The restraint of female influence being thus removed, it may be presumed that the outward forms of decency were less scrupulously observed than they would have been under a different system. A fine of one thousand drachmas was imposed upon every woman who appeared in public without clothing; and the necessity of making such a law does not speak well for purity of manners. That women were not always entirely passive and subservient, appears by the example of Xantippe, so famous for her household eloquence; and by the dispute between Agamemnon and his wife, concerning his wish that she should absent herself from the wedding of her daughter Iphigenia: _Agamemnon._ “Without more reasonings, my demands obey!” _Clytemnestra._ “By Juno, that o’er Argos bears the sway, Sooner would wretched Clytemnestra bleed, Than give consent to so unjust a deed. Affairs abroad better thy lot become; ’Tis fit that I should manage things at home.” Themistocles used to say, “My little boy rules Athens; for he governs his mother, and his mother governs me.” The women of Lemnos, finding themselves slighted for the sake of certain Thracian captives, whose charms conquered their conquerors, resolved upon indiscriminate revenge. They unanimously agreed to put all their male relations to death; and this barbarous plan was carried into execution, with the solitary exception of Hypsipyle, the queen, who spared the life of her father. In consequence of this, the women conspired against her, and soon after drove her from the kingdom. The most common employments of Grecian women were spinning, weaving, embroidery, making garments, and attending to household avocations. Their embroidery often represented battle-scenes and historical events, which must have required a great deal of time and patience. During the early ages, there seems to have been no difference whatever between the occupations of princesses and women of common rank. Before marriage, Penelope tended her father’s flocks on the mountains of Arcadia; and when she was queen of Ithaca, her son bids her attend to the spindle and the loom, and leave the affairs of the palace to his direction. During the absence of her husband, she was troubled with numerous powerful suitors, whose enmity was greatly to be feared in those turbulent times. She promised to choose one from among them, when she had finished weaving a certain web; but she continually baffled them, by unravelling in the night what she had woven in the day: hence “Penelope’s web” became a proverbial expression for works that were never likely to be finished. We are told that Nausicaa, daughter of king Alcinous, who met Ulysses shipwrecked on her father’s coast, went down to the shore, accompanied by her maidens, to wash clothes; and princess as she was, she carried her dinner with her.