Greek Women

by Mitchell Carroll

Other pieces of sculpture on the Acropolis magnify the office of woman in the religious ceremonials in honor of the patron goddess. One of the porticoes of the Erectheum represents maidens of dignified mien and great beauty holding up the entablature with perfect ease and stately grace. These figures are usually called Caryatides, a name applied by the architect Vitruvius to designate figures of this kind; he ascribes its origin to the destruction of the town of Carya, in the Peloponnesus, by the Athenians, because it espoused the Persian side, the women of the town being sold into slavery; but surely the Athenians would not have so honored the disgraced women of a hostile city. Could they not portray, in marble, the Arrephoric maidens, and could not the basket-like burdens on their heads represent the burdens which they carried down from the Acropolis, and those which they received instead? The Athenians, indeed, called the figures merely Korai, or "the maidens."

Furthermore, excavations at Athens made in 1886 brought to light a number of statues of maidens, which now adorn one of the rooms of the Acropolis Museum. They are all of one type,--life-size figures of young women, all standing in the same attitude, with one arm extended from the elbow, while the other hand holds the long and elegant drapery close about the figure; their hair is elaborately arranged, and ringlets fall over their necks and shoulders. These statues are relics of days before the Persian War. The Persians sacked Athens in B.C. 480, and wrought general havoc on the Acropolis, burning temples, throwing down columns, demolishing statues. When the Athenians, flushed with victory, returned to their ruined homes, they regarded as unhallowed all that had been touched by the hands of the barbarian, and therefore, in building up anew the Acropolis as the sacred precinct of Athena, they extended and levelled its surface and filled in the hollows thus made with the debris of the Acropolis--architectural blocks, statues, and vessels; and these relics of pre-Persian art lay thus securely buried for ages, to be revealed to modern eyes by the pickaxe of the archæologist. Now, who are these maidens, standing in conventional pose, with regular and finely moulded features, and with richly adorned drapery and elaborate headdress? They cannot represent priestesses of Athena, for the priestess was always an elderly lady, who, after being chosen, held office for the rest of her life. Nor can they represent the goddess herself, for all her usual attributes--the ægis, the spear, the helmet, the snake--are absent. Hence we probably have in these statues portraits of votaries of Athena, young women of the aristocratic families of Athens, who placed statues of themselves in the sacred precinct of the goddess to serve as symbols of perpetual homage.

Finally, certain maidens of Athens of the Heroic Age were later deified and themselves given sacred precincts on the Acropolis. King Cecrops had three daughters--- Aglauros, Herse, and Pandrosus. When Erectheus, the son of Earth by Hephæstus, was born, half of his form being like that of a snake,--a sign of his origin,--the child was put into a chest by Athena, who then gave it to the daughters of Cecrops to take care of, at the same time forbidding them to open it. Aglauros and Herse disobeyed, and, in terror at the serpent-shaped child, went mad and threw themselves from the rock of the Acropolis. Pandrosus, the faithful maiden, was rewarded by being made the first priestess of Athena, and was later honored by having a sanctuary of her own, next to that of the goddess; while Aglauros had to rest content with a cavern on the northern slope of the Acropolis, near where she had thrown herself down.

The celebrations in honor of Dionysus, the god of luxuriant fertility and especially of the grape, were exceedingly simple at first, according to Plutarch, being merely "a rustic procession carrying a vine-wreathed jar and a basket of figs"; but later there was a festival at every stage in the growth of the grape and in the making of the wine, and especially at the approach of vintage time, and when the vintage was put into the press. There were processions and rustic dances, and all the usual features of the carnival, as the revellers became more and more under the influence of the god. In these revels, women consecrated to this divinity, and called Bacchantes or Mænads, formed a special group. The symbol of their worship was a thyrsus--a pole ending with a bunch of vine or ivy leaves, or with a pine cone and a fillet. At intervals the procession would stop, and one of the revellers would mount a wagon or a platform and recount to those below, disguised as Pans and Satyrs, the adventures of the god of wine and joy. From these rustic masquerades emerged in time both Tragedy and Comedy.

Of the festivals in the city, the Anthesteria, or Feast of Flowers, was of most interest to the fair sex. This festival occurred in the spring--when the preceding year's wine was tasted for the first time--and lasted three days. Its principal feature was the Feast of Beakers, which began at sunset with a great procession. Those who took part in it appeared, wearing wreaths of ivy and bearing torches, in the Outer Ceramicus. This festival was in the especial charge of the king-archon, and the wife of that magistrate played the chief role in the ceremonies. Maidens and matrons appeared, disguised as Horæ, Nymphs, or Bacchantes, and crowded round the triumphant car on which the ancient image of Dionysus, was conveyed to the town. At a certain stage in the procession, the king-archon's wife, known as the Basilissa, was given a seat in the car, beside the image of Dionysus, for on this day she was the symbolical bride of the god. Thus, on this joyous wedding day, the nuptial procession conducted the car to the temple of the god in Limnai.

In the inmost shrine of the temple a mystic sacrifice for the welfare of the State was offered by the Basilissa and the fourteen ladies of honor expressly appointed by the archon for this purpose. After the sacrifice, with which numerous secret ceremonies were connected, the mystic union of Dionysus, and the Basilissa was celebrated, symbolizing the sacred marriage of the god with his much-loved city. On the following day, among other ceremonies, the ladies of honor offered sacrifices to Dionysus, on various specially erected altars.

These were joyous occasions; there were, however, sombre Dionysia, which were celebrated by night, in the winter season, when the god was thought to be absent or dead; because the vine was then withered and lifeless. Such celebrations commemorated only grief and regret. At this season, women of Athens left their homes and sought the slopes of Mount Parnassus, to join the women of Delphi in savage rites celebrating the sufferings of Dionysus. In these Bacchantes, religious fervor was transformed into the wildest delirium. "With dishevelled hair and torn garments they ran through the woods, bearing torches and beating cymbals, with savage screams and violent gestures. A nervous excitement brought distraction to the senses and to the mind, and showed itself in wild language and gestures, and the coarsest excesses were acts of devotion. When the Mænads danced madly through the woods, with serpents wreathed about their arms, or a dagger in their hands, with which they struck at those whom they met; when intoxication and the sight of blood drove the excited throng to frenzy--it was the god acting in them, and consecrating them as his priestesses. Woe to the man who should come upon these mysteries! he was torn to pieces; even animals were thus killed, and the Mænads devoured their quivering flesh and drank their warm blood." In the ardor inspired by their mad orgies, these votaries did not distinguish between man and beast, and a mother once tore to pieces her son, whom she mistook for a young lion, and proudly placed on the end of her thyrsus the bleeding head of her offspring. Euripides, in his Bacchanals, has drawn a sombre picture of the excesses into which the wine god led his inspired followers. Similar orgies, which took their rise in Lydia, were held on the summits of Taÿgetus and in the plains of Macedon and Thrace.

Though certain Attic women, under the frenzy of religious enthusiasm, would join the Delphian women in their wild rites of Dionysus, this orgiastic worship was never popular at Athens. The Athenian ladies much preferred the worship of Demeter, the goddess of agriculture and of domestic life.

The Thesmophoria, the festival in honor of Demeter and her daughter, Persephone, contrasted greatly with the Panathenæa. The latter was public and was participated in by all; the former was secret, and only married women could take part in it. The Panathenæa celebrated the political and intellectual supremacy of the State, as symbolized in its patron goddess; the Thesmophoria was the festival of domestic life, held in honor of the goddess of virtuous marriage and the author of the earth's fertility.

This festival was celebrated in October, at the period of the autumnal sowing. Every citizen of Athens who possessed property to the amount of three talents was compelled to furnish his wife with sufficient money to enable her to celebrate the Thesmophoria; this was the extent of male participation. For many days, the women had to prepare themselves for the solemn rites by fasting, abstinence, and purifications; two of their number were chosen from each tribe by their companions to prepare and preside over the various features of the celebration. On the first day of the Thesmophoria, the women went to the primitive seat of the celebration at Halimus, near the promontory of Colias, not in a formal procession, but in small groups, and at the hour of nightfall. The comic side of the Demeter festivals exhibited itself on the way, as the participants recognized each other with jests and raillery, recalling by this the pleasantries with which the maiden lambé caused Demeter to smile, when the latter was afflicted with melancholy over the loss of her daughter; and woe to the man who met these women! for he became the victim of the most scornful mockery and sarcasm. At Halimus, in the sanctuary of Demeter, the mysteries were celebrated by night; the following day was spent in taking purifying baths in the sea and in playing and dancing on the shore. After enjoying their freedom here for a day or more, the women set out in a long procession for Athens, while priestesses bore in caskets on their heads the Thesmai, or the laws of Demeter, whence the festival took its name.