Conon. The son of Pericles by Aspasia was legitimated and became a general.
[1207] Ibid., 40, 38. Hieronymus, the last king of Syracuse, is said to have married a common prostitute, but their issue did not succeed to any crown; ibid. In modern times the assumption of the premiership of Bavaria by the notorious Lola Montez (née Gilbert of Limerick) will be remembered. “She now ruled the kingdom of Bavaria, and, singular to say, ruled it with wisdom and ability. Her audacity confounded alike the policy of the Jesuits and of Metternich”; Dict. Nat. Biog., sb. nom. Her régime did not, however, last more than a year, being unable to stem the tide of revolution in 1848. More fortunate was the castrato singer, Farinelli, who retained a position differing little from that of prime minister under Philip V of Spain and his successor for nearly twenty-five years. The reign of courtesans in the seventeenth century, when the aristocratic blood of France and England was enriched by “legitimated princes” and peers under Louis XIV and Charles II is too well known to need comment here; but the acquisition of governmental power at the hands of Louis XV by Jeanne Vaubernier (Countess Du Barry), a low-class strumpet, doubtless helped decidedly to bring that disgraceful epoch to a close; see Voltaire’s Louis XIV and Louis XV, etc.
[1208] Athenaeus, xiii, 38; Alciphron, ii, 1.
[1209] Athenaeus, xiii, 60. Here, again, a parallel is afforded by Cora Pearl. During the war of 1870 she transformed her house into an “ambulance,” where she spent her time and money to the amount of £1,000 in nursing wounded soldiers. Afterwards she claimed to be reimbursed, but £60 only was granted to her by the government; see her Mémoires, Paris, 1886. Ultimately she was expelled from Paris.
[1210] Ibid., xiii, 7, 31.
[1211] Ibid., xiii, 70; Polyaenus, viii, 45, etc.
[1212] Athenaeus, xiii, 34.
[1213] Ibid., xiii, 54. A figurative memorial, a lioness tearing a ram; Pausanias, ii, 2.
[1214] Ibid., xiii, 59; Aelian, Var. Hist., ix, 32. Crates, the Cynic, said that it was an advertisement of the profligacy of Greece.
[1215] Athenaeus, xiii, 69; and another at Babylon, the seat of his governorship. Plutarch (Phocion) says it cost about £7,000, and was poor value for the money, but Pausanias extols it; i, 37.
[1216] Athenaeus, xiii, 34.
[1217] Ibid., vi, 62. Plutarch tells us that he fined the Athenians £70,000, which he handed over to Lamia and the rest of his harem to buy soap!
[1218] A licentia stupri was issued to each woman by the aediles; Tacitus, Ann., ii, 85.
[1219] Plutarch, Sulla.
[1220] Ibid., Pompey.
[1221] Plutarch, Lucullus.
[1222] In the year 19 Rome was shocked by Vistilia, a married woman of noble birth, applying for a licence. She was banished, and a law passed to prevent the repetition of such an occurrence; Tacitus, Ann., ii, 85. Half a century later probably no notice would have been taken, but the ethics of the day varied regularly with the character of the reigning emperor.
[1223] Dion Cass., lxvi, 14. As a proof of the meanness of Vespasian, he relates that Titus expostulated with his father on the unseemliness of maintaining a tax on the collection of urine, whereupon the Emperor, drawing a handful of gold from his pocket, tendered it to his son, saying, “Smell, does it stink?” cf. Suetonius, 23.
[1224] Socrates, v, 18. The punishment of an adultress at this epoch took the ridiculous form of impounding her in a narrow cabinet next the street, where she was forced to prostitute herself to all comers. Every time she received a companion a jingling of little bells was kept up to publish the circumstance to passers by. At the same period immense underground bakeries were run by contractors for the supply of the Steps (see p. 81), and they hit on a remarkable expedient for procuring slaves to work in them. Taverns served by prostitutes were set up contiguous to the vaults; and customers, chiefly strangers, were lured into a compartment, from which they were suddenly lowered into the cavity beneath, by a sinking floor. There they ended their days in enforced labour, being never again allowed to see the light. A bold soldier of Theodosius, however, being thus entrapped, drew a dagger and fought his way out. He then laid information, which brought about the destruction of all such infamous dungeons; ibid.
[1225] In the Middle Ages the absence of judicious and uniform legislation is one of the most marked features, and in every province the extremes of sociological phenomena are commonly to be observed. Side by side with measures for the total abolition of prostitution we find brothels tolerated as a regular department of royal palaces. In 1546, for example, prostitution was suppressed at Strasbourg, and at Toulouse in 1587. On the other hand, from the eleventh century onwards, a community of courtesans was maintained as part of the establishment of the kings of France. They were placed in the charge of an officer, named le Roi des Ribauds. His position, however, was low, and his right to eat at the same board with the other members of the household was disputed; see Rabutaux, La Prostitution (au moyen âge), Paris, 1851, ff. 16, 21, 32, 33. Again, it is well authenticated, though almost incredible, that in the sixteenth century nobles and generals of the south of Europe kept in the camp elegantly caparisoned goats for amatory purposes; see Bayle, sb. Bathyllus.
[1227] Our knowledge of these facts in detail is due to Procopius (Anecdota or Hist. Arcana), but sufficient corroboration from other sources is not wanting. The question as to the authenticity of this work of Procopius has been finally set at rest by the recent researches of Dahn and Haury. It is doubtless as true as all history in detail, i.e., vitiated by prejudice, ignorance, and mistakes. The life and literary activity of P. will be noticed later on.
[1228] Procopius, Anecdot., 10.
[1229] This was a staple piece of “gag” for centuries, and is another instance of the uniformity of Byzantine life during long periods; see Tertullian and Gregory Naz., as quoted by Alemannus, op. cit., p. 380.
[1230] See Mirecourt (Les Contemporains, Paris, 1855, 78) for an amusing account (with portrait) of Lola Montez, and her bold procedure in dispensing with her maillots, “to the delight of the gentlemen of the orchestra,” when dancing at Paris. Some may still remember the popularity of “the Menken,” as Mazeppa at Astley’s, the result of her having been counselled to turn “to account her fine physique”; see Dic. Nat. Biog., sb. nom., for her career and distinguished associates. Her apology, protesting against the performance being denounced as an exhibition of nakedness, was published, and is extant. This hetaira approached somewhat to her Greek prototypes, and issued a volume of poems, which, if not equal to Sappho’s, had a merit of their own. The same significance cannot, however, be attached to such displays as at the present day. The indiscriminate bathing was only just passing into disrepute, and ingenuous exhibitions of that kind were still possible. See, for instance, Aristaenetus (i, 7), where a “modest” young lady trips down to the beach, coolly divests herself of her clothing, and asks a young gentleman, who happens to be reclining there, to keep an eye on her things while she is in the water. This author, waiting c. 500, could scarcely have deemed such an incident preposterous in his time. As to naked women in the theatre, in addition to the notices already given from Chrysostom, see In Matth. Hom. xix, 4 (in Migne, viii, 120).
[1231] Her proceedings are described by Procopius, with the openness and detail which was natural to the age in which he lived. For this, however, he has been censured, to the damage of his historical credit, as if he thereby proved himself to be a dissolute person, unusually experienced in the vices of the times. But the charge is unjust, and might be urged with greater force against almost all of the Christian fathers who continually inveigh against abuses of the sexual instinct, in the intricacies of which they show themselves to be far better versed. Beginning with the Epistle of Barnabas they never tire of decrying circumstantially all sexual relations, especially those who “medios viros lambunt, libidinoso ore inguinibus inhaerescunt”; Minucius Felix, 28; cf. Arnobius, Adv. Gen., ii; Lactantius, Div. Inst., vi, 23, etc. Their rigid text is “genitalem corporis partem nulla alia causa nisi efficiendae sobolis accepimus”; ibid. Nor was it regarded as proper that the knowledge and discussion of such matters should be ordinarily thrust out of sight; on the contrary they were included in the category of topics habitually invested with interest to “society.” Thus the polished Agathias in an amatory epigram (28), after lamenting the pangs and torments of love, makes his point with:
This graphic effusion duly found its place in that book of “elegant extracts,” compiled for the delectation of the Byzantine drawing-room, the Greek Anthology, where it remains enshrined amid a crowd of companions, at least ten times as remote as itself from modern ideas of decency.
[1232] One example of her unusual turpitude may be reproduced. After enlivening a party of ten or more young men for a whole evening, she “παρὰ τοὺς ἐκείνων οἰκέτας ἰοῦσα τριάκοντα ὄντας ἂν οὕτω τύχοι, ξυνεδυαζετο μὲν τούτων ἑκάστῳ”; Procopius, Anecdot., 9. Unconsciously she was emulating the activities of the Empress Messalina five centuries previously:
Pliny discusses her proclivities in the inquiring mood of a physiologist; Hist. Nat., x, 83.
[1234] The age of Theodora is nowhere mentioned, but Ludewig and Isambert favour 497. Nicephorus Cal. (xvi, 39) says that she was born in Cyprus, an assertion which cannot be contradicted, but which is, on the whole unlikely, and some of his collateral statements are erroneous. The following information pour rire has found its way into so considerable a work as Hefner-Altneck’s Trachten: “Theodora was the daughter of Acacius, Patriarch of CP., and was trained by her mother (!) for the theatre, in which she distinguished herself by her art as a pantomimist”; i, p. 124. The Patriarch Acacius was doubtless a celibate. The whitewashing of Theodora has, of course, been undertaken, but late, not till 1731, by Ludewig. She was, in fact, in bad odour with the Church, and the worst that could be said of her was acceptable. Recently a further attempt has been made by Débidour (L’Impératrice Theodora, Paris, 1885, Latin Thesis, 1877), called forth by Sardou’s well-known play of Theodora, in which she is undoubtedly misrepresented. A pendant to this brochure, containing all the facts of the defence, will be found in Eng. Hist. Rev., 1887 (Mallet). Present flatterers were, of course, ready to swear that she was an Anician! See p. 308.
[1235] Procopius, Anecdot., 10, 17. His horror at the practice of abortion teaches us that a great revulsion of public sentiment must have taken place since the time of Aristotle, who counsels resorting to it when over-population is threatened; Politics, vii, 16.
[1236] Procopius, Anecdot., 17.
[1237] Ibid., 9.
[1238] Codinus, p. 104 (Anon. of Banduri). This information dates from the early part of the eleventh century, but must have been copied from some earlier document. It is in general agreement with Procopius, Anecdot., 9.
[1239] Socrates, iv, 28. The Novation purists made great headway there; ibid., ii, 30, etc.
[1240] Contiguous to the church of St. Panteleemon, which stood on the Propontis to the east of the Theodosian Port; see Notitia, reg. ix and Ducange sb. Homonoea. The suburban St. P. is said to be indicated by ruins still existing at the foot of the “Giant’s Grave,” on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus; see Gyllius, De Bosp., iii, 6; Procop., etc., Notitia, reg. ix; Ducange, sb. Homonoea; Procopius, De Aedific., i, 9.
[1241] Codinus, loc. cit.
[1242] Procopius, Anecdot., 9.
[1243] Ibid., 10. He allows that she was sufficiently well looking, but he also states that her countenance was disfigured by debauchery; ibid., 9. At a later date he praises her beauty as something almost superhuman, but this was intended for the eyes of the Court; De Aedific., i, 11.
[1244] In natural gifts she may have had some resemblance to Cleopatra; see Shakespeare’s presentation of the latter:
[1245] Procopius, Anecdot., 9; cf. John of Ephesus, Com. de Beat. Orient. (Van Douven and Land), p. 68, where the words occur, “ad Theodoram τὴν ἐκ τοῦ πορνείου, quae illo tempore patricia erat.” She is often mentioned in this work in a laudatory strain, with which this sentence, as Diehl (op. cit.) forcibly observes, is decidedly incongruous. Probably, therefore, it has been introduced by a copyist, but of what date I cannot surmise.
[1247] As shown by subsequent events; Theophanes, an. 6019; Victor Ton., an. 566; Jn. Malala, xviii, p. 430; ib., an. 6020.
[1250] Procopius, Anecdot., 10; the law itself, Cod., V, iv, 23 (De Nuptiis). This relaxation, however, was quite in accordance with the development of Christian sentiment. Thus Chrysostom expresses it: “Inflamed by this fire (Christian repentance) the prostitute becomes holier than virgins”; In Matth. viii, Hom. vi, 5 (in Migne, vii, 69).
[1251] Procopius, Anecdot., 9. The spurious life by Theophilus (see p. 320) tells us also that Justinian’s mother, her name Biglenitza (Vigilantia), opposed the marriage, not on account of unchastity, but because Theodora was too clever and addicted to magic, etc. There is no historical mention of this Vigilantia.
[1252] Ibid., 10.
[1253] Jn. Malala, xvii, etc.
[1254] According to Michael the Syrian, Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch, Theodora was the daughter of an “orthodox” (i.e., Monophysite) priest, who would not part with his daughter until Justinian had pledged his word not to coerce her to conform to Chalcedon! See Chabot’s trans. from the Syriac, 1901, ix, 20. She built St. P. (p. 344) on the site of her chaste pre-nuptial life.
[1255] Procopius, Anecdot., 1. Aimoin (Hist. Franc., ii, 5), a western author of the eleventh century, but in great part fabulous, relates that Belisarius and Justinian entered a brothel and chose there two prostitutes, Antonina and Antonia, sisters, whom they subsequently married. If this is not merely loose hearsay emanating originally from a reader of Procopius, it shows the sort of stories which were popularly current on the subject. Although the anecdote is scarcely far-fetched, it is rendered impossible by the fact that the ages of the two men differed by something like a score of years.
[1256] Later we hear from Procopius (De Bel. Goth., i, 5) that in 535 he had just become old enough to receive a separate command in the army; which probably indicates that he had then attained to the age of eighteen, the period when a young Roman was freed from his guardian (curator) and became sui juris. About nine years earlier (c. 526, De Bel. Pers., i, 12) Belisarius is referred to in very similar terms, so that the relative ages of these two characters can be determined with tolerable accuracy. Belisarius was then “πρῶτος ὑπηνήτης.”
[1257] Antonina and her son Photius are personages almost peculiar to Procopius and do not come to light noticeably in the ordinary chronographers.