Greek Women by Mitchell Carroll - HTML preview

hold of Eutychis; never lose hold of her, for fear lest you get lost.

Let us all go in together; Eunoe, clutch tight to me.

Oh, how tiresome,

Gorgo, my muslin veil is torn in two already! For heaven's sake, sir,

if you ever wish to be fortunate, take care of my shawl!

STRANGER.--I can hardly help myself, but, for all that, I will be as

careful as I can.

PRAXINOE.--How close-packed the mob is, they hustle like a herd of

swine!

STRANGER.--Courage, lady; all is well with us now.

PRAXINOE.--Both this year and forever may all be well with you, my dear

sir, for your care of us. A good, kind man! We're letting Eunoe get

squeezed--come, wretched girl, push your way through.

That is the way.

We are all on the right side of the door, quoth the bridegroom, when he

had shut himself in with his bride.

GORGO.--Do come here, Praxinoe. Look first at these embroideries. How

light and how lovely! You will call them the garments of the gods.

PRAXINOE.--Lady Athena! what spinning women wrought them, what painters

designed those drawings, so true they are? How naturally they stand and

move, like living creatures, not patterns woven! What a clever thing is

man! Ah, and himself--Adonis--how beautiful to behold he lies on his

silver couch, with the first down on his cheeks, the thrice-beloved

Adonis,--Adonis beloved even among the dead!

A STRANGER.--You weariful women, do cease your endless cooing talk! They

bore one to death with their eternal broad vowels!

GORGO.--Indeed! And where may this person come from?

What is it to you

if we _are_ chatterboxes! Give orders to your own servants, sir. Do you

pretend to command ladies of Syracuse? If you must know, we are

Corinthians by descent, like Bellerophon himself, and we speak

Peloponnesian. Dorian women may lawfully speak Doric, I presume?

PRAXINOE.--Lady Persephone!--never may we have more than one master! I

am not afraid of _your_ putting me on short commons.

GORGO.--Hush, hush, Praxinoe! the Argive woman's daughter, the great

singer, is beginning the _Adonis_; she that won the prize last year for

dirge singing. I am sure she will give us something lovely; see, she is

preluding with her airs and graces.

* * * * *

THE PSALM OF ADONIS

O Queen that lovest Golgi, and Idalium, and the steep of Eryx, O

Aphrodite, that playest with gold, Io, from the stream eternal of

Acheron they have brought back to thee Adonis--even in the twelfth month

they have brought him, the dainty-footed Hours. Tardiest of the

Immortals are the beloved Hours, but dear and desired they come, for

always, to all mortals, they bring some gift with them.

O Cypris,

daughter of Dione, from mortal to immortal, so men tell, thou hast

changed Berenice, dropping softly in the woman's breast the stuff of

immortality.

Therefore, for thy delight, O thou of many names and many temples, doth

the daughter of Berenice, even Arsinoe, lovely as Helen, cherish Adonis

with all things beautiful.

Before him lie all ripe fruits that the tall trees'

branches bear, and

the delicate gardens, arrayed in baskets of silver, and the golden

vessels are full of incense of Syria. And all the dainty cakes that

women fashion in the kneading tray, mingling blossoms manifold with the

white wheaten flour, all that is wrought of honey sweet, and in soft

olive oil, all cakes fashioned in the semblance of things that fly, and

of things that creep, Io, here they are set before him.

Here are built for him shadowy bowers of green, all laden with tender

anise, and children flit overhead--the little Loves--as the young

nightingales perched upon the trees fly forth and try their wings from

bough to bough.

O the ebony, O the gold, O the twin eagles of white ivory that carry to

Zeus, the son of Cronos, his darling, his cupbearer! O

the purple

coverlet strewn above, more soft than sleep! So Miletus will say, and

whoso feeds sheep in Samos.

Another bed is strewn for beautiful Adonis, one bed Cypris keeps, and

one the rosy-armed Adonis. A bridegroom of eighteen or nineteen years is

he, his kisses are not rough, the golden down being yet upon his lips!

And now, good-night to Cypris, in the arms of her lover!

But Io, in the

morning we will all of us gather with the dew, and carry him forth among

the waves that break upon the beach, and with locks unloosed, and ungirt

raiment falling to the ankles, and bosom bare, will we begin our shrill,

sweet song.

Thou only, dear Adonis, so men tell, thou only of the demigods, dost

visit both this world and the stream of Acheron. For Agamemnon had no

such lot, nor Aias, that mighty, lord of the terrible anger, nor Hector,

the eldest born of the twenty sons of Hecuba, nor Patroclus, nor

Pyrrhus, that returned out of Troy land, nor the heroes of yet more

ancient days, the Lapithae and Deucalion's sons, nor the sons of Pelops,

and the chiefs of Pelasgian Argos. Be gracious now, dear Adonis, and

propitious even in the coming year. Dear to us has thine advent been,

Adonis, and dear shall it be when thou comest again.

GORGO.--Praxinoe, the woman is cleverer than we fancied!

Happy woman to

know so much, thrice happy to have so sweet a voice!

Well, all the same,

it is time to be making for home. Diocleides has not had his dinner,

and the man is all vinegar--don't venture near him when he is kept

waiting for dinner.--Farewell, beloved Adonis, may you find us glad at

your next coming!

This idyl of Theocritus suggests the freedom of movement and the

ordinary pursuits of the Alexandrian lady in the days of Arsinoe. A lost

work of Callimachus, the AEtia, has also an importance in our quest,

since it contained one of the earliest love stories in literature,

showing the ideals of feminine character which were popular at that

time. As the literary original of that sort of tale which makes love and

marriage the beginning and end of the plot, and which emphasizes the

constancy and purity of female love, this story, which was the model for

the Greek novel of later generations, is evidence that in an age

infamous for the wickedness of those in high places the people yet

delighted in stories of domestic affection and innocence. The tale of

Callimachus, according to Mahaffy, ran in this wise:

"There were once upon a time two young people of marvellous beauty,

called Acontius and Cydippe. All previous attempts on the part of any

youth or maiden to gain their affections had been fruitless; and the one

went about, a modern Achilles in manly splendor; the other, with the

roses and lilies of her cheeks, added a fourth to the number of the

Graces. But the god Eros,--now already the winged urchin of the

Anacreontics,--angry at this contumacy, determined to assert his power.

They met at a feast of Delos, she from Athens, he from Ceos.... Seized

with violent love at first sight, the youth inscribes on a quince, which

was a fruit used at this particular feast, 'I swear by Artemis that

Acontius shall be my husband,' and this he throws at the girl's feet.

Her nurse picks it up and reads the words to the girl, who blushed 'in

plots of roses' at the oath which she had never taken.

But she too is

seized with an absorbing passion, and the situation is complicated by

the ignorance or hardness of heart of her parents, who had determined to

marry her to another man. Her grief prostrates her with sore sickness,

and the marriage is postponed. Meanwhile, Acontius flees the city and

his parents, and wanders disconsolate through the woods, telling to

trees and streams his love, writing 'Cydippe' upon every bark, and

filling all the groves with his sighs. Thrice the parents of the maiden

prepared the wedding, and thrice her illness rendered their preparation

vain. At last the father determined to consult the oracle at Delphi,

which revealed to him the facts and ordered him no longer to thwart the

lovers. Acontius arrives at Athens. The young couple are married, and

the tale ends with an explicit description of their happiness."

Though there were in Alexandrian literature shocking stories of

unnatural passion, as found later in Ovid, among Roman poets, yet the

type of the Acontius and Cydippe tale fascinated the age and held its

ground, and its moral elevation in contrast to the prevailing corruption

shows how the men and women of the times prized "the original purity of

the maiden, and the importance of its preservation until the happy

conclusion of marriage."

The son and successor of Philadelphus, the young King Ptolemy III.,

Euergetes, continued the literary traditions of the parental court. Soon

after his father's death, he married the Princess Berenice II. of

Cyrene, a young lady of beauty and spirit, who had already experienced

the corruption of the court life of the day. Demetrius the Fair had been

sent from Macedon to obtain her kingdom with her hand, but, while she

was waiting to be of marriageable age, he had beguiled himself by

intriguing with her mother. Berenice, in consequence, had him put to

death. Doubtless her marriage with the young King of Egypt was a

political alliance, but it was based also on mutual liking and appears

to have turned out well. This reign of Euergetes and Berenice is, in

fact, the one reign of the Ptolemies in which neither rival wives nor

mistresses agitated the court. Information concerning this important

period is meagre; we know, however, that no sooner had the bride entered

upon her new happiness than the bridegroom was called away to Syria to

avenge the horrid murder of his sister, also named Berenice, who had

been wedded to the old King Antiochus Theos on condition that the latter

repudiated his former wife Laodice and her children. But Laodice got the

aged king again into her power; and she forthwith poisoned him and had

her son proclaimed king. Her party in Antioch at once rose up against

the new Egyptian queen and murdered her and her infant child.

Queen Berenice, upon the departure of her husband, consecrated a lock of

her hair in the temple of Aphrodite, with a prayer for his safe return.

The lock mysteriously disappeared, and the philosopher Conon, happening

just at that time to discover a new constellation, declared that the

lock of Berenice's hair had been set among the stars.

Callimachus, one

of the court poets, seized this occasion to compose a poem entitled the

_Lock of Berenice_,--preserved in Catullus's elegant Latin

version,--celebrating the accession to the constellations of this lock

of hair, which, according to the conceit of the poet, notwithstanding

its high honor, wishes that it had never been severed from Berenice's

fair head.

The reigns of Ptolemy Soter, Philadelphus, and Euergetes, with their

brilliant queens, mark the golden age of Alexandria. In Ptolemy IV.,

Philopator, we notice the curious and rapid change of the great family

of the Lagidae into debauchees, dilettanti, drunkards, dolts. This

sovereign was a feeble and colorless personage who was completely under

the control of his minister Sosibius, whom Polybius speaks of as "a wily

old baggage and most mischievous to the kingdom; and first he planned

the murder of Lysimachus, who was the son of Arsinoe, daughter of

Lysimachus, and of Ptolemy; secondly, of Magas, the son of Ptolemy and

Berenice, daughter of Magas; thirdly, of Berenice, daughter of Ptolemy

and mother of Philopator; fourthly, of Cleomenes the Spartan; and

fifthly, of Arsinoe, daughter of Berenice, the king's sister and wife."

Surely a criminal of the deepest dye, at whose hands the princesses of

Alexandria suffered untold horrors! During his later years, the king was

under complete subjection to his mistress Agathoclea and her brother

Agathocles. The Queen Arsinoe, the mother of the infant heir to the

throne, who was young and vigorous, was regarded throughout Egypt as the

natural protectress and regent of the young Ptolemy when his father's

life was on the wane; but Agathocles and his sister secretly murdered

her, and, when the king died, presented the prince to the populace and

read a forged will in which they themselves were made his guardians

during his minority. But the people learned of the sad fate of Queen

Arsinoe, and her ill treatment roused the indignation of the populace;

thereupon followed one of the mob riots for which Alexandria was noted.

Polybius gives a dramatic description of the great riot and tells how

the wicked regent Agathocles, his sister Agathoclea, and his mother

Oenanthe, were seized by the multitude and torn in pieces, limb by limb,

while yet they lived.

When the young King Ptolemy V., Epiphanes, grew up, he took for his

queen Cleopatra, daughter of Antiochus III., the Great, and sister of

Antiochus IV., Epiphanes. Now for the first time, with this Syrian

princess, enters the name of Cleopatra in the annals of Egypt. Previous

queens have been named either Berenice or Arsinoe, and from this time on

the three names appear in almost inextricable confusion, Cleopatra

prevailing and being applied at times even to sisters of the same house.

The first Cleopatra was a great and good queen, and after the death of

her husband, whose reign was short and uneventful, and of her elder son,

who seems to have died soon after his accession, she became regent of

her second son, Ptolemy VI., Philometor, who was not seven years old

when he began to reign, Philometor married his sister, Cleopatra II.,

and was the last of the Ptolemies who could in any sense be called good.

His later years were clouded by the rivalry of his wicked brother

Physcon, who sought the throne.

When Philometor was killed in battle, Physcon, or Euergetes II., laid

siege to Alexandria, forced the widowed queen Cleopatra II. to marry

him, murdered her young son Ptolemy, Philopator Neos, the rightful heir,

for whom the mother had made a bold attempt to maintain the throne, and

reigned as Ptolemy VII. Physcon even married the queen's daughter,

Cleopatra III., and we see this remarkable man managing, at the same

time, two ambitious queens, mother and daughter, who were probably at

deadly enmity throughout the period in which they were associated with

him in the royalty. One story, almost too horrible to obtain credence,

tells that Physcon served up as a birthday feast to the mother,

Cleopatra II., his own heir Memphitis. When this wretch finally ended

his days, Cleopatra III., who was as great a monster of ambition,

selfishness, and cruelty as Physcon himself, seems to have murdered her

queen-mother and to have assumed the reins of government, at first

alone, and later associated with her eldest son, Lathyrus Soter II., who

reigned as the eighth Ptolemy. Lathyrus first married his sister

Cleopatra IV., but was finally compelled by his mother to divorce her

and to marry his other sister, Selene. He was finally turned out of his

kingdom by his mother, who desired the accession of his younger brother,

Alexander I., the ninth Ptolemy; and the latter repaid her maternal

interest in him by murdering her as soon as he was secure on the throne.

His queen was Berenice III., with whom he reigned until they were in

turn ousted by Lathyrus. Alexander II., Ptolemy X., succeeded Lathyrus,

and married his stepmother, Berenice III., whom he speedily murdered,

and was himself put to death after a brief reign of nineteen days.

Ptolemy XI., Auletes, an illegitimate son of Soter II., then mounted the

throne, his queen being Cleopatra V., Tryphaena. He was the last and the

weakest of the Ptolemies, and is worthy of mention merely because of his

base dealings with Rome, which introduced Roman intervention into

Egyptian affairs, and because he was the father of the great Cleopatra.

We have given this brief chronicle of the later kings and queens of

Egypt to prepare us for the consideration of the character of the

foremost Egyptian woman of antiquity--Cleopatra. The Ptolemies, we have

found, degenerated steadily and became in the end the most abominable

and loathsome tyrants that the principle of absolute and irresponsible

power ever produced. Regardless of all law, abandoned to the most

unnatural vices, thoroughly depraved, and capable of every crime, they

showed utter disregard of every virtuous principle and of every domestic

tie. The Ptolemaic princesses seem, as a whole, to have been superior to

the men. They usually possessed great beauty, great personal charm, and

great wealth and influence. Yet among them always existed mutual hatred

and disregard of all ties of family and affection.

Ambitious to excess,

high-spirited and indomitable, they removed every obstacle to the

attainment of power, and fratricide and matricide are crimes at which

they did not pause. When the student of history sees pass before him

this dismal panorama of vice and crime, he wonders whether human nature

had not deserted these women and the spirit of the tigress entered into

them.

Cleopatra, the last Queen of Egypt, was the heiress of generations of

legalized license, of cultured sensuality, of refined cruelty, and of

moral turpitude, and she differed from her predecessors only in that she

had redeeming qualities which offset in some degree the wickedness that

she had inherited. To the thoughtful mind her character presents one of

the most difficult of psychological problems, and to solve the enigma

thus presented we have to consider her antecedents, her early training,

and the part which she was compelled to play in the world's history.

Her early years were spent in the storm and turmoil of the conflict

between her father Auletes and her sister Berenice.

Ptolemy XI.,

Auletes, called "the Piper,"--because of his only accomplishment, his

skill in playing the flute,--was perhaps the most degraded, dissipated,

and corrupt of all the sovereigns of the dynasty. He inspired his

contemporaries with scorn for his weakness of character and with

abhorrence for his vices and crimes. His one redeeming trait was his

love for his younger children, and he seems to have brought them up with

every obtainable advantage and as much as possible removed from the

turmoil of the court. For fear of losing his kingdom, he sought

recognition from Rome and paid Caesar enormous sums of money for his

patronage. The people rose in revolt against the heavy taxes, and

Ptolemy fled to Rome for aid. Berenice IV., his eldest daughter, was

raised to the throne by the Alexandrians, and she began her reign in

great splendor. Hoping to strengthen her position by marriage with a

royal prince, she first wedded Seleucus of Syria. But she soon found him

not to her taste, and disposed of him by strangling--in true Ptolemaic

fashion. After many intrigues, she found a second husband in Archelaus,

a prince of Asia Minor. She then made every preparation to offer

effectual resistance to her father. Auletes succeeded in gaining a

hearing at Rome, and a Roman army under Gabinius, with Mark Antony as

his lieutenant, marched against the forces of Berenice and Archelaus.

After many battles, the Romans were victorious.

Archelaus was slain;

Berenice was taken prisoner; her government was overthrown; and Auletes

was restored to power, as a vassal of Rome. Ptolemy was filled with

savage joy at his daughter's capture, and at once ordered her execution.

After a reign of three years, Auletes died, leaving the kingdom jointly

to Cleopatra, now eighteen years of age, and her brother Ptolemy, aged

ten; and the brother and sister, in obedience to the custom of the

Ptolemies, were married, that they might rule together.

Amid such scenes and excitements, a constant witness of the cruelty of

her father and elder sister, Cleopatra had grown up, and with such

examples before her she entered upon her reign. Her training, under most

skilful masters, had been of the broadest character, and her

intellectual endowments have seldom been surpassed. She was very

learned, and is said to have mastered eight or ten languages; so that

she could address in his own tongue whoever approached her--whether

Egyptian, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, or Syriac.

"With a fondness for philosophy she united a love of letters as rare as

it is attractive; and in the companionship of scholars and poets her

mind expanded as it added to its priceless store of wealth. She was not

only familiar with the heroic tales and traditions, the poetic myths and

chronicles, and the religious legends, of ancient Egypt, but she was

well versed, too, in the literature and science of Phoenicia and

Chaldaea, of Greece and Rome; she was skilled also in metallurgy and

chemistry; and a proficient in astronomy and the other sciences

cultivated in the age in which she lived. Her skill in music found none

to equal it. Her voice itself was perfect melody, and touched by her

fingers the cithara seemed instinct with life, and from its strings

there rolled a gushing flood of glorious symphonies. She was eloquent

and imaginative, witty and animated. Her conversation, therefore, was

charming; and if she exhibited caprice, which she sometimes did, it was

forgotten in the inevitable grace of her manner."

Essentially Greek in all her characteristics, she possessed the wisdom

of Athena, the dignity of Hera, and the witchery of Aphrodite. An

enthusiastic writer has thus described her: "She was tall of stature and

queenly in gait and appearance. The warm sun of that southern clime had

tinged her cheek with a hue of brown, but her complexion was as clear

and pure as the serene sky that smiled above her head, and distinctly

traced beneath it were the delicate veins filled with the rich blood

that danced so wildly when inflamed with hate or heated with passion.

Her eyes and hair were like jet and as glossy as the raven's plume. The

former were large and, as was characteristic of her race, apparently

half-shut and slightly turned up at the outer angles, thus adding to the

naturally arch expression of her countenance; but they were full, too,

of brilliancy and fire. Both nose and chin were small, but fashioned as

with all the nicety of the sculptor's art; and her pearly teeth nestled

lovingly between the coral lips whose kisses were as sweet as honey

from the hives of Hybla."

Plutarch expresses himself rather differently from the modern

writer,--who draws largely on his imagination,--and perhaps more

truthfully:

"There was nothing so incomparable in her beauty as to compel

admiration; but by the charm of her physiognomy, the grace of her whole

person, the fascination of her presence, Cleopatra left a sting in the

soul." Hence, as has been said, she probably possessed not supreme

beauty, but supreme seductiveness.

Her social and moral qualities at this time seem not to have been

inferior to her beauty or her intellectual endowments.

Falsehood and

hypocrisy were foreign to her. She gained her ends by the winningness of

her disp