Fig. 49.—Etruscan Vase.
That dress was a matter of important thought with woman there also, is beyond doubt; and the textures of the chitons and himations, the proper colors of their bands and their girdles, caused much perplexity to the beautiful Greek maiden, as they have to the beautiful American of to-day. But the Greek seems to have escaped one great misery and mystery—her fashions did not change; no staff of designing men was working with swift brain, hand, and pencil, in Athens or Corinth, to perplex her delicate mind with fashion-books, thus forcing her into exquisite torture, and keeping her there. The pictures upon the vases continuing through many centuries, show no very marked changes in dress. Was woman, then, supremely happy? Who can say! Besides dress, there can be no question, from the large numbers of perfume-bottles and vases of clay, as well as from the quantity of those of glass found by Cesnola in his excavations, that a very great degree of luxury, if not of dandyism, was reached by the women as well as the men in that “good old day of Greece.” We know something of the luxury, the lavish daintiness of Alcibiades and his friends, but very little of that of their wives.
There was, however, an evil thing in Greece, and one which the Greek wife felt strongly, keenly—it was the hetairai, the demi-monde of the great cities. Nowhere except in England and America has the virtue of married woman been held at so extreme and exalted a height, nowhere has its sale been lowered to such a depth, as in Athens.
Among the hetairai of Athens and Corinth were found the most beautiful, the most brilliant, and the most highly-cultivated women of Greece; to them every attraction was of inestimable value, and whatever would charm men was to be sought and seized. That among them were women of great mental gifts, of much political knowledge, of highly-cultivated artistic perceptions, we have every reason to believe; that the hetairai made their houses as attractive as possible we may also believe; and in them, we do not doubt, were found some of the best examples of the art of Greece outside the temples and the gymnasia. Here we may suppose that the fine vases found appreciative recipients, as well as appreciative admirers among men. That all who sold their charms were what we term “abandoned” is not true; they did not so consider themselves, and were not so esteemed among the men or women of Greece; that some of them, many of them, became so, is beyond doubt true. But among them some (how many who can tell?) were cultivated, interesting, able, there is no doubt; and that they continued so. It was long the fashion to suppose and to say that the poetess Sappho, and the politician Aspasia, were courtesans, which hardly any man will now maintain. As to the former less is known, but Aspasia, though not legally married to Pericles (as she could not be), was virtually his wife and partner through all his life, in his schemes for governing, exalting, and beautifying Athens. Her house then was the most beautiful, the most complete, and the most attractive, in Athens; and to it resorted the most noted statesmen, rhetoricians, philosophers, wits, and artists, of that most remarkable city and time.
