Woman in the golden ages

by Amelia Gere Mason

II

It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that the great Athenians were without the sympathy and influence of educated women; indeed, it may be safely said that no great things in art or literature have ever been done without this inspiration. The ignorance of the Attic woman had its natural protest, though it did not come from an orthodox source. Respectability was on the side of servitude. It had a dull time, but it was decorous, and consoled itself, as it has often done since, with the reflection that dullness was its natural lot. No doubt it took pride in its nothingness, and looked with haughty disdain upon the clever foreign women who were free to do as they chose. Fashion is imperious, not to say cruel, and even the Chinese lady hobbles along on her distorted feet with a happy consciousness of distinction that amply repays her for all her suffering.

But social conventions had small weight with the foreign hetæræ or companions, who had no legal rights, and no caste to lose. The real power of women was in their hands. They were intelligent, often gifted, and the better class had refined and graceful manners, which the Athenian wives evidently had not. It was said of them that they were delicate at table, and not like the native women, who “stuffed their cheeks, and tore off the meat.” They were also noted for wit and esprit, a quality of volatilized intellect that has always had great social charm. These advanced women of the day, who cast into the shade their illiterate sisters, monopolized both attention and honors. Men praised the good women who stayed at home and looked after their families, but sought the society of clever ones who did neither of these fine things. With curious inconsistency, they found the culture which was reprehensible and out of the proper order of nature in their wives and daughters so charming in other women as to merit the highest distinction. Poets sang of them, artists immortalized them, statesmen and philosophers paid court to them.

’T is not for nothing that where’er we go
We find a temple of hetæræ there,
But nowhere one to any wedded wife,

says the poet.

Unfortunately, talent and the virtues did not always go together, and it is impossible, at this distance, to determine with any certainty who were good and who were not. In the conservative circles of Athens, intelligence itself was a vice in women, and put them under a ban. They might pray to Athena, and offer incense to her, and embroider her robes, but it would not do to take this personification of wisdom and knowledge for a model; indeed, it is not quite clear why so dangerous a representative of the sex that was thought to have no intellect worth considering should have been chosen to preside over all the Attic divinities. There was a time, according to Varro, when it had been customary for women to take part with men in public councils. In the early ages they voted to name Athens after Athena, outvoting the men by one. Poseidon was angry, and the sea overflowed. To appease the god, the citizens imposed a punishment on their wives. They were to lose their votes, the children were to receive no more their mother’s name, and they were no longer called Athenians. Perhaps this is why they were relegated forever after to ignorance and obscurity. Athena, however, retained her power, and men still worshiped the gray-eyed goddess in the abstract, as their fathers had done, doubtless quite content that the superfluous wisdom of woman should be given a pedestal so high and remote that it was not likely to cause serious inconvenience in family relations. But their personal devotion was largely reserved for Aphrodite, who was more beautiful and facile, if not so wise, and still less fit to be held up as a worthy example for her sex. The race had not greatly changed since its men went to their death for the “divine Helen,” and thought the world well lost for a sight of her radiant beauty.

The witty Phryne, whose exquisite face and form was made immortal by Apelles and Praxiteles, was given a statue of gold between two kings at Delphi. In the cypress-grove at Corinth there was a monument to the beautiful Lais, who had enriched the city with fine architecture. Lamia built a splendid portico for the people of Sicyon, and a temple at Athens was consecrated to her under the name of Aphrodite. One of the most striking and costly monuments in Greece was also erected there to Pythionice. The wit and fascination of Glycera brought her the honors due to a queen. Some of her letters to Menander were preserved, and they were said to show not only a tender and delicate sentiment, but a fine intellectual sympathy with her poet lover. No doubt the tributes offered to the notoriously dissolute women were largely the expression of a beauty-loving people who cherished “art for art’s sake.”

But there were other women with serious gifts of a high order, who were far less likely to be honored with temples and statues. Leontium, the disciple and favorite of Epicurus, wrote a treatise against Theophrastus that was quoted by Cicero as a model of style. She had a thoughtful face, and was painted in a meditative attitude by Theodorus. It matters little whether Diotima was Arcadian priestess or philosopher; she was the friend of Socrates, the counselor of the wisest and subtlest of men. It was her high and spiritual conception of love that he quoted at the famous symposium of Plato, raising the conversation from a curious blending of unholy passion and metaphysical subtlety to a region of light. Famous among the disciples of Pythagoras was Perictione, who attracted the attention of Aristotle by writing on such grave subjects as “Wisdom” and “The Harmony of Woman.” She was duly conservative, and accepted the passive position of her sex, dwelling on their need of a forbearing spirit. Possibly this amiable attitude accounts in part for the kind consideration of the philosopher. More advanced and less popular was Hipparchia, the wife of Crates, an eminent Cynic, who called the statue of Phryne “a votive offering of the profligacy of Greece.” She recognized virtue as the supreme end of life, but contended that “virtue is the same in a man as in a woman.” To Theodorus she said: “What Theodorus is not wrong in doing, the same thing Hipparchia ought not to be wrong in doing.” That she was severely attacked goes without saying. Such sentiments were subversive of the inalienable rights of man, in the code of the classic world. It was easier and more agreeable to discredit the woman than to raise their own standards. Themista, the wife of Leon, was a philosopher, corresponded with Epicurus, and was called by Cicero “a sort of female Solon.” Lastheneia was a pupil of Plato, and went so far as to disguise herself in a man’s robes in order to hear him discourse at the Academy.

Perhaps it is unfair to group these women together. They were of different shades, and not all contemporary. Some of them were Athenians. Of most of them we have no knowledge except such as may be gathered from a few passing words in connection with famous men, and even this is involved in doubt and contradiction. What were the attractions of Archaianassa, to whom Plato wrote sonnets, or did she ever exist outside of the realm of dreams?

For dear to me Theoris is,