Part 18 (1/2)
Thus Hypatia, by moral suasion and by avoiding all open opposition, sought to wean the people from Christianity and to revive their faith in the ancient G.o.ds. Her success in attracting to paganism both the cultured and the plain people naturally caused her to be an object of hatred and jealousy to those who strove to promote Christianity by violence and force.
The name of Cyril, among the Church Fathers, is the synonym for fanaticism and bigotry. Elevated to the archi-episcopal chair of Alexandria to succeed his uncle, Theophilus, he sought to attain supreme power in the city and to make the power of the Church dominant in temporal affairs. He succeeded in expelling the Jews, and then turned his attention to the extermination of paganism. As Hypatia was the chief exponent of the old G.o.ds, and as her influence extended even to the palace of the prefect, Cyril hated her with all the zeal of bigotry and was eager for her downfall. Irreproachable in conduct, beloved of all, influential with the civil power, she was not subject to attack in any open manner, and Cyril finally countenanced an inhuman and disgusting plot of a.s.sa.s.sination devised by the most violent of his followers--the deacon Peter.
One day in March of the year 415, Peter secretly gathered in an alley not far from the lecture hall of Hypatia a band of savage monks from the Nitrian desert. When the customary lecture hour approached, Hypatia, unconscious of danger, left her house and entered her chariot to drive to the lecture hall. Soon the mob of zealots, headed by Peter, rush out from the alley, seize the horses, tear the helpless woman from her seat, and drag her into a neighboring church. Here, more like savage beasts than men, Peter's frenzied followers remove from her every shred of clothing, and at the foot of the bleeding image of the Saviour of mankind do to death the virgin martyr in the most horrible manner with fragments of tiles and mussel sh.e.l.ls. The limbs are torn from the still quivering body, and, when life is extinct, the howling mob gather up and burn the fragments of the mutilated corpse.
It was a horrible deed. The life of a beautiful and talented maiden was sacrificed for the cause which she professed, and, like many a Christian maiden, she attained by her death the sanct.i.ty of martyrdom. The purity and n.o.bility of her character invested her with an enduring fame, and, though her end marks the doom of the old G.o.ds, Hypatia herself will never be forgotten. Judged by the abiding results of her activity, Hypatia was, like Sh.e.l.ley, ”a beautiful and ineffectual angel beating in the void her luminous wings in vain,” but as the embodiment of the highest and best elements of Greek culture she deserves to rank as one of the most typical of Greek women.
A peculiar and deep-rooted trait in woman's nature is tender compa.s.sion and sympathetic devotion to suffering humanity. Hence from heroic times onward through the various epochs of Greek history we find women at the bedside of the sick and the wounded, acting as attendant, nurse, or physician. Thus it is not surprising that we should find Greek women preeminent in the art of medicine.
In the Heroic Age, Homeric heroines were gifted with a knowledge of plants and their virtues. Hecate, wife of King aeetes of Colchis, her daughter Medea, and Circe were so celebrated in this respect that they pa.s.sed for enchantresses. One has but to recall the transformation of Odysseus's companions into swine as an evidence of Circe's peculiar power. All the daughters of Asclepius the physician--Hygiea, Panacea, Iaso, and aegle--were specialists in medicine. Helen of Troy knew how to compound her celebrated potion, Nepenthe, which made men forget all care and enjoy sound slumbers; and OEnone, the forsaken wife of Paris, and Agamede, daughter of a king of Elis, were skilled in the use of simples.
In historical times, the Thessalian women were noted for their knowledge of the virtues of plants, and were acquainted with all forms of witchcraft. They were frequently consulted for the preparation of ”love potions,” and, as midwives, were in demand throughout h.e.l.las. Women naturally preferred women's services in those ailments which are peculiar to the s.e.x; but in ancient Athens, so unfriendly to the female s.e.x in its laws, there was a statute forbidding the practice of gynaecology by women as a profession. Women rebelled, but their complaints were without avail.
Agnodice, whose date is not known, was the name of the courageous maiden who broke the prevailing traditions and won a natural right for her s.e.x.
She conceived the idea of studying medicine in secret until she became an expert, and then of offering her services to women, also in secret, for medical treatment, especially in cases of maternity. To this end, she cut off her hair, adopted masculine apparel, and, as a promising youth, took instruction in medicine from Hierophilus, a celebrated physician. Her progress was rapid, and when she was p.r.o.nounced sufficiently equipped for independent practice she revealed her ident.i.ty to prospective mothers, who gladly availed themselves of her services, so that she soon obtained the monopoly of this kind of practice. The other physicians were naturally overcome with jealousy and chagrin that the young doctor should supplant them, and finally they brought charges of malpractice against the supposed youth. Agnodice was brought to trial, and in self-defence was compelled to reveal her s.e.x. The older physicians then endeavored to have the laws enforced against her; but all the prominent ladies of the city took her part, and the obnoxious laws were repealed.
From that time forward, large numbers of women studied medicine, the majority devoting their attention to the diseases of women and children.
These female physicians frequently appear as medical writers, especially on gynaecology and pediatrics. They also produced many treatises on cosmetics, which ranked as a branch of hygiene and was cultivated most diligently by many eminent physicians. These women rivalled one another in the discovery of an endless variety of toilet preparations, beauty wafers, skin and hair ointments, pastes and powders, and wine essences for the removal of pimples and freckles.
In later and more immoral times, female physicians lent their talents gladly to demoralization and license, and wrote treatises on love potions and abortives--a disreputable form of literature very popular with the hetserae, and which, according to Pliny, found diligent readers among the great ladies of Rome. Of all the numerous works of the feminine doctors, only fragments and excerpts have come down to us, and their loss is not greatly to be regretted. Yet credit is due to these women as pioneers in female emanc.i.p.ation, and the most eminent of them deserve to be rescued from oblivion.
The greatest was Aspasia--not the favorite of Pericles nor the devoted companion of Cyrus the Younger, but the ”medical” Aspasia, who was a prominent figure in the Athens of the fourth century before the Christian era. She attained great fame, not only in women's diseases, but also in surgery and other branches of medicine, as may be judged from the t.i.tles of her works, preserved by Aetius, a physician and writer of the fifth century of our era. It seems clear from what is known of her that the Athenian women saw nothing criminal in giving and using abortives. Even Aristotle desired to have a law regulating the number of children that might be borne by woman.
Antiochis, to whom Heraclides of Tarentum, one of the best physicians of antiquity, dedicated his works, was a practising female physician in Magna Graecia, in the third century before Christ, who devoted especial attention to salves and plaster cures. To the great Cleopatra has been ascribed the authors.h.i.+p of a work ”on the medical means of preserving beauty”; but there were probably one or more physicians of this name, as there are various treatises ascribed to ”Cleopatra.” Other female physicians, of whom we know little more than the name and the t.i.tles of their works, are Olympias of Boeotia, Salpe, Elephantis, Sotira, Pamphile, Myro, Spendusa, Maia, and Berenice.
s.p.a.ce will not suffer us to do more than call attention to many wise and able women of h.e.l.las who were eminent in other branches of learning. In historical writings, Thucydides's daughter is worthy of mention, as she is said to have composed the eighth book of her father's history of the Peloponnesian War; Nicobule, the author of a history of Alexander the Great, was another excellent woman writer. Plutarch gathered about him a learned circle of women, of whom the chief was Clea, the clever matron of Delphi, to whom he dedicated several of his works, and Eurydice, who enjoyed his instruction. Aganice, daughter of Hegetor of Thessaly, possessed an astonis.h.i.+ng knowledge of astronomy, and was regarded as an enchantress. To Melanippe, the sculptor Lysistratus erected a monument as a tribute to her learning.
Alexandria, with its vast number of scholars, its libraries and museums, and its intellectual freedom for women, naturally produced a large number of women eminent in history and philology. Frequently philologists' daughters were trained from childhood by their fathers, and afterward became their companions and secretaries in literary labors. The most prominent of these literary feminine grammarians was doubtless Hestiaea of Alexandria, a Homeric scholar of note, who was the first to devote scientific attention to the topography of the Iliad and to throw doubt on the generally accepted view that New Ilium was the site of Ancient Troy. Pamphile, daughter of the grammarian Soteridas and wife of the scholar Socratidas, was a woman of wide erudition, celebrated especially as essayist and historian. Others whose names are a.s.sociated with similar labors are Agallis, Theodora, and Theosebia.
When one reflects on the varied activity of Greek women, the conclusion forces itself upon him that they were intellectually as acquisitive and as brilliant as the Greek men, who have set the standard for the world in the realm of literature and science. Cleverness is the most salient characteristic of the Greek intelligence, and this trait belonged as truly to the female s.e.x as to the male. The Renaissance furnishes examples of women renowned for their erudition and culture; but perhaps only the present age furnishes an adequate parallel to the varied intellectual activities of Greek women in the centuries that followed the decline of Greek independence and that saw the spread of Greek culture among all civilized peoples. Modern women can therefore learn much from their Greek sisters in all that pertains to the so-called emanc.i.p.ation of the s.e.x.
XIV
THE MACEDONIAN WOMAN
Separated from the lands of the h.e.l.lenes by the range of the Cambunian Mountains which extended north of Thessaly from Mount Olympus on the east to Mount Lacmon on the west, there lay a rugged country, whose inhabitants were destined to play a prominent role and become a powerful factor in the later history of Greece. This country, divided into many basins by spurs which branch off from the higher mountain chains, by its mountain system not only shut the people off from the outside world, but also forbade any extended intercourse between the dwellers in the various cantons. The wide and fertile valleys, however, and the mountain slopes abounding in extensive forests, the haunts of wild game, mark the land as the country of a great people, who by generations of seclusion were storing up strength and vitality to be of vast influence whenever they should break through their narrow confines.
Such a people dwelt there, but it required strong leaders to bring them in touch with the rich h.e.l.lenic life to the south of them and to make them a powerful factor in the history of the world. Philip, lord of Macedon, and his mightier son, Alexander, were the great men who were to accomplish the work of grafting the new blood and energy of Macedon upon the decaying stock of Greek culture, and to diffuse the spirit of h.e.l.lenism throughout the civilized world. With them the old order of things, as represented in Athens and Sparta, pa.s.sed away, and a new order, with new ideals, new motives, new views of life, was born. Hence, the people of Macedon, themselves Greek by race, have a large place in the consideration of any phase of Greek life. When the h.e.l.lenes originally migrated into Greece, a branch of the race found its way into the southwestern part of Macedon behind the barriers of Olympus, and later, by intermixture with the Illyrians and other barbarous races, these invaders lost some of their national characteristics and, shut off as they were, failed to share in the history and development of their kinsmen to the south. In language, in inst.i.tutions, and in aspirations, however, they gave indisputable evidence of their right to be considered as members of the great h.e.l.lenic family.
The people were a hardy, peasant folk, devoted to hunting, to grazing, and to agriculture, and they preserved the patriarchal inst.i.tutions which obtained among the earliest Greeks. They were divided into many tribes, each with its own chief and leader. Among some of the hardier tribes, the man who had not slain a wild boar was not allowed to recline at table with the warriors, and not to have slain an enemy was regarded as a mark of disgrace. In the tribal organization and in the inst.i.tution of the kings.h.i.+p, we are carried back to the society of Homeric times, and in manifold ways the public and private life of the Macedonians reflects the life portrayed in the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Aristotle remarks that the ancient kings.h.i.+p survived only among the Spartans, the Molossians, and the Macedonians, of all the Greek peoples; and only among the last mentioned did the office retain all its prerogatives. As in the Heroic Age, so in Macedon, the king was supreme judge, military commander-in-chief, and at the head of the religion of the State. But he was no Oriental despot. The people were conscious of their liberty and sensitive as to their rights. By the side of the king stood the n.o.bles, who were closely a.s.sociated with him at all times, const.i.tuting his council, accompanying him to war, and sharing with him his dangers and his honors. As the population was largely rural, there were present none of the conditions which tend to nullify clan distinctions and create a democracy. The lines between n.o.ble and peasant were very broad. Hence, Macedon was essentially a dynastic State, and its history is largely the history of its royal family. As we have frequently noted, in monarchies woman is ever a most influential factor, A king must have a court, and there can be no court without a queen. The queen's life has necessarily its public, political, and military aspects; and the part she plays largely determines the weal or woe of both king and people. Hence it is with the royal family of Macedon, and with those queens and princesses who make up a large part of its history, that we are now chiefly concerned.
The royal family of Macedon claimed descent from members of the ancient Heracleid family of Argos, which had taken refuge in the north; and this descent was so capable of proof, that, on the basis of it, one of the earlier kings was admitted to the Olympic games. Herodotus, the great story teller, relates the incident of the founding of the dynasty.
According to his narration, three brothers of the royal race of Temenus,--the fourth in descent from Heracles,--Gauanes, Eropus, and Perdiccas, exiles from Argos, went into Illyria, and thence into upper Macedon, where they placed themselves, as herdsmen, at the service of Lebea, one of the local kings. Now, when the queen baked the bread for their food, she always noticed that the loaf destined for Perdiccas doubled its weight; she made this marvel known to her husband, who saw danger in it, and ordered the three brothers to depart from the country.
They replied that they would go as soon as they had received their wages. Thereupon the king, who was sitting by the hearth, on which fell sunlight through the opening of the roof, as if by divine inspiration said to the brothers, pointing to the light on the floor: ”I will give you that; that is your wages.” Upon this, the two elder brothers stood speechless; but the younger, who held a knife in his hand, said: ”Very well; we accept it.” And having traced with his knife a circle on the floor surrounding the rays, he stooped down thrice, feigning each time to take up the suns.h.i.+ne and place it in the folds of his garment and to distribute it to his brothers; after which, they all went away. One of those who sat by called the attention of the king to this conduct on the part of the young man, and the manner in which he accepted what was offered him; and the king, becoming anxious and angry, sent hors.e.m.e.n to follow the brothers and slay them. Now in that country is a river, to which the descendants of these Argives offer sacrifice as to a G.o.d. This river, after the fugitives had crossed it, became suddenly so swollen that the hors.e.m.e.n dared not follow. The brothers arrived in another part of Macedon and established themselves near the lake called the Gardens of Midas, and, when they had subjugated the country in those parts, they went thence to conquer the rest of Macedon.