Greek Women

by Mitchell Carroll

In historical times, the Thessalian women were noted for their knowledge of the virtues of plants, and were acquainted with all forms of witchcraft. They were frequently consulted for the preparation of "love potions," and, as midwives, were in demand throughout Hellas. Women naturally preferred women's services in those ailments which are peculiar to the sex; but in ancient Athens, so unfriendly to the female sex in its laws, there was a statute forbidding the practice of gynæcology by women as a profession. Women rebelled, but their complaints were without avail.

Agnodice, whose date is not known, was the name of the courageous maiden who broke the prevailing traditions and won a natural right for her sex. She conceived the idea of studying medicine in secret until she became an expert, and then of offering her services to women, also in secret, for medical treatment, especially in cases of maternity. To this end, she cut off her hair, adopted masculine apparel, and, as a promising youth, took instruction in medicine from Hierophilus, a celebrated physician. Her progress was rapid, and when she was pronounced sufficiently equipped for independent practice she revealed her identity to prospective mothers, who gladly availed themselves of her services, so that she soon obtained the monopoly of this kind of practice. The other physicians were naturally overcome with jealousy and chagrin that the young doctor should supplant them, and finally they brought charges of malpractice against the supposed youth. Agnodice was brought to trial, and in self-defence was compelled to reveal her sex. The older physicians then endeavored to have the laws enforced against her; but all the prominent ladies of the city took her part, and the obnoxious laws were repealed.

From that time forward, large numbers of women studied medicine, the majority devoting their attention to the diseases of women and children. These female physicians frequently appear as medical writers, especially on gynæcology and pediatrics. They also produced many treatises on cosmetics, which ranked as a branch of hygiene and was cultivated most diligently by many eminent physicians. These women rivalled one another in the discovery of an endless variety of toilet preparations, beauty wafers, skin and hair ointments, pastes and powders, and wine essences for the removal of pimples and freckles.

In later and more immoral times, female physicians lent their talents gladly to demoralization and license, and wrote treatises on love potions and abortives--a disreputable form of literature very popular with the hetseræ, and which, according to Pliny, found diligent readers among the great ladies of Rome. Of all the numerous works of the feminine doctors, only fragments and excerpts have come down to us, and their loss is not greatly to be regretted. Yet credit is due to these women as pioneers in female emancipation, and the most eminent of them deserve to be rescued from oblivion.

The greatest was Aspasia--not the favorite of Pericles nor the devoted companion of Cyrus the Younger, but the "medical" Aspasia, who was a prominent figure in the Athens of the fourth century before the Christian era. She attained great fame, not only in women's diseases, but also in surgery and other branches of medicine, as may be judged from the titles of her works, preserved by Aëtius, a physician and writer of the fifth century of our era. It seems clear from what is known of her that the Athenian women saw nothing criminal in giving and using abortives. Even Aristotle desired to have a law regulating the number of children that might be borne by woman.

Antiochis, to whom Heraclides of Tarentum, one of the best physicians of antiquity, dedicated his works, was a practising female physician in Magna Græcia, in the third century before Christ, who devoted especial attention to salves and plaster cures. To the great Cleopatra has been ascribed the authorship of a work "on the medical means of preserving beauty"; but there were probably one or more physicians of this name, as there are various treatises ascribed to "Cleopatra." Other female physicians, of whom we know little more than the name and the titles of their works, are Olympias of Boeotia, Salpe, Elephantis, Sotira, Pamphile, Myro, Spendusa, Maia, and Berenice.

Space will not suffer us to do more than call attention to many wise and able women of Hellas who were eminent in other branches of learning. In historical writings, Thucydides's daughter is worthy of mention, as she is said to have composed the eighth book of her father's history of the Peloponnesian War; Nicobule, the author of a history of Alexander the Great, was another excellent woman writer. Plutarch gathered about him a learned circle of women, of whom the chief was Clea, the clever matron of Delphi, to whom he dedicated several of his works, and Eurydice, who enjoyed his instruction. Aganice, daughter of Hegetor of Thessaly, possessed an astonishing knowledge of astronomy, and was regarded as an enchantress. To Melanippe, the sculptor Lysistratus erected a monument as a tribute to her learning.

Alexandria, with its vast number of scholars, its libraries and museums, and its intellectual freedom for women, naturally produced a large number of women eminent in history and philology. Frequently philologists' daughters were trained from childhood by their fathers, and afterward became their companions and secretaries in literary labors. The most prominent of these literary feminine grammarians was doubtless Hestiæa of Alexandria, a Homeric scholar of note, who was the first to devote scientific attention to the topography of the Iliad and to throw doubt on the generally accepted view that New Ilium was the site of Ancient Troy. Pamphile, daughter of the grammarian Soteridas and wife of the scholar Socratidas, was a woman of wide erudition, celebrated especially as essayist and historian. Others whose names are associated with similar labors are Agallis, Theodora, and Theosebia.

When one reflects on the varied activity of Greek women, the conclusion forces itself upon him that they were intellectually as acquisitive and as brilliant as the Greek men, who have set the standard for the world in the realm of literature and science. Cleverness is the most salient characteristic of the Greek intelligence, and this trait belonged as truly to the female sex as to the male. The Renaissance furnishes examples of women renowned for their erudition and culture; but perhaps only the present age furnishes an adequate parallel to the varied intellectual activities of Greek women in the centuries that followed the decline of Greek independence and that saw the spread of Greek culture among all civilized peoples. Modern women can therefore learn much from their Greek sisters in all that pertains to the so-called emancipation of the sex.