That the Athenians of this period were wholly given over to luxury and licentiousness is shown by the fact that at their bacchanalian feasts, the troops of women who were in attendance and who had been provided for the occasion by the generosity of the state, performed all their duties under direct and explicit instruction of the government “to disobey no order of a guest”; for which wise regulations Solon received the praise and commendation of Athenian men.
In a former portion of this work the fact has been noted that until well into the Latter Status of barbarism all women were protected; that among the Kaffirs, the Fiji Islanders, and various other peoples occupying a lower stage in the order of growth, women, although divested of their former influence, are still jealously guarded by the gens to which they belong; and that when maidens are bereft of home and near relatives, they are adopted into some other gens within the tribe where they are invested with the same rights as are its own members. Therefore when contemplating the social condition of the Athenians five or six hundred years B.C., we are naturally led to inquire: What were the causes which during one ethnical period had produced so marked a change in the position of the female sex? For an answer to our question we must recall the facts set forth in this volume relative to the capture of wives, together with the feeling of hatred entertained by early society for alien women.
In the time of Pericles, an age when Athens was at the height of its prosperity, the women of the city were divided into five classes as regarded their duties and uses. The first of these consisted of wives, who, for the most part, were kept in seclusion and allowed to exist solely for the purpose of propagating Greek citizens. These women were without influence, possessing no rights or privileges beyond the will of their “lords”; while to such an extent were they considered merely in the light of household furniture that they were not permitted to appear in public, nor to sit at table with their masters.
The following dialogue between Socrates and Ischomachus, a man who had managed his household in such a manner as to be “pointed out as a model for all Athens,” perhaps serves as a correct picture of the relations existing between husband and wife in the Periclean age. “I should like to know this particular from you,” said Socrates, “whether you yourself educated your wife so as to make her what she ought to be, or whether you received her from her parents with a knowledge of her duties?”—“And how could I have received her so educated, Socrates, when she came to me not fifteen years old, and had lived up to that time under the strictest surveillance that she might see as little as possible, and hear as little as possible, and inquire as little as possible?”
Of the five classes to which reference has been made, wives only were native-born, and as this particular class had specific duties to perform, severe penalties were attached to the crimes of seduction and rape when committed upon Athenian women. The remaining four classes were arranged according to the dignity of their associates, the highest in rank and repute being the hetairai, the members of which comprised the only free women in Athens. Themselves philosophers and stateswomen, their associates among males were of the same rank or station. They constituted a highly intellectual class, and as such were able to control not only their own movements, but to exercise a remarkable influence upon literature, art, and the affairs of state. Because of the important position occupied by these women, they will be referred to later in this work.
The next in rank were the auletrides, or flute-players. Many of the most fashionable of these were slaves who had been brought to Greece by speculators. We are informed that female musicians were a usual accompaniment to an Athenian banquet, and that flute-playing became an essential feature in the worship of several of their deities; hence, the services of this particular class were in demand, not only to heighten the enjoyment of social intercourse, but to stimulate and encourage religious enthusiasm. At public gatherings, after the dinner was over, and while the wine was flowing freely, these women made their appearance in a semi-nude condition, dancing and keeping time to the music by the graceful motion of their beautifully moulded figures. While the enthusiasm was at its height they were sold to the highest bidder. Fist fights, or hand-to-hand encounters for the possession of these female flute-players, were not uncommon occurrences in the best society in Athens.[230]
These scenes were performed under the sanction of religion and law; they therefore serve to reveal the true inwardness of the Greek character at this stage of development. It is reported that the finest houses in Alexandria were inscribed with the names of famous Greek auletrides. Of all the flute-players of Greece, Lamia is said to have been the most successful. For fifteen or twenty years she was the delight of the entire city of Alexandria and of King Ptolemy. Finally, when the city was taken by Demetrius of Macedon, Lamia was taken also. When she demanded that an immense tax be levied on the city of Athens for her benefit, it is recorded that although the people murmured at the amount, they nevertheless found it to their interest to deify her and erect a temple in her honour. According to the testimony of Plutarch, Lamia raised money on her own authority to provide an entertainment for the king.[231]
The fourth class consisted of concubines, or purchased slaves who were in the service of Athenian gentlemen (?). This appendage to the Greek family was a member of the household of her master where she was kept with the full knowledge of the wife, the latter occupying a position little if any superior to that of her rival. Indeed, as the purchased slave could be disposed of whenever the fancy or caprice of her master so dictated, and another installed in her place, it is reasonable to suppose that so long as she did remain, she was the object of quite as much attention as was the wife.
The lowest class, or those who were allowed the least freedom of action, were those known as the dicteriades. They were compelled to reside at a designated place, and were forbidden to be seen upon the streets by day. Nothing of a personal nature was allowed to interfere with the duties which were imposed upon them by their imperious masters. Their only duty was to obey.
By this time we are prepared to appreciate, to a certain extent, the moral aspect of Greek society during the years intervening between the age of Solon and that of Pericles, a period of about a century and a half. That all women, wives and concubines, native-born and foreign, had been dragged to the lowest depths of disgrace and shame and that they were classified and arranged to meet the demands of those who through the unchecked tendencies inherent in the male nature had reached the lowest level of infamy to which it is possible for living creatures to descend, are facts which are only too plainly shown by those whose duty it has been to record the events connected with the history of the Greeks.