It would appear therefore, that the statements of Homer give no ground whatever for sinister or disparaging imputation. His pictures do not entirely correspond with modern ideas: but they may well leave on our minds the impression that, in the period he described, if the standard of appearances in this department was lower, that of positive thought and action was higher, as well as simpler, than in our own day.
We have now concluded what it seemed needful to say on the employments of women.
Subsequent declension of the place of woman.
It was, however, little likely that a state of things, such as has been described, should last.
The idea of marriage was in aftertimes greatly lowered, together with the moral tone in general; and the very name of γάμος, with its kindred words, underwent a change of sense, and was made applicable to such a relation as that established between the Greek chieftains in the war of Troy and their captives in cases where they had wives already[1005].
Thus, in the Hecuba of Euripides, as the mother of Cassandra, she intercedes with Agamemnon to avenge the murder of her son Polydorus, on the ground that the youth had become a κηδεστὴς, or relation by affinity to Agamemnon, who had a wife already[1006]:
τοῦτον καλῶς δρῶν ὄντα κηδεστὴν σέθεν
δράσεις.
And, in the Troades, Cassandra has with Agamemnon certain σκότια νυμφευτήρια (258); and again,
γαμεῖ βιαίως σκότιον Ἀγαμέμνων λέχος[1007].