Bravery of Women (V8-11)

When the Etruscans had gained possession of Lemnos and Imbros, they carried away forcibly from Brauron Athenian women, and children were born to them. These the Athenians expelled from the islands on the ground that they were in part barbarian, and they put in at Taenarum and made themselves useful to the Spartans in the war with the Helots. For this they received citizenship and the right of intermarriage, but were not deemed worthy to hold office or to be members of the Senate, and this gave colour to the idea that some radical design underlay their coming together, and that they purposed to disturb the established institutions. Accordingly the Spartans took them into custody and, shutting them up in prison, placed a strong guard

over them, seeking to convict them by clear and certain proofs. The wives of the prisoners, coming to the prison, by dint of many prayers and intreaties, were permitted by the guards to pass within just to greet and to speak to their husbands.[*] When they had gone inside they bade their husbands to change their clothing quickly, leaving their own for their wives, and then, putting on their wives’ garments, to depart with their faces covered. This done, the women waited there, prepared to face all terrors, but the guards were deceived and allowed the men to pass, supposing, of course, that they were women.

Following this, they seized the strongholds on Mount Taÿgetus, incited the body of Helots to revolt, and gladly received them as an addition to their forces. The Spartans were thrown into a great state of fear and, sending heralds, made peace with them, the conditions being that they should get back their wives, should receive money and ships, and sail away and, having found land and a city elsewhere, be considered as colonists and kindred of the Spartans. This the Pelasgians did, taking as leaders Pollis and Delphus and Crataïdas, all Spartans. A part of them settled in Melos,[*] but Pollis and his associates, with the great majority, sailed to Crete, testing the truth of the oracles. For an oracle had been given them that whenever they should lose their goddess and their anchor they should cease from their wanderings and found a city in that place. So, when they had come to anchor off that part of Crete which is called the Chersonese, panic confusion fell upon them by

night, by which they were so excited that they leaped aboard in utter disorder, leaving behind on land an ancient statue of Artemis which had been handed down to them from their ancestors, having been originally brought to Lemnos from Brauron, and from Lemnos had been carried about with them in all their journeyings. But when at sea, as the confusion subsided, they missed this, and at the same time Pollis discovered that the fluke was gone from the anchor (for apparently it had been broken off as the anchor dragged in some rocky places, without anybody’s noticing its loss), he declared that the god-given predictions were now fulfilled, and gave the signal to return. He took possession of the country, prevailed in many battles over those who ranged themselves against him, settled Lyctus, and took other cities under his control. Because of all this people regard them as related to the Athenians by descent on account of their mothers, and as colonists of the Spartans also.[*]

That which is said to have happened in Lycia sounds like a myth, yet it has some supporting testimony in the tales that are told.[*] Amisodarus, as they say, whom the Lycians call Isaras, arrived from the Lycian colony in the vicinity of Zeleia, bringing with him pirate ships, in command of which was Chimarrhus, a warlike man, bloodthirsty and brutal. He sailed in a vessel which had a lion as its figurehead at the prow, and a serpent at the stern. He did much evil

to the Lycians, and it was not possible to sail the sea or even to live in the cities near the sea.

This man Bellerophon slew, pursuing him with Pegasus[*] as he was trying to escape. Bellerophon also drove out the Amazons, but met with no just treatment; in fact, lobates was most unjust with him. Because of this, Bellerophon waded into the sea, and prayed to Poseidon that, as a requital against lobates, the land might become sterile and unprofitable. Thereupon he went back after his prayer, and a wave arose and inundated the land. It was a fearful sight as the sea, following him, rose high in air and covered up the plain. The men besought Bellerophon to check it, but when they could not prevail on him, the women, pulling up their garments, came to meet him; and when he, for shame, retreated towards the sea again,[*] the wave also, it is said, went back with him.

Some, attempting to explain away the mythical element in this account, assert that he did not get the sea to move by imprecations, but that the most fertile part of the plain lies below the sea-level, and Bellerophon broke through the ridge extending along the shore, which kept the sea out; then, as the ocean rushed in violently and covered up the plain, the men accomplished nothing by beseeching him, but the women, flocking about him in a crowd, met with respect, and caused his anger to subside.

Still others assert that the Chimaera, as it was called, was nothing but a mountain facing the sun, and that it caused reflexions of sunlight, fierce and fiery in the summer time, and by these, striking all over

the plain, the crops were dried up; and that Bellerophon, sensing this, cut away the smoothest part of the precipice which mostly sent back the reflexions. When, however, he met with no gratitude, in anger he turned to avenge himself upon the Lycians, but was prevailed upon by the women.

But the reason which Nymphis gives[*] in the fourth book of his treatise about Heracleia is least mythical of all; for he says that Bellerophon killed a wild boar which was making havoc of the stock and crops in the land of the Xanthians, but obtained no fitting reward; whereupon he addressed to Poseidon imprecations against the Xanthians, and the whole plain suddenly became glittering with a salt deposit and was completely ruined, since the soil had become saline. This lasted until Bellerophon, out of respect for the women who besought him, prayed to Poseidon to give up his anger. For this reason it was the custom for the Xanthians to bear names derived not from their fathers but from their mothers.[*]

When Hannibal, the son of Barea, before[*] making his campaign against the Romans, attacked a great city in Spain, Salmantica, at first the besieged were terrified, and agreed to do what was ordered by giving him six thousand pounds and three hundred hostages. But when he raised the siege, they changed their minds and did nothing of what they had agreed to do.

So he returned and ordered his soldiers, with the promise of plunder, to attack the city. At this the barbarians were panic-stricken, and carne to terms, agreeing that the free inhabitants should depart clad in one civilian garment, and should leave behind weapons, property, slaves, and their city. The women, thinking that the enemy would search each man as he came out, but would not touch the women, took swords, and, hiding them, hastened out with the men. When all had come out, Hannibal set over them a guard of Masaesylian soldiers in a place near the city, and kept them there under constraint. The rest of the soldiers rushed into the city in disorder and set to plundering. As much booty was being carried off, the Masaesylians could not bear to be merely spectators, nor did they keep their mind on their watching, but were much aggrieved and started to move away as if to have their share of the spoils. At this juncture the women, calling upon the men, handed them the swords, and some of the women of themselves attacked their guards. One of them snatched away the spear of Banon the interpreter, and smote the man himself; but he happened to have on his breast-plate. Of the others, the men struck down some, routed the rest, and forced a way out in a body, accompanied by the women. Hannibal, learning of this, sent in pursuit of them, and caught those who could not keep up. The others gained the mountains, and, for the time, escaped. Afterwards, however, they sent a petition to him, and were restored to their city, and received immunity and humane treatment.

Once upon a time a dire and strange trouble took possession of the young women in Miletus for some unknown cause. The most popular conjecture was that the air had acquired a distracting and infectious constitution, and that this operated to produce in them an alteration and derangement of mind. At any rate, a yearning for death and an insane impulse toward hanging suddenly fell upon all of them, and many managed to steal away and hang themselves. Arguments and tears of parents and comforting words of friends availed nothing, but they circumvented every device and cunning effort of their watchers in making away with themselves. The malady seemed to be of divine origin and beyond human help, until, on the advice of a man of sense, an ordinance was proposed that the women who hanged themselves should be carried naked through the market-place to their burial. And when this ordinance was passed it not only checked, but stopped completely, the young women from killing themselves. Plainly a high testimony to natural goodness and to virtue is the desire to guard against ill repute, and the fact that the women who had no deterrent sense of shame when facing the most terrible of all things in the world, death and pain, yet could not abide nor bear the thought of disgrace which would come after death.