In very early times the priestesses were allowed to marry; thus Homer speaks of the beautiful Theano, wife of Antenor, who was unanimously chosen priestess of Minerva. At later periods, all who were devoted to the service of the temples were required to live unmarried.
The oracles of the gods were universally uttered by women. The most celebrated was the Delphian oracle of Apollo. The priestess who uttered the prophetic words was called Pythia, or Pythonissa. She was obliged to observe the strictest rules of temperance and virtue, and to clothe herself in simple, modest, and maidenly apparel. They neither anointed nor wore purple garments, because such habits belonged to the rich and luxurious. In early times the Pythia was chosen from young maidens; but in consequence of a brutal insult offered to one of them, the selection was ever after made from women more than fifty years old. Before the prophetess ascended the tripus, where she was to receive inspiration, she bathed herself, especially her hair, in the fountain of Castalia, at the foot of Parnassus. When she seated herself upon the tripus, she shook the laurel tree, that grew near it, and sometimes ate the leaves, which were thought to contain some virtue favorable to prophecy. In a short time she began to foam at the mouth, tear her hair, and cut her flesh, like a maniac. The words she uttered during these paroxysms were the oracles. The fits were more or less violent; sometimes comparatively gentle. Plutarch speaks of one enraged to such a degree that the terrified priests ran from her, and she died soon after. The time of consulting the oracle was only one month, in the spring of the year.
Women had their share in sacred festivals among the Greeks. In the processions of the Panathenæa, in honor of Minerva, women clothed in white carried torches and the sacred baskets. At the annual solemnity in honor of Hyacinthus and Apollo, the Laconian women appeared in magnificent covered chariots, and sometimes in open race-chariots. At the processions in honor of Juno, her priestess, who was always a matron of the highest rank, rode in a chariot drawn by white oxen. Aristophanes describes the wife and daughter of a citizen as assisting in the ceremonials of a rural sacrifice to Bacchus. The girl carried a golden basket filled with fruit, and a ladle with which certain herbs were poured over the sacred cakes. Her father followed, singing a hymn to the god, while the mother, standing on the house-top, watched the procession, and charged her daughter to conduct herself like a lady, as she was, and to be cautious lest her golden ornaments were stolen in the crowd.
One of the most ancient ceremonies among the Greek women was that of bewailing annually, with dirges and loud cries, the death of Adonis. Processions were formed, and images of Venus and Adonis carried aloft, together with shells filled with earth, in which lettuces were growing. This was done in commemoration of Adonis laid out by Venus on a bed of lettuce.
In Attica, all girls not over ten or under five were consecrated to the service of Diana, during a solemnity which took place once in five years. On that occasion all female children of the proper age appeared dressed in yellow robes, while victims were offered to the goddess, and certain men sung one of Homer’s Iliads. No Athenian woman was allowed to be married unless this ceremony had been performed.
The festival in honor of Ceres was observed with much solemnity at Athens. None but free-born women were allowed to be present; and every husband who received a portion of three talents with his wife, was obliged to assist in defraying the expenses. The women were assisted in the ceremonials by a priest, who wore a crown, and by certain maidens, who were strictly secluded, kept under severe discipline, and maintained at the public charge. The solemnity lasted four days. All the women who aided in it were clothed in simple white garments, without ornaments or flowers. Not the slightest immodesty or merriment was permitted; but it was a custom to say jesting things to each other, in memory of Jambe, who by a jest extorted a smile from Ceres, when she was discouraged and melancholy. On one of the festival days, the women walked in procession to Eleusis, carrying books on their heads, in memory of Ceres, who was said to have first taught mankind the use of laws; on this occasion it was against the law for any one to ride in a chariot. There was likewise a mysterious sacrifice to Ceres, from which all men were excluded; this was said to have been because in a dangerous war, the prayers of women so prevailed with the gods, that their enemies were driven away.
The custom of offering human beings as sacrifices to the gods was regarded with great abhorrence by the primitive Greeks; but several instances occurred in later times where captives taken in war were devoted to this purpose. There is reason to suppose that the victims were generally men; but there were exceptions to this remark. Bacchus had an altar in Arcadia, upon which young damsels were beaten to death with bundles of rods. Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon, was likewise about to be sacrificed to Diana, because the soothsayer so decreed, when the Greeks were kept back from the Trojan war by contrary winds; and Macaria, the daughter of Hercules and Dejanira, voluntarily offered herself as a victim, when the oracle declared that one of her father’s family must die, to insure victory over their enemies. Great honors were paid to the memory of this patriotic girl, and a fountain in Marathon was called by her name.
The Athenian slaves were much protected by the laws. If a female slave had cause to complain of any want of respect to the laws of modesty, she could seek the protection of the temple, and demand a change of owners; and such appeals were never discountenanced or neglected by the magistrates.
The Milesian women being at one period much addicted to suicide, a law was passed that all who died by their own hands should be exposed to the public; and this effectually prevented an evil, which no other means had been able to prevent.
The customs of Sparta differed in many respects from the rest of Greece. When a match was decided upon, the mother, or nurse of the bride, or some other woman who presided over the arrangements, shaved the girl’s hair, dressed her in masculine attire, and left her alone in an apartment at evening. The lover, in his every-day clothes, sought an opportunity to enter by stealth, but took care to return to his own abode before daylight, that his absence might not be detected by his companions. In this manner only did custom allow them to visit their wives, until they became mothers. Lycurgus passed a law forbidding any dowry to be given to daughters, in order that marriage might take place from motives of affection only. Marriage was much encouraged in every part of Greece, and peculiarly so in Sparta. The age at which both sexes might marry was prescribed by law, and any man who lived without a wife beyond the limited time was liable to severe penalties. Once every winter, they were compelled to run round the forum without clothing, and sing a certain song, the words of which exposed them to ridicule; they were not allowed to be present at the exercises where beautiful young maidens contended; on a certain festival, the women were allowed to drag them round an altar, beating them with their fists; and young people were not required to treat them with the same degree of respect that belonged to fathers of families.