CHAPTER II.
WOMEN OF DORIC STATES.
The women of Sparta were even in Greece remarkable for their personal beauty. Their education and exercises promoting their health and physical energies, aided, at the same time, the natural developement of the frame, with all its inherent symmetry and proportion. It is probable, however, that the charms of Helen may have led on this point to some misapprehension; but Helen belonged to the old heroic race, with which the Dorians of Sparta had nothing in common, that is, like so many other women celebrated by the poets of after times for their beauty, was an Achæan. Still, lovely they were, well-formed, brilliant of complexion, with features of much regularity, and eyes into which exuberant health infused a sparkling brightness irresistibly pleasing. But it would require to be peculiarly constituted to pronounce them the most beautiful women in all Greece.[[1089]] They were what in modern phrase would be termed fine women, but exceeding considerably what we deem true feminine proportions, being, in fact, a sort of female grenadiers, robust, vigorous, bull-stranglers, as Lysistrata[[1090]] somewhat ironically expresses it, their beauty was rather that of men, than of women. Some among the Greeks preferred, it is true, ladies of this large growth. Thus, we find Xenophon, in the Anabasis, expressing his apprehension that should his countrymen become acquainted with the fine tall women of Persia, they would, like the Lotos-eaters, forget the way to their country and their home.[[1091]] But this was a taste which never became general. The beauty which excited most admiration, where beauty constituted the noblest object of literature and art, was a kind totally different in character, exquisitely feminine, gentle, soft, retiring, modest, instinct with grace and delicacy, the parasite of the moral creation, clinging round man for support, but imparting more than it receives.
Such beauty, however, would have been inconsistent with the aim of Lycurgus. Like a well-known modern despot, this great legislator aimed solely at creating a nation of grenadiers, and to effect this, both the education, laws, and manners of Sparta received a military impress. Everything there breathed of the camp. The girls from their tenderest years, instead of being instructed as in other communities to entwine all their feelings round the domestic hearth, and expect their chiefest happiness at home, were systematically undomesticated, brought incessantly into contact with men, initiated in immoral habits, subversive of the female character,[[1092]] and taught to consider themselves designed to be the wives of the state rather than of individuals. Nature, the legislator was aware, has implanted the principles of love and modesty deep in the female heart; in general also, to eradicate one, is to root up the other; and both in the sense in which we contemplate them, being inimical to the purpose which his constitution was intended to promote, he sought to subvert the power of love by obliterating from the female mind every trace of maidenly modesty.
The power of political institutions over the feelings of the heart, over manners, over habits, over conscience, and opinions, was never so strikingly exemplified as at Sparta. Whatever the legislator determined to be good was good.[[1093]] Example, affection, nature pleaded in vain. An iron system, strong as fate, encircled the whole scope of life, repressing every aspiration tending above the point prescribed, guiding every wish into a given channel, curbing every passion inconsistent in its full developement with the views of the legislator. Aristotle, indeed, maintains that while the men of Sparta conformed to the design of the constitution, the women refused to bend their neck to the yoke, and persisted in the enjoyment of a freedom constantly degenerating into licentiousness.[[1094]] He probably, however, supposes the existence in Lycurgus of a moral purpose, far loftier than he really aimed at. The virtues of a camp—and Sparta was nothing else—are never too rigid, nor must we look among female camp-followers for much of that delicacy, reserve, self-control, or keen sense of what is just and upright, of which none judge more accurately than well educated women. Doubtless the Doric lawgiver cherished no other design than to promote the happiness of his countrymen. It would be unjust to suppose otherwise. But how far the regulations by which he sought to effect this purpose were calculated to ensure success, is what we have to inquire.
It may at once be observed that Lycurgus’s system of female education was the furthest possible removed from common place. He contemplated both the sexes in nearly the same point of view. Their form he saw; and in many points their character, their affections, their virtues, their vices, bear a close resemblance; and in his conception, perfection would be attained, if all such discriminating marks as nature has set up could be removed, and every quality of what he considered the superior sex transferred to the inferior. Much misapprehension appears to exist on this point. Writers pretend that among the Dorians the female character stood in high estimation, while the reverse they suppose to have been the case in Ionic States. But the Dorians betrayed their contempt for women as they came from the hands of nature, by endeavouring to convert them into men; their neighbours the reverse, by contenting themselves with their purely feminine qualities, which among people of Ionic race were cultivated and improved, perhaps, as far as was consistent with domestic happiness.
In the harems of the East the whip is of great service in maintaining order, and the same, it is evident, was the case at Sparta. Both youths and virgins from their tenderest years were subjected to a severe discipline; regular floggers, as at our own great schools, always attended the inspectors of public instruction; and in this the system was wise, that habits were more regarded than acquisitions.[[1095]] But of the habits cherished by the Spartan system we cannot always approve. Like the boys, the virgins frequented the gymnasia, where, naked as at their birth, they exercised themselves in wrestling, running, pitching the quoit, and throwing the javelin.[[1096]] To these accomplishments, others, according to a Roman poet, still less feminine were added. They contended, he says, in the ring with men, bound the cestus on their clenched fists, and boxed their future husbands like so many prize-fighters. No wonder that the partners of such women were henpecked. Horsemanship, the sword exercise, and the rough sports of the chase, affected by women of similar character in our own country, completed the circle of female studies,[[1097]] and rendered the Spartan maids something more than a match for their worse halves, whether after marriage or before.[[1098]]
Some pains have in our own days been taken to pare away the roughnesses, and obliterate the peculiar features of the Doric educational institutions, in order to bring them into greater uniformity with modern notions. There is no probability, we are told, that either youths or men were permitted to be present at the extraordinary exhibition of the female gymnasia.[[1099]] But whence is this inference derived? From the delicacy of Spartan manners in other respects? And are we in fact reduced on this curious point to depend on inferences and probabilities? On the contrary, we are informed by antiquity that besides the personal advantages of health and vigour, derived to the women themselves, the legislator contemplated others little less important, the promotion of marriage and the recreation of all the useful portion of the citizens. For while the married men and youths intent on connubial happiness, enjoyed the free entry to these gymnasia,[[1100]] those sullen egotists called bachelors were very properly excluded. The former had some property in the young ladies, who were their daughters, sisters, or future spouses, but persons avowedly indifferent to the seductive influence of female charms could have no business there.
Admitting, therefore, that when the Spartan virgins[[1101]] performed in the gymnasia, for we must consider their exercises partly in the light of scenic exhibitions, the whole city, bachelors excepted, could be present, it remains to be seen what other accomplishments they could display for the public entertainment. Singing and dancing it has been shown were practised publicly by ladies of rank in the heroic ages, and this feature of ancient manners was preserved at Sparta, where not youths and maidens only, but even the grave and aged joined, during several great festivals, in the dance and the song.[[1102]] But we must beware how we apply to these performances the ideas suggested by those of modern times, or the gay and graceful movements of Ionian women. To dance at Sparta required great physical force.[[1103]] The maidens, unencumbered by dress, bounded aloft like an Anatole or a Taglioni, but instead of twirling round with one foot on earth, and the other suspended at right angles in air, the supreme merit of her performance consisted in slapping the back part of the body with her heel for the greatest possible number of times in succession.[[1104]] In this feat, which resembles strongly a Caribbee or Iroquois accomplishment, whole troops of men and women often united; an exhibition which with the shouts of laughter arising from the bystanders, the grins of the girls, and the wilful mistakes of young men who might send their feet in the wrong direction, must convey a curious idea of Spartan gravity. Such, however, was the celebrated dance called Bibasis,[[1105]] upon the frequent execution of which a Laconian girl prided herself no less than a modern lady on her activity in the indecent waltz.
But the other dances in which the Spartan maidens excelled were numerous. Among them was the Dipodia[[1106]] of which the nature is not exactly known, but it was accompanied by music and song and apparently consisted of a series of orgiastic movements, like those of the Bacchantes when, inspired by wine, they bounded fawnlike with dishevelled hair along the mountains.[[1107]] On other occasions their movements were designed to express certain passions of the mind, sometimes, as in the Calabis,[[1108]] highly wanton and licentious, though the latitudinarian spirit of paganism contrived to admit them among the religious ceremonies, and that too in honour of Artemis. Another of these lewd dances performed in the worship of Apollo and his sister, and accompanied by songs, conceived no doubt in the same spirit, was the Bryallicha[[1109]], which the historian of the Doric race finds some difficulty to reconcile with the worship of Apollo, as if their deity had been himself free from the inherent vices of the Olympian dynasts. There was another dance called the Deicelistic[[1110]], a kind of rude pantomime intermingled with songs supposed to have been performed by unmarried women[[1111]].
To these dances may be added the Hyporchematic, which was executed by a chorus, while singing, for which reason Bacchylides says, “This is not the work of slowness or inactivity.” By Pindar it is described as a dance performed by Spartan girls; but in fact both young men and women united in the Hyporchema, and as this dance is said to have resembled or been identical with the Cordax[[1112]], it will assist us in forming a notion of female delicacy at Sparta, where young women could execute publicly in company with the other sex a dance scarcely less indelicate than the fandango or bolero[[1113]].