Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates

THE GREEK WOMAN

age described by Homer that the possession of one or several concubines was universally common, indeed, a matter of course, at least among the nobles. In historic times, however, the admissibility of such a relationship is by no means certain ; indeed, there is much to be said against it, and probably it was only in times of need (such as. increased mortality owing to war and epidemics) that a concubine was allowed by the side of the wife for the purpose of bearing children.

That men took wives mainly for the sake of begetting children, not only follows from the official formula of betrothal, “for the procreation of a legitimate offspring,’ (Emi waisav yolav *apdrw ; cf. Lucian, Tim., 17; Clem. Alex., Stromata, 1, 421; Plutarch, Comparatio Lycurgi cum Numa, 4), but is also frankly admitted by several Greek authors (Xenophon, Memor., ii, 2, 4; Demosthenes, Phormio, 30; Plutarch, as above). In Sparta matters went much further, where according to Plutarch it was nothing unusual for the husband “ to transfer his conjugal rights temporarily to one sexually stronger, from which he could expect especially beautiful and vigorous children, without the marriage being thereby upset”’. We must agree with Plutarch (Lyc., 15), when he compares Spartan marriage with a stud, in which the only matter of consequence is to obtain an issue as numerous as possible and of excellent race. In another passage (De audiendis poetis, 8) he speaks of a certain Polyagnus, who played the pander for his own wife, wherefore he was ridiculed in comedy, because he kept a goat who brought him in much money.

Also Stephanus, well-known from the speech against Neaera (§ 41), was a cunning procurer who enticed strangers, whom he supposed had money, with the charms of his young wife. If the stranger fell into the snare he knew how to arrange matters so that he caught the loving couple in a compromising situation, after which he extorted a

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