It is possible that she may have ventured on new opinions as to the nature of marriage. When we come to treat of Athens, we shall see that the restrictions on marriage in the ancient world were of the sternest and most narrow character. Her Lesbian countrywomen enjoyed considerable liberty, and Heraclides Ponticus[36] says that they “were excitable and daring. Wherefore fondness for drink and love affairs, and every kind of relaxation in regard to food are common among them.” The statement is made in regard to the Æolians, to whom the Lesbians belonged. But they were surrounded by Ionians, among whom the position of women was almost servile. Sappho may have opened her home to the girls who were tired of such close restriction, and may have counselled marriage from choice. Probably this circumstance would account for the treatment which the character of Sappho received in subsequent times, for all women who have dared to help forward the progress of their sex, and all men who have boldly aided them have almost uniformly been slandered and reviled in all ages.[37] All the notices which we have of her from contemporary or nearly contemporary sources speak of her in high terms of praise. Alcæus, her fellow-townsman, sings of her as “the violet-crowned, chaste, sweet-smiling Sappho,” and approaches her in verses which imply a belief in her purity. Herodotus[38] tells how she bitterly rebuked a brother who squandered all his money on a beautiful courtezan. Her fellow-citizens honoured her by stamping her figure upon their coins,--“honoured her,” says Aristotle,[39] “though she was a woman.” And the fragments of her own poems bear testimony to the same fact. They show, indeed, the warm blood of a Southern girl who has no concealments. If she loves, she tells it in verses that vibrate with emotion, that tremble with passion. And she was no prude. Like the rest of her sex of that day, she thought that it was woman’s destiny to love, and that the woman who tried to resist the impulse of the god tried an impossible feat. But there is not one line to show that she fell in love with any man. She may have done so, she probably did so, but there is no clear proof. There is only one reference to a man, and it is most likely that she is celebrating not her own passion, but the love of one of her girls. And if she wrote many a hymn to the golden-throned Aphrodite, she wrote also hymns to the chaste Artemis, and prayed to the chaste Graces.