herself. Aphobos possessed himself of the dowry, and consented to fulfil the office of guardian, that he might plunder the children; but the marriage he declined. Another example occurs in the case of Phormio who, having been slave1 to an opulent citizen, and conducted himself with zeal and fidelity, received at once his freedom and the widow of his master. In all serious matters the Athenians were a very methodical people, and conducted everything, even to the betrothing or marrying of a wife, with an attention to form worthy the quaintest citizen of our own great city. Potter observes, with great naïveté, that, before men married, it was customary to provide themselves with a house to live in. The custom was a good one, and the thrifty old poet of Ascra, undertaking to enlighten his countrymen in economics, is explicit on the point "First build your house and let the wife succeed : 2 which, no doubt, is better advice than if he had said "first marry a wife and next consider where you shall put her." And we find that, even among pastoral, young ladies who, in modern poets, make their meat and drink of love, and hang up a rag or two of it to preserve them from the elements, in antiquity posed their lovers with interrogations about comforts. "You are very pressing, my dear Daphnis, and swear you love me; but that is not just now the question. Have you a house and harem to take me to ?" 3 But prudent as they may be considered, the Athenians were still more pious than thrifty. Before the virgin quitted her childhood's home, and passed from the state she had tried, and in most cases, perhaps, found happy, to enter into one altogether unknown to her, custom demanded the performance, on 10. 1 Demosth. pro Phorm. § 8 Opera et Dies, 405. 3 Theocrit. Eidyll. xxvii. 36. the day before the marriage, of several religious ceremonies eminently significant and beautiful. Hitherto, in the poetical recesses of their thalamoi, they had been reckoned as so many nymphs attached to the train of the virgin goddess of the woods. About to become members of a noviciate more conformable to nature than that of the Catholic church, they deemed it incumbent on them to implore their Divinity's permission to transfer their worship from her to Hymen; and, the more readily to obtain it, they approached her, in the simplicity of their hearts, with baskets full of offerings such as it became them to present and her to receive.1 Nor was Artemis the only deity sought, on this occasion, to be rendered auspicious by sacrifice and prayer. Offerings were likewise made to the Nymphs, those lovely creations with which the fancy of the Greeks peopled the streams and fountains of their native land.2 These rites performed, the future bride was conducted in pomp to the citadel, where solemn sacrifice was offered up to Athena, the tutelar goddess of the state, with prayers for happiness, peculiarly the gift of supreme wisdom.3 To Hera, also, and the Fates, as to the goddesses that watched over the connubial state and rigidly punished those who transgressed its sacred laws, were gifts presented, and vows preferred; and on one or all of their several altars did the maiden deposit a lock of her own hair, in remoter ages, perhaps, the whole of it, to intimate that, having obtained a husband, she must preserve him by other means than beauty, and the arts of the toilette. At Megara the young women 1 Theocrit. Eidyll. ii. 66, ibique Schol. 2 Schol. Pind. Pyth. iv. ap. Meurs. Græc. Fer. p. 238. 3 Suid. v. πрOTÉλɛia. t. ii. p. 629. v. Eschyl. Eumen. 799. Cf. Col. Rhodig. xxviii. 24. + Poll. iii. 38. Schol. Pind. Pyth. x. 31. Aristoph. Thesmoph. 982. Kust. 5 Poll. iii. 38. ibique Comm. p. 529, seq. Cf. Spanh. Observ. in Callim. 149, 507. The youth usually cut off their hair on reaching the age of puberty. Athen. xiii. 83. devoted their severed locks to Iphinoë. Those of Delos to Hecaerga and Ops,' while, like the Athenians, the maidens of Argos performed this rite in honour of Athena.2 Having, by the performance of the above rites and others of similar significance, discharged their instant duties to the gods, and impressed on their own minds a deep sense of the sacred engagements they were about to contract, they proceeded to perform the nuptial ceremonies themselves, still intermingling the offices of religion with every portion of the transaction. An auspicious day having been fixed upon, the relations and friends of both parties assembled in magnificent apparel, at the house of the bride's father, where all the ladies of the family were busily engaged in the recitation of prayers and presentation of offerings. These domestic ceremonies concluded, the bride, accompanied by her paranymph or bridesmaid, was led forth into the street by the bridegroom and one of his most intimate friends," who placed her between them in an open carriage.* Their dresses, as was fitting, were of the richest and most splendid kind. Those of the bridegroom full, flowing, and of the gayest and brightest colours, 5 glittered with golden ornaments, and diffused around, as he moved, a cloud of perfume. The bride herself, gifted with that unerring taste which distinguished her nation, appeared in a costume at once simple and magnificent-simple in its contour, its masses, its folds, magnificent from the brilliance of its hues and the superb and costly style of its ornaments. She was not, like some modern court dame, a blaze 1 Pausan. i. 43. 4. Callim. in Del. 292. Spanh. Observat. t. ii. p. 503, sqq. 2 Stat. Theb. ii. 255, with the ancient commentary of Lutatius. 3 Πάροχος. Suid. v. Zɛuyos μoviкòv. t. i. p. 1123, b. Eurip. Helen. 722, sqq. This was the usual practice. When the bride was led home on foot she was called χαμαίπους a term of disrespect not far removed in meaning from our word tramper. Poll. iii. 40. 5 Aristoph. Plut. 529, et Schol. Suid. v. Barra. t. i. p. 533, b. of precious stones tastelessly heaped upon each other; but through the snowy gauze of her veil flashed the jewelled fillet and coronet-like sphendone which, with a chaplet of flowers,' adorned her dark tresses; and between the folds of her robe of gold-embroidered purple, appeared her gloveless fingers, with many rings glittering with gems. Strings of Red Sea pearls encircled her neck and arms; pendants, variously wrought and dropped with Indian jewels, twinkled in her ears; and her feet, partly concealed by the falling robe, displayed a portion of the golden thonged sandal, crusted with emeralds, rubies, or pearls. But all these ornaments often failed to distract the eye from those which she owed to nature. Her luxuriant hair, which in Eastern women often reaches the ground: Her hair in hyacinthine flow, Hath swept the marble, where her feet It fell and caught one stain of earth; her hair, I say, perfumed with delicate unguents, such as nard from Tarsos, cranthe from Cypros, essence of roses from Cyrene, of lilies from Ægina or Cilicia, fell loosely in a profusion of ringlets over her shoulders, while in front it was confined by the fillet and grasshoppers of gold. More perishable ornaments, in the shape of crowns of myrtle, wild thyme, poppy, white sesame, with other flowers 1 Eurip. Iphig. in Aul. 905. This chaplet was placed on the bride's head by her mother. Hopfn. in loc.-In Locrensibus usu erat, ut matronæ ex lectis floribus nectant coronas. Nam emptagestare serta, vitio dabatur. Alex. ab Alexand. p. 58. b. 2 Aristoph, Plut. 529. id. Pac. 862. 3 Thucyd. i. 60. and plants sacred to Aphrodite, adorned the heads of both bride and bridegroom.1 The relations and friends followed, forming, in most cases, a long and stately procession, which, in the midst of crowds of spectators, moved slowly towards the temple, thousands strewing flowers or scattering perfume in their path, and in loud exclamations comparing the happy pair to the most impassioned and beautiful of their nymphs and gods. Meanwhile, a number of the bride's friends, scattered among the multitude, were looking out anxiously for favourable omens, and desirous, in conjunction with every person present, to avert all such as superstition taught them to consider inauspicious. A crow appearing singly was supposed to betoken sorrow or separation, whereas, a couple of crows, issuing from the proper quarter of the heavens, presaged perfect union and happiness. A pair of turtle doves, of all omens, was esteemed the best.* 3 On reaching the temple, the bride and bridegroom were received at the door by a priest, who presented them with a small branch of ivy, as an emblem of the close ties by which they were about to be united for ever. They were then conducted to the altar, where the ceremonies commenced with the sacrifice of a heifer, after which Artemis, Athena, and other virgin goddesses, were solemnly invoked. Prayers were then addressed to Zeus and his consort, the supreme divinities of Olympos ; nor, on this occasion, would they overlook the ancient gods, Ouranos and Gaia, whose union produces fertility and 4 Meziriac sur les Epitres d'Ovide, p. 190, sqq. Ælian de Animal. Nat. iii. 9. Alex. ab Alexand. ii. 5, p. 57, b. 1 Schol. Aristoph. Av. 160. 3 Orus Apollo Hieroglyph. viii. In Boeotia the bride was crowned p. 6. b. with a reed of wild asparagus, a prickly but sweet plant. Plut. Conjug. Præcept. 2. Bion. Epitaph. Adon. 88. On Nuptial Crowns vide Paschal. De Coronis, lib. ii. c. 16. p. 126, sqq. 2 Charit. Char. et Callir. Amor. iii. 44. 5 Theod. Prodrom. de Rhodanth. et Dosicl. Amor. ix. 6 Eurip. Iphig. in Aul. 1113. 7 Poll. iii. 38. |