Of the various modes of penetrating into the future,' prevalent among the people, I may mention some few. Prophetesses are frequently spoken of in Scripture, and in the Acts of the Apostles is given an account of a young female slave who brought her master large sums of money by this trade, which was that of a gipsy. Others there were who, like many among the Orientals, professed to understand the language of birds. A slave, said to possess this knowledge, is celebrated, by Porphyry, and was probably from the East. One sort of divination was practised by pouring drops of oil into a vessel and looking on it, when they pretended to behold a representation of what was to take place. This in Egypt is still practised, merely substituting ink for oil, and a great many travellers appear to believe in it. Soldiers going to war were especially liable to fall into this kind of foolery.* The use of holy water on entering temples is of great antiquity. This custom was called giggavors, and the act was performed with the branch of the fortunate olive." There stood at the door of the temple a capacious lustral font, whose contents had been rendered holy by extinguishing therein a lighted brand from the altar; thence water was sprinkled on themselves, by worshipers or by the officiating priest. A similar apparatus stood at the entrance to the Agora, to purify the orators, &c. going to the public assembly. It was likewise placed at the door of private houses, wherein there was a corpse, that every one might purify himself on going out.7 Superstitious persons usually walked about 1 See Max. Tyr. Diss. iii. p. 31-38. 2 C. xvi. v. 16. sqq. 3 De Abstinentiâ, iii. Cf. Cedren. Michael, Compotat. εἰσὶ γὰρ τίνες οἱ ἐν ἐλαίῳ ὁρίοντες μaνTEVOVTAL. Schol. Aristoph. μαντεύονται. Acharn. 1093. -- 4 Οἱ γὰρ ἐπὶ πόλεμον ἐξιόντες ἐπητήρουν τὰς διοσημείας. Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 1106. 5 Ramo felicis olivæ.-Virgil. Æn. vi. 230. 6 Athen. ix. 76. 7 Casaub. ad Theophr. Char. p. 287. Eurip. Alcest. 99. --- with a laurel leaf in their mouth, or occasionally bearing a staff of laurel, there being a preserving power in that sacred shrub: hence arose the proverb δαφνίκην φορῶ βακτήριαν, "I carry a laurel staff," when a man would say, I have no fear. Persons not thus protected it is to be presumed were terrified if a weasel or dog crossed their path; and the omen could only be averted by casting three stones at it, the number three being exceedingly agreeable to the gods. Certain fruits would not burst on the tree if three stones were cast into the same hole with the seed when the tree was planted. Two brothers walking on the way conceived it ominous of evil if they happened to be parted by a stone. On every trifling occasion altars and chapels were erected to the gods, particularly by women; no house or street was free from them. For example, if a snake crept into the house through the eaves, forthwith an altar was erected. At places where three roads met, stones were set up, to be worshiped by travellers, who anointed them with oil. If a mouse nibbled a hole in a corn-sack, they would fly to the portent interpreter, and inquire what they should do," Get it mended," was sometimes the honest reply. Horrid dreams1 might be expiated, and their evil effects be averted, by telling them to the rising sun. When the candles spit, it was a sign of rain. During thunder and lightning they made the noise called Poppysma, which it was hoped might avert the danger. On board ship sailors entertained the idea, that to carry a corpse would be the cause of shipwreck, as happened to the vessel which was bearing to Euboea the bones of Pelops. The sailors of the Mediterranean, for this reason, will refuse to receive mummies on board. 3 1 Cf. Plut. Alcib. § 39. 2 Casaub. ad Theophr. Char. p. 300. 3 Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 260. 262. 626. 4 Pausan. v. 13. 4. Palm. Exerc. in Auct. Græc. d. 398. 369 BOOK III. WOMEN. CHAPTER I. WOMEN IN THE HEROIC AGES. THERE is no question connected with Grecian manners more difficult than that which concerns the character and condition of women.1 On so many points did they differ in this matter from us, that, unless we can conceive ourselves to be in the wrong, the condemnation of the whole Hellenic theory of female rights and interests and influence must, as a matter of course, ensue. I do not say that, after all, this is not the conclusion we should come to. Reason may possibly be on our side; but certainly it appears to me, that too little pains has hitherto been taken to arrive at the truth; and as it is a consideration by no means unimportant, I have bestowed on it more than ordinary attention in the hope of letting in additional light, however little, on this obscure and unheeded department of antiquities. In form the Greek woman was so perfect as to be still taken as the type of her sex. Her beauty, from whatever cause, bordered closely upon the ideal, 1 Describing the approach to the temple of Aphrodite, Lucian says: εὐθὺς ἡμῖν ἀπ ̓ αὐτοῦ τοῦ τεμένους Αφροδίσιοι προσέπνευσαν αὖραι. Amor. § 12. These gentle airs should breathe into the style and language of VOL. I. the author who treats of the women of Greece; but, in my own case, research I fear and the effects of fifty-two degrees of north latitude will prevent this consummation so devoutly to be wished. 2 B 1 or rather was that which, because now only found in works of art, we denominate the ideal. But our conceptions of form never transcend what is found in Nature. She bounds our ideas by a circle over which we cannot step. The sculptors of Greece represented nothing but what they saw, and even when the cunning of their hand was most felicitous, even when loveliness and grace and all the poetry of womanhood appeared to breathe from their marbles, the inferiority of their imitations to the creations of God, in properties belonging to form, in mere contour, in the grouping and developement of features, must have sufficed to impress even upon Pheidias, that high priest of art, the conviction of how childish it were to dream of rising above nature. The beauty of Greece was, indeed, a creature of earth, but suggested aspirations beyond it. Every feature in the countenance uttered impassioned language, was rife with tenderness, instinct with love. The pulses of the heart, warm and rapid, seemed to possess ready interpreters in the eye. But, radiant over all, the imagination shed its poetic splendour, communicating a dignity, an elevation, a manifestation of soul, which lent to passion all the moral purity and enduring force that belong to love, when love is least tainted with unspiritual and ignoble selfish ness. I despair, however, of representing by words what 1 On the beauty of the modern Greek women I can speak from my own observation; but most travellers are of the same opinion, and Mr. Douglas, in particular, gives the following testimony in their favour: "Though the de"licacy of her form is not long "able to sustain the heat of the "climate and the immoderate "the ancients have so gracefully "personified as the Xpvooσré φανος Ηβη. Were we to "form our ideas of Grecian wo 66 men from the wives of Alba"nian peasants we should be strangely deceived; but the "islands of Andro, Tino, and, "above all, that of Crete, con"tain forms upon which the chi"sel of Praxiteles would not have "been misemployed."— Essay, &c. p. 159. 2 neither Pheidias nor Polycletos could represent in marble or ivory. The women of Greece were neither large nor tall. The whole figure, graceful but not slender, left the imagination nothing to desire. It was satisfied with what was before it. Limbs exquisitely moulded,' round, smooth, tapering, a torso undulating upwards in the richest curves to the neck, a bosom somewhat inclined to fulness, but in configuration perfect, features in which the utmost delicacy was blended with whatever is noblest and most dignified in expression. Both blue eyes and black were found in Greece, but the latter most commonly. Even Aphrodite, spite of her auburn hair, comes before us in the Iliad with large black eyes, beaming with humid fire. No goddess but the Attic virgin has the cold blue eye of the North, becoming her maidenly character, reserved, firm, affectionate, with a dash of shrewishness. The nose was straight and admirably proportioned, without anything of that breadth which in the works of inferior sculptors creates an idea of Amazonian fierceness. Beauty itself had shaped the mouth and chin, and basked and sported in them. In these, above all, the Grecian woman excelled the barbarians. Other features they might have resembling hers, but 1 Cf. Winkelmann, iv. 4. 44. 2 Plat. Repub. iv. t. vi. p. 167. -That black eyes were most common among the Greeks may be inferred from this, that, in describing the parts of the eye, they called the iris τὸ μέλαν, which is sometimes of one colour, and sometimes of another. -Arist. Hist. Anim. I. viii. 2. He observes, further on, that some persons had black eyes, others deep blue, others gray, others of the colour of goats.-§4. Other animals have eyes of one colour, except the horse, which has sometimes one blue eye. Eyes moderate in size and neither sunken nor projecting were esteemed the best.§. 5. Large eyes, likewise, were greatly admired. Hence Hera is called fo@mic by Homer. Aristonetos, describing his Lais, says: ὀφθαλμοι μεγάλο οι τε καὶ διαυγεῖς καὶ καθαρῷ φωτὶ διαλάμποντες.-Scheffer ad El. Hist. Var. xii. 1. With respect to the colour of the hair see Winkelmann, iv. 4. 38. It was, of course, considered a great beauty to have it long, and, therefore, Helen, in honour of Clytemnæstra, cut off the points only.-Eurip. Orest. 128. seq. |