Only one of these West-Asiatic civilisations is known to us with any fulness; but this also was monarchical, and neither men nor women (save the privileged few) had any political power. Ancient Persia was the fourth world-power to issue from the chaos of tribes and build on the ruins of its predecessors. If we trust the Greek writers, the position of woman in Persia varied very considerably. It is suggested that she was oppressed in the western parts, where the religion of Zoroaster had less influence, and respected in the eastern. The poorer women had the liberty that their poverty generally entails, but the women of the wealthier had enclosed chambers and guarding eunuchs. The monarchs and princes had large harems, and their women at times won the irregular and blood-stained power that the system often gives them. The Persian sacred book, the Avesta, contains the best feeling of the country. A man must have the woman's consent to marriage, must respect her after marriage, and must only in an exceptional case take a second wife; but _her_ duty is to obey, and she is treated with the usual unfairness in regard to divorce and misconduct. The short sway of Persia, however, soon fell before invaders from Europe, who bring us to the interesting story of woman's position in Greece. Here we at once enter an atmosphere much nearer to our own than that of the older civilisations, and the tendency to see parallels and to draw morals becomes very strong. With the general statement that woman was emphatically subordinated to man in the chief centre of Greek civilisation, at Athens, and that there arose in time a contest of feminists and anti-feminists to which we may liken our familiar struggle, all are now familiar. But we must trace the evolution of woman's position with some care, if we are to understand it aright.