refined by communion with her artistic temperament, Athens
would not have been embellished by the works of art which have made that
city the unapproachable ruler in the domain of the spirit. Woman's
influence, where it has counted most, has always been a silent one, and
has worked through man. Is not Aspasia worthy of the laurel wreath for
the results of her life on "the city of the violet crown"?

X

APHRODITE PANDEMUS

For the proper understanding of the status of woman among the Greeks of
ancient times, it becomes necessary for the historian of Greek womanhood
to call attention to a conspicuous social phenomenon pervading the life
of all the nations of antiquity, but nowhere else so marked a feature of
the higher life as in the lands of Hellas--a phenomenon bringing about
social conditions that divided the female population of Greece into two
sharply distinguished classes: the citizen-woman and the courtesan or
mistress.

This notable aspect of Greek life is due to the fact that the ancient
Hellene, as a rule, sought recreation and pleasure, not at the domestic
hearth, but in the society of clever women, who had not only cultivated
their physical charms, but had also trained their intellects and
sensibilities so as to become _virtuosi_ in all the arts of pleasure.
Their pleasing forms of intercourse, their light and vivacious
conversation, lent to association with them a peculiar seductiveness and
fascination.

To designate this class of women in a manner which would distinguish
them from the citizen-women on the one hand and the debased prostitute
on the other, they were euphemistically called "hetaerae," or companions.
The term _hetaerae_ had been originally a most honorable one, and Sappho
had used it, in the highest and best sense, of her girl friends as
implying companions of like rank and interests. It is not known when it
was first used with sinister suggestion, but, like our word _mistress_,
it fell from its honorable estate and became the usual term to describe
these women of pleasure.

The causes of the extent of hetairism among the Greeks are to be found
in their religious conceptions, their political institutions, and the
innate sensualism of the Greek peoples.

The Greeks were worshippers of the productive forces of nature as
manifested in animal and plant life. Aphrodite is the female and
Dionysius the male personification of the generative principles, and in
consequence the religious c