true aspects always makes for righteousness.

The world's statues have, with few exceptions, been raised to men, the
world's elegies have been sung of men, the world's acclamations have
been given to men. This is world justice, blind as well as with bandaged
eyes. Were true justice done--were the best results, the results which
live, commemorated in stone, the world itself, to adapt the hyperbole of
the Evangelist, could hardly contain the statues which would be reared
to women. But it is precisely in the cause for this neglect that there
lies the value of the work which has been done by woman for the welfare
of mankind. It is one of the truths of history that the greatest and
most enduring effects have always been accomplished in the least
conspicuous manner.

The man who searches effect for cause must find his goal most often in
the influence of a woman. Not always for good; that could not be. But it
would seem that all that has endured has been for good, and that the
evil which has been wrought by woman--and it has not been slight--has
been ephemeral in all respects. I know of no enduring evil that can be
traced to a woman as its source; but I know of no constant good which
did not find either its beginning or its fostering in a woman's thought
or work. Poppжa leaves but a name; Agrippina leaves an example. It may
be true of men that the evil that they do lives after them, while the
good is oft interred with their bones; but it is not true of women. Of
course, there is a sense in which it is true--in the descent from mother
to son of the spirit of the unrighteous mother; but even this would not
seem to hold as a rule, and the effects are often modified by the
influence of a love for a higher nature. The sum of woman's influence
upon the destinies of the world is good, the balance inclines steadily
toward the best. Woman is the hope of the world.

It is to find the persistence of this influence that we search her
history. Sometimes we shall find strange factors in the equation that
gives the sum, strange methods of attaining the result; but the result
itself is always plain. Nor is there ever entire lack of contemporary
influence of good, even when the evil seems predominant. If we read of
an Argive Helen bringing war and desolation upon a nation, we shall find
in those same pages record of a Penelope teaching the world the beauty
of faith and constancy. If we trace the story of a Cleopatra ruining men
with a smile, we shall find in the same day an Octavia and a Portia. If
we hear of the Capitol betrayed by a Tarpeia, we have not far to seek
for a Cornelia, known to all time as the Mother of the Gracchi. And it
is those who made for good whose names have come down to us as
incentives and examples. The more closely we read our history, the more
surely are we convinced that the tendency has always been upward; the
progress has been steadfast from the beginning, and it has carried the
world with it.

As I began with the statement that the history of woman is the history
of the world, so I end. This truth at least is sure. The earth is very
old; it has seen the coming and the going of many races, it has
witnessed the rise and fall of uncounted dynasties, it has survived
physical and social cataclysms innumerable; and it still holds on its
way, serenely awaiting its end in the purpose of its Creator. What that
end shall be no man may know; but it is the end to which woman shall
lead it.

G.C.L.
Johns Hopkins University.




PREFACE

It is the purpose of this volume to give a simple sketch of the history
of Greek womanhood from the Heroic Age down to Roman times, so far as it
can be gathered from ancient Greek literature and from other available
sources for a knowledge of antique life. Greek civilization was
essentially a masculine one; and it is really remarkable how scant are
the references to feminine life in Greek writers, and how few books have
been written by modern scholars on this subject. In the preparation of
this work, the author has consulted all the authorities bearing on old
Greek life, acknowledgment of which can only be made in general terms.
He feels, however, particularly indebted to the following works: Mlle.
Clarisse Bader, _La Femme Grecque_, Paris, 1872; Jos. Cal. Poestion,
_Griechische Philosophinnen_, Norden, 1885; ibid., _Griechische
Dichterinnen_, Leipzig, 1876; E. Notor, _La Femme dans l'Antiquitй
Grecque_, Paris, 1901; R. Lallier, _De la Condition de la Femme
Athйnienne au Veme et au IVeme Siиcle_, Paris, 1875; Ivo Bruns,
_Frauenemancipation in Athen_, Kiel, 1900; Walter Copeland Perry, _The
Women of Homer_, New York, 1898; Albert Galloway Keller, _Homeric
Society_, London, 1902; and Mahaffy's various works, especially _Social
Life in Greece from Homer to Menander_, and _Greek Life and Thought_. In
making quotations from Greek authors, standard translations have been
used, of which especial acknowledgment cannot always be given, but Lang,
Leaf and Myers' _Iliad_, Butcher's and Lang's _Odyssey_, Wharton's
_Sappho_, and Way's _Euripides_, call for particular mention.

In the spelling of Greek proper names the author has endeavored to adapt
himself to the convenience of his readers by being consistently Roman,
and has used in most cases the Latin forms. He has retained, however,
the Greek forms where usage has made them current, as Poseidon, Lesbos,
Samos, etc., and has invariably adopted forms, neither Greek nor Latin,
which have become universal, as Athens, Constantinople, Rhodes, and the
like. The Greek names of Greek divinities have been preferred to their
Roman equivalents.

To conclude, my thanks are due to the publishers for their uniform
courtesy and help, and to Mr. J.A. Burgan for the careful reading of the
proof; nor could I have undertaken and carried through the work without
the sympathetic aid and encouragement of my wife.

MITCHELL CARROLL.
_The George Washington University_.




I

GREEK WOMEN


Whenever culture or art or beauty is theme for thought, the fancy at
once wanders back to the Ancient Greeks, whom we regard as the ultimate
source of all the жsthetic influences which surround us. To them we look
for instruction in philosophy, in poetry, in oratory, in many of the
problems of science. But it is in their arts that the Greeks have left
us their richest and most beneficent legacy; and when we consider how
much they have contributed to the world's civilization, we wonder what
manner of men and women they must have been to attain such achievements.

Though woman's influence is exercised silently and unobtrusively, it is
none the less potent in determining the character and destiny of a
people. Historians do not take note of it, men overlook and undervalue
it, and yet it is ever present; and in a civilization like that of the
Greeks, where the feminine element manifests itself in all its higher
activities,--in its literature, its art, its religion,--it becomes an
interesting problem to inquire into the character and status of woman
among the Greek peoples. We do not desire to know merely the purely
external features of feminine life among the Greeks, such as their
dress, their ornaments, their home surroundings; we would, above all,
investigate the subjective side of their life--how they regarded
themselves, and were regarded by men; how they reasoned, and felt, and
loved; how they experienced the joys and sorrows of life; what part they
took in the social life of the times; how their conduct influenced the
actions of men and determined the course of history; what were their
moral and spiritual endowments;--in short, we should like to know the
Greek woman in all those phases of life which make the modern woman
interesting and influential and the conserving force in human society.
Yet, when we estimate our sources of information, we find that there is
no problem in the whole range of Greek life so difficult of solution as
that concerning the status and character of Greek women.

The first condition of a successful study of Greek women is to
familiarize one's self with the _milieu_ in which they lived and moved.
To do this we must adapt ourselves to a manner of life and to
conceptions and feelings widely different from our own. The Greek spirit
of the fifth century before the Christian era has but little in common
with the spirit of the twentieth century; and unless we gain some
insight into the spirit of the Greeks, we cannot understand the
fundamental differences between the life of the Greek woman and that of
the modern woman. Let us note a few respects in which this difference
shows itself.

The Greek attitude toward nature was that of reverent children who saw
everywhere therein manifestations of the divine. To them everything was
what we call supernatural. If wine gladdened the heart of man, it was
the influence of a god. If love stirred the breast, a god was inspiring
man with a sweet influence, and the divine power must not be resisted.
The gods themselves yielded to the impulses of love; why should not men?
Furthermore, Greek thought conceived of the human being as the noblest
creation of nature. Christian theology conceives of the body as the
prison house of the soul, from which the soul must escape to attain its
highest development; the Greeks, on the other hand, regarded body and
soul as forming a complete, inseparable, and harmonious unit. There was
no impulse toward distinguishing between the two, no restless reaching
out toward something regarded as higher and nobler; seeing infinite
possibilities in man as man, the Greek sought only the idealization of
the human being as such, the completion and realization of the highest
type of humanity, physical and spiritual. Because of this peculiar
conception of man, the gods of the Greeks rose out of nature and did not
transcend it. Some of them were personifications of the forces of
nature; others were merely, according to Greek ideas, the highest
conceptions of what was admirable in man and woman. When we consider the
goddesses of the Olympian Pantheon, we see that this conception of the
ideal in woman must have been very high, manifesting itself in the
characters of Hera, the goddess of marriage and of the birth of
children; Athena, "intellect unmoved by fleshly lust, the perfection of
serene, unclouded wisdom;" Demeter, goddess of agriculture and of the
domestic life; Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty and the
idealization of feminine graces and charm; Artemis, the maiden divinity
never conquered by love, and the protectress of maidens; and Hestia,
goddess of the hearth and preserver of the sanctity of the home.

It is difficult for us to appreciate the passionate love of beauty which
animated the Greeks.

      "What is good and fair
      Shall ever be our care.
      That shall never be our care
      Which is neither good nor fair."

This immortal burden from the stanzas of Theognis, sung by the Muses and
Graces at the wedding of Cadmus and Harmonia, "strikes," says Symonds,
"the keynote to the music of the Greek genius." This innate love of
beauty, fostered by natural surroundings and held in restraint by a
sense of measure, was the most salient characteristic of the Greek
people. It is impossible for us to realize the intensity of the Greek
feeling for beauty; and to them the human body was the noblest form of
earthly loveliness. To illustrate, we may recall the incident of
Phryne's trial before the judges. Hyperides, her advocate, failing in
his other arguments, drew aside her tunic and revealed to them a bosom
perfectly marvellous in its beauty. Phryne was at once acquitted, not
from any prurient motives, but because "the judges beheld in such an
exquisite form not an ordinary mortal, but a priestess and prophetess of
the divine Aphrodite. They were inspired with awe, and would have deemed
it sacrilege to mar or destroy such a perfect masterpiece of creative
power." Nor was the Greek conception of beauty purely sensual. Through
the perfection of human loveliness