like may be observed of Andromache, Hector's lady, in Homer f, Ξάνθε τε, καὶ σὺ Ποδάργε, καὶ Αἴθων, Λάμπε τε διε, So oft has steep'd the strengthening grain in wine. POPE. The most common employments of women were spinning, weaving, and making all sorts of embroidery and needle-work. Instances of this nature are too numerous to be recited in this place; for so constantly were they taken up in these businesses, that most houses, where there was any number of women, had rooms set apart for this end, which seems to have been near the womens apartments, if not the same; for Pollux, enumerating the different rooms in houses, after he has mentioned yov, presently adds, ἱσῶν θάλαμος ταλασιεργὸς οἶκος, &c. Women had likewise several other employments, the provision of all necessaries within doors being usually committed to them. I shall not insist on particulars, but only observe, in the last place, that their usage was very different, according to the temper of their husbands or guardians, the value of their fortunes, and the humour of the place or age they lived in. We have a The Lacedæmonian women observed fashions quite different from all their neighbours; their virgins went abroad barefaced, the married women were covered with veils; the former designing (as Charilus replied to one that enquired the reason of that custom) to get themselves husbands, whereas the latter aimed at nothing more than keeping those they already had". large account of the Spartan women's behaviour in the following words of Plutarch: in order to the good education of their youth, which is the most important work of a lawgiver, Lycurgus went so far back as to take into consideration their very conception and birth, by regulating their marriages; for Aristotle wrongs the memory of this excellent person, by bearing us in h Plutarchus Apophthegmat. Laco f Iliad. . v. 183. & Vide Comment. nostrum in Lyco- nicis. phron. v. 91. i Lycurgo. U 4 hand, that after he had tried all manner of ways to reduce the women to more modesty and subjection to their husbands, he was at last forced to leave them as they were, because that in the absence of their husbands, who spent a great part of their lives in the wars, their wives made themselves absolute mistresses at home, and would be treated with as much respect as if they had been so many queens; but, by his good leave, it is a mistake, for Lycurgus took of that sex all the care that was possible: for an instance of it, he ordered the maidens to exercise themselves with running, wrestling, throwing quoits, and casting darts, to the end that the fruit they conceived might take deeper root, grow strong, and spread itself into healthy and vigorous bodies, and withal, that they might be more able to undergo the pains of child-bearing; and to the end he might take away their over-great tenderness and nicety, he ordered they should appear naked as well as the men, and dance too in that condition at their solemn feasts and sacrifices, singing certain songs, whilst the young men stood in a ring about them, seeing and hearing them in these songs they now and then gave a satirical glance upon those who had misbehaved themselves in the wars, sometimes sung' encomiums upon those who had done any gallant action, and by these means inflamed young men with an emulation of their glory; for those that were thus commended, went away brave and well satisfied with themselves: and those that were rallied, were as sensibly touched with it as if they had been formally and severely reprimanded; and so much the more, because the kings and whole senate saw and heard all that passed. Now, though it may seem strange that women should appear thus naked in public, yet was true modesty observed, and wantonness excluded; and it tended to render their conversation free and unreserved, and to beget in them a desire of being vigorous and active, and filled them with courage and generous thoughts, as being allowed their share in the rewards of virtue as well as men. Hence came that sense of honour, and nobleness of spirit, of which we have an instance in Gorgo, the wife of king Leonidas, who being told in discourse with some foreign ladies, that the women of Lacedæmon were the only women of the world who had an empire over the men, briskly reparteed, that there was good reason, for they were the only women that bro..ght forth men. Lastly, these public processions of the maidens, and their appearing naked in their exercises and dancings, were provocations and baits to stir up and allure the young men to marriage, and that not upon geometrical reasons, as Plato calls them (such are interest and equality of fortune,) but from the engagements of true love and affection.' Afterwards, when Lycurgus's laws were neglected, and the Spartans had degenerated from the strict virtue of their forefathers, their women also were ill-spoken of, and made use of the freedom which their lawgiver allowed them to no good purposes; insomuch that they are censured of unlawful pleasures, and branded by Euripides, as cited by Plutarch, with the epithet of avdgouavis, i. e. possessed with furious love of, and, as it were, running mad after men. CHAP. XIV. Of their Customs in Child-bearing, and managing Infants. THOSE who desired to have children, were usually very liberal in making presents and offerings to the gods, especially to such as were thought to have the care of generation. I shall not trouble the reader with a particular account of the names of these deities, and the manner they were worshipped in; but it may be requisite to observe, that the Athenians invoked, on this account, certain gods called Τριτοπάτορες, or Τριτοπάτρεις. Who these were, or what the origination of their name, is not easy to determine: Orpheus, as cited by Phanodemus, in Suidas, makes their proper names to be Amaclides, Protocles, and Protocleon, and will have them to preside over the winds. Demo makes them to be winds themselves; but what business winds or their governors have in generation, is difficult to imagine. Another author, in the same lexicographer, tells us their names were Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges, and that they were the sons of Ougavòs and гĩ, i. e. Heaven and Earth. Philocrus likewise makes Earth their mother; but instead of Heaven, substitutes the Sun or Apollo for their father; whence he seems to account as well for their being accounted the superintendants of generation, as for the name of TesTomáτogs, for being immediately descended from two immortal gods, themselves (saith he) were thought reiros mariges, the third fathers, and therefore might well be esteemed the common parents of mankind, and j Numa. from that opinion derive those honours which the Athenians paid them as the authors and presidents of human generation *. The goddess who had the care of women in child-bed was called Ειλείθυια, οι Εἰλήθυια, sometimes Ελευθώ, as in the epigram : Εκφύγες. - Μόχθον Ελευθῆς You're past the pangs o'er which Eleutho reigns. She is called in Latin, Lucina. Both had the same respects paid by women, and the same titles and epithets. Elithyia is called by Nonnus 1, - Αρήγων θηλυτηρίων. The succouring deity in child-birth. Ovid speaks in the same manner of the Latin goddess TM : Lucina, kind to teeming ladies. The Roman in Theocritus invokes Elithyia": Ενθα γὰρ Ειλείθυιαν ἐβώσατο λυσίζωνον. Thy mother there to Elithyia prays, To ease her throes. The Roman women called for Lucina's assistance: whence Ovid: -Tu voto parturientis ades. You kindly women in their travail hear. Several other things are common to both. As Elithyia was styled ὠδίνων ἐπαγωγός, θηλειών σώτειρα, &c. so likewise Lucina was graced with various appellations, denoting her care of women. Their names, indeed, appear to have distinct originals, yet both have relation to the same action; for Εἰλήθεια is derived ἀπὸ τὸ ἐλεύθειν, from coming, either because she came to assist women in labour, or rather, from her being invoked to help the infant exodus eis Tè çãs, to come into the light, or the world. Lucina is taken from lux, light, for the same reason, according to Ovid: -Tu nobis lucem, Lucina, dedisti. I ucina, you first brought us into light. The Greek name popógos, sometimes attributed to this goddess, is of the same import with the Latin, Lucina, being derived azò TO Qãs digu, from bringing light; because it was by her assistance that infants were safely delivered out of their dark mansions, to enjoy the light of this world. In allusion to this, the Greek and Latin goddesses were both represented with lighted torches in their hands; which reason seems far more natural than that which some k Vide Suidam, Etymologici Auctorem, Phavorinum, Hesychium, &c. m Fast. lib. ii. I Dionysiacis. Idyll. '. assign, viz. ὅτι γυναιξὶν ἐν ἴσῳ καὶ πῦς εἰσιν αἱ ὠδῖνες, that the pain of bearing children is no less exquisite than that of burning o. Who this Elithyia is, authors are not well agreed: some will have her to be an Hyperborean, who came from her own country to Delos, and there assisted Latona in her labour: they add, that this name was first used of Delos, and thence derived to other parts of the world P. Olen, the first writer of divine hymns in Greece, makes her the mother of Cupid, whence it might be inferred she was the same with Venus, were not Pausanias, who cites this passage of Olen, against it, when he brings this as a different account of Cupid's descent, from that received one, of his being Venus's son. The same poet, cited by the same author, will have her to be more ancient than Saturn, and the self same with gun, which is the Grecian name for fate. her the same with Juno, Diana, the moon, &c. most probable, is, that all the yivée, i. e. those deities who were thought to have any concern for women in child-bed, were called Elithyiæ, and Lucina; for these are general names, and sometimes given to one deity, sometimes to another. Others make What appears Juno was one of these goddesses; whence the woman thus invokes her : Juno Lucina, fer opem. Juno Lucina, help, assist the labour. There are several remarkable stories concerning Juno's power in this affair, whereof I shall only mention that about Alcmena, who having incurred this goddess's displeasure, by being Jupiter's mistress, and being with child by him, Sthenelus's wife being likewise with child at the same time, but not so forward as the other, Juno first obtained that he who should be first born should rule over the other, then altered the course of nature, caused Eurystheus to be born of Sthenelus's wife, and afterwards Hercules of Alcmena; whence Hercules was always subject to Eurystheus, and undertook his famous labours in obedience to his commands. The daughters of this goddess were employed in the same office, and dignified with the same title, as we find in Homer * : Ως δ' ὅταν ὠδίνουσαν ἔχῃ βέλος ὀξὺ γυναῖκα, • Pausanias Arcadicis, p. 443. edit. Hanov. P Idem. Atticis, p. 3. 4 Bœoticis, p. 231. s lliad. A. v. 269. |