[181] A similar change had taken place in the god-idea. Jove was no longer the “terrible virgin” who “breathes out on crime, misery, and death,” but, on the contrary, had come to represent a male god who had given birth to Minerva. CHAPTER III ANCIENT SPARTA Although in the writings commonly ascribed to Homer is to be observed a fairly correct picture of many phases of Greek life, the earliest authentic historical accounts which we have of this people are perhaps those of Aristotle and Plutarch. In the accounts given of the Lacedæmonians by the last named of these writers, the fact is shown that male influence among the Spartans of the time of Lycurgus had not reached that state of intense and overshadowing domination in which we find the Athenians of the Solonic period submerged. The early Dorians were ever ready to uphold the ancient customs as opposed to innovations. In the management of public affairs they trusted to the ties of relationship rather than to political organization based on property. The policy of the Athenians, on the contrary, as enunciated by Pericles, was that “it is not the country and the people, but movable and personal property, in the proper sense of the word, which make states great and powerful.” The one policy was essentially Doric, the other Ionic.[182] [182] Müller, _History and Antiquity of the Doric Race_, book i., 9, 13. The exact time at which Lycurgus occupied the position of lawgiver to the Spartans is not known, but it is claimed by Xenophon that he lived shortly after the age of Homer. If the accounts of the Lacedæmonians which have come down to us in connection with the name of this legislator belong to that early age, if scarcely one ethnical period had elapsed since woman’s influence was supreme in the home and in the group, we would naturally expect to find in their customs, usages, and regulations for the management of society, certain traces of a former state of female independence, and a hint, at least, of those principles of liberty and equality in the establishment of the commonwealth which were the result of female influence; especially would this be true as we are informed that the Spartans were a conservative people, clinging to the prejudices of more ancient times. A glance at Spartan institutions at the time indicated, furnishes ample proof of the fact that the Lacedæmonians were still to a considerable extent living under conditions which had been established under the archaic rule of the gens.