Chapter 22

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 these rites; only Hellenes "of pure soul and pure hands" were eligible for initiation. On the days preceding the festival, expiatory ceremonies were performed, of which the most notable was one in which a girl or boy, styled "the child of the hearth," performed certain rites of purification for those who were desirous of being admitted into the mysteries. Finally, on the twentieth day of the month Boedromion, corresponding nearly to our September, the great procession set forth from Athens for Eleusis, along the Sacred Way. In this procession the women took part in great numbers, and it afforded excellent opportunities for the display of beautiful toilettes. Aristocratic ladies were usually driven in chariots. As the crowd of pilgrims passed over the Cephissus Bridge, there was, as in the Thesmophoria, much banter and raillery in memory of the manner in which the goddess was once diverted from her grief; and all along the road there were stations for sacrifices and oblations, where the maidens engaged in singing and graceful dances. Eleusis was finally reached at night by torchlight, and the following days were spent by the initiated in their religious duties and by the candidates in further preparation.

We have unfortunately but meagre glimpses into the Eleusinian mysteries, and cannot follow the order of ceremonies. Suffice it to say that, besides promoting good living and happiness in this life, they gave hope for the life to come. "The man purified by initiation," says Pindar, "has understood before his death the beginning and end of life, and after death dwells with the gods."

In Polygnotus's famous painting of the infernal regions, in the Lesche at Delphi, two women were represented trying to carry water in jars that have no bottoms; an inscription states that they were never initiated, and the moral was "that without initiation life is altogether wasted and lost." In the worship of Demeter and in the Eleusinian mysteries there was everything to appeal to woman--the sanctity of marriage, deified motherhood, exaltation of the home and of domestic duties--and the zeal manifested by Athenian women in these religious rites doubtless promoted a feminine piety and a natural devoutness which ennobled the Athenian home and softened parental discipline.

The Thesmophoria was the festival of the married women; but young girls and even children had their festivals in the Brauronia and the Artemisia, celebrated in honor of Artemis, the special patron of virgins. The Brauronia was celebrated every fifth year, in the little town of Brauron. Chosen Athenian maidens between the ages of five and ten years, dressed in saffron-colored garments, went in solemn procession to the sanctuary of the goddess, where they performed a propitiatory rite, in which they imitated bears, an animal sacred to Artemis. Every maiden of Athens, before she could marry, must have once taken part in this festival and consecrated herself to the goddess. There was also a precinct of Artemis Brauronia on the Acropolis, and doubtless this ceremony was also performed there. Almost everywhere this virgin goddess was revered by young girls as the guardian of their maiden years, and before marriage it was the custom that the bride should dedicate to Artemis a lock of her hair, her girdle, and her maiden tunic.

Maidens also took part in the worship of the twin brother of Artemis, Apollo, in the island of Delos, which was the birthplace of the god and goddess. The celebration was a festival of youth and beauty, of poetry and art. Aristocratic maidens of Athens joined with those of the seat of the Delphian confederacy over which Athens presided in making the occasion emphasize the power and splendor of Athens in the height of its greatness.

"Once every five years, in the spring, a solemn festival recalled the anniversary of the birth of the god. The maidens of Delos, wearing their richest attire, and crowned with flowers, united in joyous chorus around the altar, and represented in sacred dances the story of the birth of Apollo. Others, with garlands of flowers in their hands, went to hang them on the ancient statue of the goddess, which Theseus had, according to tradition, brought from Crete to Delos. From all parts of Greece, from the islands, and from Asia, solemn embassies, sacred _theoriae_, landed in the harbor. The most brilliant was that of the Athenians, who were long the suzerains of the island. Each year, a State vessel, the Paralian galley, conveyed the sacred embassy to Delos; the crew was composed of free men, the vessel decked with flowers. At the moment of its departure, the whole town was purified; the priests of Apollo bestowed on the galley a solemn benediction, and the law forbade that the purified town should be defiled by any sentence of death until the return of the vessel. The members of the embassy were chosen from the chief families of the city, and they were accompanied by a chorus of young men and maidens, who were to chant the sacred hymns in honor of Apollo and perform around the altar of the Horns, one of the marvels of Delos and of the world, an ancient and solemn dance--the _geranos_. The day of the arrival of these theoriae was a festival in Delos. Amid the acclamations of an enthusiastic crowd, the embassy disembarked in the harbor; and such was the joy and impatience of the people, that sometimes its members had not even time to don their robes of ceremony and to crown themselves with flowers. Over the bridge wound the sacred procession of the Athenians, with its splendidly dressed musicians, its chorus chanting the sacred hymns, its rich offerings destined for the god; received at the end of the bridge by the official charged with the reception of these pious embassies, it pursued its way to the temple, there to present its offerings and prayers, and to pour out on the altar the blood of its hecatombs. During the rest of the day, feasts were provided for the people, and games and contests filled the island with the sounds of rejoicing."

After the celebration, the Paralia returned to Athens, bearing homeward the beautiful maidens who had done honor to the god and had added to the glory of their native city.

Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and of pleasure, also had her festivals in which women took part. Certain of these were of a lascivious character and were celebrated chiefly by the demi-monde; they were held especially at the temple of Aphrodite Pandemus on the promontory of Colias. But the ladies of Athens took part in the Adonia, in honor of Adonis, beloved of Aphrodite. The ceremonies of the first day were of a mournful character, as they commemorated the death of Adonis; but the second day was one of rejoicing and entertainment, as Adonis was conceived of as returning to life to spend six months with Aphrodite. In his death and resurrection the changes of the seasons were poetically symbolized. Women of the leading families were expected to participate in the magnificent solemnities, which took place at the summer solstice. A long procession of priests and of maidens acting as canephorse, bearing vases for libations, baskets, perfumes, and flowers, approached a colossal catafalque, over which were spread beautiful purple coverlets. On these lay a statue of Adonis, pale in death, but still beautifull Over this mournful figure a beautiful woman gave expression in every way to the most bitter grief and sang a hymn to Adonis, telling his sad story. The women round about were clad in mourning and celebrated the plaintive funeral dance; while on all sides was heard the mournful cry: "Alas! alas! Adonis is dead!"

The hymn or psalm to Adonis was a distinguished and most popular feature of the celebration of the Adonia; Theocritus, in Idyl XV., gives its rendering on the occasion when Arsinoe, queen of Ptolemy Philadelphus, decorated the image of Adonis. In a later chapter of the present volume,--that on The Alexandrian Woman,--an English version of this psalm is given, into which the spirit of the original is most aptly infused; and in connection therewith is a lively and forceful picture of the attitude and manners of the ladies of the day.

XIII

GREEK WOMEN AND THE HIGHER EDUCATION

It is by no means a matter of surprise that among a people so highly cultured as the Greeks there should be women of the highest intellectual attainments. Sappho has already furnished us an example, and her ascendency over her pupils was such as to start a train of influences that stimulated her sex in every part of Hellas to engage in the study and composition of poetry.

Furthermore, among the famous men of Hellas there were, from time to time, ardent advocates of the higher education of women. As early as the seventh century before the Christian era, Cleobulus, one of the seven sages of Greece, insisted that maidens should have the same intellectual training as youths, and illustrated his doctrine in the careful education of his daughter, Cleobuline, who became a poetess of wide renown.

Pythagoras, who in the sixth century founded his celebrated philosophical sect in Southern Italy, fully recognized the equality of the sexes and devised a system of education for women, which made his feminine followers not only most efficient in all domestic relations, but also preeminent in philosophical and literary culture. Plato spent considerable time in Magna Graecia, and became imbued with the spirit of Pythagorean philosophy. He must have been impressed with its elevating influence on the status of woman, for in his _Dialogues_ he urged that women should receive the same education as men, and he himself admitted members of the gentler sex to the lectures of the Academy.

After Plato's time, accordingly, we find many women engaged in the study of philosophy, not only among the Academicians, but also in the other philosophical schools, especially the Cyrenaic, the Megarian, and the Epicurean. The Peripatetic and the Stoic doctrines seem not to have appealed to the fair sex.

Alexander's empire, in overthrowing the exclusive State laws of the various cities, accomplished much for the emancipation of women, and from that time forward we find women engaged in almost all the branches of the higher learning. In Alexandria, especially, the daughters of scholars pursued studies in philosophy, in philology, and in archaeology, and some of them became celebrated. In the Graeco-Roman period, Plutarch was a constant advocate of female education, and the circle of learned women that he has made known to us indicates how general was the spread of education among the women of his day.

Aspasia had set the fashion for hetaarae in Athens to devote attention to rhetoric and philosophy; consequently, many of the blue-stockings of Greece belonged to the hetaera class. Some acquaintance with the higher learning, however, became fashionable also in the retirement of the gynaeceum, and many maidens and matrons of honorable station employed their leisure moments in reading the works of philosophers and poets, and received, if not public, at least private instruction from professional lecturers.

The variety of intellectual pursuits among the women was marked. Poetry was their natural field, and philosophy appealed to them as being the most learned vocation of the times. Even in the Heroic Age, women were skilled in the uses of plants for purposes of witchcraft and of healing; and in historic times, when medicine became a science, women engaged in various medical pursuits. Similar tastes led many also to follow the different branches of natural science, and in Alexandrian times, when philology was the prevailing study, history and grammar and literary criticism became favorite studies with the daughters of the learned.

In a previous chapter, we have described the Lesbian Sappho's seminary of the Muses, to which maidens flocked from all Hellenic lands for the study of poetry and art. The natural beauties of the isle of Lesbos, the luxurious life of the aristocratic classes, the brilliancy and zeal of Sappho herself, and her ardent affection for her girl friends, were influences favorable to the pursuits of the Muses and the Graces.

It is not surprising that, amid such surroundings and with such a teacher, women should acquire a love of poetry and of all that appeals to the aesthetic nature. There is a vague tradition that there were seventy-six women poets among the Ancient Greeks. Unfortunately, the names of but few of these are preserved to us. We have authentic information concerning only the nine most distinguished poetesses, to whom the Greeks gave the title of the Terrestrial Muses.

The second of the nine Terrestrial Muses--for Sappho was, of course, the first--was the poetess's favorite and most promising pupil, Erinna of the isle of Telos. She aroused among Greek poets a most respectful and tender sentiment, and they frequently sounded her praises. Her most noted production was a poem called _The Distaff_, and the poets compared it to the honeycomb, which the gracious bee had gathered from the flowers of Helicon; they perceived in this production of a maiden the freshness and perfume of spring, and they likened her delicate notes to the sweet voice of a swan as he sings his death song--a comparison only too just, for she died at the tender age of nineteen years. A poet of the Anthology thus laments her untimely taking-off:

"These are Erinna's songs: how sweet, though slight! For she was but a girl of nineteen years:-- Yet stronger far than what most men can write: Had death delayed, what fame had equalled hers?"

The names of the next two of the Terrestrial Nine are closely associated with that of Pindar of Thebes,--Myrtis and Corinna, the one the instructor, the other the rival, of the great composer. Myrtis was the eldest of the three, and probably gave instruction to her younger contemporaries. She later entered the lists in a poetic contest with Pindar, and for this she was censured by Corinna. The younger woman, who defeated Pindar five times in poetic contests, gave her rival some good advice, by which he profited in his later productions. She reproached him for devoting too much attention to the form and neglecting the soul of the poem. When, following her counsel, Pindar brought to her a poem abounding in mythological allusions, Corinna smiled, and remarked to him that in future he should "sow by the handful, not with the whole sack."

Pausanias saw the tomb of Corinna in a conspicuous part of her native town of Tanagra; and also a picture of her in the gymnasium, representing her binding a fillet about her head in honor of the victory she had gained over Pindar at Thebes. But he ungallantly ascribes her victory partly to her dialect--for she composed not in Doric, like Pindar, but in a dialect which AEolians would understand--and partly to her beauty; for, judging from her portrait, she was the fairest woman of her time.

Telesilla of Argos was not only a poet, but an antique Joan of Arc as well. Being of feeble constitution, she was told by the oracle to devote herself to the service of the Muses, and in this salutary mental exercise she found health and preeminence among her fellows. Famous hymns to Apollo and to Artemis were composed by her. Her love of beauty also inspired her with noble ideals of patriotism and self-sacrifice, and in the crisis of the war between her native town and Sparta she armed her countrywomen and led them forth to victory against the enemy. As a memorial of this noble action, her statue was erected in the temple of Aphrodite at Argos.

Praxilla of Sicyon was placed by ancient critics by the side of Anacreon for the softness and delicacy of her verses, and she was honored in her native city with a statue from the hand of Lysippus. She sang beautiful songs of Aphrodite and retold in passionate verse the legend of Adonis.

The next name on this immortal list takes us to Locris, in Italy, and down to the fourth century before Christ. Like Sappho, Nossis "of womanly accents" is a love poetess, and twelve epigrams attributed to her are found in the Anthology. Her poetry was symbolized by the _fleur-de-lis_ with its penetrating perfume. In praising the portrait of her child she sees the reflection of her own beauty, and in the epitaph which she composed for her tomb she declares herself equal to Sappho; hence humility cannot be classed among the many virtues which caused her to be adored by her contemporaries.

The little poems of Anyte of Tegea and Moero of Byzantium, the last two of the Terrestrial Nine, are often symbolized by the lilies for their purity and delicacy. These poets flourished in the third century of our era. Antipater surnames Anyte "a feminine Homer"; rather should she be called "a feminine Simonides," though even this is too high praise. Her soul was simple and pure, and her sweet sentiments are reflected in a style as limpid as a running stream. Charm and freshness characterize her invitation to some passer-by to repose under the trees and taste of the cool water; deep and melancholy emotions pervade the poem in which she bewails the death of a young maiden; and a masculine philosophy of life is manifest in the epitaph of a slave whom death has made equal with the Great King. Moero's range was not so great, nor her touch so delicate. A heroic poem, _Mnemosyne_, was the most ambitious of her works; she also composed elegies and epigrams, and two of the latter have been preserved to us, revealing a soul sensitive to natural beauty.

Here and there, other names and occasional verses of Greek poetesses are found--Cleobuline of Rhodes, Megalostrata and Clitagora, of Sparta, and others; but they did not attain the fame of the Terrestrial Muses.

As the verses of the Greek women were to be sung to the accompaniment of the lyre, the daughters of the Muses were as celebrated in music as they were in poetry. Nor were the maidens of Greece without distinction in other arts. It is in part to a Corinthian maiden that legend ascribes the invention of modelling in clay. Cora, daughter of Butades, is about to say farewell--perhaps forever--to her lover, who is going on a long journey. The light of a lamp throws his shadow on the wall, and, to preserve at least this image of him, she deftly sketches the outline of the shadow. Her father, with the instinct of an artist, observes the outline and fills it in with potter's clay, and then bakes the model which he has obtained. There are no names recorded of Greek women who were sculptors, but doubtless in the studio of many an artist a daughter delighted in assisting him at his work.

Many Greek women distinguished themselves in painting. Timarete, the daughter of Micon, produced an image of Artemis, which was long to be seen at Ephesus; it was one of the most ancient monuments of this art, and the goddess was probably represented under a strange and symbolic form, such as she had in her sanctuary in Ephesus. Eleusis possessed a painting made by Irene, daughter of Cratinus, representing the figure of a young girl, perhaps a priestess initiated into the mysteries of the great goddesses. Calypso, Alcisthene, Aristarete, and Olympias are the names of other female painters, whose memories at least have been preserved.

The most celebrated of all, however, was Lalla, a native of the city of Cyzicus, to which Apollo had accorded the gift of arts. Though she worked with extreme rapidity, this did not detract from the merits of her work, and she was considered the first painter of her time. Painting with pencil and on ivory were equally familiar to her. The portraits which she painted were principally of persons of her own sex. Pliny mentions a portrait, which was at Naples during his life, in which Lalla had represented an old woman. He adds that she had reproduced in this her own picture reflected in a mirror. There has been found at Pompeii a painting of an artist which is believed to be a portrait of Lalla, probably painted by herself. It represents a young woman seated on a stool on a little porch, with her eyes fixed on a statue of Bacchus, which she is reproducing on a tablet held by a child. In her right hand is a pencil, which she plunges into a small box evidently containing her colors; in her left hand she holds a palette. Her garments are elegantly draped around her; a band encircles her waving hair, which falls over her neck and shoulders, A deep, intellectual look illuminates her delicate features. If this be really a picture of Lalla, she was wonderfully beautiful.

Not only in poetry and the fine arts, but also in philosophy and intellectual pursuits did the Greek woman show herself capable of great achievements. In the schools of Pythagoras, established at Croton in Magna Graecia, women were freely admitted and took a prominent part in the exercises, together with their husbands and brothers.

There is a tradition that the ascendency of Pythagoras at Croton was so great that the ladies of the city brought their rich apparel, their jewels, necklaces and bracelets, to the temple of Hera, and dedicated them as an offering to domestic virtue, vowing that henceforth prudence and modesty, not luxurious apparel, were to be the true ornaments of their sex. Whether this story be true or not, there is no doubt that Pythagoras had a large number of women among his disciples, and that the "Pythagorean Women" attained throughout the Greek world a great and enviable reputation. Pythagoras's friendly attitude toward the sex was probably in part the result of his cordial relations with the Delphian priestess Aristoclea, renowned for her amiability and her wisdom, with whom he carried on a learned correspondence. The general results of his teachings upon woman were a high ideal of feminine morality, careful attention to household duties, and the elevation of the conception of motherhood, especially in the careful rearing of children.

Existing fragments of the works of "Pythagorean Women" indicate their lofty views of moral perfection and harmony, and their practical judgment in everyday affairs. _Sophrosyne_ is constantly commended as the chief feminine virtue, a term connoting moderation, self-containedness, modesty, and wifely fidelity--in a word, all that is essentially womanly.

The Neo-pythagorean philosopher, Iamblichus, in his biography of Pythagoras mentions fifteen celebrated women of the School. Other writers name other female adepts in Pythagorean philosophy, who lived during and after the time of Pythagoras. The number was so large that the comic poets Alexis and Cratinus the Younger, who, like most Athenians, had a genuine contempt for blue-stockings, made them the object of much drollery and ridicule.