To the same class of inscriptions belongs the one discovered at Thyatria.*

The names in this inscription indicate a heathen origin; and the designation of the site shows that the erectors of the monument were proselytes to Judaism, who desired to be interred apart from idolaters, in a spot not desecrated by their superstitious rites. The general inference which may be drawn from these inscriptions, which, according to the usual practice of the Romans, were erected along the public highways, is, that the adoption of the Jewish faith was not considered illegal, but was clearly distinguished from the denial of the gods, which constituted an offence punishable by law.

66

99

Religioni Judaiæ metuenti F.P. Ælius Priscillianus et Elia Chreste vivi sibi posverunt To their excellent (son or daughter), a Jewish proselyte, Ælius Priscillianus and Elia Chreste placed this in their lifetime." ΝΑΙΣ (ΑΘΗΝΑΙΣ) ΕΡΜΟΥ ΤΟΥ ΔΙΟΚΛΕΟΣ ΔΙΟΡΑΣΑΣΑ ΤΟΠΟΝ ΨΕΙΛΟΝ ΚΑΤΕΣΚΕΥΑΣΕ ΤΟ ΜΝΗΜΕΙΘΝ.

*

...

"Athenieis, having purchased this consecrated ground of Hermes, the son of Diocles, built this tomb."

25

CHAPTER III.

THE WOMEN OF HEATHEN ANTIQUITY.

Women were not regarded by the antients as a part of the polite world, or of good company. - HUME.

NEITHER the religion nor the laws of the most polished eras, of Greece and Rome exercised any favourable influence on domestic manners, and amidst all their multiplied luxuries the heathens were utter strangers to the endearing charities which animate the Christian home. With them, domestic ties and happiness were subservient to the political welfare of the state. It was the citizen and not the man, society and not the individual, civil aggrandisement and not moral principle, mind and intellect, but not the heart and the affections, which stood foremost and alone in the social system of the legislator and philosopher.

Indeed, fully to appreciate the incalculable blessings conferred upon Woman by the Gospel,

we have but to contrast her present condition with that of our sex in the most brilliant ages of antiquity. We shall there behold her mind degraded and enslaved, while her form, in its loveliest contours, adorned the portico and the temple. We shall see her, both as a daughter, a wife, and a mother, held in a state of rigorous tutelage, brought up in ignorance, and debarred from all share of domestic authority, and doomed only to incessant and servile drudgery; the victim of her husband's capricious jealousy or cruel repudiation during life, and at his sole disposal even after his death; liable to see the most cherished of her offspring snatched from her maternal bosom, and destroyed without remorse, by the sanguinary law of infanticide; and all this at the hands, not of the ignorant and the vulgar, but of the noble and the illustrious-the heroes, the orators, the sages of antiquity, men whom history has invested with the halo of

renown.

The barbarity of the Roman law not only sanctioned and encouraged the murder of infants, but it extended its severity even to adults. It considered children, not as persons,

but as things, which might be sold or destroyed at the discretion of their owner. Prior to marriage the daughters were rigorously secluded in the retirement of the gynæceum*, allowed to associate only with slaves, and subjected to restraints which tended to prevent the cultivation of the mind.

The most cruel exercise of paternal authority, however, was that which empowered a father to compel his married daughter to repudiate a husband whom she tenderly loved, and whom he had himself approved. Roman history furnishes us with numerous instances of this singular species of power. What was, if possible, still more arbitrary, the wife, even if the mother of a large family, was, no less than her children, under the despotic control of her husband, with this only difference, that he was not at liberty to sell her. She might, however, be dismissed or retained at pleasure; and for certain offences, such as excess in wine, and others of a yet more venial nature, the husband

* The Gynæceum was situated in the most retired part of the house, closely guarded, sometimes even defended by dogs, and in Asia by eunuchs.

possessed full power to put her death-being at once judge and jury, accuser and executioner. The laws of ancient Rome even allowed a husband to repudiate his wife for taking his keys!

While the seductive charms of the abandoned Aspasia, Lasthenia, and Axisthea, were embellished with all the fascination of wit and eloquence, and received the homage of Pericles, Socrates, and Plato, the Grecian matron was consigned to ignorance and contempt; and the enduring fidelity of Penelope and the tender affection of Andromache, so far from calling forth the responsive smile of conjugal love, only elicited the authoritative command to retire to the gynæceum and resume the distaff.

After marriage, some time elapsed ere the Grecian wife ventured to speak to her husband, or the latter entered into conversation with her. At no period was she entrusted with any knowledge of his private affairs, much less was her opinion or advice either sought or tolerated. Xenophon, one of the most excellent of the Athenians, admitted that there were