The period in Greek history when the intellectual and artistic life of Hellas reached its zenith is known as the Golden Age of Pericles. The lofty ideals of this greatest of Greek statesmen incited him to make Athens the seat of a mighty empire that should spread the noblest and most elevating influences throughout all Hellas. He called to his assistance all the great men of his native city, and made also the fine arts serve as handmaidens of Athens and contribute to her power and splendor. Every condition was present for the realization of an intellectual and artistic epoch such as the world had never witnessed. At the disposal of Pericles was an inexhaustible treasury--the accumulation of the tribute of subject allies. The quarries of Pentelicon offered in great abundance the material necessary for the erection of public buildings which might express in sensuous form the noblest ideals of the Greek race. There were in Athens statesmen, philosophers, artists, dramatists, historians, men preeminent in all departments of the higher life. Foremost among these was Pericles's friend and counsellor, Phidias, a "king in the domain of art, as Pericles was in political life."
"What an age it was, truly, when, as the companions of Pericles, there were assembled in one city Sophocles and Euripides, Herodotus and Thucydides, Meton and Hippocrates, Aristophanes and Phidias, Socrates and Anaxagoras, Appollodorus and Zeuxis, Polygnotus and Parrhasius;--in a city which had but lately lost Æschylus, and was soon to possess Xenophon, Plato, and Aristotle; a city which, moreover, to make the illustrious dead its own, erected statues to their memory!"
"What should we expect the pupils of such masters to be? What they were,--the masters of Greece. Thucydides says that Athens was at this time the instructress of Greece, as she was the source of its supplies. Behold this fine democracy going from the theatre of Sophocles to the Parthenon of Phidias, or to the Bema where Pericles speaks to them in the language of the gods; listening to Herodotus, who recounts the great collision between Europe and Asia; Hippocrates of Cos, and the Athenian Meton, of whom one founded the science of medicine, and the other, mathematical astronomy; Anaxagoras, who eliminates the idea of God as distinct from matter; Socrates, who establishes the principles of morals! What lessons were these! Art, history, poetry, philosophy--all take a sublime flight. There is no place for second-rate talent here. The art that Athens honors most is the greatest of all arts--architecture; her poetry is the drama--the highest expression of poetic genius, for it unites all forms in itself, as architecture calls all the other arts to its service. At this fortunate moment all is great, the power of Athens as well as the genius of the eminent men who guide the city and do it honor."
Such, in brief, is the picture of Athens in her greatest days, as drawn by an eminent historian. The splendor and supremacy of the city in this epoch were largely due to the constructive genius of one man--Pericles; and if we study his private life to the end that we may discover the formative influences which contributed to his greatness, we find that the chief source of his inspiration was a woman--the Milesian Aspasia, the most brilliant and cultured woman of classic times.
Aspasia ranks as one of the most remarkable women of all antiquity; and her ascendency as one of the foremost of her sex is due to the fact that she is the only woman whose name appears in the brilliant galaxy of the Periclean age and that the greatest leaders in that coterie of great men were glad to acknowledge their indebtedness to her for Instruction and inspiration. She is the only woman prominent in the life of Athens of whom much is known to us, and she has won for herself a place altogether unique in the history of Greek womanhood.
She was the daughter of one Axiochus, and was born and reared in Miletus, the most pleasure-loving and artistic of the cities of Asia Minor. The story of her childhood and youth is a closed book, but we know that she was carefully trained in rhetoric, music, and the fine arts, and became the possessor of every feminine accomplishment. Her preceptress is said to have been the celebrated Thargelia, also of Miletus, who exerted her power for the Great King during the Persian War and finally married one of the kings in Thessaly. How Aspasia was drawn to Athens is not known, but the most probable theory is that she settled there as a young and brilliant teacher of rhetoric, following the precedent established by Anaxagoras in philosophy and by Protagoras and other men in rhetoric, who found in Athens the most profitable field for the exercise of their talents. Here Aspasia gathered about her all the learned and accomplished men of Athens. She was no mere creature of pleasure, who ministered to luxury and lust; but by her beauty and culture she sought to draw to her the first men of the town, that she might learn of them as they of her. "Nor was it long before it was recognized that she enchained the souls of men by no mere arts of deception of which she had learned the trick. Hers was a lofty and richly endowed nature, with a perfect sense of the beautiful, and hers a harmonious and felicitous development. For the first time, the treasures of Hellenic culture were found in the possession of a woman, surrounded by the grace of her womanhood, a phenomenon which all men looked upon with eyes of wonder. She was able to converse with irresistible grace on politics, philosophy, and art, so that the most serious Athenians, even such men as Socrates, sought her out in order to listen to her conversation."
There could be nothing more natural than that when Pericles and Aspasia met the soul of each should discover in the other its affinity, Pericles was married to an Athenian kinswoman, but they did not find conjugal life altogether congenial, and by mutual agreement their marriage ties were dissolved and Pericles found for his wife another husband. He then took Aspasia to his home and called her his wife. They could not wed, for she was a foreigner, and their union in consequence lacked civil sanction; yet it was a real marriage in all but in name, based on the truest and tenderest affection, and dissolved only by death.
So remarkable was Pericles's devotion to Aspasia, that Plutarch records, as an indication of its sincerity, that the great Athenian kissed Aspasia upon going out in the morning and upon his return home--clearly an unusual occurrence in Athenian homes, or it would not have seemed worthy of mention. The possession of so rare a woman was doubtless in many respects invaluable to the great statesman. Plutarch states that the latter was first attracted to the Milesian by her wisdom and political sagacity. Socrates, who confessed also his own indebtedness to Aspasia, states that she was Pericles's teacher in the art of rhetoric, and could even write his speeches. Pericles was a reserved man, who devoted himself strictly to his official cares and refrained from social intercourse with those about him. Hence he found in Aspasia not only the delight of his leisure moments and a sympathizing friend and counsellor hi his perplexities, but also the link that connected him with the daily life about him. She knew how to be at ease in every kind of society; how to keep informed of everything that took place in the city that Pericles should know; how to keep in touch with the great movements throughout Hellas and to make them contribute to the glory of Athens: and in all these, and in many other respects, she proved of use to him in his political life.
It is probable that Aspasia was still in her twenties when Pericles first met her, while he himself was much older. She must have possessed a fascinating personality which at once captivated the great statesman; but, aside from her intellectual gifts, it is difficult in this day to analyze her charm. There is no positive evidence that she was beautiful, according to Greek standards, though this is the natural inference. Ancient writers call her the good, the wise, the eloquent; they speak of her "honey-colored" or golden hair, of her "silvery voice," of her "small, high-arched foot," but no writer of the time has expressly said that she was beautiful. In the museums of Europe, there are various busts on which her name is inscribed, but they impress us rather by the expression of earnest and deep thought, by the delicacy and distinction of the features, than by mere beauty. Her charm lay, no doubt, rather in her wisdom, her vivacity, her sweetness of utterance, than in perfection of form and feature. Aspasia made the home of Pericles the first salon that history has made known to us; and what woman ever gathered about her a more brilliant coterie of friends? With Phidias and his group of eminent artists, she talked of the embellishment of the Acropolis with beautiful temples and statues; with Anaxagoras and Socrates, she discussed the problems of philosophy and the narrow conservatism of the Athenians; with Sophocles and Euripides, she conversed concerning the works of the dramatists and the ideal women presented in their plays. Herodotus, perhaps, was the inimitable story teller of this learned circle, and the melancholy Thucydides dwelt on the dark tragedy underlying human events; no doubt the satirical Aristophanes sometimes attended, for the Platonic dialogues show us the social side of his nature, and, while in his plays he scorns the philosophical set, he found among them intellectual companionship; and the young and gay Alcibiades was doubtless frequently present, talking with the hostess of the latest events in the high life of the city, of betrothals and marriages, of scandals and escapades.
One of the sons of Pericles scoffed at this circle of intellectual lights, and made fun of their metaphysical speculations and learned talk; but this merely indicates that such a salon was an innovation in Athens, and, therefore, led to harsh criticism and unseemly gossip on the part of those who could not appreciate its privileges. Music, poetry, and wit relieved the serious discussion of politics, philosophy, and literature. The salon of Aspasia must have been altogether decorous, for many men broke the traditions of their fathers and brought their wives to converse about wifely duties with the famous hetæra. She seems to have thought earnestly and deeply on the duties and destiny of woman, to have realized how contracted were the lives of Athenian women, and to have wished to better their condition, Æschines, in one of his dialogues, gives us in her conversation with Xenophon and his wife Philesia a glimpse of her method.
"Tell me, Philesia," said Aspasia, "whether if your neighbor had a piece of gold of more value than your own, you would not choose it before your own?" "Yes," answered Philesia. "If she had a gown, or any of the female ornaments, better than yours, would not you choose them rather than your own?" "Yes," answered she. "But," said Aspasia, "if she had a husband of more merit than your own, would not you choose the former?" Upon this, Philesia blushed. Aspasia then addressed herself to Xenophon. "If your neighbor, Xenophon, had a horse better than your own, would you not choose him preferably to your own?" "Yes," answered he. "If he had an estate or a farm of more value than your own, which would you choose?" "The former," answered he; "that is, that which is of more value." "But if his wife were better than your own, would not you choose your neighbor's?" Xenophon was silent upon this question. Aspasia therefore proceeded thus: "Since both of you, then, have refused to answer me in that point only which I wanted you to satisfy me in, I will tell you myself what you both think: you, Philesia, would have the best of husbands, and you, Xenophon, the best of wives. And, therefore, if you do not endeavor that there be not a better husband and wife in the world than yourselves, you will always be wishing for that which you shall think best: you, Xenophon, will wish you might be married to the best of wives, and Philesia, that she might have the best of husbands."
Thus this brilliant and withal domestic woman would counsel women to be the best of wives, and men the most considerate of husbands, that each might find in the joys of home and in conjugal harmony their greatest felicity. Doubtless many a wife went away from her with higher conceptions of wifely duty than custom had taught her, and sought to make her home a more congenial retreat for her husband. Many, however, looked askance at these gatherings of men and women and could see nothing but evil in their violations of custom. Husbands, too, saw in these novel proceedings dangerous tendencies; for if their wives became emancipated, there would be a limit to their own pleasant indulgences. It was Aspasia who preeminently labored to this end. The status of woman at Athens was far from ideal, and the need tor reform was great; and if we endeavor to discover who was chiefly responsible for the agitation which had for its purpose the emancipation of woman from the thraldom in which she was held, we find that it was the wise and far-seeing Aspasia.
Owing to the intellectual awakening at Athens during the Periclean Age and the influx of new ideas from the various Hellenic countries, a liberal party had arisen in the city, chiefly under the leadership of Pericles and Anaxagoras--a radical party, headed by men of culture and science, who taught that knowledge was power, who despised the established religion, and who set at naught the domestic manners of the day by seeking to elevate woman. Socrates, also, was heartily in sympathy with the objects of this party, as was the dramatist Euripides. On the other side were the ultra-conservatives, of whom Cimon and Aristophanes were representatives. The latter frequently made Pericles, Aspasia, Socrates, and Euripides the subjects of his satire. These Tories of the day saw in the tenets of the new party the subversion of all the principles of the old democracy, and they fought most bitterly to preserve established institutions. Toward the close of Xenophon's treatise onDomestic Economy, Critobulus, who has been impressed by the story of Ischomachus, wishes to learn how he too, may educate his young wife, and Socrates advises him to consult with Aspasia. The profound deference in which she was held by all the philosophers is a further indication that from her they had derived many of their advanced ideas regarding the relations of the sexes. Hence while positive evidence is lacking, incidental touches and sidelights on the Woman Question point unerringly to the one great woman of ancient Athens as the originator of the first movement for the emancipation of woman recorded in history.
As Aspasia, through her intercourse with the great, had attained unbounded influence in the State, and as her circle was the exponent of the ideas which offended the conventional spirit, it was natural that she should be involved in the storm of criticism that befell the leaders of thought. As a woman who had stepped out of the beaten track of womanhood, she was made the subject of the coarsest slanders. She was called the Hera to this Zeus, Pericles, the Omphale, the Deianira of the Heracles of the day; her girl friends and pupils, who enjoyed the same liberty she claimed for herself, were most violently defamed; she was said to have induced, for the basest of reasons, Pericles to bring on the Peloponnesian and Samian wars. The comic poets, as the chief organs of the opposition, engaged in this most merciless and unjust tirade against the party of the philosophers. None of their charges, however, can be said to have had any basis in fact, and all may easily be accounted for when the envy and hatred of the ignorant toward the beautiful and accomplished and independent woman is taken into consideration. In the Athens of the fifth century before our era, when people were just beginning to break away from the narrow conservatism of centuries, a woman who enjoyed an unheard-of degree of liberty, and because of her talents was regarded with admiration by the greatest men of the city, might well be the target for the grossest abuse. A vicious woman would be the last to undertake, as did Aspasia, the study of philosophy, which, with Socrates, was the study of virtue.
The party of the philosophers suffered for their opinions, Phidias was accused of theft, and died in prison; Anaxagoras, to escape the charges against him, went into voluntary exile; and Aspasia was brought to trial on a charge of impiety, which merely meant that she, as others of her circle, set at naught the polytheism of the multitude, and recognized but one creative mind in the government of the universe, an accusation under which Socrates later suffered martyrdom. She was brought before the judges, and Pericles pleaded her cause. Plutarch says that he pleaded with tears; and as the people could not resist the emotion of their great leader, she was acquitted.
Perides's last days were passed in the gloom of the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, of the plague that depopulated the city, and of the discontent of his beloved people. No brilliant sun ever had a more gloomy setting. Yet in his last moments his thoughts were of the two beloved objects that had absorbed his tenderest affections. "Athens has intrusted her greatness and Aspasia her happiness to me," Pericles said, when dying; and there could be no stronger testimony to the purity of Aspasia's character, to the influence of her life on his, to the role she had played in that Golden Age of Athens.
Athens and Aspasia--these were linked in the thoughts of the dying statesman; and as he made the one great, so he made the other immortal. Had his life not been blessed with union with hers, had his temperament not been sweetened by her companionship, had his policy not been moulded partly by her counsel and her wisdom, had his taste not been made so subtle and refined by communion with her artistic temperament, Athens would not have been embellished by the works of art which have made that city the unapproachable ruler in the domain of the spirit. Woman's influence, where it has counted most, has always been a silent one, and has worked through man. Is not Aspasia worthy of the laurel wreath for the results of her life on "the city of the violet crown"?
For the proper understanding of the status of woman among the Greeks of ancient times, it becomes necessary for the historian of Greek womanhood to call attention to a conspicuous social phenomenon pervading the life of all the nations of antiquity, but nowhere else so marked a feature of the higher life as in the lands of Hellas--a phenomenon bringing about social conditions that divided the female population of Greece into two sharply distinguished classes: the citizen-woman and the courtesan or mistress.
This notable aspect of Greek life is due to the fact that the ancient Hellene, as a rule, sought recreation and pleasure, not at the domestic hearth, but in the society of clever women, who had not only cultivated their physical charms, but had also trained their intellects and sensibilities so as to becomevirtuosiin all the arts of pleasure. Their pleasing forms of intercourse, their light and vivacious conversation, lent to association with them a peculiar seductiveness and fascination.
To designate this class of women in a manner which would distinguish them from the citizen-women on the one hand and the debased prostitute on the other, they were euphemistically called "hetæræ," or companions. The termhetæræhad been originally a most honorable one, and Sappho had used it, in the highest and best sense, of her girl friends as implying companions of like rank and interests. It is not known when it was first used with sinister suggestion, but, like our wordmistress, it fell from its honorable estate and became the usual term to describe these women of pleasure.
The causes of the extent of hetairism among the Greeks are to be found in their religious conceptions, their political institutions, and the innate sensualism of the Greek peoples.
The Greeks were worshippers of the productive forces of nature as manifested in animal and plant life. Aphrodite is the female and Dionysius the male personification of the generative principles, and in consequence the religious ceremonials of these two deities assumed at times a most licentious aspect. In course of time, a distinction arose in the conception of Aphrodite, expressed by the surname applied to her. Thus Aphrodite Urania came to be generally regarded as the goddess of the highest love, especially of wedded love and fruitfulness, in contrast to Aphrodite Pandemus, the goddess of sensual lust and the patron deity of courtesans.
We could hardly expect high moral ideas in regard to sexual relations among the Greeks, whose deities were so lax. Zeus himself was given to illicit intercourse with mortal maidens and was continually arousing the jealousy of his prudent wife, the Lady Hera. Aphrodite was not faithful to her liege lord, Hephæstus, but was given to escapades with the warlike Ares. Apollo had his mortal loves, and Hades abducted the beautiful Proserpina. A people who from their childhood were taught such stories could hardly be expected to be more moral than their deities.
As has been shown in a previous chapter, the Greek conception of the city-state lay at the basis of laws and customs which repressed the citizen-woman and prevented proper attention to her education and to the full and well-rounded cultivation of womanly graces. The State hedged itself about with the most rigid safeguards to preserve the purity of the citizen blood. Stringent laws were passed prohibiting any citizen-man from marrying a stranger-woman, or any stranger-man from marrying a citizen-woman. To enforce these laws, it was necessary to keep the wives and daughters of the State within the narrow bounds of the gynæceum; and they were forbidden a knowledge of public affairs, which would make them more interesting to men. Hence the limitations of their culture made it impossible for them to be in every sense the companions of their husbands. But it is not natural for men to be deprived of the sympathy and inspiration that is found in association with cultivated women; hence there was, especially in Athens, a peculiar sphere for the cultivated hetæra. The men of the city recognized the need of feminine society in their recreations, in their political life, and on military expeditions. The hetæra entered this sphere, from which the citizen-woman was excluded.
A further reason for the predominance of hetairism is seen in the artistic impulses of the Greek people. These courtesans made an art of the life of pleasure. Cultivating every feminine grace, carefully attentive to all the little niceties of social intercourse, studying in every way how to be agreeable to the men, adepts in conversation, devotees of the Muses and the Graces, they knew how to make their relations with men answer to all the impulses of a beauty-loving people. And as the Greeks found æsthetic satisfaction in their masterpieces of prose and poetry, in their works of architecture and sculpture and painting, so they found it in their association with the hetæræ.
Owing to such conditions, there arose a most unnatural division of the admitted functions of woman in the world-order. Says the great orator Demosthenes: "We take a hetæra for our pleasure, a concubine for daily attention to our physical wants, a wife to give us legitimate children and a respected house"--an utterance narrowly defining the status of the hetæra as contrasted with that of the honorable wife. The latter was the housewife and mother, nothing more, though surrounded by all the dignities and privileges of her high station; the former was the companion, the comrade in whose society were found recreation and sympathy and intellectual delight, but she was outside the pale of society, not respected, yet not altogether despised.
It is difficult to ascertain the beginnings of hetairism among the Greeks. There is a noteworthy absence of it in the Homeric poems, though the Greek chieftains frequently had concubines, who were slaves captured in war.
Allusions in the lyric poets show that as early as the sixth century before our era the hetæra had made her appearance. The earliest reference to the social evil in the history of Athens is found in the administration of the lawgiver Solon, who was the first to legalize prostitution. With the avowed purpose of forestalling the seduction of virgins and wives, he bought slave girls in the markets of Asia Minor and placed them in public houses in Athens. This regulation for the protection of the home was generally regarded as deserving of praise. Thus speaks the comic poet Philemon:
"But you did well for every man, O Solon:For they do say you were the first to seeThe justice of a public-spirited measure,The saviour of the State (and it is fitFor me to utter this avowal, Solon);You, seeing that the State was full of men,Young, and possessed of all the natural appetites,And wandering in their lusts where they'd no business.Bought women and in certain spots did place them,Common to be and ready for all comers.They naked stood: look well at them, my youth,--Do not deceive yourself; aren't you well off?You're ready, so are they: the door is open--The price an obol: enter straight--there'sNo nonsense here, no cheat or trickery;But do just what you like, how you like.You're off: wish her good-bye; she's no more claim on you."
"But you did well for every man, O Solon:For they do say you were the first to seeThe justice of a public-spirited measure,The saviour of the State (and it is fitFor me to utter this avowal, Solon);You, seeing that the State was full of men,Young, and possessed of all the natural appetites,And wandering in their lusts where they'd no business.Bought women and in certain spots did place them,Common to be and ready for all comers.They naked stood: look well at them, my youth,--Do not deceive yourself; aren't you well off?You're ready, so are they: the door is open--The price an obol: enter straight--there'sNo nonsense here, no cheat or trickery;But do just what you like, how you like.You're off: wish her good-bye; she's no more claim on you."
"But you did well for every man, O Solon:
For they do say you were the first to see
The justice of a public-spirited measure,
The saviour of the State (and it is fit
For me to utter this avowal, Solon);
You, seeing that the State was full of men,
Young, and possessed of all the natural appetites,
And wandering in their lusts where they'd no business.
Bought women and in certain spots did place them,
Common to be and ready for all comers.
They naked stood: look well at them, my youth,--
Do not deceive yourself; aren't you well off?
You're ready, so are they: the door is open--
The price an obol: enter straight--there's
No nonsense here, no cheat or trickery;
But do just what you like, how you like.
You're off: wish her good-bye; she's no more claim on you."
In the early days antedating the Persian War, before the Athenians had been corrupted by power and by extensive intercourse with the outside world, it was regarded as shameful for a married man to associate with a hetæra. When the husband was guilty of such conduct, the insulted wife could obtain a decree of separation, which involved the return to the wife's family of the full dowry, while the enmity of the wife's kindred was visited upon the unfaithful husband. During the Golden Age of Pericles, however, Athens departed from her earlier simplicity, and the increase of wealth and the influx of foreigners swept away the old-fashioned standards of morality. The influence of Pericles and Aspasia on smaller minds seems to have been unfortunate. Reverential regard for the marriage bond became a thing of the past, and hetairism became the common practice. Almost all the great men of Athens had relations with hetærsæ; the young men gave themselves up to the life of pleasure; and with the disruption of family ties began the downfall of the State.
In Corinth, hetairism was invested with all the sanctity of religion, and these votaries of pleasure enjoyed a distinction accorded them in no other Greek city. When Xerxes was advancing against Hellas with his vast armament, the courtesans of Corinth betook themselves in solemn procession to the temple of Aphrodite, the patron deity of the city, and implored her aid for the preservation of the fatherland, dedicating their services to her in return for a favorable answer to their prayers, and vowing to reward with their unpurchased embraces the victorious warriors upon their return. The goddess was supposed to have heard their petitions, and out of gratitude the Corinthians dedicated to Aphrodite a painting, in which were represented various hetaerae who had supplicated the goddess, while beneath were inscribed the following verses of Simonides:
"These damsels, in behalf of Greece, and allTheir gallant countrymen, stood nobly forth,Praying to Venus, the all-powerful goddess;Nor was the queen of beauty willing everTo leave the citadel of Greece to fallBeneath the arrows of the unwarlike Persians."
"These damsels, in behalf of Greece, and allTheir gallant countrymen, stood nobly forth,Praying to Venus, the all-powerful goddess;Nor was the queen of beauty willing everTo leave the citadel of Greece to fallBeneath the arrows of the unwarlike Persians."
"These damsels, in behalf of Greece, and all
Their gallant countrymen, stood nobly forth,
Praying to Venus, the all-powerful goddess;
Nor was the queen of beauty willing ever
To leave the citadel of Greece to fall
Beneath the arrows of the unwarlike Persians."
Private individuals frequently vowed, upon the fortunate issue of some undertaking, to dedicate to the goddess of love a certain number of hetæræ. These votaries of Aphrodite were calledhierodulæ, or temple attendants. Pindar in his immortal verses thus describes them:
"O hospitable damsels, fairest trainOf soft Persuasion,--Ornament of the wealthy Corinth,Bearing in willing hands the golden dropsThat from the frankincense distil, and flyingTo the fair mother of the Loves,Who dwelleth in the sky,The lovely Venus,--you do bring to usComfort and hope in danger, that we mayHereafter, in the delicate beds of Love,Reap the long-wished-for fruits of joyLovely and necessary to all mortal men."
"O hospitable damsels, fairest trainOf soft Persuasion,--Ornament of the wealthy Corinth,Bearing in willing hands the golden dropsThat from the frankincense distil, and flyingTo the fair mother of the Loves,Who dwelleth in the sky,The lovely Venus,--you do bring to usComfort and hope in danger, that we mayHereafter, in the delicate beds of Love,Reap the long-wished-for fruits of joyLovely and necessary to all mortal men."
"O hospitable damsels, fairest train
Of soft Persuasion,--
Ornament of the wealthy Corinth,
Bearing in willing hands the golden drops
That from the frankincense distil, and flying
To the fair mother of the Loves,
Who dwelleth in the sky,
The lovely Venus,--you do bring to us
Comfort and hope in danger, that we may
Hereafter, in the delicate beds of Love,
Reap the long-wished-for fruits of joy
Lovely and necessary to all mortal men."
Strabo states that there were over a thousandhierodulæin the Corinth of his day. Because of the enormous number of such damsels and of the respect which was accorded them, Corinth became the most noted hetæra city. Here dwelt the wealthiest and most beautiful hetæræ. As the most important commercial centre of Greece, the city was the abiding place of wealthy merchants and travellers; these fell victims to the voluptuous and licentious life of the place, and the vast fortunes accumulated by the professional courtesans were acquired by the ruin of many a merchant. The expression "Corinthian maiden" denoted the acme of voluptuousness, and to "Corinthianize" became synonymous with leading the most dissolute life.
In other prominent commercial centres of Hellas and of the Greek colonies hetairism also flourished. Piræus, the harbor of Athens, had its demi-monde quarter, and the number of courtesans in Athens and its harbor town was only surpassed by that of Corinth.
The inland cities were much more moral in this regard. From Sparta, in its best days, hetæræ were rigidly excluded. Plutarch records a saying of the Spartans, that when Aphrodite passed over the Eurotas River she put off her gewgaws and female ornaments, and for the sake of Lycurgus armed herself with shield and spear. ThisVenus armataof the Spartans, as well as their sturdy morals, forbade the presence of the seductive strangers in their midst; but Ares was ever susceptible to Aphrodite, and the Spartan warrior, when located in the voluptuous Ionian cities, frequently forgot his early training, and fell a victim to his environment.
There were in Athens, in the fifth and fourth centuries, four classes of hetæræ, graded according to political standing. The first and lowest class was that of the public prostitute--slaves bought by the State for the public houses, which were taxed for the benefit of the city and were under the supervision of city inspectors. These unfortunate women were gathered from the slave markets of Samos, Lesbos, Cyprus, and the Ionian cities, where every year large numbers of wretched human beings, who had been torn from their homes, usually as a result of war, were exposed for sale. These included many young girls who had been taken captive in the sacking of cities or had been stolen from their homes by the fiends in human form who made it a business to secure maidens of promising beauty or charm for the bawdy houses of the Greek cities. From these markets, too, came usually the hetæræ of the second class, who were likewise slaves, but were the property of panders or procuresses, who bought girls of tender age and educated them for the sake of the wealth to be acquired from traffic in lust. Aged and faded hetæræ, who had passed their lives in gross licentiousness and had finally lost their hold on the public, especially devoted themselves to this horrible trade. They owned their own houses, and had in conjunction with them regular schools or institutes for the training of hetæræ. In these institutes the girls were trained in physical culture, in music and dancing, and frequently in all the branches of learning that were popular at the time. They became experts in all the arts of pleasure, and were offered every advantage that would make them pleasing to men. From these institutes often emerged young women who played an important role in the social and intellectual life of the day, as Leontium, Gnathæna, Pythionice, and others. The names of certain of these establishments are preserved, as those of Nicarete, of Bacchis, and of the Thracian Sinope, who removed her institute from Ægina to Athens. Girls in such establishments remained at all times in the relation of slaves, and were compelled always to surrender to the mistresses or the panders the funds they collected from the sale of their favors. As young girls they acted as musicians or dancers at the banquets of the men, and as they developed into womanhood they entered upon their careers as regular courtesans. Often they were hired out for a considerable time; or if a good purchaser presented himself, they were sold outright, and lived as the kept mistress of a single lover. From him they usually obtained their freedom, in time, either as a mark of favor, or as the readiest means of ridding himself of a burden when the lover had wearied of the hetæra's charm.
Slave girls who obtained their freedom belonged to the third and most numerous hetæra class; they lived on a fully independent footing, and conducted their business on their own account. This class attached themselves especially to young and inexperienced men, preferably to youths who were still under parental control. They frequented the schools of rhetoricians and philosophers and the studios of artists, and sought in every way possible to make themselves interesting and indispensable to men. Thejeunesse doréeof the day found in association with these young and beautiful and independent damsels their especial delight. At the banquets and drinking bouts of the young men, they were invited to take part; and the gay and frivolous youths would assemble in numbers at their houses, or take them on pleasure trips in the suburbs of the city, and would frequently engage in serenades and torchlight processions in their honor. Such a life was full of pitfalls for the young men, and they frequently brought down on themselves the rage of parents for their intercourse with these sirens. The avarice and greed of women of this class was such that they led their lovers into every form of deceit to obtain for them money and presents. To purloin and sell a mother's jewels and to contract debts in a father's name were frequent devices to which youths resorted whose parents kept a tight hold on the purse strings. These heroines of the demi-monde also sought to draw their lovers away from serious pursuits. Lucian, in hisDialogues of Courtesans, recounts an interesting conversation between two hetæræ, Chelidonion [Little Swallow] and Drosis [Dewdrop], about a youth whom his father had suddenly checked in his wild career and placed in the hands of a wise and artful tutor, to the end that he might be drawn away from his wild associations and given instruction in philosophy.
The fourth and most elevated hetæra class was that of freeborn women, who were attracted to this calling because of dissatisfaction with the restraint of home and longing for the ease and independent life which it seemed to offer. Frequently, the daughters of citizens, through the poverty or greed of their parents, or their own wilfulness, were driven to a life of shame. Usually, they changed their names, to bring forgetfulness of their former standing, and they sought by outward splendor to make up for the loss of virtue. To us in this day such a change seems most disgraceful; but to the Greeks it appeared to be in many instances nothing more serious than a change of patron goddess. Thus the maiden transferred herself from the protection of one of the austere virgin goddesses, Artemis and Athena, to that of the gracious and seductive Paphian goddess; or the widow, who with the death of her husband had lost her means of subsistence, would renounce Hera, the goddess of wedded love, for the frivolous and light-minded Aphrodite. This transfer was usually accompanied with solemn religious ceremonies, Greek epigrammatists frequently give us a poetical treatment of such life histories, and we thereby gain glimpses into the woes of many a feminine heart; thus we have a pathetic genre picture of a maiden, who, weary of the spindle and the service of Athena, betakes herself to the patron goddess of the hetæræ and pledges to her for her protection a tithe of all her earnings in her new calling.
The giving of votive offerings to Aphrodite for successes and rich gains in their dealings with men was a customary act of "pious" hetæræ. Toilet articles which enhance beauty, and costly gifts, such as statues, were frequently dedicated to the goddess. The hetæræ who followed in the wake of the Athenian army led by Pericles to Samos built a temple to Aphrodite from the tithes of their gains. This giving of votive offerings is frequently the subject of Greek epigrams.
The daughters or widows of citizens constituted but the smaller number of hetæræ of this class. The larger number were stranger-women, chiefly from Ionia, who came to Athens, attracted by its prominence in politics and the arts, that they might play their role on a larger and more brilliant stage. In the various cities of Asia Minor, there were groups of freeborn women who had broken away from the conventional bonds and had devoted themselves to intellectual and artistic pursuits and to the cultivation of every personal grace and charm. It was natural that they and others like them from other parts of Hellas should flock to Athens. Such women, though they were politically only resident aliens, were granted great freedom and had the benefit of all the intellectual advantages the city afforded. Marriage was the only political sin these beautiful and cultivated strangers could commit; they might do anything else that they liked. Hence they entered into relations with citizens as "companions," and soon became an important factor in the social life of the day. Bringing with them from their homes all the attractions and graces that attended the service of the Muses, they undoubtedly exercised a beneficial influence on the social customs and manners, but they also contributed much to the general demoralization of the Athenian people.
From the number of these women of foreign birth came the most beautiful and distinguished, as also the most selfish and proud, representatives of the hetæra class. Through their beauty and the outward splendor of their station they posed as veritable priestesses of Aphrodite, while through their intellectual brilliancy and their social charms they exercised a great influence over the daily life of the Athenians.
To this class belonged the celebrated "daughters of the people," for whose favor the most prominent and dignified men of the State became suppliants. As Propertius sang of Lais, they could literally boast that "all Hellas lay before their doors." Among these hetæræ we see the high life of the day on a most brilliant scale. Their dwellings were most sumptuous in their appointments; the walls were painted in frescoes, pieces of statuary and rich tapestries embellished their apartments, while the grounds about their houses were laid off with flower beds and beautiful fountains. Their apparel was of the richest fabrics and was made up in the most fashionable styles. They possessed numberless jewels and ornaments of enormous value. They never appeared in public without an imposing cortége of female slaves and eunuchs. Much of the etiquette of the courts of princes was maintained in their establishments.
To keep up this elaborate state, they sold their favors at almost shameless prices. Thus the elder Lais, Gnathæna, and Phryne were celebrated for their incredible demands. There is a story that the orator Demosthenes made a trip to Corinth and paid ten thousand drachmæ for a single evening with the younger Lais. As has been intimated, Corinth possessed the most voluptuous, Athens the most highly cultivated hetæræ. The excessive charges of "the Corinthian maiden" gave occasion for the proverb: "Not every man can journey to Corinth." Not only the celebrated beauties made such exorbitant demands, but even the ordinary courtesans asked prices which forbade to men of moderate means intercourse with them.
Beauty and wealth were the factors which determined the social status of the hetæræ, and with the fading of beauty and the squandering of their gains many celebrated hetæræ fell from the highest to the lowest station.
The principal classification of the queens of the demi-monde, however, was into "domestic" and "learned" hetæræ. The former attracted chiefly by their beauty and their social grace; the latter, by their native wit, their vivacity, and their intellectual endowments. These gifted women entered into intimate relations with the philosophers and rhetoricians of the day; they visited the lecture halls, devoted themselves to earnest study, and carried on their prostitution under the protection of philosophy. They allied themselves with the various philosophical schools, and by their manner of bestowing their favors sought to advance the interests of the sect they espoused.
They found, too, in the pursuit of philosophy the justification of their calling. The hetæræ of the Academy claimed that they were merely putting into practice Plato's doctrine of the community of women. The followers of the Cyrenaic school, with its doctrine of moderation in the pursuit of pleasure, maintained that they carried out the maxims of Aristippus in their pursuit of the joys of love. The female adherents of the Cynics, or "the Bitches," as they were called, sought to surpass one another in taking the beasts as models of imitation. The Dialecticians found in their system the widest range for feminine cleverness of speech, and defended hetairism with the greatest subtlety and the most ingenious sophism. The feminine Epicureans saw in the teachings of their school, with its doctrine of friendship and of the broadest cultivation of the sensibilities, the fullest justification for the pursuit of sexual enjoyment, and they sought to illustrate the greatest voluptuousness and refinement in their methods of gratifying animal passion.
The hetæræ of the various schools surpassed the men in their imitation of the jargon and the manners of the leading lights of their systems. Many of the philosophers yielded themselves readily to the seductions of their beautiful and clever adherents; yet there were some choice spirits who deplored the demoralizing tendencies which hetairism brought into serious pursuits, and protested in no uncertain language.
These philosopher-hetæræ were indisputably the most interesting phenomenon in the social life of ancient times, to which the later Greek world and modern times afford no adequate parallel. They were present always at theatrical exhibitions and on all public occasions when respectable women remained at home. They took an absorbing interest in politics and in all public affairs; they discussed with the citizens the burning questions of the day; they criticised the acts of statesmen, the speeches of orators, the dramas of the poets, the productions of painters and sculptors. They exerted, in a word, an enormous influence for good or ill on the social and political life of the day; while they themselves had the consciousness of a mission to perform in having in their hands the real power of their sex.
Almost every great man in Athens had his "companion," usually in addition to a lawful wife. Plato had Archeanassa, to whom he wrote sonnets; but we know not what were her attractions. "For dear to me Theoris is," sings Sophocles; and we should like to know more of Archippa, to whom he left his fortune. Aristotle had his Herpyllis, and the eloquent Isocrates his Metaneira. Speusippus, Plato's successor, found a "companion" in Lasthenia, and Epicurus in Leontium. It is difficult to believe that all these for whom the learned men of the day showed such regard were vicious women; in fact, some of them are described as noble and high-minded.
"She was a citizen, without a guardianOr any near relations, and her mannerPure, and on virtue's strictest model form'd,A genuine mistress [Greek: heraira]: for the rest of the crewBring into disrepute, by their vile manner,A name which in itself has nothing wrong."
"She was a citizen, without a guardianOr any near relations, and her mannerPure, and on virtue's strictest model form'd,A genuine mistress [Greek: heraira]: for the rest of the crewBring into disrepute, by their vile manner,A name which in itself has nothing wrong."
"She was a citizen, without a guardian
Or any near relations, and her manner
Pure, and on virtue's strictest model form'd,
A genuine mistress [Greek: heraira]: for the rest of the crew
Bring into disrepute, by their vile manner,
A name which in itself has nothing wrong."
But if the careers of the learned hetæræ were influential, they did not equal in brilliancy and power those of the more celebrated domestic hetæræ. The vastness of the influence of this latter class is best shown by naming the prominent rulers of various periods who were under the domination of their "companions." We have in an earlier chapter called attention to the work of Thargelia in moulding Persian sentiment before the invasions of Darius and Xerxes, and to the influence of Aspasia during the Periclean Age. Many later hetæræ played prominent roles in the courts of princes and kings, and not infrequently enjoyed royal honors, Leæna, Myrrhine, and Lamia were favorites of Demetrius the Besieger, and the latter shared with him all except the throne. Thais, for a time beloved of Alexander the Great, and at whose nod he set fire to the palace of the Persian kings, later bore two sons and a daughter to Ptolemy Soter, the first Macedonian king of Egypt. Pythionice and Glycera were in high favor at the court of Harpalus. Hieronymus of Syracuse elevated a beautiful prostitute named Pytho from the bawdy house to his palace and throne. Ptolemy Philadelphus was celebrated for the number of his mistresses, among them being a Didyma, a Blistyche, a Stratonice, a Myrtion. Ptolemy Philopator was under the degrading influence of an Agathoclea, daughter of the procuress Oenanthe, both of whom, in the trenchant phrase of Plutarch, trod diadems under their feet and were finally murdered by the Alexandrian mob.
Some hetæræ inspired such regard that they were honored with public monuments. The first instance of this in Athens was in the case of Leæna, who, after the murder of the tyrant Hipparchus, bit out her tongue rather than reveal the accomplices of her lover, Aristogiton. The Athenians at this early date felt a reluctance to erect a statue representing a hetæra, but they placed on the Acropolis a bronze lioness to commemorate perpetually the name of Leæna, and to preserve the memory of her noble deed. In honor of Phryne there was a marble statue at Thespian sculptured by Praxiteles, as well as another of gold at Delphi. In Sparta, in her degenerate days, there was a monument to the celebrated hetæra Cottine. There were also famous statues of Lais, Glycera, Pythionice, Neæra, Clino, Blistyche, Stratonice, and other women of pleasure. To Lamia, the renowned flute player, and to her rival, Leæna of Corinth, favorites of Demetrius the Besieger, the servile Athenians erected temples, in which they were revered as goddesses. There was also in Athens a most beautiful and costly tomb in honor of Pythionice, erected by the Macedonian governor Harpalus, described by Pausanias as "the best worth seeing of all ancient tombs." Such are instances of the tributes offered by the beauty-loving Greeks to these beautiful but light-minded women, who were regarded as incarnations, as it were, of the goddess Aphrodite herself.