The evil influence of women of this description,[113] who, as Milton expresses it, would fain at any rate ride in their coach and six, was perceived and lamented by the philosophers. To their vain and frivolous notions might be traced, in part at least, the love of power, of trifling distinctions, of unmanly pleasures, which infected the Athenians towards the decline of their republic. By them the springs of education were poisoned, and the seeds sown of those inordinate artificial desires which convulse and overthrow states. In vain did philosophers inculcate temperance and moderation, while the youth were imbued with different opinions by their mothers. The lessons of the Academy were overgrown and checked in the harem. Such dames no doubt would grieve to find their husbands content with little[114] (as was the case with Xantippe) and not numbered with the rulers, since their consequence among their own sex was thus lessened. They would have had them keen worshipers of Mammon, eagerly squabbling and wrangling in the law-courts or the ecclesiæ, not cultivators of domestic habits or philosophical tranquillity and content: and in conversing with their sons would be careful to recommend maxims the reverse of the father’s, with all the cant familiar to women of their character.[115] ----- Footnote 113: On the luxurious manners of the Syracusan women see Athen. xii. 20. In such disorders may be discovered the first germs of the decay of states; on which account prudent statesmen even in oligarchies have sought to restrain the licentious manners of women. Thus Fra Paolo: “Let the women be kept chaste, and in order to that, let them live retired from the world; it being certain that all open lewedness has had its first rise from a salutation, from a smile.”—i. § 20. To this let us add the opinion of the female Pythagorician Phintys: ἴδια δὲ γυναικὸς, τὸ οἰκουρὲν, καὶ ἔνδον μένεν καὶ ἐκδέχεσθαι καὶ θεραπεύεν τὸν ἄνδρα. Stob. Florileg., 74. 61. Both the philosophical lady, however, and the Venetian monk have their views corroborated by the authority of Pericles: τῆς τε γὰρ ὑπαρχούσης φύσεως μὴ χείροσι γενέσθαι, ὑμῖν μεγάλη ἡ δόξα, καὶ οἷς ἂν ἐπ’ ἄρσεσι κλέος ᾖ. Thucyd. ii. 45. Besides leading a retired life, ladies were likewise expected to cultivate the virtue of silence. Soph. Ajax, 293. Hom. Il. ζ. 410. Footnote 114: Which, according to Plato, well-educated men generally are. De Repub. t. vi. p. 173. Footnote 115: Plat. De Repub. viii. 5. t. ii. p. 182. Stallb. -----