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Begun under the Pisistratidae. Effects of the Persian War, and the intimate Connexion with Ionia. The Hetaerae. The Political Eminence lately acquired by Athens. The Transfer of the Treasury from Delos to Athens. Latent Dangers and Evils. First, the Artificial Greatness of Athens not supported by Natural Strength. Secondly, her pernicious Reliance on Tribute.
Ninon de l'Enclos was of the order of the French "hetaerae," and, as by her beauty and her talents, she attained the first rank in the social class, her name has come down to posterity with those of Aspasia and Leontium, while the less distinguished favorites of less celebrated men have shared the common oblivion, which hides from the memory of men, every degree of mediocrity, whether of virtue or vice.
The remains of Cimon were interred in Athens, and the splendid monument consecrated to his name was visible in the time of Plutarch. Change of Manners in Athens. Begun under the Pisistratidae. Effects of the Persian War, and the intimate Connexion with Ionia. The Hetaerae. The Political Eminence lately acquired by Athens. The Transfer of the Treasury from Delos to Athens. Latent Dangers and Evils.
Instead of deadening the sexual appetite he gave it scope, and yet resisted the dangerous consequences of associating with Hetaerae. In his enjoyments he was free from jealousies; thinking it no derogation to his pleasure that others had the same pleasure. Having thus a fair share of natural indulgences, he dispenses with the Cynic pride of superiority and the luxury of contemning other men.
Hitherto we have been speaking mainly of the position of the wife in Greece. It is necessary now to say a few words about that class of women who were called in the Greek tongue Hetaerae; and who are by some supposed to have represented, intellectually at least, a higher level of culture than the other members of their sex. In exceptional cases, this, no doubt, was the fact.
Her mother was of Miletus, famed for the intellectual cultivation of the sex, no less than for their beauty of Miletus, the birthplace of Aspasia of Miletus, from which those remarkable women who, under the name of Hetaerae, exercised afterwards so signal an influence over the mind and manners of Athens, chiefly derived their origin, and who seem to have inspired an affection, which in depth, constancy, and fervour, approached to the more chivalrous passion of the North.
From what has been said about the Greek view of women, it might naturally have been supposed that there can have been little place in their life for all that we designate under the term "romance." Personal affection, as we have seen, was not the basis of married life; and relations with Hetaerae appear to have been, in this respect, no finer or higher than similar relations in our own times.
These women are the intellectual equals and often the superiors of the men they meet; they are very attractive as companions, like Miss Mehr, the university student, in Hauptmann's "Lonely Lives," who alienated the young husband from his noble wife; they enjoy all the keen pleasures of intellectual activity; their very look, step, and bearing is free; their mentality makes them good fellows and companionable in all the broad intellectual spheres; to converse with them is as charming and attractive for the best men as was Socrates's discourse with the accomplished hetaerae; they are at home with the racquet and on the golf links; they are splendid friends; their minds, in all their widening areas of contact, are as attractive as their bodies; and the world owes much and is likely to owe far more to high Platonic friendships of this kind.
Aspasia, for example, the mistress of Pericles, was famous for her powers of mind. According to Plato she was an accomplished rhetorician, and the real composer of the celebrated funeral oration of Pericles; and Plutarch asserts that she was courted and admired by the statesmen and philosophers of Greece. But Aspasia cannot be taken as a type of the Hetaerae of Greece.
His works were very numerous, but chiefly from the circle of Dionysus, Aphrodite, and Eros, in which adoration for corporeal attractions is the most marked peculiarity, and for which the artist was fitted by his life with the hetaerae. Scopas was his contemporary, and was the author of the celebrated group of Niobe, which is one of the chief ornaments of the gallery of sculpture at Florence.
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