Greek Women

"And some one of the baser sort might meet me and say: 'Who is this that goes with Nausicaa, this tall and goodly stranger? Where found she him? Her husband he will be, her very...

The history of woman is the history of the world. Strait orthodoxy may remind us that man preceded woman in the scheme of creation and that therefore history does not begin with...

The Homeric matron had as her regular duties the management of the household, and was trained in every domestic occupation. Spinning and weaving were her chief accomplishments,...

But Atrides ceases not from the strife with which he has threatened Achilles. He summons straightway two heralds, and bids them go to the tent of Achilles and take Briseis of th...

Queen, wife, mother, the sentiment which most characterizes Penelope is love of husband, child, and home; her chief intellectual trait is prudence. We find in her the rare combi...

But at last we reach the bee: "The man who gets her is lucky; to her alone belongs no censure; one's household goods thrive and increase under her management; loving, with a lov...

The characteristic traits of these reigning queens of the demi-monde were in almost all cases the same. The principal attributes of their characters were selfishness and greed....

"So it came to pass that Ptolemy Soter gathered into his capital every kind of splendor.... He established the most brilliant palace and court, with festivals which were the won...

"What an age it was, truly, when, as the companions of Pericles, there were assembled in one city Sophocles and Euripides, Herodotus and Thucydides, Meton and Hippocrates, Arist...

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...

However, the wheel of fortune again turns, and Leonidas is restored to power. Agis and Cleombrotus flee for their lives, and become suppliants--the one at the temple of the Braz...

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 arrang...

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 co...

Aristotle is less generous than Plato in his concessions to woman. "The male is by nature superior, and the female inferior; the one rules, the other is ruled; this principle of...

The ill-deserved reputation of being a misogynist which attaches to Euripides is due, not to his own plays, but to the satire and drollery of his rival, the comedian Aristophane...

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 early tribal divisions among the Greeks must also be taken into consideration. The Achaeans are closely identified with the Heroic Age; they built up the powerful States in...

From the central mass of the mountain system of the Peloponnesus in Arcadia, two chains, Taygetus and Parnon, detach themselves and extend southward, terminating in the two dang...

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 r...

"It is man's duty to acquire food, to be busied with field work, to care for flocks, and to defend himself against enemies. Therefore the god has given him strength and courage....

There has always, in the worst days, been an undercurrent of good, and its source and strength are to be found in the eternal feminine spirit, which in its true aspects always m...

After the murder of Roxana and her son, a movement was made to raise to the throne Heracles, son of Darius's daughter, Barsine, he being the sole surviving offspring of Alexande...

Andromache was apportioned to Neoptolemus, Achilles's valiant son, and in Euripides's _Daughters of Troy_ she reappears, with her child in her arms, haled forth to her new bonda...

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 thes...

One cannot emphasize in too trenchant terms the demoralizing influences of hetairism on the social life of the Greeks, or fail to see in the gross immorality of the sexes one of...

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 r...

Alma-Tadema has fixed the current tradition in his ideal representation of Sappho's school at Lesbos--a marble exedra on the seashore at Mytilene. The poetess is seated on the f...

"But you did well for every man, O Solon: For they do say you were the first to see The justice of a public-spirited measure, The saviour of the State (and it is fit For me to u...

The age was mending its manners. New ideas were prevailing among men. Woman was becoming more and more fully a factor in the world. Yet, for her complete emancipation, there was...