The man who searches effect for cause must find his goal most often in the influence of a woman. Not always for good; that could not be. But it would seem that all that has endured has been for good, and that the evil which has been wrought by woman--and it has not been slight--has been ephemeral in all respects. I know of no enduring evil that can be traced to a woman as its source; but I know of no constant good which did not find either its beginning or its fostering in a woman's thought or work. Poppæa leaves but a name; Agrippina leaves an example. It may be true of men that the evil that they do lives after them, while the good is oft interred with their bones; but it is not true of women. Of course, there is a sense in which it is true--in the descent from mother to son of the spirit of the unrighteous mother; but even this would not seem to hold as a rule, and the effects are often modified by the influence of a love for a higher nature. The sum of woman's influence upon the destinies of the world is good, the balance inclines steadily toward the best. Woman is the hope of the world.
It is to find the persistence of this influence that we search her history. Sometimes we shall find strange factors in the equation that gives the sum, strange methods of attaining the result; but the result itself is always plain. Nor is there ever entire lack of contemporary influence of good, even when the evil seems predominant. If we read of an Argive Helen bringing war and desolation upon a nation, we shall find in those same pages record of a Penelope teaching the world the beauty of faith and constancy. If we trace the story of a Cleopatra ruining men with a smile, we shall find in the same day an Octavia and a Portia. If we hear of the Capitol betrayed by a Tarpeia, we have not far to seek for a Cornelia, known to all time as the Mother of the Gracchi. And it is those who made for good whose names have come down to us as incentives and examples. The more closely we read our history, the more surely are we convinced that the tendency has always been upward; the progress has been steadfast from the beginning, and it has carried the world with it.
As I began with the statement that the history of woman is the history of the world, so I end. This truth at least is sure. The earth is very old; it has seen the coming and the going of many races, it has witnessed the rise and fall of uncounted dynasties, it has survived physical and social cataclysms innumerable; and it still holds on its way, serenely awaiting its end in the purpose of its Creator. What that end shall be no man may know; but it is the end to which woman shall lead it.G.C.L.
Johns Hopkins University.
PREFACE
It is the purpose of this volume to give a simple sketch of the history of Greek womanhood from the Heroic Age down to Roman times, so far as it can be gathered from ancient Greek literature and from other available sources for a knowledge of antique life. Greek civilization was essentially a masculine one; and it is really remarkable how scant are the references to feminine life in Greek writers, and how few books have been written by modern scholars on this subject. In the preparation of this work, the author has consulted all the authorities bearing on old Greek life, acknowledgment of which can only be made in general terms. He feels, however, particularly indebted to the following works: Mlle. Clarisse Bader, La Femme Grecque, Paris, 1872; Jos. Cal. Poestion, Griechische Philosophinnen, Norden, 1885; ibid., Griechische Dichterinnen, Leipzig, 1876; E. Notor, La Femme dans l'Antiquité Grecque, Paris, 1901; R. Lallier, De la Condition de la Femme Athénienne au Veme et au IVeme Siècle, Paris, 1875; Ivo Bruns, Frauenemancipation in Athen, Kiel, 1900; Walter Copeland Perry, The Women of Homer, New York, 1898; Albert Galloway Keller, Homeric Society, London, 1902; and Mahaffy's various works, especially Social Life in Greece from Homer to Menander, and Greek Life and Thought. In making quotations from Greek authors, standard translations have been used, of which especial acknowledgment cannot always be given, but Lang, Leaf and Myers' Iliad, Butcher's and Lang's Odyssey, Wharton's Sappho, and Way's Euripides, call for particular mention.
In the spelling of Greek proper names the author has endeavored to adapt himself to the convenience of his readers by being consistently Roman, and has used in most cases the Latin forms. He has retained, however, the Greek forms where usage has made them current, as Poseidon, Lesbos, Samos, etc., and has invariably adopted forms, neither Greek nor Latin, which have become universal, as Athens, Constantinople, Rhodes, and the like. The Greek names of Greek divinities have been preferred to their Roman equivalents.
To conclude, my thanks are due to the publishers for their uniform courtesy and help, and to Mr. J.A. Burgan for the careful reading of the proof; nor could I have undertaken and carried through the work without the sympathetic aid and encouragement of my wife.
MITCHELL CARROLL.
The George Washington University.