A remarkable mildness pervades all that Homer says of women. The Greeks were monogamous, but they were so not by law, but from affection, or principle. Homer, accordingly, finds no fault with the polygamy which presents itself in the palace of Priam, King of Troy. “He had fifty sons, nineteen from the same womb, and the rest were borne to him by women in his halls.”[167] Some of these women are spoken of as if they were considered the wives of Priam—Laothoe,[168] for instance, and the beautiful Castianeira,[169] though Hecabe appears as if she were the only wife. But, in fact, there was no clear line drawn between marriage and other associations of men with women in Homeric times. Achilles calls Briseis his wife (ἄλοχος), though she was acquired by the spear.[170] And Ulysses promises that he will give wives to his slaves, Melanthius the goatherd and Eumæus the swineherd.[171] Some have supposed that the words imply that Ulysses would make them free, but there is no hint of this in Homer. The ordinary wife, or what in later times might be called the legal wife, is distinguished by the epithet κουριδίη; but there is no certainty as to the exact meaning of this word.
Homeric society knows nothing of a degraded class of women. There are some instances in which what would be called concubinage occurs, but only twice in the ‘Iliad’ does the word occur (παλλακίς) which was used to designate this in later ages, both times in the same passage.[172] And it occurs once in the ‘Odyssey,’[173] in a passage in which Ulysses invents a tale about himself to prevent recognition. It is evident that the word involved no idea of blame or reproach.
Still more evident is this gentleness in the treatment which the children of these women experienced. When a name is assigned them they are called nothoi (νόθοι), but the name, whatever its meaning might be, had, as Eustathius points out,[174] and the facts show, no depreciatory association. The children whose mothers were not the ordinary wives were still treated as children of the house. When Helen had no hopes of a son, Menelaus had a son born to him from a slave,[175] and he married this son to the daughter of Alector with great festivities. Medesicaste is described as the daughter of Priam nothen (νόθην). She was married to Imbros, a great warrior who lived with Priam, and that king “honoured him equally with his sons.”[176] Pedaios was a nothos to Antenor, “but the divine Theano reared him with great care, like to her dear children, to please her husband.”[177] Agamemnon addresses the Telamonian Teucros thus: “Telamonian Teucros, dear head, ruler of peoples, strike thus if you are to become a light to the Greeks and to your father Telamon, who reared you when you were little, and though you were a nothos (νόθος) took care of you in his own house.”[178] Medon the nothos (νόθος) of Oileus was a leader among the Greeks, and brother of Ajax.[179]
The nothoi most frequently mentioned are those of Priam.[180] All of them occupy high positions as warriors, and one of them is the charioteer of his brother Hector, a position which only the foremost men could occupy. In the ‘Iliad’[181] two sons of Priam are killed, a nothos and a gnesios (son of the acknowledged wife), both in one chariot, the nothos being the charioteer and the gnesios the fighter.
No mention is made in the ‘Odyssey’ of the nothoi. In the passage already alluded to, in which Ulysses gives a false account of himself,[182] that hero says that he was the son of a rich man in Crete, who had many other sons reared in his house, “gnesioi from a wife; but me a purchased mother, a pallakis, bore, but he honoured me equally with those who were directly born.” When he died, the haughty sons divided the livelihood among themselves, casting lots. “But they gave me very little, and assigned me a house, and I married a wife from among very rich people, on account of my excellence.” From this passage we gather that kindness was shown to children born outside the ordinary marriage, and provision was made for them.
The gentleness of the treatment of the pallakis (παλλακίς) and the nothoi (νόθοι) has been frequently portrayed with praise in books on Homer. One of the last who has discussed the subject, Hruza,[183] says: “This relatively so favourable condition of the nothos and his mother, both socially and legally (juristisch), is wonderful enough from the Roman and modern standpoint; but these customs of the age of Hellenic chivalry find their image in the institutions of mediæval chivalry, in whose sphere the birth outside of wedlock does not appear as a stain on mother or child, as it does in the present day.”[184]
Lasaulx[185] tries to show that the kind treatment of nothoi and pallakis was Asiatic, but his arguments fail, though it is probable that where polygamy prevailed such treatment would be more common. Morillot asserts that “according to the later law contained in the Talmud, all infants whatsoever, even those of a prostitute or an outcast, had a right to the succession of their father. The sole exception to this rule referred to infants born of female slaves or strangers.” In Egypt, no one was regarded as νόθος, not even the child of a purchased mother. No civil disadvantages attached to illegitimate children, and the Egyptian papyri of Roman times recognize no social distinction between the legitimate and illegitimate.[186]
Κουριδίη ἄλοχος in all probability means the wife who belonged by birth to the predominant and free race to which the husband also belonged. She was κουριδίη in opposition to the stranger and slave, who however, might have belonged to an equally free and predominant race in their own country,[187] and who might be, as Agamemnon says of Chryseis,[188] “not inferior to the regular wife in form or stature or in mind and skill in works.” The word does not signify, as many of the scholiasts influenced by later customs suggested, the lawfully wedded wife, as there was no law, but only custom, in Homeric times. In the same way the word nothos (νόθος) was afterwards taken to mean, and in later Greek did mean, illegitimate and spurious. But it could not mean illegitimate in Homeric times, for there was no law in regard to offspring. And it is doubtful if it could be spurious, for as Hruza has pointed out in the passage referred to, the Homeric Greeks, like some later Greeks mentioned hereafter, were probably of opinion that the son partook of the substance of the father and derived nothing essential from the mother, her function in birth being conceived to be very much that of the modern incubator. The sons were therefore always the genuine sons of their fathers. The word γνήσιος which in later Greek signified genuine, occurs only once in the ‘Iliad’[189] and once in the ‘Odyssey.’[190] Both passages may be later interpolations and the text of the passage in the ‘Odyssey’ is uncertain, for the Harleian MS. of the scholia has “born of wives” instead of “born of a wife.” It also contains a word which occurs nowhere else in Homer, ἰθαιγενής, “born in the straight line,” probably meaning born of a mother who belonged to the predominant race or, as moderns would say, to the good society of her city or country. The chance of text corruptions in this matter is seen in a passage in the ‘Iliad’[191] where one transcriber, not being able to understand the words καβησόθεν ἔνδον, altered them into Ἑκάβης νόθον υἱόν: “the nothic son of Hecabe”!
Some students of Homer may think that I have drawn too mild a picture of the life and character of Homeric women. They would base their criticism on some passages of which I have not taken note. These would be the following:—
In the ‘Odyssey’ a number of women behave badly. They take the side of the suitors, and act insolently to Ulysses on his return. Especially the slave Melantho, to whom Penelope had been particularly kind, is shameless and forward, and Ulysses applies to her epithets that express strong contempt. But such cases are exceedingly few, and are well accounted for by special circumstances.
Then, again, a passage occurs in the twenty-fourth Book of the ‘Iliad,’[192] which has excited much discussion. Thetis the goddess advises her son to find consolation for his distress in the arms of a woman, and he follows her advice, and seeks out Briseis. Perhaps it is the direct way in which the statement is made that has offended critics (ἀγαθὸν δὲ γυναικί περ ἐν φιλότητι μίσγεσθ’), though it is to be noticed that here, as throughout Homer, the physical enjoyment is always blended with the notion of friendship. The passage forms a feature in the dispute whether the last book of the ‘Iliad’ was written by the author of most of the other books. Some condemned it because it was unworthy of Homer. Among these was Aristarchus, the great Alexandrian critic, who was followed by other Alexandrian critics. But the passage seems to have the simplicity of early thought and expression. Koechly appears to me to be right when he says in regard to it: “It is self-evident that we must not let ourselves be deprived of verses 130–132, which are characteristic, and required by line 675 and following, through the prudery of the Alexandrians which occurs also sometimes in other places, although my honoured friend Faesi appears to approve of striking them out, more, I think, as a gymnasial director than as a critic of Homer.”[193] Düntzer says[194] “that there is a similar sentiment in Goethe’s ‘Hermann and Dorothea,’ and that it is entirely in harmony with old naïve times, ‘der alten naiven Zeit.’”
The last classes of passages that require to be adduced in this connexion relate how the women washed the men. They are all like each other, and so only one need be quoted. In the ‘Odyssey’[195] it is said that “the beautiful Polycaste, youngest daughter of Nestor, son of Neleus, washed Telemachus; and after she had washed him and anointed him with olive oil, and cast upon him a beautiful cloak and tunic,” &c. A similar act is attributed to Calypso.[196] A servant of Circe bathes Ulysses “out of a great caldron, pouring the water over head and shoulders.”[197] The δμωαί, or slaves, bathed Peisistratos and Telemachus,[198] and the exact words used in this passage are repeated in 8, 454; 17, 88, and similar words occur in the ‘Odyssey.’[199] Only once is reference made to the custom in the ‘Iliad,’[200] where it is said Hebe bathed Ares. Mr. Gladstone says the natural meaning of the words would seem to be that the women actually poured water over the men, and actually washed them and anointed them with oil. But he was shocked by the idea that young maidens should perform such acts, and some critics, both before and after him, have spoken of the immodesty of the acts.[201] Mr. Gladstone thought that “it is almost of itself incredible that habitually, among persons of the highest rank and character, and without any necessity at all, such things should take placed,[202] and as it is not credible, so neither, I think, is it true.” And he gets rid of all difficulties by explaining the words to mean that the maidens brought the water and oil to the men and left them to wash and anoint themselves. Mr. Gladstone finds support for his opinion in the ‘Odyssey,’[203] where Ulysses says: “Nausicaa washed me in the river and gave me these clothes”; and Ameis agrees with him. In fact, the words must mean that Nausicaa supplied him with the means of bathing, for Ulysses plainly refers to the narrative in the ‘Odyssey,’[204] where Nausicaa orders her maidservants to give food and drink to the stranger, and to wash him in the river, where there is shelter from the wind. And then it is related how the attendant maidens brought Ulysses to a sheltered part of the river, placed clothes beside him, gave him the moist oil in a golden flask, and urged him to bathe in the currents of the stream. But the circumstances of Nausicaa and Ulysses, as described in the episode, are altogether unique. Ulysses comes entirely unawares on the princess. She is completely disconcerted at first, and shows unusual presence of mind in facing the strange adventure. Ulysses himself is also embarrassed, as he shrinks from appearing nude before a beautiful princess, disfigured as he was by the brine of the sea and by his long wrestling with the waves. It could not be expected, therefore, that Ulysses, in concisely narrating what had taken place, should be precise in the exact use of words. And, therefore, though λοῦσε (bathed) may be employed loosely in this passage in summing up what had been told in detail in the previous book, this is no warrant for attributing the same meaning to it in ordinary occurrences where no expansion of the subject is made or explanation furnished. And there is one very strong case against Mr. Gladstone’s notion. In the ‘Odyssey’[205] Helen says: “I myself was washing him and anointing him with oil.” Emphasis here is evidently laid on the ἐγώ. Ulysses had penetrated into the city of the Trojans as a beggar, and no one recognized him but Helen; but he eluded every test that she employed to make herself sure. She therefore washed him herself, and she did this probably because she knew that she could find absolute proof of his identity if she could but see the scar above the knee, by which afterwards, on his return home from Troy, Eurycleia recognized him. In all likelihood, therefore, the natural interpretation is right, and the remark of Schneidewin on the subject[206] is true: “Die Entblössung scheint für den Zweck des Badens so sehr ihre Unstatthaftigkeit zu verlieren wie etwa in der modernen Gesellschaft die Umfassung einer Dame zum Tanz.” And he might have added that modern nurses and doctors in our own times have no hesitation in doing what the Homeric maidens did when there is any necessity, and no one imagines that there is any impropriety in so doing. Certainly, whatever was the mode, there is no taint of immodesty in the action. The Homeric maidens, princess and slave, acted with perfect and unconscious innocence.
I may notice here, as I am dealing with clothes, another case that comes later—that of the Spartan girls. The testimony is very decided that these girls wrestled with each other in a state of nudity. The testimony itself, indeed, is not contemporaneous, though it is good, and therefore it is possible that it may be erroneous. It is possible, also, that the word translated “nude” may not in some of the authorities imply absence of all clothing. Some scholars have rejected the statements with scorn.[207] One writer has devoted a monograph to the subject, and his conclusions are of the moderate type. “Illud pro certo habendum esse puto non in omnibus exercitationibus virgines prorsus fuisse nudatas neque ulla vestimenta exceptis fortasse iis, quae ad pudenda tegenda opus essent, retinuisse. Quod quidem in una exercitatione luctandi factum esse verisimile est. Quoniam enim virgines luctantes more virorum, ut ait Theocritus poeta, corpora oleo unguere solebant, fieri non potuit, quin corpora nudarent atque etiam tunicam, vestimentum interius, exuerent.”[208] But whatever may be the conclusions reached on this point, testimony is unanimous that the Spartan girls were modest, and the very opposite of licentious. “Their stripping,” says Plutarch, “had nothing disgraceful about it, for modesty was present and incontinence absent”; and he censures Herodotus for saying that the woman in putting off her tunic puts off modesty, “for, on the contrary, the chaste woman puts modesty on instead.” And this was the opinion of the conservative Greeks of the time of Aristophanes, for they regarded the addition of clothing to men and women, and the wrapping the limbs up in Ionic dress as a vile innovation, tending to luxury and lasciviousness.[209]
Bekker points out[210] that the custom of women washing men prevailed in the middle ages, and he quotes passages in which women bathe the men and then clothe them. He also supplies a parallel to the Spartan girls divesting themselves of their clothes. One passage describes the baptism of damsels by an archbishop, when it is said that the maidens were stripped of all their clothing before all the barons, and they were whiter than the flower of the eglantine.
The question has not yet been finally settled whether shame in regard to the uncovering of parts of the body is or is not a mere social convention. It is a point which anthropologists should decide. A curious contribution to it occurs in a recent book of travels by G. F. Scott Elliot. “These people,” he says of the Wakavirondo,[211] “are dressed chiefly in air, and, as one always finds in scantily clothed native races, are peculiarly moral as compared with the decently attired Waganda and other races. In Madagascar, West Africa, and the Cape I have always found the same rule. Chastity varies inversely as the amount of covering.” Mr. Henry T. Finck discusses the question fully in his chapter on nudity and bathing, with copious illustrations from the sentiments and practices of various countries, in his ‘Lotos-Time in Japan.’[212] But whatever the results of such inquiries may be, they seem to me to bear only slightly on the determination of the influence which women have exercised in past times.
There is no trace in Homer of that passionate and bewildering love of a man for a woman which is the favourite theme of modern novels. Buchholz, in discussing the feelings of the Homeric Greeks in regard to sexual passion, thus describes this love: “Von der Ueberschwänglichkeit der modernen Gefühlsschwärmerei, vermöge deren zwei Individuen verschiedenen Geschlechts mit himmelhochjauchzendem Entzücken im Gefühle des ewigen Füreinanderexistirens und Ineinanderaufgehens sich berauschen und selige Wonne schlürfen, haben die homerischen Menschen keine Idee.”[213]
There has been much discussion as to when Greek writers began to treat of this love. There is a full treatment of the subject in Rohde’s ‘Der Griechische Roman’ (p. 14), where he refers to the essay of Bulwer Lytton on the influence of love and real life, and quotes his opinion that it is in Euripides that first appears the distinction between love as a passion and love as a sentiment. Bennecke devotes a large portion of his chapter on ‘Women in Greek Poetry’ to show that “there is no trace in literature of what we now understand by the word ‘love’ earlier than the end of the fourth century B.C.” “The general consensus of opinion,” he says, “has agreed to ascribe this great change, the greatest change, perhaps, that has ever come over art, to the influence of two men, Euripides and Menander. My object in writing now is to endeavour to show, firstly, that this general view is a mistaken one, arising from an insufficient appreciation of the true nature of the change; and, secondly, that the real originator of the new feeling which we encounter in Alexandrian literature—in other words, the first man who had the courage to say that a woman is worth loving—was Antimachus of Colophon.”[214] It is evident that Bennecke’s appreciation of modern love is widely different from that of Buchholz.