en few women would have dared to visit an artist's
studio. To her brother Cimon she proved a devoted sister. Once, when he
was on trial for his life, she pleaded with Pericles so earnestly that
acquittal was the result; and later she arranged with this great rival
the negotiations that led to Cimon's return from banishment. So lovable
was she that Callias, one of the richest men in Athens, fell violently
in love with her, and offered to pay the fine to which her father was
condemned, if he could obtain the daughter in marriage; and with
Elpinice's own consent, Cimon betrothed her to Callias.

We have reserved a brief consideration of the best known of all Athenian
women, one who defies all out notions regarding the prevailing
conventions--Xanthippe, wife of the philosopher Socrates. From all
accounts, it seems likely that she was an aristocratic lady, in reduced
circumstances, who had married Socrates when advanced in life, she
herself being beyond the years at which women usually marry, yet a score
of years younger than her husband. Socrates once said he married her for
the excitement of conquest, just as one would enjoy the breaking of a
high-spirited horse; but, at any rate, the philosopher was worsted, and
Xanthippe ruled the household. Xanthippe has acquired the reputation of
being the typical scold of antiquity. Doubtless this reputation is not
without foundation, yet she should have our sympathy, for the strangest
and most difficult of husbands fell to her lot. Her naturally infirm
temper must have been tried beyond endurance by the calm unconcern of
her husband toward the domestic problem of "making both ends meet."
Ugly, careless of dress, keeping bad company, given to trances, utterly
neglectful of his family--can one be surprised that the wife of such a
man should lose all patience with him, and through repeated failures to
improve him should by degrees become an arch termagant? Yet the stories
of Xanthippe's temper rest on uncertain authority, and her reputation
may be due largely to the fact that it was necessary for the
story mongers to provide a foil for the always serene and placid
philosopher. Plato, the most reliable authority, tells us nothing
disparaging of Xanthippe, and the violent grief he attributes to her at
the last parting suggests a high degree of affection for her phlegmatic
spouse. Socrates preferred philosophical discussions with his friends to
the society of his wife in his last hours of l