We pass from the citizen-women of Athens to the other class of free women--the strangers. A stranger had no rights or privileges in any of the ancient States. Any justice that he might obtain could be gained only by the friendly services of some citizen. If this was true of the man-stranger, it was also true of the woman-stranger. She was not entitled to the protection of the city-State. No laws were made for her benefit. She had to look after her own interests herself or get some man to do it for her by her own arts of persuasion. The one object that the State kept before it in regard to these stranger-women was to see to it that they did not in any way corrupt the purity of the citizen blood. The statesmen thought that great dangers might arise from their presence in a community. Political peril might threaten the very existence of the State if strangers, with strange traditions and foreign interests, were to take even the slightest part in the management of public affairs. And the gods might be fearfully insulted, and inflict dreadful vengeance, if any one of these stranger-women were to find her way into the secret recesses of ancestral worship and perform some of the sacred functions which only the citizen-women could perform. The Spartans accordingly did not permit any strangers, male or female, to reside in their city. These strangers might come to certain festivals for a few days, but the period of their stay was strictly limited. Athens pursued a different policy. She was a commercial city. She was at the head, and ultimately ruler, of a larger confederacy of Greek States which sent their taxes to her. Besides, the city itself was full of attractions for the stranger, with its innumerable works of art, its brilliant dramatic exhibitions, its splendid religious processions, its gay festivals, its schools of philosophy, and its keen political life. Athens could not exclude strangers. It had, therefore, to take the most stringent precautions that this concourse of strangers should not corrupt the pure citizen blood. Accordingly, laws were enacted which prohibited any citizen-man from marrying a stranger-woman or any stranger-man from marrying a citizen-woman. If the stranger-man or woman ventured on such a heinous offence any one could inform against him or her. The culprit was seized, all his or her property was confiscated, and he or she was sold into slavery. The citizen-man or woman involved in such an offence had to suffer very severe penalties. The stranger-women, therefore, could not marry. Marriage was the only sin that they could commit politically in the eye of an Athenian statesman. They might do anything else that they liked.