busts on which her name is inscribed, but they impress us rather by the
expression of earnest and deep thought, by the delicacy and distinction
of the features, than by mere beauty. Her charm lay, no doubt, rather in
her wisdom, her vivacity, her sweetness of utterance, than in perfection
of form and feature. Aspasia made the home of Pericles the first salon
that history has made known to us; and what woman ever gathered about
her a more brilliant coterie of friends? With Phidias and his group of
eminent artists, she talked of the embellishment of the Acropolis with
beautiful temples and statues; with Anaxagoras and Socrates, she
discussed the problems of philosophy and the narrow conservatism of the
Athenians; with Sophocles and Euripides, she conversed concerning the
works of the dramatists and the ideal women presented in their plays.
Herodotus, perhaps, was the inimitable story teller of this learned
circle, and the melancholy Thucydides dwelt on the dark tragedy
underlying human events; no doubt the satirical Aristophanes sometimes
attended, for the Platonic dialogues show us the social side of his
nature, and, while in his plays he scorns the philosophical set, he
found among them intellectual companionship; and the young and gay
Alcibiades was doubtless frequently present, talking with the hostess of
the latest events in the high life of the city, of betrothals and
marriages, of scandals and escapades.

One of the sons of Pericles scoffed at this circle of intellectual
lights, and made fun of their metaphysical speculations and learned
talk; but this merely indicates that such a salon was an innovation in
Athens, and, therefore, led to harsh criticism and unseemly gossip on
the part of those who could not appreciate its privileges. Music,
poetry, and wit relieved the serious discussion of politics, philosophy,
and literature. The salon of Aspasia must have been altogether decorous,
for many men broke the traditions of their fathers and brought their
wives to converse about wifely duties with the famous hetжra. She seems
to have thought earnestly and deeply on the duties and destiny of woman,
to have realized how contracted were the lives of Athenian women, and to
have wished to better their condition, Жschines, in one of his
dialogues, gives us in her conversation with Xenophon and his wife
Philesia a glimpse of her method.

"Tell me, Philesia," said Aspasia, "whether if your neighbor had a piece
of gold of more value than your own, you would not choose it before your
own?" "Yes," answered Philesia. "If she had a gown, or any of the female
ornaments, better than yours, would not you choose them rather than your
own?" "Yes," answered she. "But," said Aspasia, "if she had a husband of
more merit than your own, would not you choose the former?" Upon this,
Philesia blushed. Aspasia then addressed herself to Xenophon. "If your
neighbor, Xenophon, had a horse better than your own, would you not
choose him preferably to your own?" "Yes," answered he. "If he had an
estate or a farm of more value than your own, which would you choose?"
"The former," answered he; "that is, that which is of more value." "But
if his wife were better than your own, would not you choose your
neighbor's?" Xenophon was silent upon this question. Aspasia therefore
proceeded thus: "Since both of you, then, have refused to answer me in
that point only which I wanted you to satisfy me in, I will tell you
myself what you both think: you, Philesia, would have the best of
husbands, and you, Xenophon, the best of wives. And, therefore, if you
do not endeavor that there be not a better husband and wife in the world
than yourselves, you will always be wishing for that which you shall
think best: you, Xenophon, will wish you might be married to the best of
wives, and Philesia, that she might have the best of husbands."

Thus this brilliant and withal domestic woman would counsel women to be
the best of wives, and men the most considerate of husbands, that each
might find in the joys of home and in conjugal harmony their greatest
felicity. Doubtless many a wife went away from her with higher
conceptions of wifely duty than custom had taught her, and sought to
make her home a more congenial retreat for her husband. Many, however,
looked askance at these gatherings of men and women and could see
nothing but evil in their violations of custom. Husbands, too, saw in
these novel proceedings dangerous tendencies; for if their wives became
emancipated, there would be a limit to their own pleasant indulgences.
It was Aspasia who preeminently labored to this end. The status of woman
at Athens was far from ideal, and the need tor reform was great; and if
we endeavor to discover who was chiefly responsible for the agitation
which had for its purpose the emancipation of woman from the thraldom in
which she was held, we find that it was the wise and far-seeing Aspasia.

Owing to the intellectual awakening at Athens during the Periclean Age
and the influx of new ideas from the various Hellenic countries, a
liberal party had arisen in the city, chiefly under the leadership of
Pericles and Anaxagoras--a radical party, headed by men of culture and
science, who taught that knowledge was power, who despised the
established religion, and who set at naught the domestic manners of the
day by seeking to elevate woman. Socrates, also, was heartily in
sympathy with the objects of this party, as was the dramatist Euripides.
On the other side were the ultra-conservatives, of whom Cimon and
Aristophanes were representatives. The latter frequently made Pericles,
Aspasia, Socrates, and Euripides the subjects of his satire. These
Tories of the day saw in the tenets of the new party the subversion of
all the principles of the old democracy, and they fought most bitterly
to preserve established institutions. Toward the close of Xenophon's
treatise on _Domestic Economy_, Critobulus, who has been impressed by
the story of Ischomachus, wishes to learn how he too, may educate his
young wife, and Socrates advises him to consult with Aspasia. The
profound deference in which she was held by all the philosophers is a
further indication that from her they had derived many of their advanced
ideas regarding the relations of the sexes. Hence while positive
evidence is lacking, incidental touches and sidelights on the Woman
Question point unerringly to the one great woman of ancient Athens as
the originator of the first movement for the emancipation of woman
recorded in history.

As Aspasia, through her intercourse with the great, had attained
unbounded influence in the State, and as her circle was the exponent of
the ideas which offended the conventional spirit, it was natural that
she should be involved in the storm of criticism that befell the leaders
of thought. As a woman who had stepped out of the beaten track of
womanhood, she was made the subject of the coarsest slanders. She was
called the Hera to this Zeus, Pericles, the Omphale, the Deianira of the
Heracles of the day; her girl friends and pupils, who enjoyed the same
liberty she claimed for herself, were most violently defamed; she was
said to have induced, for the basest of reasons, Pericles to bring on
the Peloponnesian and Samian wars. The comic poets, as the chief organs
of the opposition, engaged in this most merciless and unjust tirade
against the party of the philosophers. None of their charges, however,
can be said to have had any basis in fact, and all may easily be
accounted for when the envy and hatred of the ignorant toward the
beautiful and accomplished and independent woman is taken into
consideration. In the Athens of the fifth century before our era, when
people were just beginning to break away from the narrow conservatism
of centuries, a woman who enjoyed an unheard-of degree of liberty, and
because of her talents was regarded with admiration by the greatest men
of the city, might well be the target for the grossest abuse. A vicious
woman would be the last to undertake, as did Aspasia, the study of
philosophy, which, with Socrates, was the study of virtue.

The party of the philosophers suffered for their opinions, Phidias was
accused of theft, and died in prison; Anaxagoras, to escape the charges
against him, went into voluntary exile; and Aspasia was brought to trial
on a charge of impiety, which merely meant that she, as others of her
circle, set at naught the polytheism of the multitude, and recognized
but one creative mind in the government of the universe, an accusation
under which Socrates later suffered martyrdom. She was brought before
the judges, and Pericles pleaded her cause. Plutarch says that he
pleaded with tears; and as the people could not resist the emotion of
their great leader, she was acquitted.

Perides's last days were passed in the gloom of the outbreak of the
Peloponnesian War, of the plague that depopulated the city, and of the
discontent of his beloved people. No brilliant sun ever had a more
gloomy setting. Yet in his last moments his thoughts were of the two
beloved objects that had absorbed his tenderest affections. "Athens has
intrusted her greatness and Aspasia her happiness to me," Pericles said,
when dying; and there could be no stronger testimony to the purity of
Aspasia's character, to the influence of her life on his, to the role
she had played in that Golden Age of Athens.

Athens and Aspasia--these were linked in the thoughts of the dying
statesman; and as he made the one great, so he made the other immortal.
Had his life not been blessed with union with hers, had his temperament
not been sweetened by her companionship, had his policy not been moulded
partly by her counsel and her wisdom, had his taste not been made so
subtle and refined by communion with her artistic temperament, Athens
would not have been embellished by the works of art which have made that
city the unapproachable ruler in the domain of the spirit. Woman's
influence, where it has counted most, has always been a silent one, and
has worked through man. Is not Aspasia worthy of the laurel wreath for
the results of her life on "the city of the violet crown"?




X

APHRODITE PANDEMUS


For the proper understanding of the status of woman among the Greeks of
ancient times, it becomes necessary for the historian of Greek womanhood
to call attention to a conspicuous social phenomenon pervading the life
of all the nations of antiquity, but nowhere else so marked a feature of
the higher life as in the lands of Hellas--a phenomenon bringing about
social conditions that divided the female population of Greece into two
sharply distinguished classes: the citizen-woman and the courtesan or
mistress.

This notable aspect of Greek life is due to the fact that the ancient
Hellene, as a rule, sought recreation and pleasure, not at the domestic
hearth, but in the society of clever women, who had not only cultivated
their physical charms, but had also trained their intellects and
sensibilities so as to become _virtuosi_ in all the arts of pleasure.
Their pleasing forms of intercourse, their light and vivacious
conversation, lent to association with them a peculiar seductiveness and
fascination.

To designate this class of women in a manner which would distinguish
them from the citizen-women on the one hand and the debased prostitute
on the other, they were euphemistically called "hetжrж," or companions.
The term _hetжrж_ had been originally a most honorable one, and Sappho
had used it, in the highest and best sense, of her girl friends as
implying companions of like rank and interests. It is not known when it
was first used with sinister suggestion, but, like our word _mistress_,
it fell from its honorable estate and became the usual term to describe
these women of pleasure.

The causes of the extent of hetairism among the Greeks are to be found
in their religious conceptions, their political institutions, and the
innate sensualism of the Greek peoples.

The Greeks were worshippers of the