international law had no existence at this early period.


DOMESTIC LIFE AND CHARACTER.

In the domestic relations of life there was much in the conduct
of the Greeks that was meritorious. Children were treated with
affection, and much care was bestowed on their education; and,
on the other hand, the respect which they showed their parents,
even after the period of youth and dependence, approached almost
to veneration. As evidence of a rude age, however, the father
disposed of his daughter's hand in marriage with absolute
authority; and although we meet with many models of conjugal
affection, as in the noble characters of Andromache and Penelope,
yet the story of Helen, and other similar ones, suggest too
plainly that the faithlessness of the wife was not regarded as
a very great offence. The wife, however, occupied a station of
as much, if not more influence in the family than was the case
in the historical period; but she was not the equal of her
husband, and even Homer portrays none of those feelings of love
which result from a higher regard for the female sex.

We gather from Homer that there was a low sense of truth among
the Greeks of the Homeric Age, but that the people were better
than might be expected from the examples set them by the gods
in whom they professed to believe. Says MAHAFFY: "At no period
did the nation attain to that high standard which is the great
feature in Germanic civilization. Even the Romans, with all their
coarseness and vulgarity, stood higher in this respect. But
neither in the Iliad nor the Odyssey is there, except in phrases,