The book of the ancient Greeks: An introduction to the history and civilization of Greece from the coming of the Greeks to the conquest of Corinth by Rome in 146 B.C.
John Stuart Mill · en
But whatever was the actual life of the Athenian lady, the Athenian
ideal of womanhood was very high. In the wondrous temple that stood
high above the city, looking down upon it and guarding it, was the
figure that symbolized to the Athenians all that was good and
beautiful and true, and it was {220} the figure of a woman. It was
always the figure of a woman that represented Victory, and nearly all
the great Greek dramas deal with the fate of a woman, who was
generally the wife or daughter of a King. The Sacred Mysteries of
Eleusis, mysteries of such deep meaning that it was said that
"partakers in them had better hopes concerning death and all
eternity," centred round the story of the love and sorrow of a woman.
A race that could produce such great figures as these must have
thought nobly of womanhood.[7]
And so, in spite of her subordinate position in the background, the
Athenian woman was of real influence in Athens. She reigned supreme
in the household, and as her sons grew up, they recognized in her
those qualities which every Greek and especially the Athenian, was
taught to value so highly: that quiet courage which by its very
steadfastness overcomes all the little anxieties and annoyances of
daily life; and that self-control and self-mastery which, putting
self in the background, sets free the individual for service to
others. The Athenian ideal of service was that the man should give
it wholly to the state, and the woman wholly to her home, but narrow
as was her horizon, limited as were her opportunities, the Athenian
woman exercised an influence in Athens, that helped to strengthen and
preserve some of the noblest Athenian qualities.
[1] Aristophanes: _The Wasps_, translated by B. B. Rogers. (By
permission of Messrs. G. Bell and Sons.)
[2] Xenophon: _The Economist_.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Theocritus: From _Idyll_, XXIV, translated by S. C. Calverley.
(By permission of Messrs. G. Bell and Sons.)
[5] Xenophon: _The Economist_.
[6] Author Unknown: From _Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology_,
translated by J. W. Mackail.
[7] See Emily James Putnam: _The Lady_.
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CHAPTER XIII
THE ATHENIAN SCHOOLBOY