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

THE GREEK WOMAN

men makes a singular impression upon us (Plutarch, Lycurg, 15): “ ‘The civil rights of unmarried men were curtailed ; thus they were not allowed to take part in the festival of the naked boys (gymnopeedia) ; in the winter they were ordered to go round the market, while they sang a song of ridicule attacking themselves, declaring that they deserved what had happened to them, as they had disobeyed the laws of their country; and they were also deprived of the respect and attention which was usually shown by young people to their elders.”

When a young man did not get up from his place before the famous but unmarried Spartan general Dercyllidas, and said impudently: ‘“‘ You have begotten no one who will later make way for me ”’ the attitude of the youth was generally approved. These punishments and mortifications do not seem to have done much good even in Sparta; rather the number of unmarried men in Greece appears to have been fairly large, whether it was that entering into the married state was forbidden by the desire for a peaceful life, unimpaired by anxieties about wife and child, or even by a natural dislike for women generally. The conversation of Periplectomenus with Palaestrio in the Miles Gloriosus (iii, i, 677-702) of Plautus (adapted from a Greek original) is instructive in this respect :

‘‘ PERIPLECTOMENUS: Thank God, I have the means to entertain you in my home agreeably ; eat, drink, do as you please in my company, and enjoy yourself to the full. This is Liberty Hall, and I have my own liberty, too. I like to live my own life. Why—thank God I may say so—I’m a rich man and could have taken a wife of wealth and station ; but I have no desire to admit a she-yapper into my house.

‘““PaLz#strio: Why not, sir? Getting children is a delightful duty, you know.

‘““Per.: Ill take my oath that getting the joys of freedom is more delightful.

35