GREEK WOMEN
by MITCHELL CARROLL



WOMAN

In all ages and in all countries

GREEK WOMEN

by

MITCHELL CARROLL, Ph.D.
Professor of Classical Philology in the George
Washington University

_Copyrighted 1907-1908_




GENERAL INTRODUCTION

The history of woman is the history of the world. Strait orthodoxy may
remind us that man preceded woman in the scheme of creation and that
therefore history does not begin with woman; but this is a specious
plea. The first historical information that we gain regarding Adam is
concerned with the creation of woman, and there is nothing to show us
that prior to that time Adam was more active in mind or even in body
than a mollusc. It was not until the coming of woman that history began
to exist; and if the first recorded act of the woman was disastrous in
its consequences, at least it possesses the distinction of making
history. So that it may well be said that all that we are we owe to
woman. Whether or not the story of the Garden of Eden is to be
implicitly accepted, there can be no doubt that from the moment of the
first appearance of mankind on the scene woman has been the ruling cause
of all effect.

The record of woman is one of extremes. There is an average woman, but
she has not been found except in theory. The typical woman, as she is
seen in the pages of history, is either very good or very bad. We find
women saints and we find women demons; but we rarely find a mean. Herein
is a cardinal distinction between the sexes. The man of history is
rarely altogether good or evil; he has a distinct middle ground, in
which we are most apt to find him in his truest aspect. There are
exceptions, and many; but this may be taken as a rule. Even in the
instances of the best and noblest men of whom we have record this rule
will hold. Saint Peter was bold and cautious, brave and cowardly, loving
and a traitor; Saint Paul was boastful and meek, tender and severe;
Saint John cognized beyond all others the power of love, and wished to
call down fire from heaven upon a village which refused to hear the
Gospel; and it is most probable that the true Peter and Paul and John
lived between these extremes. Not so with the women of the same story.
They were throughout consistent with themselves; they were utterly pure
and holy, as Mary Magdalene,--to whose character great wrong has been
done in the past by careless commentary,--or utterly vile, as Herodias.
Extremism is a chief feminine characteristic. Extremist though she be,
woman is always consistent in her extremes; hence her power for good and
for evil.

It is a mistaken idea which places the "emancipation" of woman at a late
date in the world's history. From time immemorial, woman has been
actively engaged in guiding the destinies of mankind. It is true that
the advent of Christianity undoubtedly broadened the sphere of woman and
that she was then given her true place as the companion and helper
rather than the toy of man; but long before this period woman had
asserted her right to be heard in the councils of the wise, and the
right seems to have been conceded in the cases where the demand was
made. Those who look upon the present as the emancipation period in the
history of woman have surely forgotten Deborah, whose chant of triumph
was sung in the congregation of the people and was considered worthy of
preservation for all future ages to read; Semiramis, who led her armies
to battle when the Great King, Ninus, had let fall the sceptre from his
weary hand, and who ruled her people with wisdom and justice; and others
whose fame, even if legendary in its details, has come down to us.
Through all the ages there was opportunity for woman, when she chose to
seize it; and in many cases it was thus seized. Rarely indeed do we find
the history of any age unconcerned with its women. Though their part may
at times seem but minor, yet do they stand out to the observant eye as
the prime causes of many of the great events which make or mark epochs.
When we think of the Trojan War, it is Agamemnon and Priam, Achilles and
Hector, who rise up before our mental vision as the protagonists in that
great struggle; but if there had been no Helen, there would have been no
war, and therefore no Iliad or Odyssey. We read Macaulay's stirring
ballad of_ Horatius at the Bridge, _and we thrill at the recital of
strength and daring; but if it had not been for the virtue of Lucretia,
there would have been no combat for the bridge, and the Tarquins might
have ended their days in peace in the Eternal City. And, in later times,
though Mirabeau and Robespierre and Danton and Marat fill the eye of the
student of the cataclysmic events of the French Revolution, it was the
folly of Marie Antoinette that gave these men their opportunity and even
paved the way for the rise and meteoric career of a greater than them
all.

These are instances of mediate influence upon great events;