The law also produced distinctions in the male population. They were divided into two classes—citizens to whom many privileges were assigned—and outcasts who had no rights nor privileges. This was a great change from the Homeric times. The subsequent history of the two classes of men is curious and suggestive, but this is not the place to deal with it. Morillot in his treatise on the subject exclaims, “Strange circumstance! It is nearly always on the person of the infants that the law strikes those who transgress its ordinances.” This is true of the Christian era; but at first the law looked solely to the interests of the citizens who made it, and did not suggest culpability on the part of those who were not citizens.
(6) DATE OF ‘ECCLESIAZUSÆ.’
The date of the comedy is clearly ascertained within two years. The date of the ‘Republic’ cannot be so definitely ascertained. Accordingly there have always been writers who have maintained that Aristophanes held up to ridicule the communistic ideas of Plato expressed in the ‘Republic.’ In recent times Chiappelli[234] has advocated this opinion, and Rogers, in his edition of the ‘Ecclesiazusæ,’[235] supports it by appealing to the exact resemblances in the words used by both. But Platonic scholars have generally held strongly that the ‘Republic’ is considerably later than the play. The date of the play must be somewhere between 390 and 393. But Stallbaum, in his ‘Prolegomena to the Republic,’[236] adduces what seem to me convincing arguments that that work could not have been published before 385 B.C. Lutoslawski, in his ‘Origin and Growth of Plato’s Logic,’[237] maintains that all the parts of the ‘Republic’ except the first book were written after the ‘Phædo,’ which he places between 384 and 383 B.C., and that they occupied Plato for about six years up to nearly his fiftieth year. He and others have remarked that the coincidences between Aristophanes and Plato are slight and that the comedy does not really deal with the special proposals of the philosopher. The ideas in the comedy are too general.
The date of the comedy is discussed fully in Kaehler’s ‘De Aristophanis Ecclesiazuson tempore et choro Quæstiones Epicriticæ.’ Jenæ, 1889, which gives the literature and history of the discussion. He holds that there is no connexion between the play and the ‘Republic.’ Prof. Ritchie[238] says of the ‘Republic,’ “Probably written at various times between 387 and 368 B.C.”[239]
(7) THE WOMEN OF PLAUTUS.
Perhaps we can best see the representations of the Greek new comedy[240] in the plays of Plautus, for no complete Greek comedy of this class has come down to us. Terence no doubt transferred more literally from these plays, but his selections do not bring us so closely into contact with the life of the period. It is difficult, however, in Plautus to know whether his pictures refer to Greek or to Roman life—for he unquestionably introduced many allusions to the habits of his Roman audience.
Most of the women that appear in the pages of Plautus belong to the slave class. Often, when the Greeks took a city, they razed it to the ground, killed nearly all the men, and carried off the women to be slaves in lands far away from their own homes. These women had to submit to the greatest cruelties and indignities. Plautus borrows his scenes from Greek plays—and accordingly most of his women have become slaves in this way. There can be no doubt, however, that the Romans trafficked in female slaves as well as the Greeks—and thus the picture of the female slaves in the one nation will hold good for the other. When superior officers made these women captive they generally kept them in their own houses; but as such slaves brought a large sum, there were men who made a livelihood by stealing them away. These sold them to persons whose occupation was again to sell them to the rich inhabitants of the cities, sometimes lending them only for a year, and sometimes giving them up for life. The laws regulated the conveyance, if I may so speak, of these women-slaves, and one of the plays turns upon a scoundrel of a slave pretending to be an Eastern, and coming to the slave-dealer’s house with the daughter of another man, a parasite, and selling her at an enormous loss, but without a legal form. The parasite goes at once to the slave-dealer and claims back his illegally sold daughter. These slave-women were employed in various ways. Sometimes they were kept as household servants, sometimes as nurses; but most frequently they were used at banquets to dance before the festive gentlemen, and to sing, play the lyre, and amuse them with witty sayings. They were often, therefore, highly cultivated, conjoining the accomplishments of our most expert acrobat with those of an opera singer and an educated lady. Some of them descend to the lowest degree of coarseness in Plautus; while a few are exceedingly sweet, modest, and gentle.
The women of the plays of Plautus are naturally divisible into two classes: those who were free, and those who were or had been slaves. It is important to keep in mind that this distinction reached far into all the social relations. The slave-girl, however nobly descended she might be, could not marry a free citizen. The free man could only marry the daughter of a free fellow-citizen. In consequence of this the choice of a wife was narrowly restricted, and a large class of women were necessarily thrown out beyond the social pale. The women who could marry were closely confined. They grew up in the recesses of the women’s quarter of the house. They had seldom opportunities of seeing any one but their most intimate relatives. They rarely gazed upon the general public except when they marched in some religious procession and took part in religious festivals. Their higher education was neglected, and for the most part their society was despised. Their marriages were arranged by the fathers. They had no voice in the matter themselves, and frequently the main question was as to the dowry which they could bring to their future husbands. In these circumstances we could not expect to see marriageable young girls in the Plautine plays. They did not appear in public or mingle in society. Only one is to be found acting a part in the plays of Plautus, and that, too, in extraordinary circumstances. Her father is the parasite in the ‘Persa.’ This wretch is ready to do anything for the sake of a good dinner, and his daughter is a small matter if placed in competition with that. So he compels her to play the part of slave-girl. She objects very strongly. She sees that it is not a proper act for her. She sees also that it will damage her prospects of marriage. But the authority of a father was paramount. He commands and she must obey, and obeys gently and meekly. Mention is made of other marriageable girls. In the ‘Trinummus,’ the good youth Lysiteles seeks the hand of the sister of Lesbonicus the spendthrift. His father, Philto, undertakes to see Lesbonicus on the subject, and an interesting dialogue ensues. Lesbonicus cannot believe that Philto is in earnest in asking a portionless daughter, and when at last he is convinced that Philto is not making a fool of him, he states that he will part with the only remaining little property he has in order to give some dowry to his sister. It would be such a disgrace to him, if she were to bring nothing to the family stock. Another marriageable girl appears in the ‘Aulularia.’ Her father, the miser Euclio, is very glad to get her off his hands without dowry, and the man who wishes to marry her prefers to have an undowried wife. His reasons for this preference are notable. Megadorus, the suitor, is rich. He has lived with his widowed sister for some time, but she thinks that he ought now to marry. She is not, however, very favourable in her account of women. “We are,” she says, “deservedly regarded as very garrulous, and people strongly affirm that not a single silent woman has been found in any age up to this day.” She further informs him that there is no chance of his getting a good wife: he can merely have a selection out of bad: “alia alia pejor, frater, est.” However, she ends with recommending one whom she knows and deems suitable in age and circumstances. He does not accept her proposal, but says that he wishes to marry the daughter of Euclio, and he is very glad that she is so poor. The dowried wives have become wildly extravagant and insolent, and if the rich were to do as he intends, that is, marry undowried wives, there would be more concord in the state; the women would pride themselves more on their manners than their dowry, they would have less reason to fear punishment than they now have, and the husbands would have less expense. In one word, “the undowried wife is in the power of her husband, the dowried one tortures and ruins him.” In the course of this discussion Megadorus expatiates on the extravagances of the women of his day. “They must have purple and gold given them, maidservants, mules, mule-drivers, attendants, salutation boys, and carriages.” And then he gives a list of the various artisans who wait upon the matrons. Here it is in the Latin, for an exact translation would require a dissertation:[241]—
“Stat fullo phrugio aurifex linarius
Caupones patagiarii indusiarii,