It will be evident from what has been said, that an Athenian lady who conscientiously discharged her duties was very little exposed to ennui. She arose in the morning with the lark, roused her slaves, distributed to all their tasks,[103] superintended the operations of the nursery, and, on days frequently recurring, went abroad in the performance of rites specially allotted to her sex. But, one effect of democracy is to confer undue influence upon women.[104] And this influence, where by education or otherwise they happen to be luxurious or vain, must infallibly prove pernicious to the state. At Athens, the number of this class of women, extremely limited in the beginning, augmented rapidly during the decline of the republic, and the comic poets substituting a part for the whole, invest their countrywomen generally with the qualities belonging exclusively to these.—But, the success of such writers depending generally on ingenious extravagance and exaggeration, we must be on our guard against their insinuations. Their faith in the existence of virtue, male or female, has, in all ages, if we are to judge by their works, been very lanksided. In their view, if there has been one good woman since the world began, it is as much as there has. Accordingly when these lively caricaturists describe the female _demos_ as addicted extravagantly to wine[105] and pawning their wardrobe to purchase it—as compelling the men by their intemperance to keep their cellars under lock and key, and still defeating them by manufacturing false ones—as forming illicit connexions, and having recourse to the boldest stratagems in furtherance of their intrigues, we must necessarily suppose them to have amused themselves at the expense of truth; though that, among the Athenians, there were examples enough of women of whom all this might be said, it would be absurd to deny. ----- Footnote 103: Aristoph. Lysist. 18. Plato, who admired the practice, requires his airy female citizens to go and do likewise. Καὶ δὴ καὶ δέσποιναν ἐν οἰκίᾳ ὑπὸ θεραπαινίδων ἐγείρεσθαί τινων καὶ μὴ πρώτην αὐτὴν ἐγείρειν τὰς ἄλλας, αἰσχρὸν λέγειν χρὴ πρὸς αὑτοὺς δοῦλον τε καὶ δούλην καὶ παῖδα, καὶ εἴ πως ἦν οἷον τε, ὅλην καὶ πᾶσαν τὴν οἰκίαν. De Legg. vii. t. viii. p. 40. Bekk. Footnote 104: Cf. Plat. de Rep. t. vi. p. 102. Footnote 105: Arist. Lysist. 113, seq. 205. -----