[107]. Aristoph. Nub. 60. Married ladies occasionally rode out in carriages with their husbands. Demosth. cont. Mid. § 44. Even at Sparta we find young ladies possessed of their carriages called Canathra, resembling in form griffins, or goat-stags, in which they rode abroad during religious processions. Plut. Ages. § 19. Cf. Xenoph. Ages. p. 73. Hutchin. cum not. et add. p. 89. Athen. iv. 16, cum annot. p. 449. Scheffer, de Re Vehic. i. 7. p. 68. The same custom prevailed in Thessaly and elsewhere. Athen. xii. 37. Luxurious ladies at Athens used to perfume even the soles of their feet. Their lapdogs lived in great state, and slept on carpets of Miletos. Athen. xii. 78.
[108]. Xenarch. ap. Athen. xiii. 24.
[109]. Ἀκοσμοῦσαι. Harpocrat. v. ὅτι χίλιας. κ. τ. λ. Potter, Arch. Græc. ii. 309, understands his law to have meant, women who literally appeared laconically in the streets. “Undressed,” is his word. But will ἀκοσμοῦσαι which Meursius, Lect. Att. ii. 5, 62, renders by “inornatius,” bear such a signification? Κόσμος γυναικῶν does not, as Kühn observes, signify ornamentum mulierum, nor ἀκοσμοῦσαι inornatius prodeuntes feminæ; but κόσμος is εὐταξία and ἀκοσμοῦσαι means ἀτακτοῦσαι, that is, women who acted in any way whatever contrary to decorum and good manners, which persons appearing indecently dressed in public unquestionably do.—Ad. Poll. viii. 112. p. 763. On the manners of the Tyrrhenian women, Cf. Athen. xii. 14. sqq.
[110]. Il. γ. 396. sqq. Cf. 141.
[111]. Γυναικόσμοι. Poll. viii. 112.
[112]. Cf. Arist. Pol. iv. 15. 120.
[113]. On the luxurious manners of the Syracusan women see Athen. xii. 20. In such disorders may be discovered the first germs of the decay of states; on which account prudent statesmen even in oligarchies have sought to restrain the licentious manners of women. Thus Fra Paolo: “Let the women be kept chaste, and in order to that, let them live retired from the world; it being certain that all open lewedness has had its first rise from a salutation, from a smile.”—i. § 20. To this let us add the opinion of the female Pythagorician Phintys: ἴδια δὲ γυναικὸς, τὸ οἰκουρὲν, καὶ ἔνδον μένεν καὶ ἐκδέχεσθαι καὶ θεραπεύεν τὸν ἄνδρα. Stob. Florileg., 74. 61. Both the philosophical lady, however, and the Venetian monk have their views corroborated by the authority of Pericles: τῆς τε γὰρ ὑπαρχούσης φύσεως μὴ χείροσι γενέσθαι, ὑμῖν μεγάλη ἡ δόξα, καὶ οἷς ἂν ἐπ’ ἄρσεσι κλέος ᾖ. Thucyd. ii. 45. Besides leading a retired life, ladies were likewise expected to cultivate the virtue of silence. Soph. Ajax, 293. Hom. Il. ζ. 410.
[114]. Which, according to Plato, well-educated men generally are. De Repub. t. vi. p. 173.
[115]. Plat. De Repub. viii. 5. t. ii. p. 182. Stallb.
[116]. Mitford, Hist, of Greece, iii. 4. sqq. It appears not to have been common for these women to rear the children they bore, more particularly when they were girls. They flew to the practice of infanticide that they might remain at liberty. Lucian, Hetair. Diall. ii. 5. iv. 124.