CHAPTER III.

THE THESMOPHORIAN FESTIVAL.

“That is beauty itself!” cried the Athenians, when Phidias had finished the new bronze statue of Pallas, ordered by the Lemnians, and revealed it for the first time to the gaze of his fellow-citizens. A cry of astonishment ran through all Athens.

“What did Phidias mean?” No Greek had ever imagined the goddess as his last statue represented her.

She was without helm or shield. Waving locks floated unconfined around the face, upturned with an expression full of dignity and sweetness. The contour of this face was marvellous, the cheeks were chiselled with incomparable delicacy. People fancied they could see them blush. The bare arms, like the hands, were models of the most perfect and noble symmetry. One upraised arm permitted part of the right side to be seen, the robe was draped loosely about the hips, and here, as well as everywhere else, disclosed the outlines of the figure with perfect distinctness.

Unanimous as were the Athenians in praising this last creation of Phidias, they were equally so in declaring that Aspasia must have been the sculptor’s model.

Nor was the assertion wholly erroneous.

Indeed, though Theodota understood how to treat her figure as artistic material, and by it give expression to the character of various female divinities, while all Athens went to witness these performances, Aspasia could practise the art in a still nobler and higher degree of perfection. But the only spectators were Pericles and Phidias.

Grave Phidias went so far, as to admit for a moment that nature could often approach the ideal.

Yet in Aspasia’s Pallas, Phidias no longer had simple nature before his eyes. What he beheld was a creation of mimetic art, a physical perfection born of the mind. Aspasia, with artistic knowledge, impressed upon the natural material of her beauty a precise stamp, as much as Phidias carved the marble block according to a precise idea and design.

As Phidias transferred the fair and wise Aspasia’s charms to enduring bronze, he was really fulfilling Pericles’ injunction to represent wisdom in the enchanting, all-conquering garb of beauty.

Alcamenes had attained new and wonderful results, when permitted to draw from the living fount of Aspasia’s beauty. Phidias performed the same task, but like the great master of all, lofty and peerless.

What Phidias produced in his last Pallas was Aspasia, but elevated to a height so pure and superhuman, that she appeared at the same time like an ideal vision, the embodied dream of the noblest sculptor’s soul.

When Socrates saw the new statue, he said in his thoughtful way:

“The beautiful Aspasia might learn as much from Phidias, as Phidias has learned from the beautiful Aspasia.”

It was strange, that the praises heaped by the Athenians upon his Lemnian Pallas rendered the sculptor morose and gloomy. He did not like to hear it mentioned, and perhaps valued the work less because he had not created it solely from his own mind. He had apparently discharged, with a residue of half unconscious displeasure the task imposed upon him from without, and by whose performance he strove to shake off a restlessness aroused by some alien spell.

Now he seemed to wish to retire still more completely into himself. He wandered about more silent and grave than ever, absorbed in some sublime vision gleaming in the hidden depths of his heart. He had become himself again. He avoided Aspasia, scarcely held any intercourse with Pericles, and one day left Athens quietly and secretly, to realize, in a place sacred to all the Greeks, the loftiest idea of his lofty soul.

Socrates remained the insatiable and unwearied observer of the Lemnian Pallas. He seemed to transfer his love for the Milesian to Phidias’ goddess. The natural Aspasia never again seemed to him perfect, from the moment he beheld her higher ideal embodied in bronze. Yet it might have been said he divided his time between that Pallas and her living original. His steps were daily bent towards Pericles’ house, even at the risk of meeting the eloquent Protagoras.

How did it happen? When Socrates wandered thoughtfully, and, as he thought, aimlessly through the streets of Athens, he at last found himself unexpectedly before Pericles’ house. Like the labyrinth of streets, he seemed to be walking through a labyrinth of feelings, from which he found no exit, and which constantly brought him back to the same spot.

So it was unintentional when Socrates directed his steps to that dwelling. But what did he do there? Offer homage? Give signs of the secret fire consuming him? Had he, like Protagoras, grown accustomed to draw his wisdom from the eyes of others? No one of these things. He argued with Aspasia. He taunted her; once even making in her presence the remark—since frequently quoted, but which tradition ascribes to Pericles, though he obtained it from Socrates—that the best woman was the one least talked about. He made bitter speeches to her, and even when seeming to flatter, was full of the subtle irony characteristic of his character and conversation.

And Aspasia? She appeared to grow more gentle, conciliatory, amiable and bewitching, as Socrates gave freer rein to his caprice. And vice versa—the more gentle and winning Aspasia was, the more peevish and eccentric became the wise Socrates.

What did these two strange natures desire of each other? Were they fighting the old vexatious duel between wisdom and beauty? This singular game had been carried on with special eagerness, ever since the argument between Socrates and Protagoras in the presence of Pericles and Aspasia.

Aspasia feigned to believe, that Socrates visited the house on account of his favorite Alcibiades. Nay, she carried her teasing mood so far as to address verses to him, in which she gave him counsel as if to a lover. Socrates smilingly accepted all this without the slightest objection, the least attempt to contradict his mischievous friend. He never seemed to grow tired of the handsome boy, who still clung to him with almost tender affection. To the lad he was frank, cheerful and kind, without a trace of the whimsicality and irony, with which it suited him to return the graceful advances of the loveliest of Hellenic women.

Aspasia also still had frequent conversations with the woman-hater Euripides, who had now won still greater distinction as a tragic poet. The character of his Muse, which inclined to meditation, found sympathy, and he soon became the favorite poet of a period, that was advancing more and more from the direct and simple view of things to thoughtful and enlightened observation. He had had rich experiences, and the mental results of these experiences constantly overflowed from his lips. Moreover he had a severe, unreserved temperament, which allowed him to express what he thought frankly and boldly. He made concessions to no one, not even the Athenian nation, which every one considered himself obliged to flatter. When a verse, whose purport did not please the Athenians, was once hissed, he came out on the open stage to defend himself, and when the people shouted that the lines must be omitted, replied that the populace must learn from the poets, not the poets from the populace.

Neither did he flatter Aspasia, indeed no one else would have ventured to talk with her about women in the tone he adopted.

He had cast off his first wife and married another, a fact Aspasia, as has been already mentioned, craftily praised in a letter to Pericles as an example of manly resolution.

One day Aspasia accidentally reverted to this matter in the presence of her husband and Socrates. After commending his prompt decision, she asked him about his newly-chosen wife.

“She’s exactly the opposite of the former one,” Euripides answered morosely, “but no better for that—she merely has the opposite faults. The first was a plain but honest woman, who wearied me by her commonplace love; this one is a coquette, who drives me to desperation by her frivolity and fickleness. I’ve come out of the frying-pan into the fire. I am born under an evil star, and the gods give me every bitter thing to taste in succession.”

“I heard that your wife is beautiful and amiable,” said Aspasia.

“Yes indeed, to everybody except myself,” replied Euripides. “She would doubtless be so to me too, if I could resolve to look upon all her bad qualities as so many virtues.”

“What are the bad qualities with which you reproach her?” asked Aspasia.

“She neglects the housekeeping; the hens peck the yarn on the loom. She dances and feasts with her female friends, and is so ill-bred as to peep out of the house door into the street.”

“Is that all?” asked Aspasia.

“No!” replied Euripides. “She is fickle, whimsical, treacherous, untruthful, full of deceit, false, malicious, spiteful, unjust, cruel, revengeful, envious, stubborn, frivolous, silly, sly, jealous, fond of dress, coquettish, unprincipled, heartless, brainless—”

“Enough!” interrupted Aspasia. “It might be hard for you to prove all this in one individual.”

“All this and more!” replied Euripides.

“Perhaps you show your wife too little love, and thus render her averse to you.”

“Why, of course!” cried Euripides, with a sneering laugh. “When such wives are heard of, the husbands are always charged with want of love. ‘You have no heart, my friend, said the viper to the he-goat.’ But on the contrary, I tell you, my unhappiness proceeds from not treating the woman as most Athenians treat their wives, from allowing her too much influence over me and my mind, permitting myself to be tormented by her. Women are gentle as lambs, so long as they are held in check, but grow overbearing if they have reason to think themselves indispensable. Yes, there is only one way of securing a woman’s heart, love, esteem, devotion; that is, to neglect her. Woe betide the man, who lets his wife perceive he cannot do without her. She will set her foot on his neck. To love a woman is to arouse the evil demon within her. But whoever treats his wife with cool friendliness and goes on his own way, whoever shows her that he can do without her, will be petted and caressed, have his cheeks stroked and feel her hand laid on his shoulder with the question: ‘What will you have to eat to-day, dear?’ He will be honored as the sacred shield and master of the family, will receive eager thanks for the crumbs of favor he lets fall. But if the same man showed he was pining with love for her, he would seem tiresome in a week, be detested in a month, and tormented to death in a year.”

Pericles and Aspasia smiled as they listened to this peevish outburst of feeling, but Euripides, with the same sullen earnestness and emphasis, continued:

“Man’s destiny is woman. She it is who spins the thread of his life—dark or golden.”

Pericles almost started at these words. Aspasia smiled.

“I cannot believe,” said Pericles, “that the husband is usually so dependent on the wife.”

“He will become so, if he is not now,” replied Euripides. “I see the future. Woman’s power is dangerously increasing. Do you not understand the poets and sculptors, who from ancient times have brought forward the fabulous sphinx, the mysterious woman with a soft bosom and sharp claws. The sphinx is woman. She offers us the beautiful alluring face, the beautiful alluring bosom, but the rest of her body is a beast with tiger’s paws and deadly talons!”

“Will you not make the whole feminine sex proud,” said Aspasia, “if by such comparisons you impress upon it so magnificent a character?”

“Magnificent crimes on the part of a man,” replied Euripides, “may inspire admiration, but a woman with great vices is always repulsive. A man’s sins may sometimes arise from an excess of noble qualities, but a woman’s proceed from petty, exaggerated weaknesses.”

“Yet we see women triumph with these petty weaknesses!” said Aspasia.

“Not forever!” retorted Euripides. “The avenging day comes which, with the fire of a healthy, lawful passion, extinguishes the flicker of a sickly, feeble fancy. Women are strong, only so long as we men show ourselves weak. Woman is a sphinx, it is true, but we need only cut the great claws and she becomes harmless. With uncut claws she is a tigress, when they are cut, only a cat. Our fathers did well to hold woman in check. But we innovators are too tender-hearted—including myself—we let the women’s claws grow. That is not well—”

Aspasia’s brow slightly contracted, as the peevish poet blusteringly uttered these words. Socrates noticed it and said:

“Don’t forget, friend, that you are speaking to Aspasia.”

“To Aspasia,” replied Euripides, quickly recovering himself, “but not of Aspasia. I am speaking of women. Aspasia is a woman, but women are not Aspasias.”

Socrates, as has already been mentioned, did not lack asperity in his conversations with Pericles’ wife. But he had never entered into Euripides’ tone. It is proper to state, that Euripides in talking to Aspasia, abused the whole feminine sex, but with ready courtesy excepted her, while Socrates on the contrary discharged his arrows at Aspasia personally, but willingly defended the sex in general.

Now, too, he took their part against the misogynist Euripides, by saying:

“It seems to me a strange, but undeniable fact, that every man when he speaks of woman, always means his own wife. Therefore I think only bachelors should be allowed to discuss women in general. I boast of being one; and however far my friend Euripides may surpass me in wisdom in other respects, in regard to women, as he is married, I possess the advantage of greater impartiality. Since Pericles is also married, and Aspasia herself is a wife, I am the only person here who seems called upon to take up the cause of the sex so persecuted by Euripides. True, I lack eloquence, and might well wish for Protagoras. The latter would not fail to praise woman as the giver of the sweetest joys, the dispenser of the brightest happiness, the guardian of the divine treasures of beauty and pleasures on earth, the delight of man’s eyes, his rest from toil, his relief from pain. What a marvellous creation, he would say, is a beautiful woman! She enraptures us with every atom of her being. Her presence exhales bliss. Such would be Protagoras’ words. Euripides, on the contrary asserts: women are sphinxes; they have lovely faces and tender bosoms, but sharp talons. Would it not be allowable to say, vice versa: women, it is true, have sharp talons, but lovely faces. Why should we not lay the principal stress on woman’s good qualities, instead of her evil ones? Their claws must be cut, says Euripides. But would this deprive their hostile feelings of all possibility of doing harm? Would it not be more profitable to strive to correct them? The claws would then become harmless of their own will. How many virtues a woman can display! How many blessings she can bestow, not only by what she gives, or says, or does, but by what she is. Women are the natural champions of the beautiful; but as they make every cause they uphold victorious, how glorious it would be if we could henceforth make them champions of goodness and truth! So long as the light of a wise discernment does not illumine women’s brains, they will follow only the impulses of their physical nature, and these impulses are always coarse and selfish. Perhaps in future the efforts of men will be directed to rendering women, through clear perception, priestesses not only of real beauty but of genuine goodness, instead of servants of the dark instincts of nature.”

“Yes, the serpents still lack wings!” cried Euripides, with a scornful smile. “Besides, this hope of woman’s improvement, by means of knowledge, is not surprising on the part of a man who expects the salvation of mankind to proceed from discernment and clear ideas. But I tell you woman’s worth and nobleness does not depend upon the cultivation of her perceptive faculties, but of her heart, her feelings.”

“That will have its due proportion,” replied Socrates; “but it is questionable whether the heart and its feelings can ever be cultivated by themselves, whether the influence of a certain degree of knowledge is not requisite.”

Pericles applauded Socrates’ words. Aspasia was silent and instantly let the conversation drop; for much as part of what Socrates had said harmonized with her own ideas, it seemed to her as if, under the mask of modesty, he had again sought to cope with her, instruct her. She was aware that she herself toiled for intellectual freedom, for the elevation of her sex.

Had she not long since placed before her an unconcealed goal? Had she not openly vowed to herself and her friends on the Acropolis, to strive towards that goal with all her powers, after she became Pericles’ wife?

She had kept her word. To thoroughly transform the lives and positions of women, had since that time been her bold aim.

But to accomplish this, she had been compelled to strive to obtain an influence over the Athenian women, to play the part of leaven in this indolent throng, to conciliate those hostile to the intruder and make them adherents, pupils, friends.

Pericles had aided her designs, for he loved her and cheerfully procured her every gratification. He introduced her, if this expression is allowable, into Athenian society. The women of Athens were excluded from intercourse with men, but they associated with each other. Aspasia mingled in this society with apparent ease.

Among the beautiful and really clever women, who possess the power of bewitching men, are some who, in spite of the envy, hatred, and jealousy they arouse, also have the gift of attracting and winning members of their own sex. Of course they do not attain this by an excess of amiability, or by garrulous, intrusive advances, but rather by the unassuming manner with which they seem to voluntarily subdue the dangerous lustre of their charms, and by the most accurate knowledge of the peculiarities and pretensions of those they seek to win. Aspasia endeavored to inspire confidence. Unlike the foolish of her sex, she knew that a beautiful woman generally allures men, as well as women, by a sensible, quiet, dignified manner. She first saw that people were forced to esteem her; to appear charming followed as a matter of course.

When Aspasia had prepared the ground for her enterprises by this style of conduct, which in her was not even the result of reflection, but only a natural womanly impulse, she brought forward her plans and designs more openly.

After a short time the Athenian women were divided by Pericles’ wife into a number of parties.

There were the implacable ones, who hated her and fought against her openly and secretly, with all the weapons of feminine hostility. There were some, who did not refuse a sort of personal liking, but were of the opinion that her efforts were too bold and unbridled, and others who, while regarding her personally with disapproving eyes, were urged by some secret impulse to follow the track of her efforts and imitate her in many things. But there were also some, who had been completely convinced and won, though all did not have courage to openly unite with their leader in a battle for women’s rights.

Among Aspasia’s most implacable and dangerous enemies, as may be easily supposed, were Pericles’ rejected wife and Cimon’s sister. The latter, as it were, kept an account of Aspasia’s life and conduct, learned and spread abroad the remarks she made about women, and it not unfrequently happened that these remarks were so distorted in passing from mouth to mouth, that they became well calculated to rouse the Athenians’ anger against the wife of Pericles.

It happened one day, that Aspasia was talking with a newly-married wife in her husband’s presence. The young couple asked her on what the secure happiness of love and marriage depended.

Aspasia was seized with a desire to try Socrates’ method of expression.

“If your neighbor,” she said to the young wife, “has a handsomer dress than you, which do you prefer, yours or hers?”

“Hers,” replied Hipparchia.

“And if your neighbor has a handsomer ornament than you,” continued Aspasia, “which do you prefer?”

“Hers, of course,” answered the young wife.

“And if she has a better husband than you, to whom would you give the preference, yours or hers?”

Hipparchia blushed at this unexpected, bold, perplexing question, but Aspasia said smiling:

“In the natural course of things the wife will prefer the better husband, the husband the better wife. So it seems there is no other possible way of securing happiness in love and marriage, except by the husband striving to seem to the wife the best of men, and the wife trying to appear to the husband the best of women. Many demand love from others as a duty, which is very unfair. We must seek to deserve it, and constantly strive to foster it.”

The suggestion made to the young couple in these words was not without excellent sense. But what did it become in the mouths of Elpinice and those of the same mind? Aspasia’s conversation with the newly-wedded pair went the round of Athens. But instead of reporting that Aspasia had said the sole security of changeless conjugal happiness was, that the husband should consider his wife the most charming of women, and the wife think her husband the best of men, it was rumored that she had told young Hipparchia, in her husband’s presence, to prefer a stranger to her own spouse, if the former pleased her better.

Aspasia determined to give up the Socratian manner in her future conversations, and be still more careful about the kind of people with whom she talked. But her enemies went so far as to intentionally draw her into conversations, in order, under the pretence of affection, to lure from her remarks calculated to lower her in the opinion of the Athenians. Aspasia easily penetrated such a design, and sometimes succeeded in baffling their plans in a way which, besides the satisfaction of attaining her object, afforded her a certain degree of amusement.

Thus one day a certain Cleitagora approached her with feigned admiration. But Aspasia knew Cleitagora belonged to the circle of the friends of Telesippe and Elpinice.

Cleitagora asked Aspasia by what arts a wife could best bind her husband.

“The most effectual of all the arts, by which a crafty woman can bind her unsuspicious husband to herself and the domestic hearth,” replied Aspasia with a very mysterious manner, “is that of cooking. I know a woman, whose husband reverences her as if she were a goddess, merely on account of the dainties she daily sets before him. Her masterpiece is the light and delicate sesame porridge she makes by mixing sesame meal, honey and oil in a pan. She takes barley, crushes it in a mortar, shakes the meal in a vessel, adds oil to it, constantly stirs the porridge while it slowly cooks, moistens it from time to time with strong broth made of chicken, goat, or lamb, sees that it doesn’t get overdone, and when boiling has it served up to him. Her hare-pasties, and pies made of hedge-sparrows and other small birds, are also excellent. What man would withdraw from the allurements of such things? There are men too, who go into raptures over the so-called Cappadocian cakes. It is best to knead them with honey and cut the dough into thin sheets, which roll up at the mere sight of the pan. These little rolls are then dipped in wine, but must come to the table very hot.”

In this manner Aspasia continued to dilate upon the rules of delicate cookery, to the amazement of part of her listeners and the vexation of others, who found nothing in these explanations that could be used to lower her in the opinion of the public, and strengthen the reports of her frivolity and dangerous principles.

The disagreeable opposition Aspasia’s efforts encountered among the Athenian women, made her all the more gladly seize the opportunity afforded her to adopt the orphaned daughters of her older sister, who had died at Miletus. In these delicate young girls, Drosis and Prasina, one fifteen, the other only a year older, Aspasia believed she would find pliant material for the realization of her ideas about the cultivation of the Hellenic woman to intellectual and personal freedom. They might be expected to do honor to the school from which they came, and help win the victory for Aspasia’s cause, which was at the same time the cause of the whole female sex.

Meantime Aspasia was impatient, capable of forming extensive plans, that in their nature could only ripen slowly, but also not averse to bold, hasty strokes.

Such a stroke she now attempted, in order, if possible, to gather, once for all, the reins of guidance over her sex into her own hands.

Among the numerous religious festivals of the Athenians, was one exclusively celebrated by women, which no man was permitted to attend on pain of severe punishment. This was the Thesmophorian festival in honor of Demeter, worshipped not only as the goddess of agriculture but also of marriage, on account of the connection between the ideas of growing and producing, harvest and birth.

The sacred rites of this festival were performed not only by appointed priestesses, but women chosen each time from the different families. These women were compelled to prepare to take part in the ceremonies by practising abstemiousness for a certain period. They slept on herbs, to which were attributed the virtue of cooling the blood and promoting abstinence. Among these were the agnus castus and a certain species of nettle. The festival itself consisted of processions, assemblies in the Thesmophorian temple, and traditional customs, in whose seriousness blended jest and merriment.

The festival lasted four days. On the first, they went to the seaport of Halimus, and there celebrated certain mysteries in a temple consecrated to Demeter. On the second they returned to Athens. The third day the women were assembled from early dawn till evening in the Thesmophorian sanctuary. Demeter, Proserpina and other divinities were invoked, and dances were performed in their honor. In the pauses the women sat on agnus castus and other herbs of the kind mentioned, entertaining each other with conversation and jests customary on this occasion. During their stay in the temple, they took no food, but made up for this abstemiousness by the joyous sacrificial banquet, with which the whole ceremony closed on the following day.

Imagine the women of Athens, usually shut within the narrow limits of their households, under their husbands’ eyes, left to themselves for four days with the men rigidly excluded, united in a vast throng, holding festal processions, then assembled in the temple, sitting down on the sacred herbs to rest, and talking with perfect freedom—imagine this buzzing feminine assembly, and it will be understood that it was well adapted to unbridle not only women’s tongues, but also their minds, and rouse them to defy the restraints of custom.

The Thesmophorian festival had returned.

Again the Athenian women sat on the agnus castus in the Thesmophorian temple, chatting together during the intervals between the songs and dances. Again a confused hum of voices arose. What were the subjects discussed among the various groups of women sitting on the floor? Some were talking about the bad habits of their husbands, others of the faults of their slaves, or saying that children were far more saucy and unruly than in former days; some were arguing about the best way of making sesame cakes, some telling each other of magic spells, or giving their younger companions advice about preparing love potions. Some told ghost stories or tales of Thessalian witches, or the newest family secrets. Some talked of Aspasia, and this conversation gradually became the most animated one in the temple.

“Aspasia is right,” said a pretty young wife, whose blooming face was most advantageously set off by the withered, rouged countenances of most of the women around her. “She is right, we must compel the men to treat us as Pericles treats Aspasia.”

“That we will!” cried several of the Milesian’s adherents. “We must force them to arrange our domestic and married life, as Pericles does his with Aspasia.”

“I’ve already made a beginning with my husband,” exclaimed a vivacious little lady named Chariclea. “My Diagoras has already become accustomed to kiss me whenever he leaves the house or returns to it, as Pericles does Aspasia.”

“Do you also receive visits from philosophers, and serve sculptors as a model?” scornfully asked one of the women in the group, one of those whose cheeks were most withered and painted.

“Why shouldn’t Aspasia and Chariclea do so, if their husbands permit it?” cried another. “We’ll do so too, and compel our husbands to allow it.”

“Every man isn’t born so lenient,” said the first speaker, with a malicious smile.

“Do you mean to say,” exclaimed Chariclea angrily, placing herself before this woman, with arms akimbo, “do you mean to say I betray my husband?”

“I won’t say it of you,” replied the other, “but perhaps your mistress, Aspasia, will teach you this too!”

As the insolent words were uttered, a slender, exquisitely-formed woman, closely veiled, suddenly stepped forward from among the group who had listened to this conversation, passed directly in front of the sharp-tongued speaker, threw back her veil and gazed at her with flashing eyes.

“Aspasia!” exclaimed several of the spectators, and the name ran quickly through the temple, causing an excitement which was communicated to the most distant groups. The whole temple was in an uproar. “What is it?” cried those most distant. “Has a man slipped in?”

“Aspasia!” echoed the reply. “Aspasia is here.”

At this news all the women pressed forward, and Aspasia soon found herself the centre of the whole assembly.

She had come, surrounded by her adherents, amidst whom, veiled beyond the possibility of recognition, she had remained concealed from the eyes of the throng.

Even now these followers encompassed her like a body-guard, as she stood with her figure drawn up to its full height, gazing angrily at her insolent opponent.

While Aspasia thus confronted her foe, one of her companions pressed in front of her, exclaiming contemptuously:

“You are right! Every man isn’t born so lenient. You must be well aware of that. I know you! You are Crytilla, whose first husband, Xanthias, cast off because he discovered you met your lover at night before the door, beside the laurel-tree that shades the altar of Apollo, protector of streets.”

A dull red flush crimsoned Crytilla’s face, she started up and made a movement as if to seize her foe. But she was forced back by Aspasia’s adherents, and the latter herself began:

“This woman has defamed my husband—defamed him only because he, the first of all the Athenians, honors the dignity of woman in his wife, and does not degrade her to the level of a slave. If men like Pericles have to endure mockery and abuse, not merely from the mouths of men, but even from women themselves, on account of the love and reverence they pay their wives, how can you hope that your husbands will resolve to follow the example of the noblest of men?”

“That is true!” said the women, looking at each other, “Crytilla has done wrong to abuse Pericles and Diagoras. Would to the gods all husbands were like them.”

“Husbands are what you deserve to have them,” replied Aspasia. “Try for once to use the power, the irresistible influence bestowed upon the female sex. You have hitherto neglected to develop this power, nay, seem never to have known of it. Your slavery is a voluntary one. You boast of the title of mistresses of the house, and are kept under more rigid government than the female slaves—for slaves are permitted to show themselves freely in the streets or at the market. You are prisoners! Is it not so?”

“It is indeed!” cried one of the women in the group. “My husband, when he was going away on a journey for a few days, once locked me into the women’s apartment and sealed its door with his signet.”

“Mine,” exclaimed another, “has procured a huge Molossian dog, which keeps guard at the door, that no lover may slip in during his absence.”

“Even the housekeeping is not entrusted to you without control!” continued Aspasia.

“Quite true!” eagerly interposed another woman, “my husband carries the keys of the store-room about with him.”

“Don’t they go to market themselves, to buy meat and vegetables?” exclaimed a second.

“Yes, and in time of war,” cried a third, “when the men go about armed, they can be seen in the market in suits of mail with Gorgon shields on their arms, bargaining for eggs and vegetables, or bringing meat home in a brazen helmet.”

“Since they don’t even allow you to assert your authority by the domestic hearth,” said Aspasia, “it is not surprising they don’t permit you to utter a word about public affairs. When they come from the Pnyx, where the question of peace or war has been discussed, are you even permitted to inquire what was decided there?”

“No indeed!” cried the women. “‘What is it to you?’ they say. ‘Keep to your distaff and be silent.’”

“And if you are not silent?”

“Then matters are worse!”

“My husband,” said one of the women, “repeats till I am fairly sick, the foolish old proverb: ‘Oh! woman, woman’s fairest ornament is silence.’”

“We know the proverb too! It’s in every man’s mouth,” ran through the circle.

“Why do we have tongues?” asked one, and added: “Merely to be kissed and caressed, and talk folly.”

The women laughed, but Aspasia continued:

“They wish you to be spiritless and dull; for only then can they rule you. The moment you become clever and intelligent, conscious of the power given to women over man, that moment their tyranny would be over. You think you have done everything if you keep the house clean, wash and nurse your children, see that moths don’t gnaw the woollen garments, and the hens don’t tangle the yarn on the loom. If one of you does more and seeks to please her husband, she imagines she can gain this object with the help of a crocus-yellow robe, pointed shoes, perfume boxes, and a little cinnabar. But physical beauty and fine clothes are dangerous weapons against men only in the hands of those, who also possess a little intellect. Where could you get what I call a little intellect, except by having freer intercourse with the world, from which men shut you out as if by a brazen wall? You must in future be allowed to purify and refresh your dull minds with the vivifying atmosphere of freedom, be influenced by the external world, and receiving impressions from what is occurring there, exert a counter influence on the world and life, with the ennobling liberty of the developed feminine soul. Woman’s intellect must exert an equal influence upon the world with man’s. Then only will marriage and the whole domestic life be transformed, the arts reach their fullest development, war and all rudeness vanish from mankind. Let us form a league, a peaceful conspiracy, and take a mutual vow to do all in our power, to battle for the rights our sex requires in order to freely exert the sovereignty to which it is called.”

Eager assent greeted Aspasia’s words from the greater portion of the assembly; but so loud and confused a roar of voices followed, that nothing could be distinctly heard, for the women began to vehemently discuss the subject together, all speaking at once. It seemed as if a wandering flock of twittering, screaming birds, had suddenly entered the Thesmophorian temple.

At last a slender, but energetic figure elbowed its way through the dense throng towards the centre of the group where Aspasia stood. The white kerchief that covered her head also concealed a portion of her face, so that she could not be instantly recognized. But as she now paused, fixing her eyes maliciously on Aspasia, all distinguished the sharp masculine features of Cimon’s sister.

Elpinice was dreaded throughout Athens, feared by all the members of her own sex. She ruled by the power of her tongue, her almost masculine strength of will, the wide extent of her connections. So a timid silence fell upon the whole circle, while Cimon’s sister attacked Aspasia with the words:

“By what right is the stranger allowed to speak among native Athenian women?”

Elpinice’s question instantly made a deep impression, and many eagerly nodded, wondering why this scruple had not at once occurred to them.

The former continued: “How does this Milesian venture to teach us? Does she dare make herself one of our circle? Has she shared our customs, our rules, our manners, our sacred rites from childhood? We are Athenians: at eight years old we wore the holy garb of the Arrephori, at ten we ground the sacrificial meal in the temple of Artemis, we were consecrated as blooming maidens to the same goddess, walked together as basket-bearers in the Panathenaic procession. And this woman? She came from a foreign country, without the guidance or blessing of the gods, a profligate, crafty adventuress, and now seeks to force herself among us because she succeeded in beguiling an Athenian, till contrary to law and custom, he received her into his house?”

Quietly, yet not without a sarcastic smile, Aspasia answered:

“You are right! I did not grow up in the dull solitude of an Athenian women’s apartment; I did not attend your Brauronia [8] in a saffron robe, did not carry a basket on my head and wear a string of withered figs around my neck in your Panathenaic procession, did not wail upon the roofs at your Adonis festival. I have not spoken as an Athenian to Athenians, but as a woman to women.”

“Corrupter of men! Ally of the godless!” cried Elpinice still more furiously, “dare you enter our temple, profane our sanctuaries with your presence?”

These words were impetuously uttered, the short hairs on Elpinice’s upper lip fairly bristled with indignation. Her friends, who had gathered around, assumed a threatening attitude towards the Milesian.

But Aspasia’s friends also drew nearer to their leader, ready to protect her, and the number of those who still remained by Pericles’ wife was by no means small.

The buzz of eager voices again rose, and many a violent altercation threatened to cause a passionate quarrel between the parties.

At last Cimon’s resolute sister again obtained a hearing, to play her strongest trump.

“Remember Telesippe!” she cried. “Remember how this foreign adventuress, this Milesian hetæra drove an Athenian wife from her hearth, from her children, from her husband! Which of you can believe herself secure from this woman’s wiles, if she takes it into her head to bewitch other women’s husbands? Before you listen to this serpent’s hiss, remember that she has poison in her mouth.”

“Look,” continued Elpinice, glancing towards a corner of the temple, “look at Telesippe! See her shrouded in her grief—see her pale face—see the tears roll down her cheeks at the mention of her children!”

All the women, following Elpinice’s eyes, turned towards Pericles’ rejected wife, who was standing at some distance, gazing, pallid with wrath and anger, at Aspasia.

Elpinice went on:

“Do you know what she thinks of us Athenians? Need I say it? Has she not told you herself? She thinks us foolish, ignorant, inexperienced, unworthy a husband’s love, and graciously condescends to teach us, securely conscious, in her secret pride, that we can never become like her, the fair, wise, peerless, bewitching Milesian, with whom even the loveliest of you all can never vie.”

These words produced an almost incredible influence upon the assembly. The mood of all suddenly changed, even in the hearts of those who had hitherto favored Aspasia.

Elpinice continued:

“Do you know what your friends, Pericles’ companions, say of her, what all the men of Athens are repeating? ‘Aspasia is the most charming woman in Athens—nay, the only charming woman in Athens—people must go to Miletus if they wish to find lovely and bewitching women.’”

At these words the humiliation and craftily-kindled rage of the women burst forth. They pressed upon Aspasia with fierce outcries and upraised arms. She stood erect and calm, white with anger, yet with a look of unspeakable contempt, saying:

“Hush, you beet, parsley, caraway-seed women! Hush, you apple, cheese, butter women! Do you mean to scratch and bite?”

The few remaining faithful followers of Aspasia threw themselves before her, a wild tumult, almost a scuffle, arose. Some of Elpinice’s companions gesticulated as if they intended to scratch Aspasia’s eyes out with their nails, others drew the sharp clasp pins from their garments and threatened their enemy with them. Aspasia, under the protection of those who still closed bravely around her, hastily left the Thesmophorian temple.

Thus ended the attempt to free the women of Athens, by the power of the mind.