Greek Women Part 15

"A good wife's duty 'tis, Nicostratus, Not to command, but to obey her spouse; Most mischievous a wife who rules her husband."

Menander, the greatest representative of the New Comedy, has been compared to a mirror, so clear were the images he presented of human life. His epigrammatic sayings are justly famous, and many of them refer to woman. "Manner, not money, makes a woman's charm," says he in one pa.s.sage; and in another:

"When thou fair woman seest, marvel not; Great beauty's oft to countless faults allied."

"Where women are, there every ill is found," is still another disparaging sentiment, as is his repet.i.tion of the frequent gibe at marriage:

"Marriage, if truth be told (of this be sure), An evil is--but one we must endure."

Yet the poet was also appreciative of the good qualities in woman, as is seen in the sentiment: "A good woman is the rudder of her household;"

with which we may compare the words of another poet:

"A sympathetic wife is man's chiefest treasure;"

and at times Menander notes how even a woman of serious faults may prove to be the greatest blessing:

"How burdensome a wife extravagant; Not as he would may he who's ta'en her live.

Yet this of good she has: she bears him children; She watches o'er his couch, if he be sick, With tender care; she's ever by his side When fortune frowns; and should he chance to die, The last sad rites with honor due she pays."

Surely a touching portraiture of woman's gentle ministry, and worthy to be compared with Scott's famous lines! In spite of the numerous complaints against woman, the plays of the New Comedy usually ended in a happy marriage--the wild youth falls in love with the penniless maiden, reforms, discovers her to be wellborn, and wins over the angry parent; then follow joyous wedding festivities, and happiness ever afterward.

Such is the usual course of the plot. Satirical reflections on woman, especially when made in poetry, must not be taken too seriously; and where romantic love is also the theme for song, we may be sure that woman, though much abused, is yet tenderly regarded and highly esteemed among men.

A social movement for the emanc.i.p.ation of woman, which had occupied the attention of thinking men and women of Athens in the latter half of the fifth century before Christ, which had been started by Aspasia in her salon, which had been discussed by Socrates and the Socratics, especially aeschines, and which had brought about a battle royal between the dramatists Euripides and Aristophanes, naturally called for scientific treatment at the hands of the philosophers. The works of Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon accordingly devote much s.p.a.ce to the consideration of the Woman Question. The female s.e.x, hitherto "accustomed to live cowed and in obscurity,"--as Plato puts it,--justly claimed more favorable conditions; and the philosophers who endeavored to bring about a better social status a.s.serted that woman deserved proper recognition at the hands of men.

Plato had taken seriously to heart the lessons of the Peloponnesian War.

He was keenly sensitive to the evils of democracy as then existent, and recognized the need of governmental and social reform. He felt that in the disregard of women at least half the citizen population had been neglected, and we have in his works the strongest a.s.sertion of the equality of the s.e.xes.

"And so," he says, in one of his dialogues, "in the administration of a State, neither a woman as a woman nor a man as a man has any special function, but the gifts of nature are equally diffused in both s.e.xes; all the pursuits of men are the pursuits of women also, and in all of these woman is only a lesser man." "Very true." "Then are we to impose all our enactments on men and none on women?" "That will never do." "One woman has a gift of healing, another not; one is a musician, another is not." "Very true." "And one woman has a turn for gymnastic and military exercises, while another is unwarlike and hates gymnastics." "Beyond question." "And one woman is a philosopher, and another is an enemy of philosophy; one has spirit, and another is without spirit." "This is also true."

From these premises, recognizing the diversity of gifts among women and the correspondence of their talents with those of men, though less in degree, Plato affirms that women should receive a training similar to that accorded to men; to them should be given the same education and a.s.signed the same duties, though the lighter tasks should fall to them as being less strong physically.

"There shall be compulsory education," says Plato, in his Laws, "for females as well as males; they shall both go through the same exercises.

I a.s.sert, without fear of contradiction, that gymnastic exercises and horsemanship are as suitable to women as to men. I further affirm that nothing can be more absurd than the practice which prevails in our country, of men and women not following the same pursuits with all their strength and with one mind, for thus the State, instead of being a whole, is reduced to a half."

The view of Plato, as stated in his _Republic_, which aroused the most hostile criticism was his theory of the community of women as well as of property. But this grew out of the fundamental thesis in his theory of government: that the State must be developed into a perfect unity. The family as a private possession disturbed this unity, and must therefore be dispensed with.

This theory, however, proved too extreme, even for Plato himself, and in his Laws he returns to the idea of marriage, but he follows the Spartan system by putting marriage under the constant surveillance of legislation. He wishes every man to contract that marriage which is most beneficial to the State, not that which is most pleasing to himself. He urges that people of opposing temperaments and of different conditions in life should wed,--the stronger with the weaker, the richer with the poorer,--"perceiving that the city ought to be well mingled, like a cup in which the maddening wine is hot and fiery, but, when chastened by a soberer G.o.d, receives a fair a.s.sociate and becomes an excellent and temperate drink." By such arguments he endeavors to beguile the spirits of men into believing that the equability of their children's disposition is of more importance than equality when they marry.

The philosopher does not seem to see the humor in his proposal to bring together contrary natures, nor the pain he would inflict on the parties most concerned. With him the interest of the State is supreme, and to that everything must yield.

However, even amid such extreme doctrines we find wise counsel, inspired by a more practical and humane spirit. Plato finds fault with the prevailing custom of not giving young people an opportunity to become acquainted with each other before marriage; and he recognizes, from the excellent influence of the wife's activity in the home, how much she might contribute to the well-being of the State if she were taken out of seclusion and intimately a.s.sociated with the life of her husband.

The woman's rights movement reached its high-water mark in the works of Plato. Thenceforth there were a gradual decline in the conception of woman's capacities and a lessening of the demands for her emanc.i.p.ation.

Aristotle is less generous than Plato in his concessions to woman. "The male is by nature superior, and the female inferior; the one rules, the other is ruled; this principle of necessity is extended to all mankind."

Thus he a.s.serts woman's inferiority to man and he insists upon her silent and pa.s.sive obedience. The difference of functions and duties he bases upon difference of nature. "The temperance and courage of a man are other than those of a woman. For a man who is courageous only as a woman is will seem timid, and a woman will seem impudent if she has merely the reserve and modesty of an honest man. Thus, in a family, a woman's duties differ from a man's--his it is to acquire, hers to preserve." Each woman, however, has her part in the State, and should be prepared for it. "In women the qualities of the body are beauty and height; those of the soul are temperance and love of work, without baseness. An individual and a State should desire each of these qualities in both men and women." Yet, while a.s.serting woman's inferiority, Aristotle recognizes the sanct.i.ty of marriage and of the family, and preaches to men faithfulness and regard and appreciation in their att.i.tude toward women. In his _Ethics_ he dwells with delicacy on the affectionate regard husband and wife should each have for the other.

They should bear with and encourage each other in all the events of life. And while he insists upon the limitations of woman's intelligence and reasoning powers, he yet recognizes her superiority to man in qualities of the heart; and when he wishes to give an example of disinterested and ideal affection, it is woman who serves as his model.

On the whole, Aristotle draws a more pleasing picture of woman's character and position than Plato, in spite of the greater equality granted by the latter. Plato's philosophy was primarily the product of imagination, Aristotle's of experience; Plato was essentially theoretical, Aristotle practical. Hence the teachings of the Stagirite were doubtless based on examples of conjugal unity and felicity which he saw about him, and he extended to the Athenian people in general the views of marital relations that prevailed in his own circle.

Xenophon's treatise on _Domestic Economy_ was probably intended to be a contribution to the current discussion of the Woman Question; in it he sought to prove the falsity of the views of Plato and Aristotle, who advocated greater freedom for woman, and at the same time endeavored to reform existing conditions without materially changing them. In his _Recollections of Socrates_, he expresses, as the views of that philosopher, opinions of the high value of the s.e.x, but only in purely domestic relations. Socrates insists upon reverence for and obedience to the mother, who watches over her children with tender affection and unwearied solicitude; who, when they are capable of receiving instruction, endeavors to instil into their minds the knowledge which will best conduce to their future welfare. "For the man who is wanting in respect to parents," he adds, "public punishments are appointed; the laws yield him no longer their protection, neither is he permitted any share in the administration; since they think no sacrifice offered by a hand so impious can be acceptable to the G.o.ds or beneficial to man."

These and other pa.s.sages show that the Socrates of Xenophon entertained very delicate sentiments regarding the domestic life. He saw in woman the diligent mother and industrious housekeeper, watchful of her house and its management. He leaves her in her seclusion, occupied with her quiet domestic duties, but at the same time he recognizes the charm as well as the usefulness of her presence in the home. Her economy, vigilance, and care are of inestimable value to her husband. He regards marriage as a union in which husband and wife have each his or her own duties as well as authority. His views are a contrast to those of his time, when the rights were all on one side, while on the other were only duty and submission.

The _Domestic Economy_ of Xenophon is but an exposition and ill.u.s.tration of the views which the author here attributes to Socrates. The most remarkable feature in Xenophon's system of woman training is the utter absence of any intellectual discipline. Manifestly, he did not believe in the mental equality of the s.e.xes. His was a purely industrial system of education, one merely designed to fit woman for the duties of the home.

It is not improbable that in this work is embodied the view which pleased the majority of the Athenian public regarding the aspirations of women. Thus, after more than half a century of discussion, the agitation for the emanc.i.p.ation of woman seems not to have accomplished any demonstrable change in her social life, but to have resolved itself merely into a plea for better equipment for her domestic duties. Yet even this was something gained; and if all the husbands of Athens were as conscientious as Ischomachus in training their wives for the duties of home, and gave them the companionship which such an education involved, there must have been marked improvement in the social status of woman.

Perhaps it was impossible for women to be accorded greater liberty of action while the ancient conception of the city-state obtained. Woman's harmonious development regularly keeps pace with her freedom, and the intellectual possibilities of the s.e.x are only limited by the opportunities afforded. The men who were responsible for the system could hurl their shafts of satire at the uncultivated women confined to their apartments and their domestic cares; but whenever the least liberty of action was granted those women, they proved themselves fully equal to the men in intellectual capacity, and the Greek woman always exceeded her brothers in moral sublimity and unselfishness. The root of the evil was the system of government. Soon Philip and Alexander were to put an end with their legions to the exclusiveness of the city-state, and the Greek woman of the h.e.l.lenistic period was destined to enjoy greater freedom and greater influence.

XII

GREEK WOMAN IN RELIGION

More spiritual by nature, more inclined to mysticism, with keener intuitions, woman has ever taken a more prominent part in religious matters than man. Hence, even in such a country as h.e.l.las, where woman was excluded from so many lines of human activity, we find that in religious observance she had equal freedom with man, and far exceeded him in devoutness and religious fervor. The Greeks, though they had only the light of nature to guide them, were essentially a spiritual people.

They saw the hand of the Unseen everywhere manifesting itself in natural phenomena: they recognized divinities in the fertility of the soil, in the stars of the heavens, in the crystal waters of the spring, in the rain and in the storm cloud, in the winds of the forest. They even personified abstractions, and deified emotions and virtues. Nor were they merely content with inward piety, but endeavored in every way by outward observance to worship the deities which were the creations of their own myth-making faculties; and in all the religious ceremonials of the Greeks woman played a prominent role.

All the Greek peoples gloried in being of the same blood and language and religion. Though widely separated politically and engaged in endless wars among themselves, the chief bond of union known to them was the common cult of some divinity and partic.i.p.ation in the same religious festivals. The oracles, the temples, the games, the processions in honor of their G.o.ds, tended to maintain the unity of Greece and were the promoters of national sentiment. Woman's part in these bonds of union made her influential in the welfare of the common country, and religious ceremonies were to her occasions in which she could feel herself an essential factor in Greek life.

In the childhood of the world, man, who reached conclusions by a long process of reasoning, stood in awe of the intuitive faculty in woman that enabled her to arrive at a truth without apparent effort. Hence the spirit of divination was thought to be inherent in the s.e.x, and women were prophetesses from remote ages. Among pagan peoples, the earliest manifestations of the prophetic instinct in woman were recognized in the persons of certain seers to whom was given the name of Sibyls. The word in its etymology signifies the "will of G.o.d," and was applied to the inspired prophetesses of some deity, chiefly of Apollo. The Sibyls were generally represented as maidens, dwelling in lonely caverns or by sacred springs, who were possessed of the spirit of divination and gave forth prophetic utterances while under the influence of enthusiastic frenzy. Their number, their names, their countries, their times, are matters about which we have no certain knowledge; but twelve are mentioned by ancient writers, of whom three were certainly Greek--the Delphian, the Erythrean, and the Samian. Herophila, the Erythrean Sibyl, was the most celebrated of them all, and she is represented as wandering from her Ionian home, by manifold journeyings, to c.u.mae, in Magna Graecia, whence she became known as the c.u.maean Sibyl. She it was whom aeneas consulted before his descent into Hades, and who later sold to the last Tarquin the prophetic books. It was believed that her age reached a thousand years.

Women also were priestesses at the oracles of h.e.l.las, which were seats of the worship of certain divinities, where prophecies were imparted to inquiring souls through the instrumentality of the attendants of the deity. The oldest and most venerated of the oracles was that of Zeus at Dodona, mentioned by Homer. Here, among the prophetic oaks, priestesses read the future in the rustling of the leaves and in the creaking of the branches, in the bubbling of a spring and in the sounds made by brazen cymbals hung near the sacred shrine. Herodotus visited this oracle, and gives the names of the three priestesses who officiated in his time.

These priestesses--Promenia, Timarete, Nicandra--related to him a very interesting story concerning the origin of the oracle. They traced its sacred legends back to the worship in the famous temple of Thebes in Egypt. Two doves, they said, flew away one day from the city of Thebes and took their flight into distant lands. One alighted in Libya, on the spot where the oracle of Jupiter Ammon was later established; while the other, crossing the sea, flew as far as Dodona, where, perching on an oak, in human voice she commanded those that heard her to establish there an oracle of Zeus. For this reason the priestesses were known as Peliades, or doves. When, however, Herodotus inquired of the priests in Thebes about the tradition, they told a different story: that two priestesses of their temple had once been carried off from Egypt by the Phoenicians and sold into slavery, and that one of these priestesses finally established herself at Dodona. So, whether dove or priestess, the tradition of the Egyptian origin of the oracle seemed confirmed.

Apollo, however, rather than Zeus, was the G.o.d of prophecy, and it was generally in connection with his shrines that oracles were spoken.

Usually, fountains whose water was supposed to influence the workings of the mind, or caverns whence escaped a gas producing delirium or hallucination, were regarded as places where the divinity was present.

Hence there existed numerous oracles of Apollo in Greece proper and in Asia Minor. The most celebrated of the latter was the oracle of the Didymaean Apollo at Branchidae, near Miletus, where a priestess uttered prophecies, seated on a wheel-shaped disk, after she had bathed the hem of her robe and her feet in the sacred spring and had breathed the vapors arising from it.

The most ill.u.s.trious of all the oracles of ancient h.e.l.las was at Delphi, which is situated, like a vast amphitheatre, above the beautiful plain of Cirrha in Phocis, with the double summits of Parna.s.sus forming the background. Delphi became the centre of the h.e.l.lenic religion, and the fame of its oracle extended as far as to Lydia in the east, and to Rome and the Etruscans in the west. At first, a young maiden took the part of the priestess of Apollo who gave the responses; but the authorities realizing the dangers to which the beauty of the priestess might lead, a woman of at least fifty years of age was later selected for the honor, and finally, as one prophetess was not sufficient to answer the questions of the vast crowd of pilgrims that a.s.sembled to consult the oracle, three were chosen. The name given to the inspired priestess was always the same, that of Pythia.

To prepare the priestess for the ordeal which was to make known the will of the G.o.d, she was kept fasting for a number of days--a condition favorable to hallucinations, and then was given laurel leaves to chew because of their narcotic virtue. Then the Pythia was seated on a tripod, placed in the middle of the sanctuary, over an opening in the ground whence mephitic vapors were escaping. Her head was crowned with a garland made from the tree of Apollo, and about the tripod coiled a snake, the emblem of the art of divination. The exhalations from the abyss were deemed to be the very breath of the G.o.d, with which he inspired his priestess. Soon she grew pale and trembled with convulsive movements; her only utterances at first were groans and sighs; and now, with eyes aflame, with hair dishevelled, and with foam on her lips, amid shrieks of anguish she gave forth a few incoherent, disconnected words.

The G.o.d had at last spoken through his priestess. The words were carefully written down by the attendant priest, who gave a rhythmic form to the response, and thus a revelation of the future was made known to the anxious inquirer.

The Pythia was consulted by all the peoples of Greece, as well as by kings and strangers from foreign lands. Colonies to Italy, to Africa, to the regions about the Black Sea, were sent at her command; she sanctioned laws; she taught Lycurgus that the best laws were those which obliged rulers to rule well and subjects to obey well. To the conquered, she counselled resignation and hope. Peoples l.u.s.ting for conquest, she bade revive their piety toward the G.o.ds and seek the mercy of heaven by showing themselves merciful. She was also the guardian of individual morality. To a king desiring peace of mind, she declared that his unhappiness was due to his and his predecessors' wrong-doings, and recommended the exercise of clemency when he returned home. Being asked: "Who is the happiest of men?" she replied: "Phaedrus, who has died for his country," A man named Glaucus wished to withhold a treasure which had been confided to him, but decided first to get the sanction of the oracle; the Pythia revealed to him the woes reserved for the perjured.

To the lot of Gyges, the wealthy and powerful king, she preferred that of a poor Arcadian farmer who cultivated his plot of ground in peace of mind. By pure and elevated moral teachings, the Pythia instructed the bands of pilgrims who a.s.sembled at Delphi. Such was the power in the hands of a woman. Frail and nervous, she yet represented a religious inst.i.tution the most influential in the pagan world; she largely determined the destiny of Greeks and barbarians alike. The wisdom of this oracular centre is generally ascribed in modern times to the college of priests a.s.sembled at Delphi, who interpreted the responses of the Pythia; but, whatever the nature of the mechanism by which this oracle retained its influence for centuries, the people in general had, for ages, perfect faith that the responses came directly from the G.o.d of prophecy through his inspired priestess. It is undoubtedly true that the Greeks, as well as the Hindoos, Gauls, and Germans, attributed to woman the gift of second-sight; and the immaculate life which the Pythia was required to lead attests the fact that to receive the inspiration of the G.o.d of light there were needed a purity of heart and a devoutness of spirit which could only be found in a woman. Strange to say, it was the law that no woman could consult this oracle of Apollo, whose divine will was revealed through a woman; women could, however, indirectly receive a response through the mediation of a man.

The Greeks were fond of the pomp and splendor of religious festivals.

They celebrated such festivals whenever occasion offered, and during their continuance all regular occupations ceased. Plato saw in the prevailing custom other advantages besides the purely religious effect.

"The G.o.ds," he says, "touched with compa.s.sion for the human race, which nature condemns to labor, have provided for intervals of repose in the regular succession of festivals inst.i.tuted in their own honor." These festivities were not only a feature of the national religion; they were the schools of patriotism, of poetry, and of art. Each city had its own special festivals, and there were also those national celebrations in which all people joined. Zeus was the national deity of the Greeks; Olympia was his most sacred seat; and the Olympian festival was the greatest event in Greece.

In the district of Elis, on the western side of the Peloponnesus, the river Alpheus, after dashing and splashing down the mountains of Arcadia, slackens its speed and meanders westwardly through the valley in fantastic curves and windings. Soon it meets the quiet waters of the Cladeus coming from the north. Between the two, and not far from their confluence, lie the wooded slopes of Mount Cronion. In the triangular s.p.a.ce thus formed by the rivers and the mountain is situated the sacred grove known as the Altis, the hallowed precinct of Olympian Zeus. Here was his temple, and not far from it the shrine of his consort Hera; and just outside the sacred precinct lay the racecourse, where were celebrated the Olympic games which have made the name of Olympia famous throughout the world. This was the national centre of Greece, where citizens from all parts of the Greek world a.s.sembled to join in friendly contests of physical prowess and poetry and song. The situation was indeed a beautiful one. Northward and westward were the mountain peaks of Achaea and the high tablelands of Arcadia; southward, the rugged mountain chain of Messene; westward, the Ionian sea. The well-watered valley, bounded by undulating hills, was covered with luxuriant vegetation. The pine woods of Mount Cronion, the dense grove of plane trees within and about the sacred precinct, the vine, the olive and the myrtle of the valley, and the quiet waters of the sacred streams, were elements that const.i.tuted a landscape of indescribable beauty, renowned in ancient times and the delight of modern travellers.

The festival in honor of Olympian Zeus recurred every four years, at the time of the full moon following the summer solstice. Sacred heralds carried to all parts of the Greek world the official message announcing the festival, and a sacred truce was declared for a sufficient length of time to allow all desirous of doing so to attend the gathering and to return home. As the great day approached, men and youths, matrons and maidens, set out to take part in or to witness the various features of the festival. Cities sent sacred emba.s.sies, or _theoriae_, resplendent in purple and gold, bearing offerings to the G.o.d. Artists and poets, merchants and manufacturers, found in this gathering of the Greeks a great mart in which they could make known their talents or their wares and receive lucrative orders, the former for a statue or an ode, the latter for the sale of their merchandise. Tents stood in rows upon the plain, and everywhere were scenes of busy traffic or of social entertainment.

We are not concerned here with the various exercises that const.i.tuted the festival, nor with the games which were celebrated in the stadium, nor with the horse and chariot races in the hippodrome, except in so far as women were partic.i.p.ants; and their part was but slight. When the games were held, a priestess of Demeter was present, seated on an altar of white marble opposite the umpires' seats, but she was the only woman to whom this privilege was granted. While their loved ones were contending in the stadium, mothers and wives and sisters had to remain on the southern bank of the Alpheus. Only one instance is recounted where this rule was broken. "Pherenice, daughter of a celebrated Rhodian wrestler, whose family boasted that they were descended from Hercules, could not bear to leave her son while the contest was going on, and disguising herself as a man, and pretending to be a teacher of gymnastics, she mingled with the groups of gymnasts. When her son was proclaimed victor, however, her feelings carried her away, and forgetful of prudence she rushed to embrace her child. In her haste her robes became disordered, and her s.e.x was revealed. The law was explicit: every woman found within the sacred precinct was condemned to death.

Nevertheless, the judges acquitted her, in recognition of the fame her family had won; but to prevent any repet.i.tion of the occurrence, the masters, as well as their pupils, had thenceforth to present themselves naked."