The ancient practice of

same social position as man. selling into slavery and concubinage the women found in captured cities was still retained, and not only were the consequences of such a fate accepted with stoicism. by its victims, but if fate restored them to their friends, they were treated as though they had suffered no moral stain.1

Generally speaking, women were, indeed, viewed as inferior beings, and so far as wives were not valued simply as mothers of children, they were usually treated as household drudges rather than as companions. Before marriage, girls would seem to have been kept in a state of strict seclusion, which amounted almost to imprisonment, and this restriction was long retained in the middle and higher classes, even after marriage.2 The custom, which illustrates the remark of Thucydides, "that woman is best who is least spoken of among men, whether for good or for evil," was probably in some measure the result of Asiatic influence, but it may also have been required by the character of the Greek women. A writer who takes a medium view of the estimation in which women were held in historic Greece, says :"At this time, and in the very focus of civilization, the women were regarded as a lower order of beings, neglected by nature in comparison with man, both in point of intellect and heart, incapable of taking part in public life, naturally prone to evil, and fitted only for propagating the species and gratifying the sensual appe

1 Mahaffy, op. cit., p. 264 et seq., and see p. 134.

2 Smith's "Dictionary of Antiquities," art. Matrimonium.

3 May not the change from the freedom enjoyed by women in the Homeric age be illustrated by Burckhardt's remark, with reference to the Bedouins, that "the more a tribe is connected with the inhabitants of towns, the stricter they are with respect to the seclusion of women." "Notes on the Bedouins," p. 200. As to the influence of Asiatic inanners in Greece, see Mahaffy, op. cit., p. 137.

tites of the men.' " 1 This view is amply supported by the authorities quoted by Professor Becker, and we cannot wonder if the Greek women answered to his description, seeing that (except at Sparta) they appear never to have been educated, and to have been entirely "excluded from intercourse, not only with strangers, but also with their nearest relations," while they saw but little even of their fathers or husbands.2 Greeks were required to marry by their obligations to the gods, and by the duty to provide citizens for the State and children to perform the ancestral rites. Wives were valued, therefore, for the purposes of procreating offspring, and for their use in superintending the arrangements of the household, but beyond this they were but little esteemed. Socrates is made by Xenophon to describe the duties of a wife, and portray the pleasures which will accrue from attention to them. "But the greatest pleasure of all," says Ischomachus, "will be this, that if you are plainly superior to me, you will become my mistress, and will not have to fear that with advancing years your influence in the house will wane, but will rather be assured that, in old age, the better companion you are to me and the better guardian of the house to our children, the more honoured will you be at home. For you will come to be truly admired and esteemed among men, not for good looks, but for good deeds in practical life." This is not the highest condition woman can attain to, but the ideal is, at all events, somewhat higher than that of Katharina after she had been brought by Petruchio to admit that wives owe to their husbands "but love, fair looks, and true obedience." Mr Mahaffy thinks the contempt with which woman 1 Becker's "Charicles" (Eng. trans.), p. 463. 2 Do., p. 465.

" 4

3 Do., p. 473 seq. For an analysis of Xenophon's tract, see Mahaffy, op. cit., p. 258 seq.

" 1

was viewed among the higher classes at Athens may be traced in great measure to political causes. Old age and weaker sex," he says, "were pushed aside to make way for the politician-the man of action-the man who carried arms, and exercised civic rights." This may have had some influence, but the chief cause was probably to be found with the women themselves. The Greeks were excessively fond of social intercourse, and they had reduced conversation to an art. If they could have gratified their tastes in this direction at home we should have heard less of their preferring the society of other ladies to that of their own wives. The ignorance displayed by the females of his household must have bred a feeling of contempt in the mind of the intellectual Greek-although he was alone to blame for it—and that such was a chief cause of this feeling is shown by the fact that the society of educated women was much sought after. That there were such women we know from the case of Aspasia, whose name is so intimately associated with that of Pericles. Aspasia was one of the hetairai, a class answering to the "mistresses" of modern society, but occupying a much more important position, because supplying in the Grecian cities a real social want. The word iraípas signifies a "companion," 2 and it explains the source of the influence which that class of women enjoyed. Aspasia can hardly have been otherwise than a woman of refinement and education, or she would not have been visited by Socrates and Xenophon for intellectual culture. Her house was even frequented by the wives and daughters of Athenians, with whom she discussed the duties of married life. This fact is not surprising when it is considered that according to the Athenian law no citizen could form a legal marriage engagement with a foreign woman. Aspasia was a native of 1 Mahaffy, op. cit., p. 137. 2 Do., p. 267. 3 Do., p. 199 seq.

3

"2

Miletus, and it is not improbable that the hetairia generally were at first foreign women of superior intellectual attainments, who, by the fortune of war or other means,1 found themselves in Greece, and not being permitted to marry, became the "companions" of those who sought their society. Afterwards, no doubt, the class included many native born women who, of a mental calibre above their station, preferred being a "mistress," with the freedom of such a status, to the more honourable condition of wife with its social disadvantages. At no time does it appear that association with the hetairai was considered disgraceful. At Athens the young men

2

spent a great part of their time, previous to marriage, in their company, and the intercourse was not thought disreputable even after marriage. The cause of the influence which women of that class exercised is not far to seek. The hetairai not only sought by all means to preserve and enhance their physical charms, but they studied to please through all the senses. They perfected themselves in music and dancing, and they even "paid considerable attention to the cultivation of their minds. It seems to have been due especially to their superiority in intellectual cultivation over the female citizens, that men preferred their society and conversation to those of citizens and wives.' The consequence was that these "good friends," as they were called, eclipsed the honest women; they had clients and flatterers, they exercised a permanent influence over public events by influencing the men who were engaged in them, and, as Dufour well says, they acted as the queens of Attic civilisation.*

"3

1 The system of concubinage may have added to the class. On that subject, see Dufour's "Histoire de la Prostitution," tom. i. p. 205, seq.

2 Smith's "Dictionary of Antiquities," art. Hetaerœ.

3 Idem.

4 Dufour, op. cit., vol. i. p. 208. Mr Grote remarks, that "among the Heteræ in Greece were included all the most engaging and

1

At Sparta, the hetairai occupied an inferior position to that which was accorded to them at Athens, and other non-Doric cities. They cannot, however, have been numerous there, seeing how lightly female chastity was regarded by Lycurgus. The Spartan lawgiver was fully imbued with the idea, which was not uncommon in the ancient world, that the chief value of woman is to produce citizens. But this was so important an office, that women could not fail to be highly esteemed among a race with whom the idea of the State was all-absorbing. The liberty granted to the Spartan women gave them much influence, and they were, indeed, said by the other Greeks to have brought their husbands under the yoke. But although the institutions of Lycurgus, for a time at least, produced citizens, they were founded on moral ideas which were certain to bear much evil fruit. M. Troplong, who has so well described Spartan character, after pointing out that the love of self and of fame was sacrificed to a fanatical regard for the State, and that every action of life was regulated in accordance with the idea that the private life should be absolutely merged into the public life, says :-" Par la raison que l'État est intéressé à la vigueur et à la beauté de la race, Lycurgue soumettait à ses lois modératrices les rapports des époux dans les premiers temps du mariage. Un mari avancé en âge avait la faculté légale de se donner auprès de sa femme, plus jeune que lui, un remplaçant distingué par sa force et sa beauté. Lorsqu'une femme était féconde, ou pouvait l'emprunter à son mari pour donner à la

accomplished women; for in Grecian matrimony, it was considered becoming and advantageous that the bride should be young and vigorous, and that as a wife she should neither see nor know anything beyond the administration of her own feminine apartments and household." "Plato and the other Companions of Socrates,"

vol. iii. p. 544.

1 Dufour, vol. i. 108.