Chapter 27

"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 wonder of the world. He gathered all that he could command of learning and literary fame, and the city was adequate to the largeness and splendor of its external appearance. We have it described in later times as astonishing the beholder not only with its vastness, but also with the splendor of its colonnades, which lined the streets for miles and kept the ways cool for passengers; with the din and bustle of the thoroughfares, of which the principal were horse and carriage ways, contrary to the usual Greek practice; with the number and richness of its public buildings, and with the holiday and happy airs of its vast population, who rested not day and night, but had their streets so well lighted that Achilles Tatius says the sun did not set, but was distributed to illumine the gay night. The palace and other royal buildings and parks were walled off like the palace at Pekin, and had their own port and seashore, but all the rest of the town had water near it and ship traffic in all directions. Every costume and language must have been met in its streets and quays. It had its fashionable suburbs too, and its bathing resorts to the east, Canopus, Eleusis, and Nicopolis; to the west, its Necropolis. But of all this splendor no eye-witness has left us in detail what we are reduced to infer by conjecture."

The dynasty of the Ptolemies, so ably founded by Ptolemy Soter and ending with the reign of the great Cleopatra, presents a series of monarchs renowned for their culture, their luxury, their lasciviousness, and their cruelty; and by the side of the kings may be found a series of queens unrivalled in history for their cleverness, their wickedness, or their beauty. Woman's place in this dynasty was a most influential one, and she possessed all the freedom and power that could well fall to her lot; she knew nothing whatever of the restrictions common in old Greek life or in the life of the Orient. This was no doubt partly due to the fact that the Macedonian spirit prevailed, partly that the status of woman among the Egyptians themselves had its influence on the conquerors. Papyri found in recent years demonstrate the legal independence and freedom of women among the ancient Egyptians. A married woman could make contracts and hold property in her own name and perform all legal acts, without reference to her husband. Monogamy was the rule, though in addition to the "dear wife" or "the lady of the house" there were frequently subordinate wives. So supreme was the position of woman that there were instances in which the husband settled all his property on his wife, upon condition that she support him for the rest of his days and give him a decent burial. There was such a contrast between the Egyptian and the old Greek conception of woman that the Greek ofttimes jeered at the Egyptian submission to feminine domination. In Alexandria under the Ptolemies, accordingly, owing to Macedonian respect for woman and the old Egyptian idea of feminine worth and capacity, the gentler sex experienced conditions altogether different from those in ancient Athens and enjoyed a freedom similar to that of modern times.

Ptolemy Soter, like his successors, was very fond of women, and recognized fully the influence to be gained by political marriage. Alexander, at the famous wedding feast, married his general to the daughter of one of the noblest of the Persians, but we hear nothing further of this union. His first political marriage was with Eurydice, daughter of Antipater, the old regent, and some years later he married Berenice, the grandniece of Antipater. He did not divorce Eurydice, but openly adopted the practice of polygamy, which was sanctioned in both Macedon and Egypt. The two wives seem to have lived together amicably, but Berenice was the favorite. She was a woman of amiable but strong character, and she maintained unbroken ascendency over her husband. So skilful was her diplomacy that her son Magas, the fruit of a former marriage, was appointed King of Cyrene, while her son Ptolemy was made her husband's successor on the throne of Egypt, to the exclusion of Eurydice's much older son, Ceraunus.

Ptolemy Philadelphus, son of Berenice, succeeded to the throne of Egypt in B.C. 285, and for forty years was the most famous monarch in the world. His court was renowned for its splendor and magnificence, and may be aptly compared to the courts of Haroun al Raschid and Lorenzo de' Medici, and here too woman played her part. Philadelphus's first wife was Arsinoe I., daughter of Lysimachus, King of Thrace, who bore him several children. It is not known definitely why Philadelphus divorced her, but there is a story that she was detected plotting against his life, which resulted in her divorce and banishment. The second wife was likewise named Arsinoe, Ptolemy's own full sister. This match proved to be a very happy one. Arsinoe had had an eventful career. Daughter of Ptolemy and Berenice, she first became the wife of King Lysimachus of Thrace, and at his untimely death she married Ptolemy Ceraunus, her half-brother, the banished son of Eurydice. She and her husband caused the murder of Agathocles, the rightful heir of Lysimachus, and Ceraunus later murdered the children of Arsinoe by Lysimachus. After such an experience in crime and misfortune, at the death of her second husband she retired for a season,--a widow of middle age,--and then emerged to become the consort of her brother Philadelphus. Arsinoe herself first assumed the title Philadelphus, "loving her brother," by which the king came to be known in later generations. As she was childless and was not likely to have any heirs of her own, Arsinoe adopted her predecessor's children; and being her husband's sister, she did not disturb him in the many amours which consumed so large a part of his time.

Arsinoe was a woman of brilliant intellectual gifts, and the union between her and Philadelphus seems to have been of the intellectual and spiritual kind. She proved to be an able helper in all the affairs of government; she assisted him in the financial administration and particularly in foreign affairs; she encouraged him in his endeavor to make Alexandria the centre of letters and art, and her name is coupled with his in all the great events of this period. The two were deified, and statues were erected to them as Gods Adelphi. The marriage between brother and sister was quite in accord with Egyptian notions, and in the public records, for ages past, the queen had been called _sister_ of the king, whether she was really so or not. The marriage was compared by court poets with that of Zeus and Hera; and the couple were frequently lauded by them for their many achievements and the splendor of their court.

The reign of Philadelphus and Arsinoe was the brilliant epoch of Alexandrian literature, and we may well pause at this point to see what glimpses the poets of Alexandria give us into the feminine life of the day. Theocritus, the famous pastoral poet, lays the scene of his fifteenth idyl in Alexandria, and presents one of the most charming bits of feminine life that literature affords us. The feast of Adonis, described in an earlier chapter, was about to be celebrated at the palace of King Ptolemy, and two ladies of Alexandria had agreed to go together to see the image of Adonis which Queen Arsinoe "had decorated with great magnificence, and to hear a celebrated prima donna sing the Adonis song." The household details, the toilettes, the complaints of the two cronies about their husbands, the admiration of a new dress and its cost, the rough treatment of an unknown servant; then the crowd in the streets, the terrors of the passing cavalry, the squeeze at the entrance, the saucy rejoinder to a stranger who protests against their incessant jabber--these and many other comic and picturesque details have made this poem the best known among the so-called _Idyls_, and indicate that the everyday life of woman in Ptolemaic Alexandria was much the same as her life to-day. Gorgo, one of the ladies, goes by appointment to the house of her friend Praxinoe, where the dialogue begins:

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GORGO.--Is Praxinoe at home?

PRAXINOE.--Dear Gorgo, how long it is since you have been here! She _is_ at home. The wonder is that you have got here at last! Eunoe, see that she has a chair. Throw a cushion on it, too.

GORGO.--It does most charmingly as it is.

PRAXINOE.--Do sit down.

GORGO.--Oh, what a thing spirit is! I have scarcely got to you alive, Praxinoe! What a huge crowd, what hosts of four-in-hands! Everywhere cavalry boots, everywhere men in uniform! And the road is endless; yes, you really live _too_ far away!

PRAXINOE.--It is all the fault of that madman of mine. Here he came to the ends of the earth and took--a hole, not a house, and all that we might not be neighbors. The jealous wretch, always the same, ever for spite!

GORGO.--Don't talk of your husband Dinon like that, my dear girl, before the little boy--look how he is staring at you! Never mind, Zopyrion, sweet child, she is not speaking about papa.

PRAXINOE.--Our Lady! the child takes notice,

GORGO.--Nice papa!

PRAXINOE.--That papa of his the other day--we call every day "the other day"--went to get soap and rouge at the shop, and back he came to me with salt--the great big endless fellow!

GORGO.--Mine has the same trick, too, a perfect spend-thrift--Diocleides! Yesterday he got what he meant for five fleeces, and paid seven shillings apiece for--what do you suppose?--dogskins, shreds of old leather wallets, mere trash--trouble on trouble! But come, take your cloak and shawl. Let us be off to the palace of rich Ptolemy, the king, to see the _Adonis_; I hear the queen has provided something splendid!

PRAXINOE.--Fine folks do everything finely.

GORGO.--What a tale you will have to tell about the things you have seen, to anyone who has not seen them! It seems nearly time to go.

PRAXINOE.--Idlers have always holiday. Eunoe, bring the water and put it down in the middle of the room, lazy creature that you are. Cats like always to sleep soft! Come, bustle, bring the water; quicker! I want water first, and how she carries it! give it me, all the same; don't pour out so much, you extravagant thing! Stupid girl! Why are you wetting my dress? There, stop, I have washed my hands, as heaven would have it. Where is the key of the big chest? Bring it here.

GORGO.--Praxinoe, that full bodice becomes you wonderfully. Tell me, how much did the stuff cost you just off the loom?

PRAXINOE.--Don't speak of it, Gotgo! More than eight pounds in good silver money,--and the work on it! I nearly slaved my soul out over it!

GORGO.--Well, it is _most_ successful; all you could wish.

PRAXINOE,--Thanks for the pretty speech! Bring my shawl, and set my hat on my head, the fashionable way. No, child, I don't mean to take you. Boo! Bogies! There's a horse that bites! Cry as much as you please, but I cannot have you lamed. Let us be moving. Phrygia, take the child and keep him amused, call in the dog, and shut the street door.

(_They go into the street_.)

Ye gods, what a crowd! How on earth are we ever to get through this coil? They are like ants that no one can measure or number. Many a good deed have you done, Ptolemy; since your father joined the Immortals, there's never a malefactor to spoil the passer-by, creeping on him in Egyptian fashion--oh! the tricks those perfect rascals used to play. Birds of a feather, ill jesters, scoundrels all! Dear Gorgo, what will become of us? Here come the king's war horses! My dear man, don't trample on me. Look, the bay's rearing; see, what temper! Eunoe, you foolhardy girl, will you never keep out of the way? The beast will kill the man that's leading him. What a good thing it is for me that my brat stays safe at home!

GORGO.--Courage, Praxinoe. We are safe behind them now, and they have gone to their station.

PRAXINOE.--There! I begin to be myself again. Ever since I was a child, I have feared nothing so much as horses and the chilly snake. Come along, the huge mob is overflowing us.

GORGO (_to an old woman_).--Are you from the Court, mother?

OLD WOMAN.--I am, my child.

PRAXINOE.--Is it easy to get there?

OLD WOMAN.--The Achaeans got into Troy by trying, my prettiest of ladies. Trying will do everything in the long run.

GORGO.--The old wife has spoken her oracles, and off she goes.

PRAXINOE.--Women know everything; yes, and how Zeus married Hera!

GORGO.--See, Praxinoe, what a crowd there is about the doors!

PRAXINOE.--Monstrous, Gorgo! Give me your hand; and you, Eunoe, catch 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.

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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.