clared that they knew how
to fight, not how to talk. They put all their art into not having any. The
Lesbians put theirs into the production of verse. At Mitylene, poetic
development was preferred to physical culture. The girls there thought
more of immortality than of motherhood. But the unusual liberty which they
enjoyed was due to influences either Boeotian or Egyptian, perhaps to
both. Egypt was neighborly. With Lesbos, Egypt was in constant
communication. The liberty of women there, as generally throughout the
morning lands, religion had procured. Where Ishtar passed, she fevered,
but also she freed. Beneath her mantle women acquired a liberty that was
very real. On the very sites in which Islam was to shut them up,
Semiramis, Strantonice, Dido, Cleopatra, and Zenobia appeared. Isis, who
was Ishtar's Egyptian avatar, was particularly liberal. Among the cities
especially dedicated to her was Naucratis.

Charaxus, a brother of Sappho, went there, met Rhodopis, a local beauty,
and fell in love with her. Charaxus was a merchant. He brought wine to
Egypt, sold it, returned to Greece for more. During one of his absences,
Rhodopis, while lolling on a terrace, dropped her sandal which, legend
says, a vulture seized, carried away, and let fall into the lap of King
Amasis. The story of Cinderella originated there. With this difference:
though the king, after prodigal and impatient researches, discovered the
little foot to which the tiny sandal belonged, Rhodopis, because of
Charaxus, disassociated herself from his advances. Subsequently a young
Naucratian offered a fortune to have relations with her. Because of
Charaxus, Rhodopis again refused. The young man dreamed that she
consented, dreamed that she was his, and boasted of the dream.
Indignantly Rhodopis cited him before the magistrates, contending that he
should pay her as proposed. The matter was delicate. But the magistrates
decided it with great wisdom. They authorized Rhodopis to dream that she
was paid.

Rumors of these and of similar incidents were probably reported in Lesbos
and may have influenced the condition of women there. But memories of
Boeotia from which their forefathers came was perhaps also a factor.
Boeotia was a haunt of the muses. In the temple to them, which Lesbos
became, the freedom of Erato was almost of necessity accorded to her
priestesses.

Lesbos was then a stretch of green gardens and white peristyles set
beneath a purple dome. To-day the