Now, to judge of the position into which this social system thrust the female sex, one must glance at the mythology, or, to speak more correctly, at the religious faith of the Greek people. It has been conjectured that they derived their idea of Venus from the East. However this be, Venus was certainly one of the earliest goddesses to whom their homage was paid. Solon erected opposite his dicterion a temple to Venus Pandemos, or the public Venus. In that temple were two statues: one of the goddess, the other of a nymph, Pitho, who presided over persuasion; and the attitudes and execution of the statues were such that they explained the character without inscription. At this temple a festival was held on the fourth of each month, to which all the men of Athens were invited. But Venus Pandemos soon made way for newer and more barefaced rivals. Twenty temples were raised in various cities of Greece to Venus the Courtesan. In one author we find allusion made to Venus Mucheia, or the Venus of houses of ill-fame. Another celebrates Venus Castnia, or the goddess of indecency. Others honor Venus Scotia, the patroness of darkness; and Venus Derceto, the guardian deity of street-walkers. More famous still was Venus Divaricatrix, whose surname, derived, it is said by a father of the Church, _a divaricatis cruribus_,[52] must be left in a learned tongue. And still more renowned was Venus Callipyge, whose statue is at this day one of the choice ornaments of one of the best European collections of antiquities. It owed its charm to the marvelous beauty of the limbs, and was understood to have been designed from two Syracusan sisters, whose extraordinary symmetry in this particular had been noticed by a countryman who surprised them while bathing. All these Venuses had temples, and sacrifices, and priestesses. Their worship was naturally analogous to their name, and consistent with their history. Their devotees were every man in Greece. Yet it was in this society, trained to such spectacles, and nurtured in such a creed, that matrons and maidens were taught to lead a life of purity, seclusion, and self-sacrifice.