n has never had the reputation for patriotism that
characterized her Spartan sister, yet at times she showed an almost
superhuman devotion to the State. After the sack of Athens by Mardonius
and his troops in the Persian War, a senator, Lycidas, advised his
fellow countrymen to accept the terms which were offered them by the
Persian general. The Athenians in scorn stoned to death the man who
could suggest such a cowardly deed. And the women, hearing what their
husbands had done, passed the word on to one another, and, gathering
together, they went of their own accord to the house of Lycidas and
inflicted the same punishment on his wife and children--a cruel act, but
one showing their love of country and their hatred of treason.

These women, who could be so ruthless when patriotism was involved, knew
how to be genuine comforters when their own loved ones were in trouble.
The orator Andocides and his companions were tried and imprisoned for
impiety in violating the Eleusinian mysteries. "When," says Isocrates,
"we had all been bound in the same chamber, and it was night, and the
prison had been closed, there came to one his mother, to another his
sister, to another his wife and children, and there was woe and
lamentation as they wept over their misfortunes."

In so brilliant a race, it was impossible that some women should not
rise above the surface and, by extraordinary virtue and by intellectual
and spiritual endowments of a high order, win the lasting regard of
men.

IX

ASPASIA

The period in Greek history when the intellectual and artistic life of
Hellas reached its zenith is known as the Golden Age of Pericles. The
lofty ideals of this greatest of Greek statesmen incited him to make
Athens the seat of a mighty empire that should spread the noblest and
most elevating influences throughout all Hellas. He called to his
assistance all the great men of his native city, and made also the fine
arts serve as handmaidens of Athens and contribute to her power and
splendor. Every condition was present for the realization of an
intellectual and artistic epoch such as the world had never witnessed.
At the disposal of Pericles was an inexhaustible treasury--the
accumulation of the tribute of subject allies. The quarries of
Pentelicon offered in great abundance the material necessary for the
erection of public buildings which might express in sensuous form the
noblest ideals of the Greek race. There were in Athens s