These essays are limited mainly to the golden ages of Greece, Rome, and the Renaissance, with a brief interlude that serves as a transition from pagan to medieval times. The mantle of the great Italians fell upon the women of the golden age of France, who reached the summit of the power and influence of their sex in the past. The personality and intellectual influence of these women I have considered at length in “The Women of the French Salons.” The inevitable “woman question” is not touched except as it may appear in the effort to show, in a small degree, the intellectual quality and influence of some of the representative women of the past, and to vindicate them from charges which are often as untrue as unjust. Without any pretension to profound learning or philosophic criticism, I have simply presented the most significant facts available, with their various settings, and a few plain conclusions which may be insufficient, but which are at least sincere and carefully considered. In estimates of people I have taken the most charitable view possible without sacrificing truth to imagination. It is the safer side in which to err, as the world has always been much more active in the spread of calumny than of praise, especially where women are concerned. There is no pretense to historical continuity, or to a serious study of present conditions, in the single modern essay. It simply considers one phase of our own age, which we doubtless claim to be altogether golden. The work has been a labor of love. If I have succeeded in throwing any fresh light upon the women of long ago, many of whom are already half mythical, or in giving a clear impression of what we owe them, my long and pleasant hours among old chronicles and forgotten records will not have been in vain. AMELIA GERE MASON. August, 1901. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE vii INTRODUCTION xiii WOMAN IN GREEK POETRY 1 SAPPHO AND THE FIRST WOMAN’S CLUB 25 GLIMPSES OF THE SPARTAN WOMAN 51 THE ATHENIAN WOMAN, ASPASIA, AND THE FIRST SALON 69 REVOLT OF THE ROMAN WOMEN 105 THE “NEW WOMAN” OF OLD ROME 137 SOME FAMOUS WOMEN OF IMPERIAL ROME 167 MARCELLA, PAULA, AND THE FIRST CONVENT 205 THE LEARNED WOMEN OF THE RENAISSANCE 241 THE LITERARY COURTS AND PLATONIC LOVE 291 SALON AND WOMAN’S CLUB 353 INTRODUCTION It has been quite gravely asserted of late that “woman has just discovered her intellect.” As a result of this we are told with great earnestness that the nineteenth century belonged to her by virtue of conquest, and that she is entering upon a new era of power and intelligence which is to usher in the millennium.