CHAPTER I.
WOMEN IN THE HEROIC AGES.

There is no question connected with Grecian manners more difficult than that which concerns the character and condition of women.^[1050] On so many points did they differ in this matter from us, that, unless we can conceive ourselves to be in the wrong, the condemnation of the whole Hellenic theory of female rights and interests and influence must, as a matter of course, ensue. I do not say that, after all, this is not the conclusion we should come to. Reason may possibly be on our side; but certainly it appears to me, that too little pains has hitherto been taken to arrive at the truth; and as it is a consideration by no means unimportant, I have bestowed on it more than ordinary attention in the hope of letting in additional light, however little, on this obscure and unheeded department of antiquities.

In form the Greek woman was so perfect as to be still taken as the type of her sex. Her beauty, from whatever cause, bordered closely upon the ideal, or rather was that which, because now only found in works of art, we denominate the ideal. But our conceptions of form never transcend what is found in Nature. She bounds our ideas by a circle over which we cannot step. The sculptors of Greece represented nothing but what they saw,^[1051] and even when the cunning of their hand was most felicitous, even when loveliness and grace and all the poetry of womanhood appeared to breathe from their marbles, the inferiority of their imitations to the creations of God, in properties belonging to form, in mere contour, in the grouping and developement of features, must have sufficed to impress even upon Pheidias, that high priest of art, the conviction of how childish it were to dream of rising above nature. The beauty of Greece was, indeed, a creature of earth, but suggested aspirations beyond it. Every feature in the countenance uttered impassioned language, was rife with tenderness, instinct with love. The pulses of the heart, warm and rapid, seemed to possess ready interpreters in the eye. But, radiant over all, the imagination shed its poetic splendour, communicating a dignity, an elevation, a manifestation of soul, which lent to passion all the moral purity and enduring force that belong to love, when love is least tainted with unspiritual and ignoble selfishness.

I despair, however, of representing by words what neither Pheidias nor Polycletos could represent in marble or ivory. The women of Greece were neither large nor tall. The whole figure, graceful but not slender, left the imagination nothing to desire. It was satisfied with what was before it. Limbs exquisitely moulded,^[1052] round, smooth, tapering, a torso undulating upwards in the richest curves to the neck, a bosom somewhat inclined to fulness, but in configuration perfect, features in which the utmost delicacy was blended with whatever is noblest and most dignified in expression. Both blue eyes and black^[1053] were found in Greece, but the latter most commonly. Even Aphrodite, spite of her auburn hair, comes before us in the Iliad with large black eyes, beaming with humid fire. No goddess but the Attic virgin has the cold blue eye of the North, becoming her maidenly character, reserved, firm, affectionate, with a dash of shrewishness. The nose was straight and admirably proportioned, without anything of that breadth which in the works of inferior sculptors creates an idea of Amazonian fierceness. Beauty itself had shaped the mouth and chin, and basked and sported in them. In these, above all, the Grecian woman excelled the barbarians. Other features they might have resembling hers, but seldom that Attic mouth, that dimpled, oval, richly-rounded chin, which imprinted the crowning characteristic of womanhood upon her face, and stamped her mistress of man and of the world.

A creature thus fashioned and gifted with an intellect which, if less robust and comprehensive, is equally active with that of man and still more flexible, could scarcely be degraded into a domestic drudge and slave, and in Greece was not.^[1054] Already, in the heroic ages, women occupied a commanding position in society, somewhat less honourable than is their due, but, in many respects, higher and more to be envied than was appropriated to them in the ignorant and corrupt times of chivalry which the Homeric period has been thought greatly to resemble. In those days, though fashion required more reserve in the female character than is consistent with the spirit of modern manners, persons of different sexes could meet and converse together without scandal. Gentlewomen of the highest rank went abroad under their own guidance. On the arrival of a foreign ship upon the shore we find an Argive princess descending without any male protector to cheapen articles of dress and trinkets, which however, as the event proved, was not without danger, for both she herself and a number of her maids were carried away captives by the perfidious strangers.^[1055]

Homer abounds with proofs both of the liberty women enjoyed and the high estimation in which they were held. They were quite as much as is consistent with prudence and delicacy the companions of men.^[1056] And in more than one particular, as in the bathing^[1057] and perfuming of distinguished male guests, the manners of those times allowed of or rather enjoined familiarities greater than the customs of any civilised modern nations permit. Ladies lived at large with their husbands and families in the more frequented parts of the house, dined and drank wine with them, rode or walked out in their company, or, attended by a female servant, and were, in fact, in the modern sense of the word, mistresses of the house and everything it contained.

When the husband happened to be absent it was not, indeed, considered delicate, if the mansion was filled with youthful and petulant guests, for the wife to be seen much among them,^[1058] though it still appears to have been incumbent upon married ladies to exercise the rites of hospitality, which sometimes, as in the case of Helen, opened the way to intrigue and elopement. A similar event, veiled in mythological obscurity, shipwrecked the virtue of Alcmena.^[1059] Clytemnæstra, too, and Ægialeia the wife of Diomede, fell before the temptations afforded by the absence of their lords,^[1060] while Penelope surrounded with youthful suitors, assailed by reports of her husband’s death, alternately soothed and menaced, remained true to her vows and became to all ages the pattern of conjugal fidelity.

The examples are many of the facility of their intercourse with strangers. Sthenobœa wife of Prœtos, king of Argos, must have enjoyed numerous occasions of being alone with Bellerophon before she could, like the wife of Potiphar, have tried his honour and forfeited her own.^[1061] Helen after her return to Sparta, banquets and associates freely with strangers at the table of her husband, where, by her conversation and remarks, we discover how quick and penetrating the understanding of women was in those ages supposed to be. Nothing could be further from the mind of those heroic warriors than the idea of regarding woman merely as an object of desire, or as a household drudge.^[1062] If she receives praise for her beauty, or industrious habits, still more is she celebrated for her mental endowments, for her wisdom, for her maternal love. Where in fiction or in life shall we find a lady more gentle, more graceful, more accomplished, more gifted with every charm of womanhood than Helen, who, nevertheless, falls a prey to seduction! Where more feminine tenderness, or truer love than in Andromache? Where more matronly sweetness and dignity than in the Phæacian Arete; more unblameable vivacity, blithe unreserve, greater sensibility, united with the noblest maiden modesty, self command and proud consciousness of virtue, than in that loveliest of poetical creations her daughter Nausicaa.

Homer himself felt all the charm of this exquisite creation and lingered over it with the fondness of a parent. She is the very flower of the heroic age. In the rapid glimpse afforded us of her life, we discover what the condition and occupations of a noble virgin were in those primitive times, a felicitous mixture of splendour and simplicity, approaching nature in the rough energy of the passions, with feelings healthy and vigorous and happy in the utter absence of sickly sentimentality. Though daughter to a king Nausicaa does not disdain to care for the family wardrobe. Her nuptial day is not far distant, and, agreeably to the nature of her sex in all ages, she is desirous that her dress should on that occasion appear to the best advantage, but to her father modestly feigns to think principally of her brothers.^[1063] Alcinoos aware of the feint, smiles inwardly while he approves of her solicitude. With his ready permission she piles the garments on the royal car drawn by mules, and then, mounting the seat whip in hand, departs for the distant rivulet accompanied by her maids. Of these girls, the poet says, two, clothed by the graces with loveliness, used to sleep in the Princess’s chamber one on either side the door.

On reaching the secluded spot, the umbrageous embouchure of a mountain brook where they usually performed their lowly task, it was their first care to unharness the mules, which were turned loose to graze on the shore. Their labours occupy them but a portion of the morning, and these concluded, they dine sumptuously enough, in some shady nook overlooking the stream, on wine and viands brought along with them from the palace. To remove every idea of sordid toil and fatigue Homer is careful to represent them full of life and animal spirits, bounding sportively along the meadows, having first bathed and lubricated their limbs with fragrant oils. The game which engages them while their robes and veils are drying on the pebbly beach received in later ages the name of Phæninda,^[1063] and consisted in throwing a ball unexpectedly from one individual to another of a large party scattered over a field. As it was uncertain to whom the person in possession of the ball would cast it, every one was on the watch, and much of the sport arose from the eagerness of each to catch it.

In this game the princess takes part, laughing and singing with the rest, and it is a clumsy throw of hershers which sends the ball into the river that excites the loud exclamation from her maids which awakens Odysseus. Her conversation with the hero thereupon ensuing suggests a high notion of female education at the period. The maids of honour terrified at his strange and grotesque appearance, unclothed, and deformed with ooze and mud, take to flight, but Nausicaa relying on the respect due to her father maintains her ground. Odysseus reverencing her youth and beauty prefers his petition from a distance. She grants far more than he seeks, and with many indications of female gentleness mingles so much self-possession, forethought, compassion for misfortune, consideration of what is due to her own character, and confidence in the generosity and unsuspicious goodness of her parents, that we are constrained to suppose the existence of much instruction, mental training, and knowledge of the world. And if such qualifications had not at that time been found in women, Homer had much too keen a sense of propriety to have hazarded his reputation and his bread by supposing their prevalence in his poems.^[1064]

How the women of the heroic times received their instruction it is not difficult to comprehend, though there has come down to us very little positive information on the subject. The poets, those prophetic teachers of the infancy of humanity, had already commenced their revelations of the good and beautiful. Wandering from town to town, under the immediate direction of Providence, they scattered far and near the seeds of civilisation. Their songs were in every mouth: both youths and maidens imbibed the wisdom they contained, and with their sprightly strains, as in the case of Nausicaa, enlivened their lighter moments when alone, or delighted the noble and numerous guests at their fathers’ board. Homer, indeed, nowhere introduces a lady singing at an entertainment, excepting in Olympos, where the Muses represent the sex; but Æschylus, a poet profoundly versed in antiquity, speaks of Iphigenia as performing this sweet office in her father’s hall.^[1065] The daughter of Alcinoos, however, shares in the amusements and instruction supplied by the bard during the entertainment described by Homer, and converses freely with their illustrious guest.^[1066]

We have above seen that women in those ages were not creatures of mere luxury or show. Possessing considerable physical power and energy, and much skill in the elegant and useful arts of life, they were deterred by no false pride or ignorant prejudices from converting their capacity to the use of their families. The magnificence of their attire, their costly ornaments, or the consciousness of the highest personal beauty, nowise interfered with their thrifty habits; and Lord Bacon^[1067] tells a very good anecdote to show that the same in former days was the case in England. There was a lady of the West country, he says, who gave great entertainments at her house to most of the gallant gentlemen of her neighbourhood, among whom Sir Walter Raleigh was one. This lady, though otherwise a stately dame, was a notable good housewife, and in the morning betimes she called to one of her maids that looked to the swine, and asked, “Is the piggy served?” Sir Walter’s chamber being near the lady’s, he heard this homely inquiry. A little before dinner the lady came down in great state to the drawing-room, which was full of gentlemen, and as soon as Sir Walter Raleigh saw her, “Madam,” says he, “is the piggy served?” To which the lady replied, “You know best whether you have had your breakfast.”

An Homeric princess resembled this stately dame of the West, in thinking nothing beneath her which could contribute to the comfort or elegant adornment of those she loved. The employments of women in those ages, however, included some things which, in the present state of the useful arts, would seldom fall to their share, and among these were the labours of the loom, to excel in which was evidently considered one of their chiefest accomplishments and most necessary duties.^[1068] In this occupation they took refuge from anxiety and sorrow; to this we find Hector with rough tenderness urging his beloved wife to have recourse, when her affection would withdraw him from his post;^[1069] and Telemachus, in a tone somewhat too authoritative, recommends, in the Odyssey, the same course to his mother:^[1070] and in the Eastern world the same tastes and habits continued to prevail down to a very late age. When Sisygambis, the captive Persian queen, was presented, however, by Alexander with purple and wool, she sank into an agony of grief and tears: they reminded her of happier days. But the conqueror, misunderstanding her feelings, and desirous to remove the notion that he was imposing any servile task, observed:—"This garment, mother, which you see me wear, is not merely the gift but the work also of my sisters."^[1071] Similar presents passed between near relations in Persia; for in Herodotus we find Amestris, the queen of Xerxes, conferring upon her husband, as a gift of price, a richly variegated and ample pelisse, which the labours of her own fair hands had rendered valuable.^[1072] Augustus, too, even when all simplicity of manners had expired with the republic, affected still to bring up the females of his family upon the antique model, and wore no garments but such as were manufactured in his own house.^[1073]

To return: constant practice and the delight which familiar and voluntary labour inspires, had already in the heroic ages, enabled the Grecian ladies to throw much splendour and richness of invention into their fabrics. The desire also, perhaps, of excelling in works of this kind the ladies of Sidon, communicated an additional impulse to their industry. At all events, Homer makes it abundantly clear that they understood how to employ with singular felicity the arts of design, and to represent in colours brilliant and varied, cities, landscapes, human figures, and all the complicated movements of war.^[1074] We must, no doubt, allow something for the poet’s own skill in painting; but, after every reasonable deduction, enough will remain still to prove that at the period of the Trojan war Greece had made remarkable progress in every art which tends to ameliorate and embellish human life.

Carding, also, and spinning entered into the list of their occupations.occupations. Even Helen though frail as fair, is laborious as a Penelope, plying her shuttle or her golden distaff, and surrounded habitually by a troop of she-manufacturers.^[1075] Arete, queen of Phæacia, is likewise depicted sitting at the fire, distaff in hand, encircled by her maids;^[1076] and the wife of Odysseus, famed for her household virtues, is seen in the Odyssey at her own door spinning the purple thread.^[1077] The work-baskets of the ladies of that period, if we can rely on a poet’s word, were such as more modern dames might envy, formed of beaten gold and chased with figures richly wrought, and grouped with infinite taste and judgment.^[1078] In these their balls of purple were deposited when spun, though probably reed baskets or osier work contented the ambition of ladies less aspiring than Europa.

Women also, but chiefly slaves, performed in those primitive times all the operations of the kitchen. They even in the great establishment of Alcinoos work at the mill, as they do also in the palace of Odysseus, where guided perhaps by the nature of the climate we find the young women preferring for this operation the cool of the night.^[1079] Even in later ages, when juster ideas of what is due to the sex prevailed, this severe toil sometimes devolved upon female slaves, though in general it was the males, and of these the most worthless, who worked the mills, regarded at length almost in the light of correctional establishments.^[1080] But the making of bread was very properly appropriated to women almost throughout the East. The Egyptians, indeed, an effeminate and servile people, very early, as we learn from Genesis, confounded the offices of the sex; but among the Lydians, even in the palace of Crœsos, we meet with a female baker,^[1081] and the Persian armies carried along with them women to bake their bread in their longest and most dangerous expeditions.^[1082] In Greece to preside over the oven, was up to a very late period the prerogative of the fair. One hundred and ten women had the honour of being locked up with the handful of warriors who during three years baffled the whole force of the Peloponnesos from the glorious walls of Platæa,^[1083] and in the primitive ages of Macedonia the queen herself prepared the bread distributed among the royal shepherds.^[1084]

The Sacred Scriptures have rendered familiar and reconciled to us the simplicity of patriarchal manners. To behold the daughter of Bethuel or of Laban coming forth to draw water for her flock, does not strike us as at all out of keeping with the opulence or dignity of her father, or with her own feminine delicacy; and we know that at this present day the wealthiest Bedouin Sheikh of the desert, though lord of a thousand camels, discovers nothing in his daughter’s condition which should relieve her from this healthful employment. Similar notions prevailed among the Greeks of the Heroic Age. For though in many cases slave-maidens^[1085] are found engaged in drawing water from the springs, virgins of noble birth, nay the daughters themselves of kings, descend to the fountain with their urns, mingling there with female captives and young women of inferior rank. Thus, for example, the princess of the Lestrygons in Homer goes forth with her water-jar^[1086] to the well, and even among the Athenians, where refinement of manners first sprang up, and civilisation made most rapid strides, the daughters of the citizens in early times used to descend to the fountain of Callirrhoe to draw water.^[1087] But the task was commonly allotted to female captives and other slaves. Euryclea, Odysseus’ house-keeper, sends a troop of girls on this errand with orders to be quick in their movements, and Hector, in his deep fear for Andromache, already in apprehension beholds her toiling at the fountains of Argos.^[1088]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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