Produced by Turgut Dincer and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) FEMINISM IN GREEK LITERATURE _Other Books by F. A. WRIGHT_ THE GIRDLE OF APHRODITE THE ARTS IN GREECE THE LETTERS OF ALCIPHRON (_May, 1923_) THE LOVER’S HANDBOOK (_in preparation_) FEMINISM IN GREEK LITERATURE FROM HOMER TO ARISTOTLE BY F. A. WRIGHT LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LTD. NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO. 1923 Printed in Great Britain by MACKAYS LTD., Chatham. MANIBUS A. W. VERRALL ΤΡΟΦΕΙΑ CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION 1 I. THE EARLY EPIC 7 II. THE IONIANS AND HESIOD 16 III. THE LYRIC POETS 28 IV. THE MILESIAN TALES 43 V. ATHENS IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 57 VI. ÆSCHYLUS AND SOPHOCLES 70 VII. EURIPIDES 86 VIII. EURIPIDES: THE FOUR FEMINIST PLAYS 113 IX. THE SOCRATIC CIRCLE 135 X. ARISTOPHANES 150 XI. PLATO 168 XII. THE ATTIC ORATORS 183 XIII. ARISTOTLE 202 INTRODUCTION There is a question sometimes put to scholars, a doubt often latent in scholars’ minds—How was it that Greek civilisation, with all its high ideals and achievements, fell so easily before what seems at first sight an altogether inferior culture? The difficulty is not solved by a reference to military resources or administrative skill, for moral strength is the only thing that matters in history, and a nation has never yet succeeded merely by pure intellect or by brute force. The fact is—and it is as well to state it plainly—that the Greek world perished from one main cause, a low ideal of womanhood and a degradation of women which found expression both in literature and in social life. The position of women and the position of slaves—for the two classes went together—were the canker-spots which, left unhealed, brought about the decay first of Athens and then of Greece.