Cleopatra's character is a most fascinating and baffling study. Of many faults and vices she was guilty, but they were characteristic of her age. Her virtues must have been also many, for had she not possessed virtues she would not have been loved and admired by all who knew her. Her faithful attendants, Iras and Charmion, sacrificed themselves over her dead body, and by their devotion made even the Roman Proculius exclaim, in the words of Plutarch: "No other woman on earth was ever so admired by the greatest, so loved by the loftiest. Her fame echoed from nation to nation throughout the world. It will continue to resound from generation to generation; but, however loudly men may extol the bewitching charm, the fervor of the love which survived death, her intellect, her knowledge, the heroic courage with which she preferred the tomb to ignominy--the praise of these two must not be forgotten. Their fidelity deserves it. By their marvellous end they unconsciously erected the most beautiful monument to their mistress; for what genuine goodness and lovableness must have been possessed by the woman who, after the greatest reverses, made it seem more desirable to those nearest to her person to die rather than to live without her!"
Cleopatra was not a great queen, regarded as a ruler, yet she did a great service to her country in preserving its independence for a score of years after it had reached its end by a natural process of degeneracy; but she accomplished this end by the arts of intrigue. Cleopatra was too essentially a woman to be a great ruler, having all a woman's weaknesses, a woman's faults, and yet withal the charms and graces that make woman beautiful and lovable. Yet when we weigh her character with due reference to the times in which she lived, to the family influences which moulded her early years, and to the degeneracy of the Ptolemies to which she fell heir, she must rank as one of the best of her dynasty. Horace, the Roman poet, called Cleopatra: "non humilis mulier "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety." Cleopatra's intimate relations with Rome's greatest men, and the conversion of her kingdom into a Roman province after her death, but emphasize the fact that all Hellenistic lands were at that time in the power of Rome and that the period of Græco-Roman culture had begun much earlier. In B.C. 146 had occurred the destruction of Corinth and the absorption of Old Greece into a part of the Roman province of Macedon, and from that time Rome exerted a marked influence over the social life of Hellas. One of the chief characteristics of this age was the freer life of women of all classes. Even in Athens and Boeotia, the mistress of the house obtained her rights as mother and hostess. Perhaps it was in imitation of what they saw in Rome, perhaps it was merely the natural process of evolution, but, at any rate, the recognition of the capabilities and the elevated position of woman was general. Plutarch is the best chronicler of Greek life in the first century after the Christian era, and his works abound in precepts on the relations of the sexes, in whose equality he was a firm believer, and on the proper training and education of woman. His own wife, Timoxena, paid visits and received guests even when her husband was absent, shared fully the intellectual life of her husband, and took part in all his public interests. The age was mending its manners. New ideas were prevailing among men. Woman was becoming more and more fully a factor in the world. Yet, for her complete emancipation, there was need of a new dogma, a great revelation, which would bring about startling reforms in the moral and social life of mankind. Already "the Word had been made flesh, and dwelt among them full of grace and truth"; yet the great writers of the first century of our era, Dion, Plutarch, even Josephus, seem never to have heard of the new teaching which had been preached throughout Asia Minor and at Athens and Corinth--the new teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, which was destined to overturn the prevailing conception of woman and her status and to lead her into a fulness of life such as had never been conceived in the imagination of even the most elevated of her sex. In Cleopatra and other Greek women considered in the volume, we have observed from time to time the highest development of feminine endowments, physical, intellectual, or sensuous. The ethereal beauty of Helen, the poetic fervor of Sappho, the intellectual temper of Aspasia, the artistic temperament of Phryne, and the seductive sensibility of Cleopatra--these exhibit phases of feminine perfection that have not found their counterparts in modern times. Yet in each instance mentioned there was the one thing needful--the corresponding development of the moral and spiritual nature. These women were but pagans. Each sought in her own way to attain the highest perfection possible to woman; still, for them the truth was but seen in a glass darkly, and their philosophy had not yet taught them concerning the higher life of the spirit as distinct from the body. Yet the dominion established by Julius Caesar, which embraced all the Hellenistic lands, was even in Cleopatra's time preparing the way for the dominion of the Son of Man, who brought into the world new conceptions of womanhood, new influences destined to elevate and ennoble the sex and emphasize the higher elements in human character that the ancients had so sadly neglected. Pagan Woman attained unrivalled excellence in physical beauty, intellectual endowment, and sensuous charm; to Christian Woman was vouchsafed the light which dispelled the moral darkness of antiquity and made attainable the highest spiritual excellence.CONTENTS
[I] [II] [III] [IV] [V] [VI] [VII] [VIII] [IX] [X] [XI] [XII] [XIII] [XIV] [XV] |
[GENERAL INRODUCTION] [PREFACE] GREEK WOMEN WOMEN OF THE HEROIC AGE WOMEN OF THE ILIAD WOMEN OF THE ODYSSEY THE LYRIC AGE SAPPHO THE SPARTAN WOMAN THE ATHENIAN WOMAN ASPASIA APHRODITE PANDEMOS THE WOMAN QUESTION IN ANCIENT ATHENS THE GREEK WOMAN IN RELIGION THE GREEK WOMAN AND THE HIGHER EDUCATION THE MACEDONIAN WOMAN THE ALEXANDRIAN WOMAN |