Great is the contrast between the women of the various peoples of Greece. The Achaean woman, in Homeric times, played no prominent part in public affairs; her home was her palace, and she manifested those domestic traits and womanly qualities that in this day still constitute womanly charm. The life of the Ionian woman was a secluded one; she was under the domination of the sterner sex, and compelled to devote herself largely to the varied duties of the household. The AEolian woman, on the contrary, had asserted her freedom, and lived on terms of social and intellectual comradeship with men. She devoted herself to the cultivation of every womanly grace, and was the earnest follower of Aphrodite and the Muses. In contrast to these, the Spartan woman presents an altogether unique type. She was merely a creature of the State, the cultivation of her higher nature being under the control of a rigid system. As such, she contributed in a large degree to the public welfare, but it was at the sacrifice of many feminine attributes. In her, natural affection and womanly sympathy were sacrificed to a single virtue--patriotism. But one function was emphasized--that of motherhood. All her training was devoted to but one end--that of producing soldiers. The life of the individual was strictly subordinated to the good of the State. Such a system evolved a remarkable type of womanhood, and the Spartan matron has won an immortal name in history. From the central mass of the mountain system of the Peloponnesus in Arcadia, two chains, Taygetus and Parnon, detach themselves and extend southward, terminating in the two dangerous promontories of Taenarum and Malea. Between the two ridges the river Eurotas winds its way in a southeasterly course. In the undulating valley formed by the bed of the stream, and shut in by the mountain ranges, lay ancient Sparta. The country, by nature and climate, was such as to make men hardy and determined. Euripides styles it "a country rich in productions, but difficult to cultivate; shut in on all sides by a barrier of stern mountains; almost inaccessible to the foe." Its hidden situation in the Eurotas valley made it a well-guarded camp, and the Dorian conquerors of the Peloponnesus, surrounded by enemies and threatened by warlike neighbors, soon saw that the only hope of holding their conquests and extending their power lay in the maintenance of a warlike race.