In like manner it would appear, that Penelope was left in charge of Telemachus by Ulysses when he went to Troy, and that Mentor was appointed to perform for her some such friendly office, as that which the Bard undertook for Clytemnestra. The statement here is, that Ulysses committed to him authority over his whole household[973]. But it is plain that Penelope had the indoor management; since Telemachus speaks of the mode in which she regulated the reception of strangers[974], and we hear of her rule in other matters[975]. Here we see openings for the natural formation of the word βασίλισσα, which seems originally to have meant, not a king’s wife merely, but a woman in the actual exercise of royal authority; and which first appears in the Odyssey.
The ordinary occupation of women of the highest rank in the poems is undoubtedly to sit engaged, along with their maidens of the household, in spinning, weaving, or embroidery. Thus we find it with Helen, Penelope, and Andromache. But when Hector bids Andromache retire to these duties, he speaks of them in contradistinction not to all other duties, but to war, which, as he says, is the affair of men. Even this rule, however, was subject to exception. The Bellerophon of Homer fights with the Amazons[976]; and the part taken by the goddesses in the Theomachy shows, that the idea of women-soldiers was not wholly strange to his mind; as it is in fact to this day, I believe, less attractively exemplified in the African kingdom of Dahomey. But manual employments, taken alone, would not afford a just criterion. The dialogues of the speeches clearly show that then, as now, the woman was concerned in all that concerned her husband.
And to the service of the gods.
Next to political supremacy, we may naturally inquire how far women were qualified for the service of the gods.
We have various signs, more or less clear, of their sharing in it. The reference to the Nurses of Dionysus cannot be wholly without force in this direction. The abstraction of Alcyone by Apollo has probably a more positive connection with female ministry. But we are provided, as far as Troy at least is concerned, with one clear and conclusive instance. The Sixth Iliad affords us a glimpse of a female priesthood, and a worship confined to women, that subsisted among the Trojans. Helenus, alarmed at the feats of Diomed, urges Hector to desire Hecuba to collect the aged women for a procession to the temple of Athene, with a robe for a gift, and with the promise of a hecatomb (Il. vi. 75–101). Hector then acquaints the troops, that he was going to desire the old counsellors and the matrons of the city to supplicate the deities, and to promise hecatombs (iii. 15). There seems to be something of policy in the way in which he thus generalizes, for the army, his account of the design: perhaps afraid of the effect that might be produced by its peculiar character. When he finds Hecuba, he lays upon her precisely the injunction that Helenus had recommended. She sends her female servants to collect the aged women through the city (286, 7). She leads them to the temple of Athene in the citadel. They are there received by Theano, who had been appointed, apparently by the Trojan public[977], priestess to that deity. Theano takes the robe from Hecuba, and herself offers it and prays. Her prayer is for the city, and not for the men by name, but for the wives and infants: and her promise is, we will sacrifice, ἱερεύσομεν, twelve, not oxen, but heifers, yearlings, untouched by the goad (Il. vi. 296–310). Thus the feminine element runs apart through the whole.
We have no reason to conclude that this order of things was exceptional; for though the time was one of peculiar danger and emergency, the temple, the worship, and the priesthood stand before us as belonging to the regular institutions of Troy.
We have no case like that of Theano among the Greeks. It could, indeed, hardly be expected; as priesthood had not yet grown to be an Hellenic institution. Yet, while the direct force of the narrative speaks for Troy alone, we are justified in giving it a more general significance, because the Greek woman is apparently rather before than behind the Trojan one in influence, and in the substantiveness of her position.
In the Trojan genealogy[978] no notice is taken of women; nor have we any means of judging whether they were regarded as capable of succession to the throne, or what was their political and historical importance. But among the Greek races this was clearly great. The large number of women whom Homer has introduced in the realm of Aides, and the parts assigned to them, are plain indications of their important share in the movement of Greek history.
Their household employments.
The apportionment of the ordinary employments of women appears to have been managed in general accordance with the suppositions, towards which all the foregoing facts would lead us.