Volume 1 — Illustrated (continued 6)

From a consideration of woman's part in the religious ceremonials at the national centres of Greece,--Delphi and Olympia,--we must now turn to Athens, with whose festive calendar we are much better acquainted. The Athenians were rightly characterized by the Apostle Paul as being very religious. In all parts of the city were temples and statues; according to one writer, it was easier to find there a god than a man. More than eighty days out of each year were given up to religious festivities. Pallas Athena, daughter of Zeus, was the patron goddess of Athens, and the Acropolis was her sacred precinct; but other deities were worshipped, even on the Acropolis, and throughout the city there were shrines to numberless gods and goddesses.

From earliest times, women were intimately associated with the worship of Athena. Varro preserves a tradition which records that it was women's votes that determined the choice of Athena over Poseidon as patron deity of Athens. Originally, women took part in the public councils with men and had a voice therein, and when the weighty question of the rivalry of the two divinities came up they outvoted the men by a majority of one in favor of the goddess. Poseidon was angered, and submerged the land of Attica. To appease the god, the citizens deprived the women of the right to vote and forbade them in future to transmit their names to their children and to be called Athenians. But though their political rights were thus sadly infringed and they were relegated to ignorance and obscurity, they retained their part in the exercises of religion, especially in the worship of their patron goddess. Little is known of the various priestesses of Athena, who figured so prominently in the art of Athens and who presided at the goddess's temples on the Acropolis. It was an important office and was always held by a woman of great wisdom, high moral character, and mature years. Under her direction were the maidens of the city who were chosen from time to time from the noblest families to take part in the festivals of the goddess. Pausanias gives us a glimpse of the duties of certain of these maidens, and we could wish that he had cleared up the mystery that surrounded their office. "Two maidens," said he, "dwell not far from the temple of the Polias; the Athenians call them Arrephoræ. They are lodged for a time with the goddess; but when the festival comes around, they perform the following ceremony by night. They put on their heads the things which the priestess of Athena gives them to carry, but what it is she gives is known neither to her who gives nor to them who carry. Now, there is in the city an enclosure, not far from the sanctuary of Aphrodite, called Aphrodite in the Gardens, and there is a natural underground descent through it. Down this way the maidens go. Below, they leave their burdens; and getting something else which is wrapped up, they bring it back. These maidens are then discharged and others are brought to the Acropolis in their stead." Other maidens resided for a time on the Acropolis, engaged in weaving the saffron-colored peplus which was to be presented to the goddess at the Great Panathenæa--the most brilliant festival of the Athenians. This was the highest honor that could be conferred on Athenian maidens, and while engaged in this work they shared in the deference shown the goddess. They dwelt with the great priestess, and were under her immediate direction when they appeared in public; they were clad in tunics of white, with cloaks of gold, and were universally recognized as votaries of Athena. It has been conjectured that the mysterious bundles which the Arrephoræ carried down from the Acropolis contained the remnants of the wool which had served to make the peplus of the preceding year, and that they brought back the material destined for the future peplus; but of this there is no positive evidence. Certain it is, however, that the garment intended for the goddess was a masterpiece of the textile art, woven of the finest fabrics and embroidered in gold with scenes of Athena battling with the gods against the giants, and of such other incidents as the State had judged worthy to figure beside her exploits. Athena was, among her many functions, also the goddess of weaving and other feminine arts, and as such had a shrine on the Acropolis, where she was worshipped under the title of Athena Ergane. Within this precinct were statues to Lysippe, Timostrata, and Aristomache, maidens thus honored because of their skill in womanly occupations.

For the origin of the Panathenæa--the greatest of Athenian festivals--we must go back to the heroic days of Athens when King Erechtheus dedicated on the Acropolis the archaic wooden statue of Athena, reputed to have fallen from heaven, and established the custom of offering to the image once a year a new mantle, embroidered by noble maidens of the city. Later, Theseus united the various tribes under one rule, with the Acropolis as its centre, A festival to celebrate this event was united with the festival to Athena, and the enlarged festival was known as the Panathenæa, symbolizing the union and political power of Athens and the sovereignty of the goddess. Pisistratus increased the splendor of this festival, and, in the golden days of Athens after the Persian War, Pericles added to its pomp and magnificence. He erected on the Acropolis an imposing temple to the goddess, the Parthenon, and placed within it her image of gold and ivory. The worship of Athena and the political supremacy of Athens now became synonymous. Her festival was the highest expression of the ideals of Athens in its greatest epoch. The greater Panathenaæ was Athens in its glory, possessed of an overflowing treasury, supreme among the States of Greece, the exponent of poetry and art and beauty.

There was great rejoicing when the sacred peplus was at length completed by the maidens, and there arrived the season of the festival, which was to culminate on Athena's birthday, the twenty-seventh of the month Boëdromion, which corresponded nearly to our September. The earlier days were spent in gymnastic games, horse and chariot races, and contests in music and poetry. On the fifth and last day occurred the most brilliant feature of the entire festival, the solemn procession which attended the delivery of the sacred peplus to the priestess of Athena that she might place it around the wooden image of the goddess. So important was this procession that Phidias selected it as the theme to be portrayed on the frieze of the Parthenon. The procession formed in the Outer Ceramicus, just outside the principal gate of the city, and the peplus was placed on a miniature ship (for which it served as a sail), which was set on wheels and drawn by sailors. Through the market place, round the western slope of the Areopagus, along its southern side, the procession wended its way till it reached the western approach to the Acropolis. Then the peplus was removed from the ship, and, borne by those chosen for this service, it was carried at the head of the procession up the western slope, through the Propylæa, and delivered to the magistrate appointed to receive it before the temple of Athena. The frieze of the Parthenon presents the most important details of the procession. Its western end shows the stage of preparation--the flower of Athenian youth and nobility preparing to mount or just mounting their steeds to join in the cavalcade. As we turn to the northern and southern sides, we observe that the procession has formed and is now in motion. The cavalcade is composed of youthful horsemen, who move forward in compact array, with all the dash and spirit of youth. Just ahead of the horsemen are the chariots, driven by their charioteers, with the warriors either standing by the driver or just stepping into the moving chariot. As the eastern end of the temple is approached, restlessness of movement gives place to solemnity, and impatient riders and charioteers are succeeded by more stately figures. Elderly men, bearers of olive branches; representatives of the foreign residents, carrying trays filled with offerings of cakes; attendants, bearing on their shoulders vessels filled with the sacred wine; musicians, playing on flutes or lyres-march in slow, measured steps. In advance of them are the cows and sheep led to sacrifice, conducted by a number of attendants.

The frieze on the eastern end of the temple represents the culmination of the festival. The crowning act is about to be performed, and the solemnity becomes absolute. Figures at one end are balanced by corresponding figures at the other, all advancing toward a common point. First come slowly moving maidens, who are carrying the sacrificial utensils--their noble birth manifesting itself in their dignity of demeanor. The five maidens in the rear bear the ewers used in the libations; those forming the central group carry, in pairs, large objects resembling candlesticks, whose uses are not definitely known; while in the lead, on each side, are two maidens, bearing nothing in their hands--probably the Arrephoræ, whose duties have been already performed. Both in costume and in coiffure these maidens represent what was characteristic of their age and sex in Athens during the supremacy of Pericles. Next comes a group of men, probably the magistrates appointed to await the arrival of the procession on the Acropolis. They border the seated divinities who have assembled to do honor to Athens at its greatest festival--seven figures on each side of the central slab, directly over the door of the temple, whereon is represented the climax of the solemn occasion,--the delivery of the new peplus to the priest or magistrate, whose office it was to receive it; while at his side stands the priestess of Athena, receiving from two attendants certain objects of unknown significance.

Other pieces of sculpture on the Acropolis magnify the office of woman in the religious ceremonials in honor of the patron goddess. One of the porticoes of the Erectheum represents maidens of dignified mien and great beauty holding up the entablature with perfect ease and stately grace. These figures are usually called Caryatides, a name applied by the architect Vitruvius to designate figures of this kind; he ascribes its origin to the destruction of the town of Carya, in the Peloponnesus, by the Athenians, because it espoused the Persian side, the women of the town being sold into slavery; but surely the Athenians would not have so honored the disgraced women of a hostile city. Could they not portray, in marble, the Arrephoric maidens, and could not the basket-like burdens on their heads represent the burdens which they carried down from the Acropolis, and those which they received instead? The Athenians, indeed, called the figures merely Korai, or "the maidens."

Furthermore, excavations at Athens made in 1886 brought to light a number of statues of maidens, which now adorn one of the rooms of the Acropolis Museum. They are all of one type,--life-size figures of young women, all standing in the same attitude, with one arm extended from the elbow, while the other hand holds the long and elegant drapery close about the figure; their hair is elaborately arranged, and ringlets fall over their necks and shoulders. These statues are relics of days before the Persian War. The Persians sacked Athens in B.C. 480, and wrought general havoc on the Acropolis, burning temples, throwing down columns, demolishing statues. When the Athenians, flushed with victory, returned to their ruined homes, they regarded as unhallowed all that had been touched by the hands of the barbarian, and therefore, in building up anew the Acropolis as the sacred precinct of Athena, they extended and levelled its surface and filled in the hollows thus made with the debris of the Acropolis--architectural blocks, statues, and vessels; and these relics of pre-Persian art lay thus securely buried for ages, to be revealed to modern eyes by the pickaxe of the archæologist. Now, who are these maidens, standing in conventional pose, with regular and finely moulded features, and with richly adorned drapery and elaborate headdress? They cannot represent priestesses of Athena, for the priestess was always an elderly lady, who, after being chosen, held office for the rest of her life. Nor can they represent the goddess herself, for all her usual attributes--the ægis, the spear, the helmet, the snake--are absent. Hence we probably have in these statues portraits of votaries of Athena, young women of the aristocratic families of Athens, who placed statues of themselves in the sacred precinct of the goddess to serve as symbols of perpetual homage.

Finally, certain maidens of Athens of the Heroic Age were later deified and themselves given sacred precincts on the Acropolis. King Cecrops had three daughters--- Aglauros, Herse, and Pandrosus. When Erectheus, the son of Earth by Hephæstus, was born, half of his form being like that of a snake,--a sign of his origin,--the child was put into a chest by Athena, who then gave it to the daughters of Cecrops to take care of, at the same time forbidding them to open it. Aglauros and Herse disobeyed, and, in terror at the serpent-shaped child, went mad and threw themselves from the rock of the Acropolis. Pandrosus, the faithful maiden, was rewarded by being made the first priestess of Athena, and was later honored by having a sanctuary of her own, next to that of the goddess; while Aglauros had to rest content with a cavern on the northern slope of the Acropolis, near where she had thrown herself down.

The celebrations in honor of Dionysus, the god of luxuriant fertility and especially of the grape, were exceedingly simple at first, according to Plutarch, being merely "a rustic procession carrying a vine-wreathed jar and a basket of figs"; but later there was a festival at every stage in the growth of the grape and in the making of the wine, and especially at the approach of vintage time, and when the vintage was put into the press. There were processions and rustic dances, and all the usual features of the carnival, as the revellers became more and more under the influence of the god. In these revels, women consecrated to this divinity, and called Bacchantes or Mænads, formed a special group. The symbol of their worship was a thyrsus--a pole ending with a bunch of vine or ivy leaves, or with a pine cone and a fillet. At intervals the procession would stop, and one of the revellers would mount a wagon or a platform and recount to those below, disguised as Pans and Satyrs, the adventures of the god of wine and joy. From these rustic masquerades emerged in time both Tragedy and Comedy.

Of the festivals in the city, the Anthesteria, or Feast of Flowers, was of most interest to the fair sex. This festival occurred in the spring--when the preceding year's wine was tasted for the first time--and lasted three days. Its principal feature was the Feast of Beakers, which began at sunset with a great procession. Those who took part in it appeared, wearing wreaths of ivy and bearing torches, in the Outer Ceramicus. This festival was in the especial charge of the king-archon, and the wife of that magistrate played the chief role in the ceremonies. Maidens and matrons appeared, disguised as Horæ, Nymphs, or Bacchantes, and crowded round the triumphant car on which the ancient image of Dionysus, was conveyed to the town. At a certain stage in the procession, the king-archon's wife, known as the Basilissa, was given a seat in the car, beside the image of Dionysus, for on this day she was the symbolical bride of the god. Thus, on this joyous wedding day, the nuptial procession conducted the car to the temple of the god in Limnai.

In the inmost shrine of the temple a mystic sacrifice for the welfare of the State was offered by the Basilissa and the fourteen ladies of honor expressly appointed by the archon for this purpose. After the sacrifice, with which numerous secret ceremonies were connected, the mystic union of Dionysus, and the Basilissa was celebrated, symbolizing the sacred marriage of the god with his much-loved city. On the following day, among other ceremonies, the ladies of honor offered sacrifices to Dionysus, on various specially erected altars.

These were joyous occasions; there were, however, sombre Dionysia, which were celebrated by night, in the winter season, when the god was thought to be absent or dead; because the vine was then withered and lifeless. Such celebrations commemorated only grief and regret. At this season, women of Athens left their homes and sought the slopes of Mount Parnassus, to join the women of Delphi in savage rites celebrating the sufferings of Dionysus. In these Bacchantes, religious fervor was transformed into the wildest delirium. "With dishevelled hair and torn garments they ran through the woods, bearing torches and beating cymbals, with savage screams and violent gestures. A nervous excitement brought distraction to the senses and to the mind, and showed itself in wild language and gestures, and the coarsest excesses were acts of devotion. When the Mænads danced madly through the woods, with serpents wreathed about their arms, or a dagger in their hands, with which they struck at those whom they met; when intoxication and the sight of blood drove the excited throng to frenzy--it was the god acting in them, and consecrating them as his priestesses. Woe to the man who should come upon these mysteries! he was torn to pieces; even animals were thus killed, and the Mænads devoured their quivering flesh and drank their warm blood." In the ardor inspired by their mad orgies, these votaries did not distinguish between man and beast, and a mother once tore to pieces her son, whom she mistook for a young lion, and proudly placed on the end of her thyrsus the bleeding head of her offspring. Euripides, in his Bacchanals, has drawn a sombre picture of the excesses into which the wine god led his inspired followers. Similar orgies, which took their rise in Lydia, were held on the summits of Taÿgetus and in the plains of Macedon and Thrace.

Though certain Attic women, under the frenzy of religious enthusiasm, would join the Delphian women in their wild rites of Dionysus, this orgiastic worship was never popular at Athens. The Athenian ladies much preferred the worship of Demeter, the goddess of agriculture and of domestic life.

The Thesmophoria, the festival in honor of Demeter and her daughter, Persephone, contrasted greatly with the Panathenæa. The latter was public and was participated in by all; the former was secret, and only married women could take part in it. The Panathenæa celebrated the political and intellectual supremacy of the State, as symbolized in its patron goddess; the Thesmophoria was the festival of domestic life, held in honor of the goddess of virtuous marriage and the author of the earth's fertility.

This festival was celebrated in October, at the period of the autumnal sowing. Every citizen of Athens who possessed property to the amount of three talents was compelled to furnish his wife with sufficient money to enable her to celebrate the Thesmophoria; this was the extent of male participation. For many days, the women had to prepare themselves for the solemn rites by fasting, abstinence, and purifications; two of their number were chosen from each tribe by their companions to prepare and preside over the various features of the celebration. On the first day of the Thesmophoria, the women went to the primitive seat of the celebration at Halimus, near the promontory of Colias, not in a formal procession, but in small groups, and at the hour of nightfall. The comic side of the Demeter festivals exhibited itself on the way, as the participants recognized each other with jests and raillery, recalling by this the pleasantries with which the maiden lambé caused Demeter to smile, when the latter was afflicted with melancholy over the loss of her daughter; and woe to the man who met these women! for he became the victim of the most scornful mockery and sarcasm. At Halimus, in the sanctuary of Demeter, the mysteries were celebrated by night; the following day was spent in taking purifying baths in the sea and in playing and dancing on the shore. After enjoying their freedom here for a day or more, the women set out in a long procession for Athens, while priestesses bore in caskets on their heads the Thesmai, or the laws of Demeter, whence the festival took its name.

The remainder of the celebration took place in the city, either in the sanctuary of Demeter or on the Pnyx, which was on this occasion exclusively turned over to the women for the celebration. The first day after their return was called the "day of fasting," for during the whole day the women sat in deep mourning on the ground and took no food whatsoever, while they sang dirges and observed other customs common in case of death; they also sacrificed swine to the infernal deities. The rites of the next day were of a more general character. The name given the day was "Calligenia," signifying "bearer of a fair offspring," and on this day they offered a sacrifice to Demeter and prayed her to give to women the blessing of fair children. We know but little of the sacrifices, dances, and merry games which occupied this final day of the festival. This worship of Demeter was one of the most elevating influences in the social life of Athens; and the Thesmophoria was but a prelude to the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries, into which women as well as men were initiated.

The ceremonies at Eleusis seem to have consisted primarily in a dramatic representation of the beautiful legend of Demeter and Persephone, from which many moral lessons could be drawn. Homer has preserved to us this legend in the Homeric hymn beginning:

"I begin to sing fair-haired Demeter, a hallowed goddess,--herself and her slim-ankled daughter whom Hades snatched away from golden-sworded Demeter, renowned for fruits, as the maiden sported with the deep-bosomed daughters of Oceanus, culling flowers through the soft meadow--roses and crocuses and beautiful violets, hyacinths, the iris and the narcissus, which Earth, at the command of Zeus, favoring the All-Receiver [Hades], brought forth as a snare to the maiden. From its root an hundred heads sprung forth, and the whole wide heaven above was scented with its fragrance, and the whole earth laughed, and the briny wave of the sea. And the girl stretched out both her hands to seize the pretty plaything, when the wide-winged earth yawned in the Mysian plain where the all-receiving king, the many-named son of Cronus, leaped forth with his immortal steeds and snatched her away, unwilling, in his golden chariot, weeping and shrieking aloud, calling upon her father, the son of Cronus."

The hymn then recounts how the goddess-mother roamed for nine days over the earth, seeking her lost daughter, till on the tenth she learned the truth from the all-seeing Sun. Angered at Zeus for permitting the violence, she wandered about among men in the form of an old woman, till at length, at Eleusis, in Attica, she was kindly received at the house of King Celeus, and acted as nurse for his newborn son, Demophon. She would have made the lad immortal by giving him a bath of fire; but being surprised and prevented by the mother, she revealed her deity, and caused to be erected in her honor a temple, in which she gave herself up to her sorrow. In anger, she made the earth barren, and would not allow the crops to spring up again until her daughter was allowed to spend two-thirds of the year with her mother among the Immortals, devoting the remaining third to her gloomy spouse in the realms of Hades. Upon her return to Olympus, Demeter left the gift of corn, of agriculture, and of her holy mysteries, with her host, and sent Triptolemus the Eleusinian about the earth to make known to men the knowledge of agriculture, of civil order, and of holy wedlock. Thus the worship of Demeter, as the founder of law and order and marriage, became prevalent, and exerted a most helpful influence throughout Hellas.

The mysteries of Eleusis inculcated the moral lessons which would promote right living among the people. They were in charge of a priesthood consisting of both men and women. The chief priest, the hierophant, was a man of irreproachable character, and held the office for life on condition of celibacy. The priestesses had in charge especially the initiation of the women, but their duties were not restricted to this.

The candidates for initiation, the Mystai, had to spend a year in preparation. Homicides, courtesans, barbarians, all who had any stain upon their lives, were excluded from these rites; only Hellenes "of pure soul and pure hands" were eligible for initiation. On the days preceding the festival, expiatory ceremonies were performed, of which the most notable was one in which a girl or boy, styled "the child of the hearth," performed certain rites of purification for those who were desirous of being admitted into the mysteries. Finally, on the twentieth day of the month Boëdromion, corresponding nearly to our September, the great procession set forth from Athens for Eleusis, along the Sacred Way. In this procession the women took part in great numbers, and it afforded excellent opportunities for the display of beautiful toilettes. Aristocratic ladies were usually driven in chariots. As the crowd of pilgrims passed over the Cephissus Bridge, there was, as in the Thesmophoria, much banter and raillery in memory of the manner in which the goddess was once diverted from her grief; and all along the road there were stations for sacrifices and oblations, where the maidens engaged in singing and graceful dances. Eleusis was finally reached at night by torchlight, and the following days were spent by the initiated in their religious duties and by the candidates in further preparation.

We have unfortunately but meagre glimpses into the Eleusinian mysteries, and cannot follow the order of ceremonies. Suffice it to say that, besides promoting good living and happiness in this life, they gave hope for the life to come. "The man purified by initiation," says Pindar, "has understood before his death the beginning and end of life, and after death dwells with the gods."

In Polygnotus's famous painting of the infernal regions, in the Lesché at Delphi, two women were represented trying to carry water in jars that have no bottoms; an inscription states that they were never initiated, and the moral was "that without initiation life is altogether wasted and lost." In the worship of Demeter and in the Eleusinian mysteries there was everything to appeal to woman--the sanctity of marriage, deified motherhood, exaltation of the home and of domestic duties--and the zeal manifested by Athenian women in these religious rites doubtless promoted a feminine piety and a natural devoutness which ennobled the Athenian home and softened parental discipline.

The Thesmophoria was the festival of the married women; but young girls and even children had their festivals in the Brauronia and the Artemisia, celebrated in honor of Artemis, the special patron of virgins. The Brauronia was celebrated every fifth year, in the little town of Brauron. Chosen Athenian maidens between the ages of five and ten years, dressed in saffron-colored garments, went in solemn procession to the sanctuary of the goddess, where they performed a propitiatory rite, in which they imitated bears, an animal sacred to Artemis. Every maiden of Athens, before she could marry, must have once taken part in this festival and consecrated herself to the goddess. There was also a precinct of Artemis Brauronia on the Acropolis, and doubtless this ceremony was also performed there. Almost everywhere this virgin goddess was revered by young girls as the guardian of their maiden years, and before marriage it was the custom that the bride should dedicate to Artemis a lock of her hair, her girdle, and her maiden tunic.

Maidens also took part in the worship of the twin brother of Artemis, Apollo, in the island of Delos, which was the birthplace of the god and goddess. The celebration was a festival of youth and beauty, of poetry and art. Aristocratic maidens of Athens joined with those of the seat of the Delphian confederacy over which Athens presided in making the occasion emphasize the power and splendor of Athens in the height of its greatness.

"Once every five years, in the spring, a solemn festival recalled the anniversary of the birth of the god. The maidens of Delos, wearing their richest attire, and crowned with flowers, united in joyous chorus around the altar, and represented in sacred dances the story of the birth of Apollo. Others, with garlands of flowers in their hands, went to hang them on the ancient statue of the goddess, which Theseus had, according to tradition, brought from Crete to Delos. From all parts of Greece, from the islands, and from Asia, solemn embassies, sacred theoriæ, landed in the harbor. The most brilliant was that of the Athenians, who were long the suzerains of the island. Each year, a State vessel, the Paralian galley, conveyed the sacred embassy to Delos; the crew was composed of free men, the vessel decked with flowers. At the moment of its departure, the whole town was purified; the priests of Apollo bestowed on the galley a solemn benediction, and the law forbade that the purified town should be defiled by any sentence of death until the return of the vessel. The members of the embassy were chosen from the chief families of the city, and they were accompanied by a chorus of young men and maidens, who were to chant the sacred hymns in honor of Apollo and perform around the altar of the Horns, one of the marvels of Delos and of the world, an ancient and solemn dance--the geranos. The day of the arrival of these theoriæ was a festival in Delos. Amid the acclamations of an enthusiastic crowd, the embassy disembarked in the harbor; and such was the joy and impatience of the people, that sometimes its members had not even time to don their robes of ceremony and to crown themselves with flowers. Over the bridge wound the sacred procession of the Athenians, with its splendidly dressed musicians, its chorus chanting the sacred hymns, its rich offerings destined for the god; received at the end of the bridge by the official charged with the reception of these pious embassies, it pursued its way to the temple, there to present its offerings and prayers, and to pour out on the altar the blood of its hecatombs. During the rest of the day, feasts were provided for the people, and games and contests filled the island with the sounds of rejoicing."

After the celebration, the Paralia returned to Athens, bearing homeward the beautiful maidens who had done honor to the god and had added to the glory of their native city.

Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and of pleasure, also had her festivals in which women took part. Certain of these were of a lascivious character and were celebrated chiefly by the demi-monde; they were held especially at the temple of Aphrodite Pandemus on the promontory of Colias. But the ladies of Athens took part in the Adonia, in honor of Adonis, beloved of Aphrodite. The ceremonies of the first day were of a mournful character, as they commemorated the death of Adonis; but the second day was one of rejoicing and entertainment, as Adonis was conceived of as returning to life to spend six months with Aphrodite. In his death and resurrection the changes of the seasons were poetically symbolized. Women of the leading families were expected to participate in the magnificent solemnities, which took place at the summer solstice. A long procession of priests and of maidens acting as canephorse, bearing vases for libations, baskets, perfumes, and flowers, approached a colossal catafalque, over which were spread beautiful purple coverlets. On these lay a statue of Adonis, pale in death, but still beautifull Over this mournful figure a beautiful woman gave expression in every way to the most bitter grief and sang a hymn to Adonis, telling his sad story. The women round about were clad in mourning and celebrated the plaintive funeral dance; while on all sides was heard the mournful cry: "Alas! alas! Adonis is dead!"

The hymn or psalm to Adonis was a distinguished and most popular feature of the celebration of the Adonia; Theocritus, in Idyl XV., gives its rendering on the occasion when Arsinoe, queen of Ptolemy Philadelphus, decorated the image of Adonis. In a later chapter of the present volume,--that on The Alexandrian Woman,--an English version of this psalm is given, into which the spirit of the original is most aptly infused; and in connection therewith is a lively and forceful picture of the attitude and manners of the ladies of the day.

XIII

GREEK WOMEN AND THE HIGHER EDUCATION

It is by no means a matter of surprise that among a people so highly cultured as the Greeks there should be women of the highest intellectual attainments. Sappho has already furnished us an example, and her ascendency over her pupils was such as to start a train of influences that stimulated her sex in every part of Hellas to engage in the study and composition of poetry.

Furthermore, among the famous men of Hellas there were, from time to time, ardent advocates of the higher education of women. As early as the seventh century before the Christian era, Cleobulus, one of the seven sages of Greece, insisted that maidens should have the same intellectual training as youths, and illustrated his doctrine in the careful education of his daughter, Cleobuline, who became a poetess of wide renown.

Pythagoras, who in the sixth century founded his celebrated philosophical sect in Southern Italy, fully recognized the equality of the sexes and devised a system of education for women, which made his feminine followers not only most efficient in all domestic relations, but also preeminent in philosophical and literary culture. Plato spent considerable time in Magna Græcia, and became imbued with the spirit of Pythagorean philosophy. He must have been impressed with its elevating influence on the status of woman, for in his Dialogues he urged that women should receive the same education as men, and he himself admitted members of the gentler sex to the lectures of the Academy.

After Plato's time, accordingly, we find many women engaged in the study of philosophy, not only among the Academicians, but also in the other philosophical schools, especially the Cyrenaic, the Megarian, and the Epicurean. The Peripatetic and the Stoic doctrines seem not to have appealed to the fair sex.

Alexander's empire, in overthrowing the exclusive State laws of the various cities, accomplished much for the emancipation of women, and from that time forward we find women engaged in almost all the branches of the higher learning. In Alexandria, especially, the daughters of scholars pursued studies in philosophy, in philology, and in archaeology, and some of them became celebrated. In the Græco-Roman period, Plutarch was a constant advocate of female education, and the circle of learned women that he has made known to us indicates how general was the spread of education among the women of his day.

Aspasia had set the fashion for hetaaræ in Athens to devote attention to rhetoric and philosophy; consequently, many of the blue-stockings of Greece belonged to the hetæra class. Some acquaintance with the higher learning, however, became fashionable also in the retirement of the gynæceum, and many maidens and matrons of honorable station employed their leisure moments in reading the works of philosophers and poets, and received, if not public, at least private instruction from professional lecturers.

The variety of intellectual pursuits among the women was marked. Poetry was their natural field, and philosophy appealed to them as being the most learned vocation of the times. Even in the Heroic Age, women were skilled in the uses of plants for purposes of witchcraft and of healing; and in historic times, when medicine became a science, women engaged in various medical pursuits. Similar tastes led many also to follow the different branches of natural science, and in Alexandrian times, when philology was the prevailing study, history and grammar and literary criticism became favorite studies with the daughters of the learned.

In a previous chapter, we have described the Lesbian Sappho's seminary of the Muses, to which maidens flocked from all Hellenic lands for the study of poetry and art. The natural beauties of the isle of Lesbos, the luxurious life of the aristocratic classes, the brilliancy and zeal of Sappho herself, and her ardent affection for her girl friends, were influences favorable to the pursuits of the Muses and the Graces.

It is not surprising that, amid such surroundings and with such a teacher, women should acquire a love of poetry and of all that appeals to the æsthetic nature. There is a vague tradition that there were seventy-six women poets among the Ancient Greeks. Unfortunately, the names of but few of these are preserved to us. We have authentic information concerning only the nine most distinguished poetesses, to whom the Greeks gave the title of the Terrestrial Muses.

The second of the nine Terrestrial Muses--for Sappho was, of course, the first--was the poetess's favorite and most promising pupil, Erinna of the isle of Telos. She aroused among Greek poets a most respectful and tender sentiment, and they frequently sounded her praises. Her most noted production was a poem called The Distaff, and the poets compared it to the honeycomb, which the gracious bee had gathered from the flowers of Helicon; they perceived in this production of a maiden the freshness and perfume of spring, and they likened her delicate notes to the sweet voice of a swan as he sings his death song--a comparison only too just, for she died at the tender age of nineteen years. A poet of the Anthology thus laments her untimely taking-off:

The names of the next two of the Terrestrial Nine are closely associated with that of Pindar of Thebes,--Myrtis and Corinna, the one the instructor, the other the rival, of the great composer. Myrtis was the eldest of the three, and probably gave instruction to her younger contemporaries. She later entered the lists in a poetic contest with Pindar, and for this she was censured by Corinna. The younger woman, who defeated Pindar five times in poetic contests, gave her rival some good advice, by which he profited in his later productions. She reproached him for devoting too much attention to the form and neglecting the soul of the poem. When, following her counsel, Pindar brought to her a poem abounding in mythological allusions, Corinna smiled, and remarked to him that in future he should "sow by the handful, not with the whole sack."

Pausanias saw the tomb of Corinna in a conspicuous part of her native town of Tanagra; and also a picture of her in the gymnasium, representing her binding a fillet about her head in honor of the victory she had gained over Pindar at Thebes. But he ungallantly ascribes her victory partly to her dialect--for she composed not in Doric, like Pindar, but in a dialect which Æolians would understand--and partly to her beauty; for, judging from her portrait, she was the fairest woman of her time.

Telesilla of Argos was not only a poet, but an antique Joan of Arc as well. Being of feeble constitution, she was told by the oracle to devote herself to the service of the Muses, and in this salutary mental exercise she found health and preeminence among her fellows. Famous hymns to Apollo and to Artemis were composed by her. Her love of beauty also inspired her with noble ideals of patriotism and self-sacrifice, and in the crisis of the war between her native town and Sparta she armed her countrywomen and led them forth to victory against the enemy. As a memorial of this noble action, her statue was erected in the temple of Aphrodite at Argos.

Praxilla of Sicyon was placed by ancient critics by the side of Anacreon for the softness and delicacy of her verses, and she was honored in her native city with a statue from the hand of Lysippus. She sang beautiful songs of Aphrodite and retold in passionate verse the legend of Adonis.

The next name on this immortal list takes us to Locris, in Italy, and down to the fourth century before Christ. Like Sappho, Nossis "of womanly accents" is a love poetess, and twelve epigrams attributed to her are found in the Anthology. Her poetry was symbolized by the fleur-de-lis with its penetrating perfume. In praising the portrait of her child she sees the reflection of her own beauty, and in the epitaph which she composed for her tomb she declares herself equal to Sappho; hence humility cannot be classed among the many virtues which caused her to be adored by her contemporaries.

The little poems of Anyte of Tegea and Moero of Byzantium, the last two of the Terrestrial Nine, are often symbolized by the lilies for their purity and delicacy. These poets flourished in the third century of our era. Antipater surnames Anyte "a feminine Homer"; rather should she be called "a feminine Simonides," though even this is too high praise. Her soul was simple and pure, and her sweet sentiments are reflected in a style as limpid as a running stream. Charm and freshness characterize her invitation to some passer-by to repose under the trees and taste of the cool water; deep and melancholy emotions pervade the poem in which she bewails the death of a young maiden; and a masculine philosophy of life is manifest in the epitaph of a slave whom death has made equal with the Great King. Moero's range was not so great, nor her touch so delicate. A heroic poem, Mnemosyne, was the most ambitious of her works; she also composed elegies and epigrams, and two of the latter have been preserved to us, revealing a soul sensitive to natural beauty.

Here and there, other names and occasional verses of Greek poetesses are found--Cleobuline of Rhodes, Megalostrata and Clitagora, of Sparta, and others; but they did not attain the fame of the Terrestrial Muses.

As the verses of the Greek women were to be sung to the accompaniment of the lyre, the daughters of the Muses were as celebrated in music as they were in poetry. Nor were the maidens of Greece without distinction in other arts. It is in part to a Corinthian maiden that legend ascribes the invention of modelling in clay. Cora, daughter of Butades, is about to say farewell--perhaps forever--to her lover, who is going on a long journey. The light of a lamp throws his shadow on the wall, and, to preserve at least this image of him, she deftly sketches the outline of the shadow. Her father, with the instinct of an artist, observes the outline and fills it in with potter's clay, and then bakes the model which he has obtained. There are no names recorded of Greek women who were sculptors, but doubtless in the studio of many an artist a daughter delighted in assisting him at his work.

Many Greek women distinguished themselves in painting. Timarete, the daughter of Micon, produced an image of Artemis, which was long to be seen at Ephesus; it was one of the most ancient monuments of this art, and the goddess was probably represented under a strange and symbolic form, such as she had in her sanctuary in Ephesus. Eleusis possessed a painting made by Irene, daughter of Cratinus, representing the figure of a young girl, perhaps a priestess initiated into the mysteries of the great goddesses. Calypso, Alcisthene, Aristarete, and Olympias are the names of other female painters, whose memories at least have been preserved.

The most celebrated of all, however, was Lalla, a native of the city of Cyzicus, to which Apollo had accorded the gift of arts. Though she worked with extreme rapidity, this did not detract from the merits of her work, and she was considered the first painter of her time. Painting with pencil and on ivory were equally familiar to her. The portraits which she painted were principally of persons of her own sex. Pliny mentions a portrait, which was at Naples during his life, in which Lalla had represented an old woman. He adds that she had reproduced in this her own picture reflected in a mirror. There has been found at Pompeii a painting of an artist which is believed to be a portrait of Lalla, probably painted by herself. It represents a young woman seated on a stool on a little porch, with her eyes fixed on a statue of Bacchus, which she is reproducing on a tablet held by a child. In her right hand is a pencil, which she plunges into a small box evidently containing her colors; in her left hand she holds a palette. Her garments are elegantly draped around her; a band encircles her waving hair, which falls over her neck and shoulders, A deep, intellectual look illuminates her delicate features. If this be really a picture of Lalla, she was wonderfully beautiful.

Not only in poetry and the fine arts, but also in philosophy and intellectual pursuits did the Greek woman show herself capable of great achievements. In the schools of Pythagoras, established at Croton in Magna Græcia, women were freely admitted and took a prominent part in the exercises, together with their husbands and brothers.

There is a tradition that the ascendency of Pythagoras at Croton was so great that the ladies of the city brought their rich apparel, their jewels, necklaces and bracelets, to the temple of Hera, and dedicated them as an offering to domestic virtue, vowing that henceforth prudence and modesty, not luxurious apparel, were to be the true ornaments of their sex. Whether this story be true or not, there is no doubt that Pythagoras had a large number of women among his disciples, and that the "Pythagorean Women" attained throughout the Greek world a great and enviable reputation. Pythagoras's friendly attitude toward the sex was probably in part the result of his cordial relations with the Delphian priestess Aristoclea, renowned for her amiability and her wisdom, with whom he carried on a learned correspondence. The general results of his teachings upon woman were a high ideal of feminine morality, careful attention to household duties, and the elevation of the conception of motherhood, especially in the careful rearing of children.

Existing fragments of the works of "Pythagorean Women" indicate their lofty views of moral perfection and harmony, and their practical judgment in everyday affairs. Sophrosyne is constantly commended as the chief feminine virtue, a term connoting moderation, self-containedness, modesty, and wifely fidelity--in a word, all that is essentially womanly.

The Neo-pythagorean philosopher, Iamblichus, in his biography of Pythagoras mentions fifteen celebrated women of the School. Other writers name other female adepts in Pythagorean philosophy, who lived during and after the time of Pythagoras. The number was so large that the comic poets Alexis and Cratinus the Younger, who, like most Athenians, had a genuine contempt for blue-stockings, made them the object of much drollery and ridicule.

Of all the Pythagorean Women, none attained such exalted rank as Pythagoras's wife, the high-minded Theano. She combined virtue and wisdom in such perfect harmony that she was regarded in antiquity not only as the foremost representative of feminine scholarship, but also as the brilliant prototype of true womanhood. Of the life of Theano we know only a few characteristic incidents, and these give insight into her character mainly by relating "sayings" uttered by her on certain occasions. She was once asked for what she wished to be distinguished. She replied by quoting a verse of Homer (II. 1:31): "Minding the spindle and tending my marriage bed." Another time, she was asked what most became a wife; she answered: "to live entirely for her husband."--Again, she was asked what was love; "the sickness of a longing soul," was her answer. Once, while she was throwing off her mantle, it happened that her arm was exposed. A gentleman, struck by its beauty and shapeliness, exclaimed: "What a beautiful arm!" "But not for the public gaze," replied the wise Theano, while she hastily adjusted her robes. This remark has been quoted by Plutarch, by two Church Fathers, Clement of Alexandria and Theodoret, and by the Byzantine authoress Anna Comnena, as a noteworthy apothegm, tending to promote womanly modesty and reserve.

Theano was both prose writer and poetess. Of a long epic poem written by her in hexameters we have not even a fragment; of her philosophical works, there are still extant three letters of great charm and a fragment of a philosophic and didactic work On Piety. This fragment is too short for us to distinguish in it anything more than the highly developed reasoning power of the author; in her letters, however, discussing the rearing of children, the treatment of servants, and the suppression of jealousy, the sentiments are forceful, and the style has a familiar grace and tenderness. The relics that we have abound in axiomatic expressions, emphasizing womanly virtues and manifesting the lofty morality and high culture of the writer.

After the death of Pythagoras, Theano, in conjunction with her two sons, Telauges and Mnesarchus, kept up the secret order; and Theano, as teacher and as writer, promulgated her husband's doctrines. The time and circumstances of her death are unknown.

Theano's three daughters followed in their mothers footsteps. Myia, the most distinguished, had been so carefully reared and was of such preeminent virtue that she was chosen as a virgin to lead the chorus of maidens, and as a wife the chorus of matrons, at all the sacred festivals of Croton, and she knelt at the head of her companions before the altars of the gods. She was the wife of Malon, the celebrated athlete, also of the Pythagorean order; their union was in all respects a happy one. Myia was also a writer, but we have only one letter attributed to her. Her work in the spirit of her father was so brilliant that she spread the fame of his teachings throughout all Hellenic lands. There was probably an extensive literature about her in antiquity, for Lucian, several centuries later, says he had much to tell of her, but that her history was already generally known.

Not without distinction were also Myia's sisters, of whom Arignote attained a great reputation as a philosopher and writer of epigrams, while Damo distinguished herself by her fidelity to her father's dying request. The story goes that he consigned to her his most precious treasure,--his memoirs,--with the injunction that she should keep them secret from all who were not of the family. Though offered large sums for them, she never yielded, preferring poverty to disobedience. At her death she turned the works over to her daughter Bistalia, with the same mandate her father had given herself. The granddaughter remained equally faithful, and these invaluable works perished with the family. Some ancient writers mention as another daughter of Pythagoras, Theano the Younger, of Thurii, but, according to Suidas, she was a daughter of Lycophron. She was a clever philosopher and a prolific authoress.

Other Pythagorean Women of whom we know more than the mere name are Phintys, Perictyone, Melissa, Ptolemais, and Timycha. Phintys wrote a book On Womanly Virtue; Perictyone--often erroneously identified with the mother of Plato--composed a work On Wisdom, much prized by Aristotle, and another Concerning the Harmony of Women,--that is, concerning the accord of life and thought, of feelings and actions, the right relations between body and spirit. Fragments of these works show the Pythagorean idea concerning the mission of woman. They connect the duties of woman with the propensities and faculties peculiarly her own. To the men, they leave the defence of the country and the administration of public affairs; to the women, they assign the government of the home, the guardianship of the family hearth, and the education of children. Personality is regarded as the dominating virtue of man--chastity, of woman.

Melissa is known only by a short fragment on feminine love of adornment; and Ptolemais was a specialist in music and an authority on the Pythagorean theory of music in its relation to life. Of Timycha we have a characteristic story. She lived in the time of Dionysius of Syracuse. A party of Pythagorean pilgrims, while on their way to Metapontum to celebrate certain rites, were attacked by a band of Syracusans. They at first fled; but when they saw they must pass through a field of beans, they suddenly stopped and fought till the last one was killed. The Syracusans shortly after came upon Mylias of Croton and his wife, Timycha, who, on account of her delicate condition, had been left behind by the rest of their party. They were arrested and brought before the tyrant. Dionysius promised them liberty and an escort to their destination if they would tell him why the deceased Pythagoreans refused to tread on the beans. But they refused to tell. Dionysius's curiosity was all the more excited, and he had the husband taken aside, that he might question the wife alone, feeling convinced that he could compel her to answer his question. Threatened with the torture, and fearing lest in her weakness she might be overcome, Timycha bit out her tongue rather than reveal the secrets of her order.

In these Pythagorean Women, we observe the perfect blending of intellectual beauty with moral elevation. Perhaps no later age has presented a higher ideal of feminine perfection. Their system of culture taught them how to pursue at the same time the most abstruse philosophical speculations and the most insignificant duties of practical life, and the higher learning in their hands never led to a sacrifice of true womanliness.

Passing from Croton to Athens, Socrates, the father of the various philosophical schools, had no female disciples, so far as we are informed; but he is credited with saying that he learned the ait of love from the priestess Diotima, and that of eloquence from Aspasia. Xenophon also recounts a lengthy conversation of Socrates with the hetsera Theodota concerning the art of winning men. His most eminent disciple, Plato, had numerous pupils of the gentler sex. Plato possessed in large measure the ewig weibliche, which Goethe deems an essential element in all great men. As a young man he was given to composing love poems, but the names of his youthful sweethearts are not known. His visits to Southern Italy made him sympathetic with woman's literary aspirations; and when he opened the door of the Academy to them, women flocked to his lecture room from various cities of Hellas. It was the first known instance in Athens of women engaging in philosophy.

The female members of the Academy did not attain to such distinction as did the Pythagorean Women. The latter were of Dorian blood, and lived, according to the rules of their order, in the greatest simplicity and industry; the former were chiefly of Ionian stock and were more inclined to lives of ease and luxury. Consequently, they did not cultivate those domestic virtues which made the Pythagorean Women so superior. Athens was not the place for feminine ambition to receive proper recognition, and the honorable maids and matrons could not, if they wished, pursue the study of philosophy in association with the male sex; hence the feminine element of the Academy was composed of strangers, who were attracted to Athens by the fame of the philosopher.

Of Plato's immediate family, only his sister Potone, the mother of his pupil and successor Speusippus, appears to have engaged in philosophical studies. Of the strangers associated with the Academy, under Plato and later under Speusippus, two gained especial distinction--Axiothea and Lasthenia.

Axiothea, who was also called Phlisia, was a native of Phlius, a small Peloponnesian town in the district of Sicyon, whence came the poetess Praxilla. The story goes that some works of Plato fell into the maiden's hands, and she read them with great zeal and industry. His Republic finally aroused her enthusiasm to such a pitch that her desire for personal instruction from the philosopher could no longer be resisted. So she assumed masculine attire, made the journey alone to Athens, and was received into the Academy. She continued the use of men's clothing, and for a long time concealed her sex, becoming one of the most prominent and zealous members of the school. Plato was so impressed with her ability that, as tradition says, he would postpone his lectures if Axiothea chanced to be absent. When he was asked the reason for such an interruption, he replied: "The intellect sufficient to grasp the subject is not yet present"--meaning Axiothea. She frequented the Academy also under Speusippus, and became herself a teacher of philosophy. Nothing but What is commendable is known of her, but her reputation has suffered from the association of her name with that of Lasthenia. The latter came from Arcadia to Athens to hear Plato, attracted, as was her fellow student, by the fame of the philosopher. The prevailing life of the stranger-women in Athens, however, undermined her moral principles, and she played in the Academy a similar rôle to that played by Leontium later among the Epicureans. Speusippus himself was her lover. Though better known for her adventures as a hetæra, she also possessed some reputation as a philosopher. Dionysius once wrote to Speusippus: "One can also learn philosophy from your Arcadian pupil."

The Cyrenaic School, founded by Aristippus, the forerunner of the Epicurean in its doctrine of pleasure, naturally attracted women, especially courtesans, into its membership. The celebrated Lais the Elder was numbered among the Cyrenaics; but there were also high-minded women among its disciples.

Arete, daughter of Aristippus, continued the latter's teachings after his death. Her father had given her a most thorough education, and himself instructed her in philosophy. She was taught to despise riches and luxury and to observe moderation in all things. Aristippus once said: "The greatest thing which my daughter Arete has to thank me for is that I have taught her to set a value on nothing she can do without." Arete was also learned in natural history and in other branches of science. She passed her time partly in Athens, partly in Cyrene and other Greek cities; and wherever she went she aroused great interest by the charm of her beauty and amiability. There is no reproach whatever upon her good name: she appears to have been an ingenuous, highly endowed woman, devoted to science and philosophy. As head of the Cyrenaic School after her father's death, she had many distinguished pupils, among them Theodorus and Aristippus the Younger. She was a prolific writer; forty works are attributed to her, on philosophy, on agriculture, on the wars of the Athenians, on the life of Socrates, and various other subjects, showing the wide range of her interests. She died at Cyrene, in the seventy-seventh year of her age; and in the inscription over her grave she was styled a "light of Hellas."

The coarse doctrines of the Cynic school, founded by Antisthenes, were not attractive to women, yet the school had one female representative who has become famous and has been in recent years the subject of a racy romantic poem. This Cynic was Hipparchia.

The ugly and ill-shapen Crates of Thebes was one of the successors of Antisthenes. A beautiful and popular maiden, Hipparchia, with her brother Metrocles, heard the lectures of Crates, and she was so captivated by his teachings and his manner of life that she became not only his most zealous disciple, but fell violently in love with her teacher. She scorned all her younger, richer, more handsome suitors, and declared that she would have only Crates. She threatened to kill herself if her parents did not secure Crates for her husband. They tried to dissuade her; even Crates, at the request of her parents, sought to make her abandon her purpose. Yet every effort was fruitless. Finally Crates, throwing off his clothing, appeared before her and said: "Such is the shape of your bridegroom: this is all he possesses. Take careful counsel with yourself, for you cannot become my wife unless you accept my whole manner of life. Ponder it well, that you may later have no pretext for ill feeling." "Already a long time," answered the maiden, "have I anticipated this and thought over it; I can nowhere on earth find a richer or handsomer husband than you. Take me, then, with you, wherever you may go." Seeing that her mind was made up, the parents finally gave their consent to the marriage of their daughter with the philosopher.

Crates, as a true Cynic, straightway led his wife into one of the colonnades, and publicly celebrated his nuptials. Hipparchia entered fully into the manner of life of her husband. She clad herself in coarse garments like his, accompanied him everywhere, and bore many privations. Many cynical sophisms and apothegms are attributed to Hipparchia, who became one of the most prominent members of the school. We know but little of her later life, beyond the fact that she was the mother of one son, Pasicles, and of several daughters.

The Megarian school of philosophy, founded by Euclides of Megara, a pupil of Socrates, practised dialectic, and was called the Eristic, or disputatious, sect. The art of disputation appealed to the female sex, and a number of women allied themselves with this school. The first female Dialecticians were the five daughters of Diodorus, an eminent disciple of Euclides, and they conferred much honor on the school. Argia was the most celebrated of the sisters for her mental endowments and dialectic skill, but unfortunately there are but scant records of the philosophical activity of Argia and her four sisters, Artemisia, Menexena, Theognis, and Pantaclea. Hieronymus commends the five for their modesty as well as for their intellectual attainments, and they must have aroused general enthusiasm, as Philo, a disciple of their father, wrote a book about them. Euclides was succeeded by Stilpo as head of the school, and among his hearers was Nicarete of Megara, the daughter of prominent parents, who became renowned for her cleverness and profound learning. She adopted the hetaera life, and was the "companion" of Stilpo himself. The relation was tender and enduring, but she did not restrict herself to one lover. Her favors, however, were not to be won, as usual, by the payment of gold, but through the invention or solution of a difficult sophism.

The philosophy of Epicurus was a comfortable and pleasing doctrine for people of light morals, and in consequence we meet with the names of a large number of young and beautiful hetaerae who infested the Gardens of Epicurus, among whom were a Boidion, Hedia, Nicidion, Erotion, Marmarion, and the celebrated Leontium. Their presence gave the enemies of the Epicurean sect justification for characterizing their philosophy as a system of immorality; and the strict moralist and academician Plutarch violently censured the Epicureans "who lived with the hetaera Hedeia or Leontium, spat in the face of virtue, and found the summum bonum in the flesh and in sensuality." While nothing but the names of the other Epicurean hetaeras have survived, Leontium, by her varied accomplishments, has won an abiding prominence in the intellectual world.

Leontium, "the little lioness," is indisputably the most remarkable and attractive personality in the philosophical demi-monde of Ancient Greece. Of her home and her family, history is silent; but she was the product of a hetaera seminary which imparted to its pupils a thorough intellectual discipline in addition to the secrets of "gallantry" and the knowledge of cosmetic arts. When she became a favorite of Epicurus and began to study philosophy, she continued the practice of hetairism, which occasioned great vexation to the master, not because he deplored her light morals, but because he was himself passionately enamored of the highly gifted maiden. The aged and broken Epicurus could not attach to himself alone the high-spirited creature, who preferred the beautiful and wealthy Timarchus. One of her early lovers was the poet Hermesianax of Colophon, to whom she owed her literary training. He dedicated to her three books of elegies, entitled Leontium, fragments of which are extant. Leontium's fame is due most of all to her activity as an authoress. Theophrastus the Peripatetic published a work On Marriage in which he severely handled the female sex. Leontium wrote a reply in which she displayed so much subtlety, learning, and argumentative power that Theophrastus was thoroughly routed. This work caused general admiration, Cicero commends it, and Pliny pays a tribute to its excellence. Unfortunately for our study of the social status of Greek women, the work is lost. Leontium had a daughter, Danaë by name, who was also a hetæra and a consistent Epicurean. She became the favorite of Sophron, Prefect of Ephesus.

Though the Epicurean hetæræ have brought reproach upon the sect, yet there were honorable women of irreproachable reputation who became members of the school. The chief of these was Themista, wife of Leontius of Lampsacus, styled by Strabo "the most excellent man of the city." Epicurus became acquainted with the couple during his four years' sojourn in Lampsacus and was much influenced by their learning and culture. He won them to his system of philosophy, and he ever afterward carried on a most industrious correspondence with them, and especially with Themista. Her name became widely known both within and without Epicurean circles. The Church Father Lactantius regarded her as a model of feminine culture and as the only true philosopher among the heathen Greeks. Themista was very active as an author, and there was in antiquity an extensive Themista literature, which has entirely disappeared.

As the various schools of philosophy thus far mentioned began to lose their hold upon mankind, there were two tendencies manifest among thoughtful people: the first, to doubt whether it was possible to ascertain truth,--the spirit of scepticism; the second, to combine from earlier systems whatever seemed most worthy of credence,--the spirit of eclecticism.

The two systems which appealed most to enlightened pagans during the earlier Christian centuries were those of Pythagoras and Plato, which offered many points of likeness. By the union of these with certain Hebraic or Oriental elements, there arose the philosophical amalgam known as Neo-platonism. Plotinus is regarded as the founder of this system in the third century of our era. Through his attractive personality and the timeliness of his teachings, Plotinus rapidly gained a great following among the learned, especially philosophers, statesmen, physicians, and ladies of high social station. He passed many years in Rome, where a large number of noble ladies, including the Empress Salomina, were among his hearers. From Rome, Neo-platonism spread over the Empire; and in the beginning of the fourth century, we find the theosophist Iamblichus, who united the Neo-platonic philosophy with thaumaturgy, attracting to himself large numbers of highly cultured men and women, who still clung to paganism. Syria was the centre of this movement, which reached across Asia Minor and became popular even in Athens and Alexandria. Among the followers of Iamblichus in Asia was an excellent and learned woman, who became celebrated by her intense devotion to this philosophy. Sosipatra was the beautiful and noble-hearted wife of Eustathius, Prefect of Cappadocia. After the death of Eustathius, she became the wife of a kinsman, by name Philometor, and dedicated the rest of her life to the promotion of science and philosophy and to the education of her children, whom she herself instructed and of whom she made ardent and intelligent disciples of Neo-platonism. At Athens, where philosophical studies had for a long period declined, Platonism was revived by the Emperor Julian the Apostate, who appointed Plutarchus the first head of the New Academy. Plutarchus had a daughter, Asclepigenia by name, who had been initiated into all the mysteries of Neo-platonism and thaumaturgy, and who played a prominent rôle in the new school. It is related of her that after the death of her father she kept alive the knowledge of the great orgies and all the secret lore of thaumaturgy. In association with her brother Hierius, she became the head of the New Academy, and through her personality and her lectures she exercised a great influence over the philosophic youth of the day. Her daughter, Asclepigenia the Younger, was likewise a devoted Neo-platonist, and continued the traditions of the school. But the appearance of the two Asclepigenias in the history of philosophy cannot be regarded as of much importance, as the system of thaumaturgy which they advocated was scientifically worthless.

About the same time, however, there lived in Alexandria a beautiful and learned pagan, who ranks as the last brilliant star in the philosophical firmament before the twilight of the gods. Charles Kingsley's historical romance, Hypatia, or New Foes with an Old Face, has depicted in an impressive manner the womanly graces, the learning, the elevating influence, and the tragic fate, of the last of the Greek women, and has made the name of Hypatia a household word. His vivid portrayal of social life in Alexandria at the dawn of the fifth century brings out most strongly the phases of the closing conflict between paganism and Christianity, and invests with an atmosphere of aërial clearness and radiance the heroine, who almost singly and alone fights the battle for the old gods.

About the year 370, to Theon, a noted astronomer and mathematician of Alexandria, a daughter was born, to whom he gave the name Hypatia. The child very early exhibited extraordinary intellectual endowments, and Theon himself took charge of her education. She rapidly mastered his own favorite subjects of mathematics and astronomy, and the most celebrated teachers of the day were called in to give her instruction in the various branches of rhetoric and philosophy. All the ancient philosophical systems were pursued by the devoted and zealous maiden, and the prevailing system of the time, that of Neo-platonism, appealed especially to her spirit.

As she attained to womanhood, Hypatia united with the charm of extraordinary beauty all the rarest traits of spirit and character. She became the object of flattering regard on the part of the cultured; the common people reverenced her as a superior being, and even the Christians respected her learning and her demeanor. Hypatia was worthy of all the admiration that she excited. Amid the widespread corruption of the age, she lived as spotless as a vestal. The philosophy she professed preserved her from pollution and inspired her with the love of beauty, truth, and goodness.

With her intense devotion to the gods of her fathers, with her extraordinary endowments and wide learning, with her preëminent virtues and the charm of her whole personality, this celebrated maiden appeared to the pagan world as a higher being sent by the gods to defend the ancient faith against the subverting teachings of the Christians,--a herald, who with the weapons of exalted wisdom and moral sublimity should win the victory and restore the worship of the gods to its former splendor. This was also the ambition of the virgin philosopher.

Hypatia's early womanhood was passed in the period when hostility to paganism reached its height. She was barely twenty-one when Theodosius I. issued an edict commanding the destruction of heathen temples and images at Alexandria, and from this time the patriarchs of the city endeavored to exercise both spiritual and temporal authority and to root out every vestige of paganism.

Against such an opposition Hypatia sought to contend. Her weapons were not carnal, but intellectual. By a spread of the knowledge of Greek philosophy and literature, she sought to quicken the sensibilities of the people and to reawaken a reverence for the Greek gods. It seemed at first as if her efforts would be crowned with success. Her lecture hall was crowded with the clever and intellectual men of the day, and many came from distant parts, attracted by the reputation of her beauty and learning. Hypatia soon surpassed all her contemporaries in wisdom and influence, and rapidly became the soul of the rather numerous pagan community at Alexandria. This remarkable maiden was honored with a devotion which almost bordered on idolatry. Orestes, the prefect of the city, though professedly a Christian, often came to her for counsel. The learned and eloquent Synesius of Cyrene, afterward a Church Father, was one of her devoted followers, and even after his conversion to Christianity maintained a correspondence with her and showed in manifold ways his regard for his former teacher. Numerous panegyrics and epigrams were composed, lauding her in most exalted terms.

Thus Hypatia, by moral suasion and by avoiding all open opposition, sought to wean the people from Christianity and to revive their faith in the ancient gods. Her success in attracting to paganism both the cultured and the plain people naturally caused her to be an object of hatred and jealousy to those who strove to promote Christianity by violence and force.

The name of Cyril, among the Church Fathers, is the synonym for fanaticism and bigotry. Elevated to the archi-episcopal chair of Alexandria to succeed his uncle, Theophilus, he sought to attain supreme power in the city and to make the power of the Church dominant in temporal affairs. He succeeded in expelling the Jews, and then turned his attention to the extermination of paganism. As Hypatia was the chief exponent of the old gods, and as her influence extended even to the palace of the prefect, Cyril hated her with all the zeal of bigotry and was eager for her downfall. Irreproachable in conduct, beloved of all, influential with the civil power, she was not subject to attack in any open manner, and Cyril finally countenanced an inhuman and disgusting plot of assassination devised by the most violent of his followers--the deacon Peter.

One day in March of the year 415, Peter secretly gathered in an alley not far from the lecture hall of Hypatia a band of savage monks from the Nitrian desert. When the customary lecture hour approached, Hypatia, unconscious of danger, left her house and entered her chariot to drive to the lecture hall. Soon the mob of zealots, headed by Peter, rush out from the alley, seize the horses, tear the helpless woman from her seat, and drag her into a neighboring church. Here, more like savage beasts than men, Peter's frenzied followers remove from her every shred of clothing, and at the foot of the bleeding image of the Saviour of mankind do to death the virgin martyr in the most horrible manner with fragments of tiles and mussel shells. The limbs are torn from the still quivering body, and, when life is extinct, the howling mob gather up and burn the fragments of the mutilated corpse.

It was a horrible deed. The life of a beautiful and talented maiden was sacrificed for the cause which she professed, and, like many a Christian maiden, she attained by her death the sanctity of martyrdom. The purity and nobility of her character invested her with an enduring fame, and, though her end marks the doom of the old gods, Hypatia herself will never be forgotten. Judged by the abiding results of her activity, Hypatia was, like Shelley, "a beautiful and ineffectual angel beating in the void her luminous wings in vain," but as the embodiment of the highest and best elements of Greek culture she deserves to rank as one of the most typical of Greek women.

A peculiar and deep-rooted trait in woman's nature is tender compassion and sympathetic devotion to suffering humanity. Hence from heroic times onward through the various epochs of Greek history we find women at the bedside of the sick and the wounded, acting as attendant, nurse, or physician. Thus it is not surprising that we should find Greek women preeminent in the art of medicine.

In the Heroic Age, Homeric heroines were gifted with a knowledge of plants and their virtues. Hecate, wife of King Æetes of Colchis, her daughter Medea, and Circe were so celebrated in this respect that they passed for enchantresses. One has but to recall the transformation of Odysseus's companions into swine as an evidence of Circe's peculiar power. All the daughters of Asclepius the physician--Hygiea, Panacea, Iaso, and Ægle--were specialists in medicine. Helen of Troy knew how to compound her celebrated potion, Nepenthe, which made men forget all care and enjoy sound slumbers; and OEnone, the forsaken wife of Paris, and Agamede, daughter of a king of Elis, were skilled in the use of simples.

In historical times, the Thessalian women were noted for their knowledge of the virtues of plants, and were acquainted with all forms of witchcraft. They were frequently consulted for the preparation of "love potions," and, as midwives, were in demand throughout Hellas. Women naturally preferred women's services in those ailments which are peculiar to the sex; but in ancient Athens, so unfriendly to the female sex in its laws, there was a statute forbidding the practice of gynæcology by women as a profession. Women rebelled, but their complaints were without avail.

Agnodice, whose date is not known, was the name of the courageous maiden who broke the prevailing traditions and won a natural right for her sex. She conceived the idea of studying medicine in secret until she became an expert, and then of offering her services to women, also in secret, for medical treatment, especially in cases of maternity. To this end, she cut off her hair, adopted masculine apparel, and, as a promising youth, took instruction in medicine from Hierophilus, a celebrated physician. Her progress was rapid, and when she was pronounced sufficiently equipped for independent practice she revealed her identity to prospective mothers, who gladly availed themselves of her services, so that she soon obtained the monopoly of this kind of practice. The other physicians were naturally overcome with jealousy and chagrin that the young doctor should supplant them, and finally they brought charges of malpractice against the supposed youth. Agnodice was brought to trial, and in self-defence was compelled to reveal her sex. The older physicians then endeavored to have the laws enforced against her; but all the prominent ladies of the city took her part, and the obnoxious laws were repealed.

From that time forward, large numbers of women studied medicine, the majority devoting their attention to the diseases of women and children. These female physicians frequently appear as medical writers, especially on gynæcology and pediatrics. They also produced many treatises on cosmetics, which ranked as a branch of hygiene and was cultivated most diligently by many eminent physicians. These women rivalled one another in the discovery of an endless variety of toilet preparations, beauty wafers, skin and hair ointments, pastes and powders, and wine essences for the removal of pimples and freckles.

In later and more immoral times, female physicians lent their talents gladly to demoralization and license, and wrote treatises on love potions and abortives--a disreputable form of literature very popular with the hetseræ, and which, according to Pliny, found diligent readers among the great ladies of Rome. Of all the numerous works of the feminine doctors, only fragments and excerpts have come down to us, and their loss is not greatly to be regretted. Yet credit is due to these women as pioneers in female emancipation, and the most eminent of them deserve to be rescued from oblivion.

The greatest was Aspasia--not the favorite of Pericles nor the devoted companion of Cyrus the Younger, but the "medical" Aspasia, who was a prominent figure in the Athens of the fourth century before the Christian era. She attained great fame, not only in women's diseases, but also in surgery and other branches of medicine, as may be judged from the titles of her works, preserved by Aëtius, a physician and writer of the fifth century of our era. It seems clear from what is known of her that the Athenian women saw nothing criminal in giving and using abortives. Even Aristotle desired to have a law regulating the number of children that might be borne by woman.

Antiochis, to whom Heraclides of Tarentum, one of the best physicians of antiquity, dedicated his works, was a practising female physician in Magna Græcia, in the third century before Christ, who devoted especial attention to salves and plaster cures. To the great Cleopatra has been ascribed the authorship of a work "on the medical means of preserving beauty"; but there were probably one or more physicians of this name, as there are various treatises ascribed to "Cleopatra." Other female physicians, of whom we know little more than the name and the titles of their works, are Olympias of Boeotia, Salpe, Elephantis, Sotira, Pamphile, Myro, Spendusa, Maia, and Berenice.

Space will not suffer us to do more than call attention to many wise and able women of Hellas who were eminent in other branches of learning. In historical writings, Thucydides's daughter is worthy of mention, as she is said to have composed the eighth book of her father's history of the Peloponnesian War; Nicobule, the author of a history of Alexander the Great, was another excellent woman writer. Plutarch gathered about him a learned circle of women, of whom the chief was Clea, the clever matron of Delphi, to whom he dedicated several of his works, and Eurydice, who enjoyed his instruction. Aganice, daughter of Hegetor of Thessaly, possessed an astonishing knowledge of astronomy, and was regarded as an enchantress. To Melanippe, the sculptor Lysistratus erected a monument as a tribute to her learning.

Alexandria, with its vast number of scholars, its libraries and museums, and its intellectual freedom for women, naturally produced a large number of women eminent in history and philology. Frequently philologists' daughters were trained from childhood by their fathers, and afterward became their companions and secretaries in literary labors. The most prominent of these literary feminine grammarians was doubtless Hestiæa of Alexandria, a Homeric scholar of note, who was the first to devote scientific attention to the topography of the Iliad and to throw doubt on the generally accepted view that New Ilium was the site of Ancient Troy. Pamphile, daughter of the grammarian Soteridas and wife of the scholar Socratidas, was a woman of wide erudition, celebrated especially as essayist and historian. Others whose names are associated with similar labors are Agallis, Theodora, and Theosebia.

When one reflects on the varied activity of Greek women, the conclusion forces itself upon him that they were intellectually as acquisitive and as brilliant as the Greek men, who have set the standard for the world in the realm of literature and science. Cleverness is the most salient characteristic of the Greek intelligence, and this trait belonged as truly to the female sex as to the male. The Renaissance furnishes examples of women renowned for their erudition and culture; but perhaps only the present age furnishes an adequate parallel to the varied intellectual activities of Greek women in the centuries that followed the decline of Greek independence and that saw the spread of Greek culture among all civilized peoples. Modern women can therefore learn much from their Greek sisters in all that pertains to the so-called emancipation of the sex.

XIV

THE MACEDONIAN WOMAN

Separated from the lands of the Hellenes by the range of the Cambunian Mountains which extended north of Thessaly from Mount Olympus on the east to Mount Lacmon on the west, there lay a rugged country, whose inhabitants were destined to play a prominent role and become a powerful factor in the later history of Greece. This country, divided into many basins by spurs which branch off from the higher mountain chains, by its mountain system not only shut the people off from the outside world, but also forbade any extended intercourse between the dwellers in the various cantons. The wide and fertile valleys, however, and the mountain slopes abounding in extensive forests, the haunts of wild game, mark the land as the country of a great people, who by generations of seclusion were storing up strength and vitality to be of vast influence whenever they should break through their narrow confines.

Such a people dwelt there, but it required strong leaders to bring them in touch with the rich Hellenic life to the south of them and to make them a powerful factor in the history of the world. Philip, lord of Macedon, and his mightier son, Alexander, were the great men who were to accomplish the work of grafting the new blood and energy of Macedon upon the decaying stock of Greek culture, and to diffuse the spirit of Hellenism throughout the civilized world. With them the old order of things, as represented in Athens and Sparta, passed away, and a new order, with new ideals, new motives, new views of life, was born. Hence, the people of Macedon, themselves Greek by race, have a large place in the consideration of any phase of Greek life. When the Hellenes originally migrated into Greece, a branch of the race found its way into the southwestern part of Macedon behind the barriers of Olympus, and later, by intermixture with the Illyrians and other barbarous races, these invaders lost some of their national characteristics and, shut off as they were, failed to share in the history and development of their kinsmen to the south. In language, in institutions, and in aspirations, however, they gave indisputable evidence of their right to be considered as members of the great Hellenic family.

The people were a hardy, peasant folk, devoted to hunting, to grazing, and to agriculture, and they preserved the patriarchal institutions which obtained among the earliest Greeks. They were divided into many tribes, each with its own chief and leader. Among some of the hardier tribes, the man who had not slain a wild boar was not allowed to recline at table with the warriors, and not to have slain an enemy was regarded as a mark of disgrace. In the tribal organization and in the institution of the kingship, we are carried back to the society of Homeric times, and in manifold ways the public and private life of the Macedonians reflects the life portrayed in the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Aristotle remarks that the ancient kingship survived only among the Spartans, the Molossians, and the Macedonians, of all the Greek peoples; and only among the last mentioned did the office retain all its prerogatives. As in the Heroic Age, so in Macedon, the king was supreme judge, military commander-in-chief, and at the head of the religion of the State. But he was no Oriental despot. The people were conscious of their liberty and sensitive as to their rights. By the side of the king stood the nobles, who were closely associated with him at all times, constituting his council, accompanying him to war, and sharing with him his dangers and his honors. As the population was largely rural, there were present none of the conditions which tend to nullify clan distinctions and create a democracy. The lines between noble and peasant were very broad. Hence, Macedon was essentially a dynastic State, and its history is largely the history of its royal family. As we have frequently noted, in monarchies woman is ever a most influential factor, A king must have a court, and there can be no court without a queen. The queen's life has necessarily its public, political, and military aspects; and the part she plays largely determines the weal or woe of both king and people. Hence it is with the royal family of Macedon, and with those queens and princesses who make up a large part of its history, that we are now chiefly concerned.

The royal family of Macedon claimed descent from members of the ancient Heracleid family of Argos, which had taken refuge in the north; and this descent was so capable of proof, that, on the basis of it, one of the earlier kings was admitted to the Olympic games. Herodotus, the great story teller, relates the incident of the founding of the dynasty. According to his narration, three brothers of the royal race of Temenus,--the fourth in descent from Heracles,--Gauanes, Eropus, and Perdiccas, exiles from Argos, went into Illyria, and thence into upper Macedon, where they placed themselves, as herdsmen, at the service of Lebea, one of the local kings. Now, when the queen baked the bread for their food, she always noticed that the loaf destined for Perdiccas doubled its weight; she made this marvel known to her husband, who saw danger in it, and ordered the three brothers to depart from the country. They replied that they would go as soon as they had received their wages. Thereupon the king, who was sitting by the hearth, on which fell sunlight through the opening of the roof, as if by divine inspiration said to the brothers, pointing to the light on the floor: "I will give you that; that is your wages." Upon this, the two elder brothers stood speechless; but the younger, who held a knife in his hand, said: "Very well; we accept it." And having traced with his knife a circle on the floor surrounding the rays, he stooped down thrice, feigning each time to take up the sunshine and place it in the folds of his garment and to distribute it to his brothers; after which, they all went away. One of those who sat by called the attention of the king to this conduct on the part of the young man, and the manner in which he accepted what was offered him; and the king, becoming anxious and angry, sent horsemen to follow the brothers and slay them. Now in that country is a river, to which the descendants of these Argives offer sacrifice as to a god. This river, after the fugitives had crossed it, became suddenly so swollen that the horsemen dared not follow. The brothers arrived in another part of Macedon and established themselves near the lake called the Gardens of Midas, and, when they had subjugated the country in those parts, they went thence to conquer the rest of Macedon.

Herodotus states that Perdiccas I. founded the reigning dynasty in Macedon, and he mentions as his successors Argæus, Philip, Eropus, Alcetas, and Amyntas I., whose son, Alexander "the Philheliene," the Greeks permitted to take part in the Olympic games. This Alexander on one occasion visited dire punishment upon a party of Persian envoys who at a banquet forgot the respect due to the ladies at the court of Macedon; he caused them to be assassinated by a company of young men whom he had disguised in women's attire. When the Persians sent to require the punishment of the guilty, Alexander won over the envoy by giving him his sister in marriage.

This Alexander, who became king in the year 500 before the Christian era, begins the series of those Macedonian kings who felt the need of Hellenizing their people, and his reign accordingly marks a turning point in the history of Macedon. Perdiccas II., Archelaus I., and Amyntas II. were his successors, who continued this policy; but this forced civilization by no means reached the mass of the people, and, while it refined the nobility and the court and paved the way for the Macedonian inroads into Greece, it also introduced luxury and corruption. Amyntas II. left three sons, Alexander II., Perdiccas III., and Philip, the last of whom was the one so well known to fame; and Eurydice, the mother of these three valiant sons, was the first of that series of remarkable women, noted for their power, their beauty, or their crimes, who from this time on fill the annals of Macedonian history.

In her barbarous instincts, Eurydice gives evidence of the non-Hellenic blood in her veins. Her career in crime was such as to place her among the Messalinas and Lucrezia Borgias of history. To begin with, she was implicated in a conspiracy with a paramour, Ptolemæus of Alorus, against her husband's life; but when the plot was detected, she was, out of regard for their three sons, mercifully spared by her husband. Alexander, the eldest, succeeded his father, but, after reigning two years, was assassinated by Ptolemæus, with his own mother as an accomplice of the murderer. When Perdiccas grew to manhood, he avenged his brother's death and his mother's disgrace by slaying Ptolemæus; but he himself, a few years later, fell in battle against the Illyrians, or, as was asserted, at the hand of an assassin hired by his mother Eurydice. Philip, the next in succession, then ascended the throne, and succeeded in securing himself against the attempts of his mother and in conciliating all factions. Eurydice then disappears from the scene, and the manner of her death is unknown. Heredity, without doubt, had much to do with the cruelty in Philip's nature, and in spite of her crimes he seems to have had much respect for his sanguinary mother, for he placed a figure of her among the gold-and-ivory statues embellishing the monument he erected to commemorate his victory over the Athenians and Thebans at Chæronea.

We are not concerned here with the rise of Philip's power over Hellas, nor with the history of his son Alexander and the empire he established, except in so far as the spread of Hellenism and the union of the world under one dominion brought about changes in social conditions which affected the status of woman. We shall, for the present, confine our attention to the consideration of those women, chiefly royal princesses, whose names group themselves about the careers of Philip and Alexander and their immediate successors, and who by their strong personalities greatly influenced the course of events.

A few general reflections will prepare us for the sombre history which we are about to read. The Macedonian kings were, as a rule, not content with one wife; they either kept concubines, or married a second wife, as did Philip and Alexander, while the first was living. This practice led to jealousy, envy, and hatred, and the attendant ills of constant and bloody tragedies in the royal families. We find henceforth a combination of Greek manners and Macedonian nature. In the life of the courts, women as well as men, in spite of their Greek culture, show the Thracian traits of passion and cruelty. Owing to the intense respect in which women were held, the royal princesses occupied an exalted station and hence found willing instruments for the carrying-out of their cruel practices. Every king was either murdered or conspired against by his family. Women entered into matrimonial alliances with a view to increasing their power and extending their influence. Hence, the women who played so prominent a part in the great struggles that attended Philip's extension of his power over all Hellas, Alexander's conquest of the world, and the founding of independent dynasties by the Diadochi and their descendants, were not women who attained the Thucydidean ideal of excellence; namely, that those are the best women who are never mentioned among men for good or for evil. They were, on the contrary, powerful and haughty princesses, who possessed royal rights and privileges, who had resources of their own in money and soldiery, who could address their troops with fiery speeches and go forth to battle at the head of their armies, who made offers of marriage to men, and who finally got rid of their rivals with sinister coolness and cruelty.