Part 16 (2/2)
The candidates for initiation, the Mystai, had to spend a year in preparation. Homicides, courtesans, barbarians, all who had any stain upon their lives, were excluded from these rites; only h.e.l.lenes ”of pure soul and pure hands” were eligible for initiation. On the days preceding the festival, expiatory ceremonies were performed, of which the most notable was one in which a girl or boy, styled ”the child of the hearth,” performed certain rites of purification for those who were desirous of being admitted into the mysteries. Finally, on the twentieth day of the month Boedromion, corresponding nearly to our September, the great procession set forth from Athens for Eleusis, along the Sacred Way. In this procession the women took part in great numbers, and it afforded excellent opportunities for the display of beautiful toilettes.
Aristocratic ladies were usually driven in chariots. As the crowd of pilgrims pa.s.sed over the Cephissus Bridge, there was, as in the Thesmophoria, much banter and raillery in memory of the manner in which the G.o.ddess was once diverted from her grief; and all along the road there were stations for sacrifices and oblations, where the maidens engaged in singing and graceful dances. Eleusis was finally reached at night by torchlight, and the following days were spent by the initiated in their religious duties and by the candidates in further preparation.
We have unfortunately but meagre glimpses into the Eleusinian mysteries, and cannot follow the order of ceremonies. Suffice it to say that, besides promoting good living and happiness in this life, they gave hope for the life to come. ”The man purified by initiation,” says Pindar, ”has understood before his death the beginning and end of life, and after death dwells with the G.o.ds.”
In Polygnotus's famous painting of the infernal regions, in the Lesche at Delphi, two women were represented trying to carry water in jars that have no bottoms; an inscription states that they were never initiated, and the moral was ”that without initiation life is altogether wasted and lost.” In the wors.h.i.+p of Demeter and in the Eleusinian mysteries there was everything to appeal to woman--the sanct.i.ty of marriage, deified motherhood, exaltation of the home and of domestic duties--and the zeal manifested by Athenian women in these religious rites doubtless promoted a feminine piety and a natural devoutness which enn.o.bled the Athenian home and softened parental discipline.
The Thesmophoria was the festival of the married women; but young girls and even children had their festivals in the Brauronia and the Artemisia, celebrated in honor of Artemis, the special patron of virgins. The Brauronia was celebrated every fifth year, in the little town of Brauron. Chosen Athenian maidens between the ages of five and ten years, dressed in saffron-colored garments, went in solemn procession to the sanctuary of the G.o.ddess, where they performed a propitiatory rite, in which they imitated bears, an animal sacred to Artemis. Every maiden of Athens, before she could marry, must have once taken part in this festival and consecrated herself to the G.o.ddess.
There was also a precinct of Artemis Brauronia on the Acropolis, and doubtless this ceremony was also performed there. Almost everywhere this virgin G.o.ddess was revered by young girls as the guardian of their maiden years, and before marriage it was the custom that the bride should dedicate to Artemis a lock of her hair, her girdle, and her maiden tunic.
Maidens also took part in the wors.h.i.+p of the twin brother of Artemis, Apollo, in the island of Delos, which was the birthplace of the G.o.d and G.o.ddess. The celebration was a festival of youth and beauty, of poetry and art. Aristocratic maidens of Athens joined with those of the seat of the Delphian confederacy over which Athens presided in making the occasion emphasize the power and splendor of Athens in the height of its greatness.
”Once every five years, in the spring, a solemn festival recalled the anniversary of the birth of the G.o.d. The maidens of Delos, wearing their richest attire, and crowned with flowers, united in joyous chorus around the altar, and represented in sacred dances the story of the birth of Apollo. Others, with garlands of flowers in their hands, went to hang them on the ancient statue of the G.o.ddess, which Theseus had, according to tradition, brought from Crete to Delos. From all parts of Greece, from the islands, and from Asia, solemn emba.s.sies, sacred _theoriae_, landed in the harbor. The most brilliant was that of the Athenians, who were long the suzerains of the island. Each year, a State vessel, the Paralian galley, conveyed the sacred emba.s.sy to Delos; the crew was composed of free men, the vessel decked with flowers. At the moment of its departure, the whole town was purified; the priests of Apollo bestowed on the galley a solemn benediction, and the law forbade that the purified town should be defiled by any sentence of death until the return of the vessel. The members of the emba.s.sy were chosen from the chief families of the city, and they were accompanied by a chorus of young men and maidens, who were to chant the sacred hymns in honor of Apollo and perform around the altar of the Horns, one of the marvels of Delos and of the world, an ancient and solemn dance--the _geranos_. The day of the arrival of these theoriae was a festival in Delos. Amid the acclamations of an enthusiastic crowd, the emba.s.sy disembarked in the harbor; and such was the joy and impatience of the people, that sometimes its members had not even time to don their robes of ceremony and to crown themselves with flowers. Over the bridge wound the sacred procession of the Athenians, with its splendidly dressed musicians, its chorus chanting the sacred hymns, its rich offerings destined for the G.o.d; received at the end of the bridge by the official charged with the reception of these pious emba.s.sies, it pursued its way to the temple, there to present its offerings and prayers, and to pour out on the altar the blood of its hecatombs. During the rest of the day, feasts were provided for the people, and games and contests filled the island with the sounds of rejoicing.”
After the celebration, the Paralia returned to Athens, bearing homeward the beautiful maidens who had done honor to the G.o.d and had added to the glory of their native city.
Aphrodite, the G.o.ddess of beauty and of pleasure, also had her festivals in which women took part. Certain of these were of a lascivious character and were celebrated chiefly by the demi-monde; they were held especially at the temple of Aphrodite Pandemus on the promontory of Colias. But the ladies of Athens took part in the Adonia, in honor of Adonis, beloved of Aphrodite. The ceremonies of the first day were of a mournful character, as they commemorated the death of Adonis; but the second day was one of rejoicing and entertainment, as Adonis was conceived of as returning to life to spend six months with Aphrodite. In his death and resurrection the changes of the seasons were poetically symbolized. Women of the leading families were expected to partic.i.p.ate in the magnificent solemnities, which took place at the summer solstice.
A long procession of priests and of maidens acting as canephorse, bearing vases for libations, baskets, perfumes, and flowers, approached a colossal catafalque, over which were spread beautiful purple coverlets. On these lay a statue of Adonis, pale in death, but still beautifull Over this mournful figure a beautiful woman gave expression in every way to the most bitter grief and sang a hymn to Adonis, telling his sad story. The women round about were clad in mourning and celebrated the plaintive funeral dance; while on all sides was heard the mournful cry: ”Alas! alas! Adonis is dead!”
The hymn or psalm to Adonis was a distinguished and most popular feature of the celebration of the Adonia; Theocritus, in Idyl XV., gives its rendering on the occasion when Arsinoe, queen of Ptolemy Philadelphus, decorated the image of Adonis. In a later chapter of the present volume,--that on The Alexandrian Woman,--an English version of this psalm is given, into which the spirit of the original is most aptly infused; and in connection therewith is a lively and forceful picture of the att.i.tude and manners of the ladies of the day.
XIII
GREEK WOMEN AND THE HIGHER EDUCATION
It is by no means a matter of surprise that among a people so highly cultured as the Greeks there should be women of the highest intellectual attainments. Sappho has already furnished us an example, and her ascendency over her pupils was such as to start a train of influences that stimulated her s.e.x in every part of h.e.l.las to engage in the study and composition of poetry.
Furthermore, among the famous men of h.e.l.las there were, from time to time, ardent advocates of the higher education of women. As early as the seventh century before the Christian era, Cleobulus, one of the seven sages of Greece, insisted that maidens should have the same intellectual training as youths, and ill.u.s.trated his doctrine in the careful education of his daughter, Cleobuline, who became a poetess of wide renown.
Pythagoras, who in the sixth century founded his celebrated philosophical sect in Southern Italy, fully recognized the equality of the s.e.xes and devised a system of education for women, which made his feminine followers not only most efficient in all domestic relations, but also preeminent in philosophical and literary culture. Plato spent considerable time in Magna Graecia, and became imbued with the spirit of Pythagorean philosophy. He must have been impressed with its elevating influence on the status of woman, for in his _Dialogues_ he urged that women should receive the same education as men, and he himself admitted members of the gentler s.e.x to the lectures of the Academy.
After Plato's time, accordingly, we find many women engaged in the study of philosophy, not only among the Academicians, but also in the other philosophical schools, especially the Cyrenaic, the Megarian, and the Epicurean. The Peripatetic and the Stoic doctrines seem not to have appealed to the fair s.e.x.
Alexander's empire, in overthrowing the exclusive State laws of the various cities, accomplished much for the emanc.i.p.ation of women, and from that time forward we find women engaged in almost all the branches of the higher learning. In Alexandria, especially, the daughters of scholars pursued studies in philosophy, in philology, and in archaeology, and some of them became celebrated. In the Graeco-Roman period, Plutarch was a constant advocate of female education, and the circle of learned women that he has made known to us indicates how general was the spread of education among the women of his day.
Aspasia had set the fas.h.i.+on for hetaarae in Athens to devote attention to rhetoric and philosophy; consequently, many of the blue-stockings of Greece belonged to the hetaera cla.s.s. Some acquaintance with the higher learning, however, became fas.h.i.+onable also in the retirement of the gynaeceum, and many maidens and matrons of honorable station employed their leisure moments in reading the works of philosophers and poets, and received, if not public, at least private instruction from professional lecturers.
The variety of intellectual pursuits among the women was marked. Poetry was their natural field, and philosophy appealed to them as being the most learned vocation of the times. Even in the Heroic Age, women were skilled in the uses of plants for purposes of witchcraft and of healing; and in historic times, when medicine became a science, women engaged in various medical pursuits. Similar tastes led many also to follow the different branches of natural science, and in Alexandrian times, when philology was the prevailing study, history and grammar and literary criticism became favorite studies with the daughters of the learned.
In a previous chapter, we have described the Lesbian Sappho's seminary of the Muses, to which maidens flocked from all h.e.l.lenic lands for the study of poetry and art. The natural beauties of the isle of Lesbos, the luxurious life of the aristocratic cla.s.ses, the brilliancy and zeal of Sappho herself, and her ardent affection for her girl friends, were influences favorable to the pursuits of the Muses and the Graces.
It is not surprising that, amid such surroundings and with such a teacher, women should acquire a love of poetry and of all that appeals to the aesthetic nature. There is a vague tradition that there were seventy-six women poets among the Ancient Greeks. Unfortunately, the names of but few of these are preserved to us. We have authentic information concerning only the nine most distinguished poetesses, to whom the Greeks gave the t.i.tle of the Terrestrial Muses.
The second of the nine Terrestrial Muses--for Sappho was, of course, the first--was the poetess's favorite and most promising pupil, Erinna of the isle of Telos. She aroused among Greek poets a most respectful and tender sentiment, and they frequently sounded her praises. Her most noted production was a poem called _The Distaff_, and the poets compared it to the honeycomb, which the gracious bee had gathered from the flowers of Helicon; they perceived in this production of a maiden the freshness and perfume of spring, and they likened her delicate notes to the sweet voice of a swan as he sings his death song--a comparison only too just, for she died at the tender age of nineteen years. A poet of the Anthology thus laments her untimely taking-off:
”These are Erinna's songs: how sweet, though slight!
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