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And when the wife of the wise Ischomachus, in an unfortunate moment, puts on rouge and cosmetics, the grave husband meets her with this complimentary rebuke: "Can there be anything in Nature more complete than yourself?"
The conception thus indicated in burlesque of the proper place of woman is expressed more seriously, from the point of view of the average man in the "Oeconomicus" of Xenophon. Ischomachus, the hero of that work, with whom we have already made acquaintance, gives an account of his own wife, and of the way in which he had trained her.
For example, every one supposed Ischomachus as long as he lived was worth more than seventy talents, as I hear; but each of his two sons had less than ten at his death. Stephanus, son of Thallus, was said to be worth more than fifty talents, but his property after his death proved to be about eleven talents. 47.
A remarkable testimony to the excellence of the Phoenician ships with respect to internal arrangements is borne by Xenophon, who puts the following words into the mouth of Ischomachus, a Greek: "I think that the best and most perfect arrangement of things that I ever saw was when I went to look at the great Phoenician sailing-vessel; for I saw the largest amount of naval tackling separately disposed in the smallest stowage possible.
Xenophon gives us in his Economics the prayer of a pious Athenian of his time, in the person of Ischomachus. “I seek to obtain,” says the latter, “from the gods by just prayers, strength and health, the respect of the community, the love of my friends, an honorable termination to my combats, and riches, the fruit of honest industry.” Xenophon evidently considered these appropriate objects for prayer, and from the petitions in many recent manuals of devotion, I should suppose most Christians of to-day would not see in them anything inappropriate.
Here definitely and precisely expressed is the ideal of the Athenian gentleman the beautiful body housing the beautiful soul, the external aids of fortune, friends, and the like, and the realisation of the individual self in public activity. Upon it follows an account of the way in which Ischomachus was accustomed to pass his days.
Ischomachus proceeds to explain to her the place he expects her to fill; she is to suckle his children, to cook, and to superintend the house; and for this purpose God has given her special gifts, different from but not necessarily inferior to those of man.
His description of the "gentleman," therefore, may be taken as a representative account of the recognised ideal of all that class of Athenian citizens. And this is how the gentleman in question, Ischomachus, describes his course of life. "In the first place," he says, "I worship the gods.
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