A House Divided
The Sabbath, three days later, was the first opportunity Cartimandua and I had had to worship with other Christians since those dreadful days in Pola. We rose early, bathed, dressed and ate breakfast, then I sat in the hall chatting to Antiochus while Cartimandua got young Paul ready. It was approaching the third hour of the day when my mother bustled into the hall, closely followed by three slaves loaded down with baskets and amphorae.
"Ye gods!" I exclaimed, sitting up and staring. "Best Chian or I'll never trust my eyes again. What's in the other amphora?"
"Water honey303, lord," the slave answered, tipping his amphora so that I could see the writing scratched into its pitch seal304.
I turned to my mother with raised eyebrows. "All this for the Love Feast?"
Mother looked pained. "Yes. Things are rather different from what they were when Paul was here, Arxes. I'm not sure about them, but as your father says, we have to keep our side up, for the sake of business if nothing else."
The Christians no longer met in the lecture hall of Titius Justus, but in the house of a man called Gaius. The room we entered was light and spacious, but still it was crowded to overflowing with people when we arrived. Cartimandua and my son went to sit with my mother, while I went with my father to the men's side of the room. Lucius was there already and greeted us warmly. He came over to sit beside me.
"Let's see, now. There's a lot of people here that you don't know. Over there is Chloe's husband, he's a merchant, dealing with Asia and Ionia. He's also one of the leaders in the church. Next to him is Gaius, our host, and that chap over there with the grey beard is Crispus, the Jew, remember?"
"Who is the man up the front?" I nodded towards a tall, handsome man who was standing facing us as though waiting for something.
"That's Stephanas. Paul appointed him as overseer of the assembly before he left. He's a nice man but I don't think that he's strong enough to cope with the situation here."
"Oh? What situation?"
Lucius shrugged. "You know what you Greeks are like, always divided305 . Peter, one of the Christos' original followers, came through here while we were away and baptised a couple of people. After him came a man from Alexandria named Apollos, a very learned philosopher, so I'm told. The result is that some people are putting on airs because they were initiated by a disciple and some because they were initiated by Apollos. The others retaliate by pointing out that Peter denied the Christos and Apollos is far too Jewish306. They'll eat each other up307 if they're not careful!"
Just then Stephanas clapped his hands and people hurried to conclude their conversations and sit down. When there was silence Stephanas welcomed us in the name of the Christos and proposed a paean in His honour. I didn't know it - though the tune was familiar enough - but the other men sang it heartily and I heard a few of the women joining in. One woman in particular, a slight young girl down the front with her back to me, was almost dancing as she sang. I watched her closely, as there was something about her that was familiar, but when the singing ended I still couldn't place her. The hymn was followed by a long prayer in which Stephanas praised the Christos and asked God to help us live worthy lives.
"Now I will ask Brother Crispus to read to us from the Scriptures," Stephanas announced.
Crispus, the Jew, stepped forward, a thick book308 in his hand. He opened it and then looked around at us all.
"My brothers and sisters, hear the words of God from the prophet Isaiah."
Crispus spoke Greek with a peculiar accent and I noticed a rather plump man in an expensive robe down the front of the hall who sniggered and said something in a loud undertone to the man next to him. Crispus ignored him and read a long passage from his book in a sing-song voice, all about sheep going astray and people being healed by the punishment given to someone. When he had finished Stephanas stepped forward again.
"This may not sound like prophecy309, but you must remember that the Jews have their own way of writing poetry. I'm sure we can all remember Peter telling us how the Christos was scourged and crucified. He died for us, brothers and sisters. That's the good news we must proclaim to everyone around us."
Stephanas stopped abruptly as two big, tough-looking men stood up. The taller of the two half-turned and smiled at us, the gaps in his crooked teeth making him appear to be some sort of monster. By their dress I guessed that they were sailors off a merchant ship in one of the ports.
"Gyfeillion, yr oeddwn yn bechadur, heb obaith a thrugaredd. Ond yn awr mae'r Arglwydd wedi fy achub i. Moliannwch ef!"
The shorter man muttered something to his companion and then, in execrable Greek, said, "Him happy now. Lord rescue him. Not sin more."
"Thank you, brothers."
Stephanas smiled at them and then paused, obviously trying to collect his thoughts. Before he could start again the young girl who had been singing so enthusiastically, stood up and turned to face us. I couldn't repress a gasp. It was Charite! As she drew her shawl up over her head310 I slumped down in my seat, hoping that she wouldn't see me. The last thing I wanted now was for Cartimandua to find out about Charite.
"You all know who I am and what I am," Charite spoke, her lovely voice high and clear. "Every day I feel as if I am a sinner, forced to sin with my body by my masters up there on the hill. Yet thanks to the Christos, I am as white as snow, clean and pure in the sight of God. Praise to the Christos!"
Charite's voice broke when she said the word "pure" and the fat man sniggered again in a most unpleasant way. As soon as she sat down he stood up, turned and stared superciliously at us.
"En arche holomenou charitoosi tomeno phalaiko skoto. En arche holoterros oikonomonou ta mere zanitooros. En arche holamoschio oumenizomen."
His voice rose higher and higher with each phrase and he pawed at the air in frantic gestures. The man was a Greek but apart from one or two words that sounded familiar, I couldn't understand anything he was saying. I felt my neck tingle at the thought that I was again privileged to hear inspired words spoken in a foreign language and looked across at Cartimandua to see if she understood what he was saying, but she was staring at him with a startled, puzzled expression on her face. I glanced over my shoulder surreptitiously to see if there were any strangers to whom the fat man was talking, but there was no-one obvious. Even the two sailors looked confused. The people behind me, though, were staring at the fat man in awe and admiration. Lucius nudged me.
"He's speaking some barbarian language, does it nearly every Sabbath," he whispered. "He says that it is the spirit of the Christos speaking through him."
"What language?" I demanded quietly.
Lucius shrugged. "I don't know. There must be dozens of barbarian languages, or maybe it's some divine language, like the ravers at a Bacchic festival."
After what seemed like ages the fat man abruptly stopped, wiped his sweating forehead with a corner of his sleeve and sat down. Again Stephanas opened his mouth to speak but before he could say a word another man stood up and burst out with a lot of excited speech and again I couldn't understand a single word. He was followed by a woman, a rather wealthy one to judge by the bangles and bracelets that clashed and jangled as she waved her arms around. She didn't bother to cover her head and as she spoke her head jerked and nodded311 until her expensively coiffured hair came loose in a spray of hairpins and cascaded down her back. Her wild posturing made it plain that she was possessed by some god or other. Lucius nudged me again.
"Nice hair, eh? Pity she wasn't thirty years younger."
Finally the unknown languages were finished and Stephanas was able to get out a few words. He beckoned with his hand and several men and women stood up and came to the front, among them my father.
"What's Dad doing there?" I whispered to Lucius.
"He's what they call a deacon." Lucius mouthed the words. "Tell you more later."
After a short prayer the men and women walked among us, collecting the gifts of food and drink that the people had brought. They carried them all down to the front, taking several trips each to gather it all together. The women could only use one hand to carry, as with the other they clutched the shawls that decently covered their heads. When they were finished Stephanas picked up one of the loaves of bread and held it high.
"We remember how the Christos, just before his betrayal and death, took bread and broke it. God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, we offer to You this bread, which will remind us of the body of our Lord, the Christos Whom You have sent."
He tore pieces off the loaf and handed them to the deacons, who in turn passed them out to us. I wasn't sure whether to take part or not - I was a Christian, but I hadn't been initiated - but Lucius noticed me hesitating and whispered that I should go ahead.
"Hey, don't worry about it, Arxes. It's only bread."
I crammed the bread into my mouth and chewed, fearful that someone would see me and rebuke me. When I looked up again Stephanas had a small amphora of wine and was holding it up in front of himself.
"The Christos took wine and blessed it, saying, 'This is the new agreement between God and man, confirmed by My blood.' Our God and Father, we offer You this wine, the symbol of the blood shed by Your Christos. May it bring us life everlasting."
He poured the wine, which I presume was already mixed, into small pottery cups which the deacons brought around to all of us. Once again I took and drank mine, though I felt increasingly uncomfortable about doing so. I prayed under my breath that the Christos would not be angry with me if I was offending against the laws of His religion.
There was a final prayer and then the room erupted into noise again as everyone swarmed down the front to reclaim the food and drink that had been blessed. The assembly broke up into little circles of people sitting or squatting on the floor while one person in each group divided up the food and passed it around. To my indignation I noticed that the fat man had got hold of our amphora of Chian wine and was busy pouring out cupfuls for himself and his friends and my annoyance was only partly assuaged when I realised that our whole family was joining his circle.
"Hey, Lycurgus!" the fat man lowered his cup briefly. "Good wine, this."
"There should be enough for everyone to have a taste," my mother spoke up, an anxious frown on her face.
"Pah!" the fat man snorted. "Don't waste312 this good stuff on them!" He waved a chubby hand towards the crowd of slaves and peasants that filled most of the lecture hall. "Vinegar is good enough for them. Anyway, there isn't enough here for more than a mouthful if you divided it among everyone. Got any of those pies, Demaris? I'll buy that cook of yours any time you say so. Pay you double what you paid."
He pounced greedily on the food mother produced though, to be fair to him, a slave carried in a splendid platter of savouries that he had provided, and he was generous in handing them around our circle. I felt uncomfortable when I noticed heads turning to follow as the slave brought it in and realised that most of the other people were eating brown bread and greens. Even Charite was gazing at our circle with a hungry look on her face. Our eyes met and I hastily looked away, but not before a flash of recognition lit up her eyes.
Mother picked up her plate of pies and made as if to pass it around the circle of peasants nearest her but the fat man interfered again, his voice booming out.
"Hey, Demaris! Don't waste that delicious food on people who won't appreciate it. Give it here; I've got a most discriminating palette."
My mother glanced at my father, seeking support but Dad said nothing. I later learned that the fat man was a contractor for the army and my father was hoping to get a big order from him.
Cartimandua was sitting next to me and Lucius and Mysticus were together as well. When the food was finished, however, the women began to gather up the scraps and the dirty dishes and I found myself next to a thin man with a hooked nose and thin, scraggly hair. He leaned towards me and nodded across the room.
"What do you think of her, eh, young fellow?"
"Who?" I asked, trying to guess which of the many women in the room he meant.
"That one," the man hissed. "That harlot from the Artemision. There, wearing the red ribbon in her hair."
I nearly said, "Oh, you mean Charite" but stopped myself in time. I said, cautiously, "Well, she's quite pretty."
"Typical young man's answer," the thin man snorted. "She's a brazen hussy, she is. Standing up and speaking in the assembly, just as if she's as good as any man. Disgusting, that's what I call it! Women are unclean, you know, foul carriers of poison in their bodies313 . How dare she speak up in public, that's what I want to know?"
"Well," I hesitated, not wanting to antagonise the man, yet not willing to agree with him either. "Some women are quite clever."
"Brazen hussy!" An older woman whom I had not noticed, as scrawny and sour-faced as her husband, poked her head past the thin man's shoulder and hissed at me. "Putting on airs when she's nothing but a common slut. Yes, you: I'm talking about you."
Charite, who had the misfortune to be walking past just then turned at the sound of the woman's harsh voice.
"Were you talking to me, sister?" she asked.
"Sister indeed!" the older woman snapped. "I'm no sister of yours. I saw you in the agora the other day with that drunken captain all over you. I work for my living, honest, decent work I'd have you know."
Charite's eyebrows rose but her face was hard and there was a glint in her eyes. "And what work might that be, sister?"
"Keeping house, spinning, weaving, all the things that honest women do."
"Well," Charite shrugged, "so you fleece sheep and I fleece ships314. We both work hard, sister."
She turned and flounced away, swinging her hips arrogantly as the old woman spluttered with outrage. I threw back my head and laughed with delight at her wit.
"Huh!" the man snorted, coming to the defence of his wife. "Who baptised you?"
"I - er - I haven't been baptised yet."
"Well I have." The man jerked his thumb at his chest. "I was baptised by Peter, one of the Lord's own disciples. I know what I'm talking about. Why, women aren't even allowed into the temple in Jerusalem, yet here we have these brazen females, call themselves deaconesses and mince around in public without shame."
"Oh come on, Gripus!" The fat man must have overheard our conversation. "You have to have priestesses. Every religion has them, so they must be pleasing to the gods. I don't see why this new god, the Christos, should be any different."
"Huh! It's contrary to nature for a woman to have any public position315. The gods - and I am sure the Christos is no exception - are offended when a woman puts herself forward."
"Apollos never condemned any woman for voicing her opinion in the assembly - and he knew more of the Scriptures than you ever will, Gripus."
"Apollos! That half-Jew, half Greek. Half a pharisee and half a philosopher and not much of either. Don't talk to me about Apollos, even if he did baptise you."
"Well, what about the apostle Paul?" the fat man asked. "He had that Priscilla working with him."
"Apostle?" Gripus nearly leaped to his feet, his voice squeaky with indignation. "He's no apostle and he knows it. He's nothing more than a tentmaker. Why do you think he never dared ask us for money? It's because he had nothing worth offering us."
I tried not to listen as the two continued their argument, Gripus with genuine heat and the fat man with a half-drunken air of amusement316. I was very glad when Stephanas came up and put his hand on my shoulder.
"Arxes? May I have a word?"
I rose and followed him to the front of the room where there were fewer people. As I went past, one man, obviously one of the poorer sort, plucked at my chiton, his face puckered in a worried frown. He spoke so softly that I had to bend down to hear him.
"Where does your mother get her meat?" he asked.
I shrugged and shook my head. "I'm sorry, I don't know."
I looked up. My mother was standing just a few feet away, talking to one of the other women, a stack of freshly washed dishes in her arms.
"Mum!" Mother looked up and I beckoned her to come over, despite the embarrassed protests of the man who had asked the question. "This man wants to know where you buy our meat."
Mother smiled at him. "Oh, I always buy my meat from Dionysodorus, down by the old baths. He may be a bit expensive but his meat is always good quality."
The man's mouth opened and shut several times and then he blurted out, "But Dionysodorus always dedicates his meat to Athena Pallas!"
My mother looked puzzled. "Yes, I know that."
"You mean - you mean that you partake in sacrifices to Athena? Call yourself a Christian!"
My mother blushed and I jumped in to defend her. "Oh come now, sir. We no longer worship any god except the Christos and His Father, but you can't call buying a bit of meat 'worshipping'. Anyway, who says that these old gods really exist? Just because someone kills an animal in front of a statue doesn't mean that anything is really happening. If he happened to kill his goat in front of a barn or a house, would you say that he was worshipping his house? And," I added, foreseeing a possible objection, "even if he said he was worshipping his house, surely you would pity him for his delusion rather than take him seriously?"
The man shook his head vigorously. "I may not have as much schooling as you," he said. "I may not know all about philosophy and science, but those old gods, they're really daemons and devils. The Christos may be stronger, but I'll have nothing to do with them - and neither will any true Christian."
He turned his back on me with a snort of contempt and made a show of talking to someone else in his group. I looked at mother, raised an eyebrow and then went off myself, to where Stephanas was waiting for me.
"I understand from your mother that you wish to be initiated into the Christian mystery," Sephanas said. "How much do you know about our holy religion?"
I looked into his eyes and liked what I saw. He was friendly without being condescending, zealous without being fanatical, good without being ostentatious. He seemed like the only sane man in this assembly of fanatics and agitators.
"I have listened to Paul, sir, and liked his teaching, though I did not accept it then. I was present when my teacher, Athenodorus, was initiated and I gave my approval when Cartimandua - who was then my slave girl - wanted to be initiated. If there is anything else I ought to know, then I will learn it gladly."
Stephanas nodded approvingly. "I would get your former teacher to give you further instruction, but he is down in Lakonia taking the news of the Christos to the towns and villages there. Perhaps you would like to visit me a couple of times and I can instruct you more fully."
"Gladly, sir, but what is there more to know?"
Stephanas' eyes twinkled. "Oh, not much. A proper respect for holy things, for example." I opened my mouth to protest but he carried on speaking. "The bread and wine is only for initiates, you know."
I felt my face grow red. "Sir, I beg your pardon. I would not offend against God for anything, but you see, sir, I now believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christos of God, so I thought it would be all right."
"If you did this with a pure heart, then be at peace. Nevertheless, it would be as well to receive your initiation as soon as possible so that next Sabbath you can take part with a clear conscience."
"May I ask you something, sir?"
"Certainly," Stephanas smiled at me.
"Should women speak in church?" I nodded towards Gripus and the fat man, who were still arguing noisily.
Stephanas followed my gaze and sighed. "Paul told us that there is no difference between male and female, anymore than there is between slave and free or Jew and Greek. That is born out by what the Christos said when someone asked Him when His kingdom would come. He said, 'When the two shall be one and the outside as the inside and the male with the female, neither male nor female.'317 How can I discriminate when the Christos Himself swept away all differences?"
Charite was waiting for me when I came out of the hall. Her face lit up in a beaming smile as I approached.
"Arxes! I recognised you at once. Where have you been all this time?"
"I had to go to Gaul," I told her. "For my father's business."
"Are you a Christian too?" she asked.
I nodded. "Yes, though I haven't been initiated yet."
"You're lucky." Charite took my arm and we started walking up the street. "I would love to be initiated, but Stephanas says that I can't be while I continue to work up at the Artemision. Oh Arxes, what can I do? I don't want to help people worship the goddess, but I'm not free. I've got to do what the priests tell me to do. I try and hide away and not be noticed, but before I heard about the Christos I was quite popular and lots of people still ask for me. You ought to know."
I squirmed. It's funny how love and religion can make something perfectly natural seem wrong and shameful.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't know about the Christos either in those days."
"Oh Arxes," Charite squeezed my arm, "I didn't mean to blame you. You did me no wrong: that's what I'm there for. Anyway, I'd rather go with you than with some of the old goats we get up at the temple." She paused and then added a little wistfully, "I don't suppose I'll see you again up there."
"No," I said, and I hope I didn't sound wistful too. "Because of what Paul said about 'one flesh' I'm going to marry my slave girl, that one with the yellow hair that was sitting next to me in the Love Feast. We already have a son."
Charite let go of my arm as if it burned her. "Oh. Well, I suppose a respectable married man like you won't want to be seen talking to a woman like me."
"Charite," I said, taking her arm and patting it. "You did me no wrong either. If you will permit me, I will be your friend and proud to speak to you at any time. More than that, both Cartimandua and I will pray to the Christos for you, that He will find a way to set you free."
"Sometimes," Charite sounded wistful, "sometimes I dream of escaping, of going back to Meropea. I long to go out to our old farm and just stay there with the goats and the hens and never see another man again as long as I live."
"You don't like men?" I hazarded.
Charite smiled wryly. "Oh Arxes, I don't mean you. I mean the men who think that because they have made a big donation to the goddess they can order me to do anything they want. I'm a person, Arxes, a woman! I have my own wants and needs: a family, a husband; I want to sit spinning under a fig tree out in the country while my children play around my feet."
I stared at her helplessly. Somehow I had never thought of women like that before. Men needed women - women like Charite for pleasure, others, like mother, for looking after the household and producing legitimate children - but women were dangerous and impossible to understand. The idea that women might have thoughts and feelings was a new one.
"Ah well," Charite shrugged. "We all have our dreams, but we just have to accept what the fates have ordained for us. Don't worry, Arxes. There's hundreds of us up there and we all wish we were elsewhere. If they can survive, so can I."
She smiled at me and walked away, her hips swinging in that well-remembered way, but this time all I felt was pity. I raised my hands like a suppliant.
"God of Israel, show pity to your servant Charite and set her free. In the name of Your Christos. Amen."
303 Those interested in trying this refreshing beverage may like to follow Pliny's recipe, found in his Natural History XIV.xx. "A wine is also made of only water and honey. For this it is recommended that rain-water should be stored for five years. Some, who are more expert, use rain-water as soon as it has fallen, boiling it down to a third of the quantity and adding one part of old honey to three parts of water and then keeping the mixture in the sun for forty days after the rising of the Dog Star. Others pour it off after nine days and then cork it up. This beverage is called in Greek 'Water-honey'; with age it attains the flavour of wine."
He then goes on to describe another delicious drink: 'This mixture is called in Greek 'sour honey'; it was made with ten pounds of honey, two and a half pints of old vinegar, one pound of sea salt and five pints of rain-water, heated to boiling ten times, after which the liquor was drawn off and so kept till it was old."
If anyone does try these recipes, I should be curious to know the result. Instant nausea I should imagine! Return
304 Pliny gives detailed instructions in his Natural History XIV.xxvii on how to store wine: "One side of a wine cellar or at least its windows ought to face north-east, or at all events east. Dunghills and tree-roots must be a long way off and all objects with a strong smell should be avoided, as it very easily passes into wine. Particularly there must be no fig trees or wild figs near; also spaces must be left between the jars to prevent taints passing from one to the other, as wine is always liable to very rapid infection. Moreover the shape of the jars is important: pot-bellied and broad ones are not so good. Immediately after the rising of the Dog Star they should be coated with pitch and afterwards washed with seawater or water with salt in it and then sprinkled with ashes of brushwood or else with potter's earth, and then rubbed clean and fumigated with myrrh, as should frequently be done with the wine-cellars also. Weak vintages should be kept in jars sunk in the ground but jars containing strong wines should be exposed to the air. The jars must never be filled quite full and the space above the surface of the wine must be smeared with raisin-wine or boiled down must mixed with saffron or iris pounded up with boiled must. The lids of the jars should be treated in the same way, with the addition of mastic or Bruttian pitch." Return
305 The Greeks were determinedly individuals, going their own way and seeking their own advantage regardless of others. Pausanias, in his Guide to Greece VII.x remarks: "The troubles of Achaia were to start from the most ungodly of all crimes and one by which in the whole course of history Greece has never ceased to be afflicted: treachery to a man's country and people for the sake of his personal profit." Return
306 The opening words of Hebrews recall some of the sayings of Philo of Alexandria and on this basis some have suggested that Apollos, not Paul, was the author of this book. It is an attractive theory. Return
307 In his essay On God's Slowness to Punish Plutarch gives us a tour of hell. In one place "he saw other souls entwined, snake-like, in groups of two or three or more, who were eating one another because they held a grudge or felt vindictive about things which had been done to them or which they had done during their lifetimes." (p. 291) Return
308 Both Greeks and Jews used scrolls, which were the conventional, old-fashioned form of writing. About this time, however, books of pages were becoming popular, favoured for their ease of use. A Greek, using the LXX version of the Old Testament, may well have had it in book form, though early Christian art work commonly shows repositories of sacred writings in the form of scrolls. Return
309 Poets held a very high place in Greek culture. Strabo, in his Geography I.ii.3 says, "Our school [the Stoic] goes still further and contends that the wise man alone is a poet. That is the reason why in Greece the various states educate the young, at the very beginning of their education by means of poetry; not for the mere sake of entertainment, of couse, but for the sake of moral discipline." To speak in poetry was a sign of divine inspiration, which is why the oracles always gave their predictions in verse. Return
310 In many eastern and middle eastern cultures, a woman covers her head as a sign of respect and reverence. It is also a sign that a girl is married. I was brought up in India and remember an incident that happened when I was seventeen and susceptible to feminine beauty. The attractive daughter of the Indian pastor helped in the Christian nursery school my mother ran and this particular day she had stayed longer than usual in order to complete some work. Of course it was unthinkable that a young girl should walk home alone, so I was deputed to escort her.
I leaped to the task with enthusiasm, knowing that the girl reciprocated my feelings. Naturally I strolled in the lead and the girl walked behind me, which made tender conversation a little difficult. About half a mile down the road two men came towards us and as they passed I heard one say to the other, "Look at that! They don't look old enough to be married."
The remark puzzled me and I turned to the girl to see if she had heard and could explain it - and there was the explanation! She had taken the scarf that is an integral part of the Punjabi costume and which young girls wear around their necks with both ends hanging down their backs, and draped it over her head in the style only adopted by married women. I goggled at her in astonishment as she grinned impudently and replaced the scarf in a more maidenly position. The incident did nothing to quench my passion!
This gave me immediate recognition and understanding of a story Pausanias tells in his Guide to Greece, III.xx. "The statue of Modesty about four miles from the city was dedicated by Ikarios, and this is the story they tell about its erection. When Ikarios gave Penelope to Odysseus to marry, he tried to settle Odysseus in Lakonia, but he failed, so then he begged his daughter to stay with him; she set out for Ithike but he followed her in a chariot and beseeched her. Odysseus put up with this for a time but in the end he told Penelope either to follow him of her own free will or to choose her father and go home to Lakonia. The story is that she gave no reply, but simply hid her face with her veil and Ikarios realised she wanted to go with Odysseus; so he let her go and dedicated a statue of Modesty." In other words, she gave no verbal reply but by her action declared herself a married woman. Return
311 People - perhaps particularly women - who jerked and twitched in a frenzy were regarded with respect as inspired. Pausanias, in his Guide to Greece X.xii, tells us that the Sibyl Herophile at Delphi "foretold Helen in her prophecies: how she would be reared in Sparta for the ruin of Asia and of Europe, and how through her Troy would fall to the Greeks. The Delians record her Hymn to Apollo: in the verse she calls herself Artemis as well as Herophile, and then says she is Apollo's sister and again his daughter. She wrote all this when raving and possessed by the god." The effects of the "Toronto blessing" have a very respectable ancestry - among the heathen! Return
312 Such behaviour must have been a common problem. In his Natural History XIV.xiv, Pliny has this to say about the abstemiousness of one of his heroes: "Moreover Cato, when sailing on his expedition to Spain, whence he returned with a triumph, drank no other wine than what was drunk by the crew of his galley, so little did he resemble the gentlemen who give even their guests other wines than those served to themselves, or else substitute inferior wines as the meal progresses." Return
313 This misogynist point of view was implicitly believed by the ancients. Pliny, in his Natural History VII.xv, tells us that "Nothing could easily be found that is more remarkable than the monthly flux of women. Contact with it turns new wine sour, crops touched by it become barren, grafts die, seeds in gardens are dried up, the fruit of trees falls off, the bright surface of mirrors in which it is merely reflected is dimmed, the edge of steel and the gleam of ivory are dulled, hives of bees die, even bronze and iron are at once seized by rust and a horrible smell fills the air; to taste it drives dogs mad and infects their bites with an incurable poison. Moreover bitumen, a substance generally sticky and viscous, that at a certain season of the year floats on the surface of the lake of Judaea called the Asphalt Pool, adheres to everything touching it and cannot be drawn asunder except by a thread soaked in the poisonous fluid in question."
Menstrual blood is not all bad, however. "The substance in question is the material for human generation, as the semen from the males, acting like rennet, collects this substance within it, which thereupon immediately is inspired with life and endowed with body." Return
314 The pun, which is not very good, is an attempt to match the one recorded by Strabo in his Geography VIII.vi.20. "Moreover it is recorded that a certain Corinthian courtesan said to the woman who reproached her with the charge that she did not like to work or touch wool: 'Yet, such as I am, in this short time I have finished off three webs.'" The word 'web' was used to refer to the lay-out of threads on which weaving took place and to the mast of a ship, an obscene reference to a sex-starved sailor. Return
315 Tacitus in his Germania describes the levels to which some barbarians will sink: "Bordering on the Suiones are the nations of the Sitones. They resemble them in all respects but one: woman is the ruling sex. That is the measure of their decline, I will not say below freedom, but even below decent slavery." (p. 140) Return
316 Ancient attitudes to women, like modern ones, were ambivalent. Many modern people will wryly recognise the following exchange reported in Xenophon's The Estate Manager.
"'Now, we're all friends here, Critobulus, so you must be absolutely honest with us. Don't you entrust more of your affairs to your wife than to anyone else?'
"'Yes,' he replied.
"'And is there anyone to whom you speak less than you do to your wife?'
"'There aren't many, if any.'"
(p. 299)
On the whole, however, women were regarded as timid, ignorant and somewhat perilous. Consider Ischomachus' description in the same dialogue of how he trained his wife: "I waited until she had been broken in and was tame enough for a conversation." (p. 312) On the other hand, on page 314 the same Ischomachus makes a long speech surprisingly modern in tone regarding the different abilities of men and women and how both, within their proper spheres, were equally capable and responsible.
Undue attention to women as sexual objects could be harmful. Socrates says "If the use that someone make of his money is, for example, to buy a concubine and consequently to damage his body, mind and estate, then how can his money benefit him?" (p. 291) For this reason homosexuality was preferable, though it was recognised that even here undue attachment to the object of one's desires could be unhealthy and damaging. Return
317 This is a direct quotation from II Clement - which some have identified as a sermon preached in Corinth - but the saying has since been found in other documents. There were obviously many such apocryphal sayings of Jesus that were passed down by word of mouth, memorable by their mysteriousness, misunderstood for the same reason and often garbled. Nonetheless at least at first they were regarded as equally authoritative with the written reminiscences of the apostles. Return
