It seems that the disputations and all the business were very much the affair of the men only. The women took hardly any part. We have spoken of the poetess Sappho; but this was long before. It is evident that the ladies were more important in the Greek society of Homer's day than they were later. We read of no Greek lady of the glorious days as famous in art or music or literature; and only a very few seem to have been allowed to give their opinions on philosophy or politics. It seems as if they counted for less than they ought to count. The Greeks were great game-players, especially great at athletic games; and we must not forget that though religion appears to have made little difference in their lives, they were a people who had great respect {145} for old customs and were therefore careful to keep up and perform in proper manner religious ceremonies. In some of them the women took a part. Even in the very midst of their struggle against the Persians, the Greek states were only with the greatest difficulty able to lay aside their jealousy of each other and to come together to fight; and after that danger from the east had been dispelled they were free to fight with each other, or to quarrel about the leadership. They did fight and quarrel unceasingly for some 150 years. After the final repulse of the Persians, Athens for a time gained the leadership, owing to the disgust of the states at the insolence of the Spartans, who had been leaders before. But Sparta was too strong to be put down easily. At last a combination of the rest of the states under the leadership of Thebes fairly conquered Sparta and took possession of the Spartan territory. [Sidenote: Peloponnesian War] The most famous of this long succession of fights is that between Sparta on the one side and Athens, as the leader, on the other. It is usually called the Peloponnesian War, the Peloponnese being all that part of Greece below the Isthmus of Corinth, and it is chiefly famous because its story has been so wonderfully well told by Thucydides. Thucydides was a very famous Greek historian. So, too, was Herodotus, who wrote long before him. But Herodotus was more of a story-teller. He was a traveller who wrote about what he saw; and always writes truly when he is telling us of what he himself saw. He has strange tales to tell, about one-eyed men and men who carried their heads under one arm, and so on, which were told him by people whom he met; but he tells them with a warning that he will not vouch for them, because he did not see such things himself. {146} But he has no idea of telling us the real reason why the stories that he tells happened as they did--the political causes, as we should say, of the events. Any trivial reason seems good enough to him to account for a great war. He would have been quite ready to accept the beautiful lady idea as the reason of the siege of Troy.