enjoy all the
benefits of wealth and culture in so marked a degree as among the Жolian
people of Lesbos.

The Dorian and the Ionian peoples occupied the arena during the
historical period; and, representing as they did opposing tendencies,
they were continually in conflict. The Dorians mainly occupied the
Southern and Western Peloponnesus, Argos, Corinth, Megara, Жgina, Magna
Grжcia, and the southern coast of Asia Minor; the Ionians inhabited
Attica, Euboea, most of the islands of the Жgean, and the famous twelve
Ionian cities along the coast of Asia Minor. The chief city of the
Dorians was Sparta; but Sparta had a form of government peculiar to
itself, which must not be taken as representing all the Dorian States.
Yet among the Dorian States in general there was much the same degree of
freedom enjoyed by women as in Sparta, though they were not subjected to
the same harsh discipline.

The Ionian cities of Asia Minor were greatly influenced by Asiatic love
of ease and luxury, and they introduced into Greece many aspects of the
civilization and art of Asia. There is a tradition that when the Ionians
migrated from Hellas to Asia Minor they did not take their wives with
them, as did the Dorians and Жolians, and, consequently, they were
compelled to wed the native women of the conquered districts. As they
looked upon the wives thus acquired as inferior, they were glad to shut
them up in the women's apartments, following the Oriental custom, and to
treat them as domestics rather than as companions. Thus is supposed to
have arisen the custom of secluding the women of the household, which
rapidly spread among Ionian peoples, even in Continental Greece.

Athens was the chief city among the Ionian peoples, but it developed a
civilization peculiarly its own, known as the Attic-Ionian, combining
much of the rugged strength and vigor of the Dorians with the
refinement, delicacy, and versatility of the Ionians. Yet the status of
woman in the city of the violet crown was a reproach to its otherwise
unapproachable preeminence. Nowhere else in entire Hellas were Greek
women in like measure repressed and excluded from the higher life of the
men as among the Athenians. Consequently, the name of no great Athenian
woman is known to us. But the Ionian repression of women of honorable
station led to the rise of a class of "emancipated" women, who threw off
the shackles that had bound their sex and united their fortunes with men
in unlawful relations as hetжrж, or "companions." Owing to their pursuit
of the higher learning of the times and their cultivation of all the
feminine arts and graces, the hetжrж constituted a most interesting
phenomenon in the social life of Greece, and played an important role in
Greek culture, especially in Athens. As the centre of culture for
Hellas, and as the exponent of literature and art for the civilized
world, Athens demands especial attention in its treatment of women.

The classical period of Greek history was succeeded by the Hellenistic
Age, an epoch introduced by the spread of the Greek language and culture
over the vast empire of Alexander the Great. The theory of the
city-state had been one of the chief causes of the seclusion of women;
and as Alexander broke down the barriers between the Greek cities and
introduced uniformity of life and manners throughout his empire, from
this time on the status of woman is gradually elevated, her attention to
the higher education becomes more general, and she takes a more
prominent part in culture and politics and all the living interests of
the day. Alexandria usurps the place of Athens as the chief centre of
Greek life and thought, and here the Greek woman plays a conspicuous
and prominent role. Then, as Rome spread her conquests over the Orient,
the Grжco-Roman period succeeds the Hellenistic, and through the
intermingling of alien civilizations a womanhood of purely Greek culture
is merged into the cosmopolitan womanhood of the Roman world.
Christianity rapidly becomes the leaven that permeates the lump of the
Roman Empire, and, appealing as it did to all that was highest and best
in feminine character, finds ready acceptance among the women of
Hellenic lands. The woman of Greek culture, with rare exceptions, ceases
to exist, and our subject reaches its natural termination.




II

WOMANHOOD IN THE HEROIC AGE


The life of the earliest Greeks is mirrored in their legends. Though not
exact history, the heroic epics of Greece are of great value as pictures
of life and manners. Hence we may turn to them as valuable memorials of
that state of society which must be for us the starting point of the
history of the Greek woman.

The evidence of Homer regarding the Heroic Age is comprehensive and
accurate. The discoveries of recent years are making Troy and Mycenж and
other cities of Homeric life very real to us. We find that Homer
accurately described the material surroundings of his heroes and
heroines--their houses and clothing and weapons and jewels. The royal
palaces at Troy and Tiryns and Mycenж have been unearthed, and we know
that their human occupants must have been persons of the character
described by Homer, for only such could have made proper use of the
objects of utility and adornment found in these palaces and now to be
studied in the museums of Europe. Hence we are driven to the conclusion
that though Agamemnon be a myth and Helen a poet's fancy, yet men and
women like Agamemnon and Helen must once have lived and loved and
suffered on Greek soil.

Furthermore, great movements in the world's history are brought about
only by great men and great women. The great epics of the world tell the
stories of national heroes, not as they actually were, but idealized and
deified by generations of admiring descendants. Hence, behind all the
marvellous stories in myth and legend were doubtless actual figures of
men and women who influenced the course of events and left behind them
reputations of sufficient magnitude to give at least a basis for the
heroic figures of epic poetry.

To appreciate the elements from which the immortal types of Greek Epic
were composed, a comparison with the Book of Judges is apposite. In
Judges we have represented, though in disconnected narrative, the heroic
age of Ancient Israel, and from material such as this the national epic
of the Hebrew people might have been written. In such an epic, women
like Deborah and Jephthah's Daughter and Delilah would be the idealized
heroines, as are Penelope and Andromache and Helen in Homeric poems. It
is not unreasonable, therefore, to suppose that in the Achжan Age there
lived actual women, of heroic qualities, who were the prototypes of the
idealized figures presented by Homer and the dramatic poets.

Woman must have played a prominent role in the childhood of the Greek
world, for much of the romantic interest which Greek legend inspires is
derived from the mention of the women. Helen and Penelope, Clytemnestra
and Andromache, and the other celebrated dames of heroic times, stand in
the foreground of the picture, and are noted for their beauty, their
virtues, their crimes, or their sufferings. Thus, a study of the history
of woman in Ancient Greece properly begins with a contemplation of
feminine life as it is presented in the poems of Homer.

Homer's portrayal of the Achжan Age is complete and satisfactory,
largely because he devotes so much attention to woman and the conditions
of her life. His chivalrous spirit manifests itself in his attitude
toward the weaker sex. Homer's men are frequently childish and
impulsive; Homer's women present the characteristics universally
regarded as essential to true womanhood. They even seem strangely
modern; the general tone of culture, the relation of the sexes, the
motives that govern men and women, present striking parallels to what we
find in modern times.

Homer has presented to us eternal types of womanhood, which are in
consequence worthy of the immortality they have acquired. At present, we
shall merely seek to learn from these works as much as possible about
the life of woman as seen in the customs of society, and in
archжological and ethnographic details.

That which strikes us as most noticeable in the organization of society
in heroic times is its patriarchal simplicity. Monarchy is the
prevailing form of government. "Basileus," "leader of the people," is
the title of the sovereign, and every Basileus rules by right hereditary
and divine: the sceptre of his house is derived from Zeus. The king is
leader in war, head of the Council and of the Assembly of the people,
and supreme judge in all matters involving equity. The "elders"
constitute the Council, and the people are gathered together in Assembly
to endorse the actions of their chiefs. The Iliad describes the life of
a Greek camp; but Agamemnon, the suzerain, has under him men who are
kings at home. The Odyssey describes civil life in the centres where the
chieftains at Ilium are royal rulers. The two epics are chiefly
concerned with the lives of these kings and their families. It is the
life of courts and kings, of the aristocracy, with which Homer makes us
familiar; and in the monarchies of Homer the status of woman is always
elevated and her influence great. The wife shares the position of her
husband, and his family are treated with all the deference due the head.
As the king derives his authority by divine right, the people live
peaceably under the government of their chief as under the authority and
protection of the gods. Such are the salient features of the Homeric
polity.

With what inimitable grace does the poet initiate us even into the life
of the little girl at her mother's side. Achilles is chiding Patroclus
for his tears: "Wherefore weepest thou, Patroclus, like a fond little
maid that runs by her mother's side and bids her mother take her up, and
tearfully looks at her till the mother takes her up?" Now, let us note
the maiden at the dawn of womanhood. The mother had prayed that her
daughter might grow up like Aphrodite in beauty and charm, and like
Athena in wisdom and skill in handiwork. Father and mother observe with
happiness her radiant youth; and her brothers care tenderly for her. Her
pastimes consist in singing and dancing and playing ball and the various
forms of outdoor recreation. Young men and maidens join together in
these sports. Homer represented such scenes on the Shield of Achilles:
"Also did the lame god devise a dancing place like unto that which once
in wide Cnossos Dжdalus wrought for Ariadne of the lovely tresses. There
were youths dancing and maidens of costly wooing, their hands upon one
another's wrists. Fine linen the maidens had on, and the youths
well-woven doublets, faintly glistening with oil. Fair wreaths had the
maidens, and the youths daggers of gold hanging from silver baldrics.
And now they would run round with deft feet exceeding lightly, as when a
potter sitting by his wheel that fitteth between his hands maketh trial
of it whether it will run: and now anon they would run in line to meet
each other." Such were their pastimes, and equally joyous were their
occupations. To the maidens seem to have been chiefly assigned the
outdoor tasks of the household, which would contribute to their physical
development. Thus the Princess Nausicaa and her girl friends wash in the
river the garments of fathers and brothers; and the Shield of Achilles
represented a vintage scene where "maidens and striplings in childish
glee bear the sweet fruit in plaited baskets, and in the midst of them a
boy made pleasant music on a clear-toned viol, and sang thereto a sweet
Linus-song, while the rest with feet falling together kept time with the
music and the song."

The education of the girls was of the simplest character. They grew up
in the apartment of the mother, and learned from her simple piety toward
the gods a modest bearing, skill in needlework, and efficiency in the
management of a household.

While enjoying a freedom