382 CHAPTER II. WOMEN OF DORIC STATES. THE Women of Sparta were even in Greece remarkable for their personal beauty. Their education and exercises promoting their health and physical energies, aided, at the same time, the natural developement of the frame, with all its inherent symmetry and proportion. It is probable, however, that the charms of Helen may have led on this point to some misapprehension; but Helen belonged to the old heroic race, with which the Dorians of Sparta had nothing in common, that is, like so many other women celebrated by the poets of after times for their beauty, was an Achæan. Still, lovely they were, well-formed, brilliant of complexion, with features of much regularity, and eyes into which exuberant health infused a sparkling brightness irresistibly pleasing. But it would require to be peculiarly constituted to pronounce them the most beautiful women in all Greece.1 They were what in modern phrase would be termed fine women, but exceeding considerably what we deem true feminine proportions, being, in fact, a sort of female grenadiers, robust, vigorous, bull-stranglers, as Lysistrata somewhat ironically expresses it, their beauty was rather that of men, than of women. Some 2 1 See Müll. Dor. ii. 296. 2 Ω φιλτάτη Λάκαινα, χαῖρε. οἷον τὸ κάλλος, γλυκυτάτη, σοῦ φαίνεται. ὡς δ ̓ εὐχροεῖς, ὡς δὲ σφριγᾷ τὸ σῶμά σου, κἂν ταῦρον ἄγχοις. Which may be thus translated: Beloved Laconian, welcome! So brace thy frame that thou a Aristoph. Lysist. 78 sqq. among the Greeks preferred, it is true, ladies of this large growth. Thus, we find Xenophon, in the Anabasis, expressing his apprehension that should his countrymen become acquainted with the fine tall women of Persia, they would, like the Lotos-eaters, forget the way to their country and their home.' But this was a taste which never became general. The beauty which excited most admiration, where beauty constituted the noblest object of literature and art, was a kind totally different in character, exquisitely feminine, gentle, soft, retiring, modest, instinct with grace and delicacy, the parasite of the moral creation, clinging round man for support, but imparting more than it receives. Such beauty, however, would have been inconsistent with the aim of Lycurgus. Like a wellknown modern despot, this great legislator aimed solely at creating a nation of grenadiers, and to effect this, both the education, laws, and manners of Sparta received a military impress. Everything there breathed of the camp. The girls from their tenderest years, instead of being instructed as in other communities to entwine all their feelings round the domestic hearth, and expect their chiefest happiness at home, were systematically undomesticated, brought incessantly into contact with men, initiated in immoral habits, subversive of the female character, and taught to consider themselves designed to be the wives of the state rather than of individuals. Nature, the 2 Penelope appear more lovely than ordinary, she added to her height. Odyss. σ. 194. 2 Athen. xiii. 79.-Even Plutarch denominates the system of discipline observed by the Spartan women αναπεπταμένη καὶ ἄθηAvc,-"lax and unfeminine,"and confesses that it afforded the poets an inexhaustible fund for ridicule. Ibycos, for example, called them pavoμnpides: and legislator was aware, has implanted the principles of love and modesty deep in the female heart; in general also, to eradicate one, is to root up the other; and both in the sense in which we contemplate them, being inimical to the purpose which his constitution was intended to promote, he sought to subvert the power of love by obliterating from the female mind every trace of maidenly modesty. The power of political institutions over the feelings of the heart, over manners, over habits, over conscience, and opinions, was never so strikingly exemplified as at Sparta. Whatever the legislator determined to be good was good. Example, affection, nature pleaded in vain. An iron system, strong as fate, encircled the whole scope of life, repressing every aspiration tending above the point prescribed, guiding every wish into a given channel, curbing every passion inconsistent in its full developement with the views of the legislator. Aristotle, indeed, maintains that while the men of Sparta conformed to the design of the constitution, the women refused to bend their neck to the yoke, and persisted in the enjoyment of a freedom constantly degenerating into licentiousness. He probably, however, supposes the existence in Lycurgus of a moral purpose, far loftier than he really aimed at. The virtues of a campand Sparta was nothing else-are never too rigid, nor must we look among female camp-followers for much of that delicacy, reserve, self-control, or keen sense of what is just and upright, of which none judge Euripides ανδρομανεῖς. Their education, in fact, rendered them coarse and domineering, "bold and mannish;" Spaovrepaι, and ἀνδριοδεῖς, are the words of Plutarch, who observes that they desired not only to rule by violence at home, but even audaciously to meddle with public affairs. Compar. Lycurg. cum Num. § 3. 1 Philosophers, also, were found in antiquity as in modern times, who theoretically maintained this doctrine. Thus Archelaos contended, καὶ τὸ δίκαιον εἶναι καὶ τὸ αἰσχρὸν οὐ φύσει, ἀλλὰ νόμῳ. Diog. Laert. ii. 4. 3. Here we discover the fundamental maxim upon which the whole system of Hobbes was constructed. 2 Polit. ii. 9. Doubt more accurately than well educated women. less the Doric lawgiver cherished no other design than to promote the happiness of his countrymen. It would be unjust to suppose otherwise. But how far the regulations by which he sought to effect this purpose were calculated to ensure success, is what we have to inquire. It may at once be observed that Lycurgus's system of female education was the furthest possible removed from common place. He contemplated both the sexes in nearly the same point of view. Their form he saw; and in many points their character, their affections, their virtues, their vices, bear a close resemblance; and in his conception, perfection would be attained, if all such discriminating marks as nature has set up could be removed, and every quality of what he considered the superior sex transferred to the inferior. Much misapprehension appears to exist on this point. Writers pretend that among the Dorians the female character stood in high estimation, while the reverse they suppose to have been the case in Ionic States. But the Dorians betrayed their contempt for women as they came from the hands of nature, by endeavouring to convert them into men; their neighbours the reverse, by contenting themselves with their purely feminine qualities, which among people of Ionic race were cultivated and improved, perhaps, as far as was consistent with domestic happiness. In the harems of the East the whip is of great service in maintaining order, and the same, it is evident, was the case at Sparta. Both youths and virgins from their tenderest years were subjected to a severe discipline; regular floggers, as at our own great schools, always attended the inspectors of public instruction; and in this the system was wise, that habits were more regarded than acquisitions.' But of the habits cherished by the Spartan system we cannot always approve. Like the boys, the virgins fre 1 Jamblich. vit. Pythag. xi. 5. 6.-Müller. Dor. ii. 317. VOL. I. 2c quented the gymnasia, where, naked as at their birth, they exercised themselves in wrestling, running, pitching the quoit, and throwing the javelin. To these accomplishments, others, according to a Roman poet, still less feminine were added. They contended, he says, in the ring with men, bound the cestus on their clenched fists, and boxed their future husbands like so many prize-fighters. No wonder that the partners of such women were henpecked. Horsemanship, the sword exercise, and the rough sports of the chase, affected by women of similar character in our own country, completed the circle of female studies,2 and rendered the Spartan maids something more than a match for their worse halves, whether after marriage or before.3 Some pains have in our own days been taken to pare away the roughnesses, and obliterate the peculiar features of the Doric educational institutions, in order to bring them into greater uniformity with modern notions. There is no probability, we are told, that either youths or men were permitted to be present at the extraordinary exhibition of the female gymnasia. But whence is this inference derived? From the delicacy of Spartan manners in other re 1 Plut. Lycurg. §. 14. Compare the remarks of Ubbo Emmius who adopts, however, too implicitly the notions of Plutarch. -iii. 22. seq. 2 Propert. iii. 12. p. 261. iv. 13. p. 88. Jacob.-Cicero, after quoting certain verses from an old poet, describing the exercises of the female Spartans, adds in his own words: " 'ergo his labori "osis excercitationibus et dolor "intercurrit nonnumquam; im"pelluntur, ponuntur, abjiciuntur, "cadunt: et ipse labor quasi cal"lum quoddam obducit dolori." Tuscul. Quæst. ii. 36.-In remoter ages we find women celebrated for their skill in hunting, and there were those who in later times sought to recommend this taste to their country women:— Οὐ μόνον δέ, ὅσοι ἄνδρες κυνηγεσίων ἡράσθησαν, ἐγένοντο ἀγαθοὶ ἀλλὰ καὶ αἱ γυναῖκες, αἷς ἔδωκεν ἡ θεὸς ταῦτα "Αρτεμις, Αταλάντη, καὶ Πρόκρις, καὶ εἴ τις ἄλλη. Xen. de Venat. xiii. 18. 345. Schneid. Cf. Callim. Hymn. in Dian. 209. 215. Spanh. 3 Alluding to the political power of women at Sparta, Aristotle inquires: what signifies it whether women govern or men be governed by women? Polit. ii. 9. 4 Müll. Dor. ii. 333. |