to the good of Sparta.'"
Thus was defeated the first effort for the reformation of Sparta. In the
city's long history, Agis was the first king who had been put to death
by the order of the ephors. When the bodies of the gentle king and his
noble mother and grandmother were exposed, the horror of the people knew
no bounds, and the aged Leonidas and Amphares became the objects of
public detestation.
The second attempt at the reformation of Sparta is also remarkable for
the unselfishness and nobility of the women who took part.
After the execution of King Agis, his wife, Agiatis, was compelled by
Leonidas to become the wife of his son Cleomenes, though the latter was
as yet too young to marry. As Agiatis was the heiress of the great
estate of her father, Gylippus, the old king was unwilling that she
should be the wife of anyone but his son. Agiatis was, says Plutarch,
"in person the most youthful and beautiful woman in all Greece, and
well-conducted in her habits of life." She resisted the union as long as
she could; but when forced to marry, she became to the youth a kind and
obliging wife. Cleomenes loved her very dearly, and often asked her
about the reforms of Agis; and she did not fail to inspire him with the
lofty ideals of her former gentle and high-minded husband. Cleomenes
himself, in consequence, fell in love with the old ways, and, after
Leonidas's death, attempted to carry out the reforms in which Agis had
failed. His mother, Cratesiclea, was also very zealous to promote his
ambitions; and in order that she might effectually assist him in his
plans, she accepted as her husband one of the foremost in wealth and
power among the citizens. With her help, the king succeeded in breaking
the power of the ephors, and a return to the system of Lycurgus was
partially accomplished. But Cleomenes had aroused a formidable enemy in
the person of Aratus, head of the Achaean League. He carried into Achaea
the war against Aratus, and made himself master of almost all
Peloponnesus, but, through the persistence of his enemies, almost as
quickly lost that territory. In the midst of his misfortunes, he
received news of the death of his wife, to whom he was devotedly
attached. "This news afflicted him extremely," says Plutarch, "and he
grieved as a young man would do, for the loss of a very beautiful and
excellent wife." When all seemed lost, he received promise of assistance
from King Ptolemy of Egypt, but only on condition that he send the
latter his mother and children as hostages. Plutarch thus continues the
story:
"Now Ptolemy, the King of Egypt, promised him assistance, but demanded
his mother and children for hostages. This, for a considerable time, he
was ashamed to discover to his mother; and though he often went to her
on purpose, and was just upon the discourse, yet he still refrained, and
kept it to himself; so that she began to suspect, and asked his friend
whether Cleomenes had something to say to her which he was afraid to
speak. At last, Cleomenes venturing to tell her, she laughed aloud, and
said: 'Was this the thing that you had so often a mind to tell me, but
were afraid? Make haste and put me on shipboard, and send this carcass
where it may be most serviceable to Sparta, before age destroys it
unprofitably here,' Therefore, all things being provided for the voyage,
they went by land to Taenarum, and the army waited on them. Cratesiclea,
when she was ready to go on board, took Cleomenes aside into Poseidon's
temple, and, embracing him, who was much dejected and extremely
discomposed, she said: 'Go to, King of Sparta; when we come forth at the
door, let none see us weep or show any passion that is unworthy of
Sparta, for that alone is in our power; as for success or
disappointment, those wait on us as the deity decrees,'
Having this
said, and composed her countenance, she went to the ship with her little
grandson, and bade the pilot put out at once to sea.
When she came to
Egypt, and understood that Ptolemy entertained proposals and overtures
of peace from Antigonus, and that Cleomenes, though the Achaeans invited
and urged him to an agreement, was afraid for her sake to come to any
without Ptolemy's consent, she wrote to him, advising him to do that
which was most becoming and most profitable for Sparta, and not, for the
sake of an old woman and a little child, stand always in fear of
Ptolemy. This character she maintained in her misfortunes."
Cleomenes, however, soon realized how little reliance is to be put in
the favors of princes. Antigonus of Syria took the part of Aratus
against him, and Ptolemy, who had been ever ready to help the valiant
Spartan, did not care to invite the hostility of a greater foe.
Cleomenes was defeated by Antigonus, and became an exile at the court of
Ptolemy, but it proved to be a prison instead of a home.
Upon the death
of the elder Ptolemy, his son kept Cleomenes and his friends under
restraint, and, to please Antigonus, purposed putting them to death.
Cleomenes and his companions, knowing that a tragic end awaited them,
determined to break through their prison bars and to rouse the populace
to a revolt against Ptolemy. They easily made their escape, but the
people could not be persuaded to undertake any struggle for liberty; and
so the devoted band resolved to die. Then each one killed himself,
except Panteus, the youngest and handsomest of them all, who was
selected by Cleomenes to wait till the rest were dead, so that he might
perform for them the last offices. He carefully arranged all the bodies
of his comrades, and then, kissing his beloved king and throwing his
arms about him, slew himself. The news of this sad event, having spread
through the city, finally reached the aged mother, Cratesiclea, who,
though a woman of great spirit, could hardly bear up against the weight
of this affliction, especially as she knew that an equally tragic fate
awaited her grandchildren.
The Egyptian king ordered that Cleomenes's body should be flayed, and
that his children, his mother, and the women that were with her, should
be put to death. Among these was the wife of Panteus, still very young
and exquisitely beautiful, who had but lately been married. Her parents
would not suffer her to embark with Panteus for Egypt so soon after they
had been married, though she eagerly desired it, and her father had shut
her up and kept her forcibly at home. But she found means of escape. A
few days after Panteus's departure, she slipped out by night, mounted a
horse and rode to Taenarum, and there embarked on a vessel sailing for
Egypt, where she soon found her husband, and with him cheerfully endured
all the sufferings and hardships that befell them in a hostile country.
She was now the moral support of the whole company of helpless women.
She moved about among them, comforting and consoling.
She gave her hand
to Cratesiclea, as the latter was being led out by the soldiers to
execution, held up her robe, and begged her to be courageous, being
herself not in the least afraid of death, and desiring nothing else than
to be killed before the children were put to death. When they reached
the place of execution, the children were first killed before
Cratesiclea's eyes; and afterward she herself suffered death, with these
pathetic words on her lips: "O children, whither are you gone?"
Panteus's wife, as her husband did for the men, performed the last
offices for the women. In silence and perfect composure, she looked
after every one that was slain, and laid out the bodies as decently as
circumstances would permit. And then, after all were killed, adjusting
her own robe so that she might fall becomingly, she courageously
submitted to the stroke of the executioner.
Thus ended the second great movement for the reformation of Sparta, and
henceforth Sparta, as an independent State; disappears from history. The
story of the fall of Sparta owes its human interest chiefly to the women
involved, and Plutarch recognizes this fact when, in concluding his
story of Cleomenes, he, with the Greek dramatic contests before his
mind, says: "Thus Lacedaemon, exhibiting a dramatic contest in which the
women vied with the men, showed in her last days that virtue cannot be
insulted by fortune."
Chilonis, Agesistrata, Agiatis, Cratesiclea, the wife of Panteus,--what
a pity that we do not know her name!--constitute the most admirable
feminine group that Greek history offers us. What especially charms us
is that they unite with the strength and self-abnegation of the ancient
Spartan matron a sweetness, a tenderness, a womanliness, which we have
not been accustomed to attribute to Spartan women. They are Spartans,
but they are, above all, women.
VIII
THE ATHENIAN WOMAN
Divergent views have been entertained by writers who have discussed the
social position of woman at Athens and the estimation in which she was
held by man. Many scholars have asserted that women were held in a
durance not unlike that of the Oriental harem, that their life was a
species of vassalage, and that they were treated with contempt by the
other sex; while the few have contended that there existed a degree of
emancipation differing but slightly from that of the female sex in
modern times. As is usually the case, the truth lies in the golden mean
between these two extremes; and a careful perusal of Greek authors, with
the judgment directed to the spirit of their references to women rather
than to a literal interpretation of disparate passages, will show that
the status of the freeborn Athenian woman, while by no means ideal or
conforming to our present standards, was far better than is usually
conceded by the writers upon Greek life.
It cannot be denied, however, that the social position of the Athenian
woman was far inferior to that of the woman of the Heroic Age, and that,
despite the boasted democracy and freedom of thought of the period,
woman's status in the years of republican Athens was a reproach to the
advanced culture and love of the good and the beautiful of which the
city of the violet crown was the exponent. There had been a revolution
in the habits of life of the Greeks since the days when Homer sang of
the women of heroic Greece, and the student does not have to search far
to discover the principal causes of the change.
The chief of these is the Greek idea of the city-state, which reached
its highest development in Athens. Citizenship was, as a rule,
hereditary, and every possible legal measure was taken to preserve its
purity. The main principle of this hereditary citizenship was that the
union from which the child was sprung must be one recognized by the
State. This was accomplished by requiring a legitimate marriage, either
through betrothal by a parent or guardian, or through assignment by a
magistrate. Pericles revised the old conditions, which had become lax
during the tyranny, by passing a measure limiting citizenship to those
who were born of two Athenian parents. Greater stress was laid on the
citizenship of the mother than on that of the father, as the child was
regarded as belonging naturally to the mother. It was possible to
increase the citizen body by a vote of the people; but in the best days
of Athens her citizenship was regarded as so high a privilege that the
franchise was most jealously guarded. Consequently, in the fifth century
we see in Athens and Attica a population of about four hundred thousand,
of which not more than fifty thousand were citizens; the rest consisted
of minors, of resident aliens numbering some fifteen thousand, and of
slaves, of whom there were about two hundred thousand in the Periclean
Age.
To preserve the purity of the citizenship in so large a population of
residents, increased by thousands of visitors and strangers who
frequented the metropolis, every precaution was taken that the daughters
of Athens should not be wedded to foreigners, and that no spurious
offspring should be palmed off on the State. Hence marriage by a citizen
was restricted to a union with a legitimate Athenian maiden with full
birthright. The marriage of an Athenian maiden with a stranger, or of a
citizen with a foreigner, was strictly forbidden, and the offspring of
such a union was illegitimate.
Under such a conception of polity, marriage lay at the very basis of the
State; and respect for the local deities, obligations of citizenship,
and regard for one's race and lineage, demanded that every safeguard
should be thrown about it, and that the women of Athens should conform
to those enactments and customs which would fit them to be the mothers
of citizens and would keep from them every entangling intrigue with
strangers.
The result of this polity was a singular phenomenon: there were in
Athens two classes of women--one carefully secluded and restricted,
under the rigid surveillance of law and custom; the other, free to do
whatever it pleased, except to marry citizens. Yet the latter class
would gladly have exchanged places with the former; while the former, no
doubt, envied the freedom and social accomplishments of the latter. The
one class consisted of the highborn matrons of Athens, glorying in their
birthright, and rulers of the home; the other, of the resident aliens of
the female sex, unmarried, emancipated intellectually as untrammelled
morally, who could become the "companions" of the great men of the city.
Thus, owing to the Athenian conception of the city-state, the natural
functions of woman--domesticity and companionship, which should be
united in one person, were divided, the Athenian man looking to his wife
merely for the care of the home and the bearing and rearing of children,
and to the hetaera for comradeship and intellectual sympathy. This evil
was the canker-worm which gnawed out the core of the social life of
Athens and caused the unhappiness of the female sex.
At the birth of a girl in Athens, woollen fillets were hung upon the
door of the house to indicate the sex of the child, the olive wreath
being used to proclaim the birth of a boy. This custom demonstrates the
relative importance of son and daughter in the eyes of the parents and
the public. The son was destined for all the victories that public life
and the prestige of the State can give; therefore, the olive, symbol of
victory, served to make known his advent. The daughter's life was to be
one of domestic duties, hence the band of wool, with its connotation of
spinning and weaving, was a fitting emblem of the career for which the
babe was destined. The plan of a Greek house indicates how secluded
woman's whole life was to be. In the interior part of the Greek mansion,
separated from the front of the building by a door, lay the
_gyncaeconitis_, or women's apartments, usually built around a court.
Here were bedrooms, dining-rooms, the nursery, the rooms for spinning
and weaving, where the lady of the house sat at her wheel. This was, in
brief, the feminine domain.
In the seclusion of the _gyncaeconitis_, the girl-child was reared by its
mother and nurse. Her playthings--dishes, toy spindles, and dolls--were
such as to cultivate her taste for domestic duties. No regular public
and systematized instruction was provided for a girl; no education was
deemed necessary, for her life was to be devoted to the household, away
from the world of affairs. But though there were no schools for maidens
to attend, reading and writing and the fundamentals of knowledge were
regularly imparted by a loving mother or a faithful nurse. The frescoed
walls made the girls acquainted with the stories of mythology, and music
and the recitation of poetry were frequent sources of instruction and
recreation in the homes of the well-to-do. The maidens were, above all,
made proficient in the strictly feminine arts of housekeeping, spinning,
weaving, and embroidery. They were rigidly excluded from any intercourse
with the other sex, and their contact with the outside world was
confined to participation in the religious festivals, which occupied so
large a part in the everyday life of the Greeks. "When I was seven years
of age," says the chorus of Athenian women in the _Lysistrata_ of
Aristophanes, "I carried the mystic box in the procession; then, when I
was ten, I ground the cakes for our patron goddess; and, clad in a
saffron-colored robe, I was the bear at the Brauronian festival; and I
carried the sacred basket when I became a beautiful girl." Such were the
opportunities granted to the highborn Athenian maiden for occasional
glimpses of the splendor and activity of her native city; and can we
doubt that on such occasions she was impressed by the sublimity of the
temples and works of art, and that there were cast many modest glances
at the handsome youths on horseback, who, in turn, were fascinated by
the beauty and freshness of these tenderly nurtured maidens?
The seclusion of Athenian girls and the careful rearing which they
received at the hands of mothers and nurses were such as to fit them to
rule the home. The Athenian maiden was noted throughout Hellas for her
modesty and sweetness. The intelligence was not cultivated, but the
heart and sensibilities had ample scope for development in the duties
and recreations of the _gynaeconitis_ and in the participation in
religious exercises. Such a simple and peaceful rearing tended to
preserve the delicacy of the soul and to keep unstained innocence and
purity. When comparison is instituted with the Spartan system,
preference must be given to the Athenian method of education, with all
its defects. The sweet modesty imparted by seclusion was far more
womanly than the boldness of bearing acquired by athletic exercises in
the presence of young men. The Spartan system trained the woman for
public life, to be the patriotic mother of warriors; the Athenian system
prepared the maiden to be the guardian of the home, the affectionate and
devoted mother.
When the maiden reached the age of fifteen, her parents began
negotiations for her marriage. An Athenian marriage was essentially a
matter of convenience, and was usually arranged by contract between the
respective fathers of the youth and maiden. Equality of birth and
fortune were generally the chief considerations in the selection of the
son-in-law or the daughter-in-law; and in an atmosphere where the
attractions of a maiden were so little known, a professional matchmaker
frequently brought the interested parties together. Thus the rustic
Strepsiades, in Aristophanes's _Clouds_, expresses the wish that the
feminine matchmaker had perished miserably who had induced him to marry
the haughty, luxurious, citified niece of aristocratic Megacles, son of
Megacles.
The Homeric custom of bringing valuable presents or of performing
valiant deeds to win a maiden's hand had long passed away, and, in the
great days of Athens, the father had to provide a dowry consisting
partly of cash, partly of clothes, jewelry, and slaves.
Solon, who, as
Plutarch tells us, wished to have marriages contracted from motives of
pure love or kind affection, and to further the birth of children,
rather than for mercenary considerations, decreed that no dowries should
be given and that the bride should have only three changes of clothes;
but this good custom had passed away with the era of simple living. So
distinctly was the dowry the indispensable condition of marriage, that
poor girls were often endowed by generous relatives, or the State
itself would provide a wedding portion for the daughters of men
deserving well of their country. For example, when the Athenians heard
that the granddaughter of Aristogiton, the Tyrannicide, was in needy
circumstances in the isle of Lemnos, and was so poor that nobody would
marry her, they brought her back to Athens, married her to a man of good
birth, and gave her a farm at Potamos for a marriage portion. The dowry
was generally secured to the wife by rigid restrictions; in most cases
of separation, the dowry reverted to the wife's parents; and though the
husband's fortune might be confiscated, the marriage portion of the wife
was exempt.
Of the ceremonies and formalities of marriage, the solemn betrothal was
the first and most important, as it established the legality of the
union; and it was at this ceremony that the dowry was settled upon the
bride. In the presence of the two families, the father of the maiden
addressed the bridegroom in the following formula: "That legitimate
children may be born, I present you my daughter." The betrothed then
exchanged vows by clasping their right hands or by embracing each other,
and the maiden received a gift from her affianced as a token of love.
The marriage usually followed close upon the betrothal.
The favorite month for the ceremony was named Gamelion, or the "marriage
month"; this included part of our January and part of February. On the
eve of the wedding, the good will of the divinities protecting marriage,
especially Zeus Teleios, Hera Teleia, and Artemis Eukleia, was invoked
by prayer and sacrifices.
Strange to say, the wedding itself, though given a religious character
by its attendant ceremonies, was neither a religious nor a legal act.
The legality of the marriage was established by the betrothal, while
its religious aspect was found solely in the rites in honor of the
marriage gods.
A second ceremony, universally observed, was the bridal bath, taken
individually by both bride and bridegroom previously to their union. In
Athens, from time immemorial, the water for this bath was taken from the
sacred fountain, Callirrhoe, called since its enclosure by Pisistratus
"Enneacrunus," or "the Nine Spouts." Authorities differ as to whether a
boy or a girl served as water carrier on this occasion; but the latter
supposition is supported by an archaic picture on a hydria, representing
the holy fountain Callirrhoe flowing from the head of a lion under a
Doric superstructure. A girl, holding in her hand branches of laurel or
myrtle, looks musingly down on a hydria, which is being filled with the
bridal water. Five other maidens are grouped about the fountain, some
with empty pitchers awaiting their turn, others about to go home with
their filled pitchers. No doubt it is in the month of marriage, and many
maidens are preparing for the happy event.
On the wedding day, toward dark, a feast was held at the parental home,
at which were gathered all the bridal party--for this was one of the few
occasions in Athenian life when men and women dined together. Here the
bride and groom appeared, clad in purple and crowned with flowers sacred
to Aphrodite. The distinctive mark of the bride was the veil, which
covered her head and partly concealed her face. All the guests wore
wreaths in honor of the joyous event. With her own hand the bride
plucked the poppies and sesame which were to crown her forehead, for it
would have been an ill omen to wear a nuptial wreath that had been
purchased.
Soon the banquet is concluded with libations and prayer, just as night
begins to fall. Then the bride leaves the festively adorned parental