The legend is generally taken to indicate the time when the Greek gens
progressed to the family. In the ruder time, the legitimacy of the
chieftain might be traced, because the mother, though not always the
father, could be known with certainty. When the father became the
acknowledged head of the household, a distinct advance was made toward
that heroic age in which the vague but towering figures of men and women
move across the stage. Goddesses, queens, princesses, are powerful in love
and war. Sibyls unfold the meaning of the book of fate. Vestals feed the
fires upon the highest and lowest altars. Later, throughout most of the
states of Greece, something like the following order of political life is
seen: from kings to oligarchs, from oligarchs to tyrants or despots, from
them to some form of restricted constitutional liberty. In Sparta, all
change of government was controlled by the machinery of war, and the
soldiers were made forever free. Athens, separated from the rest of
Greece, was less agitated by outward conflict. In government she passed
from king to archon; from hereditary archon to archons chosen for ten
years, but always from one family, then to those elected for one year,
nine being chosen. At the time of the Areopagus there were four classes of
citizens. The first three paid taxes, had a right to share in the
government, and formed the defence of the state. If women were of
political importance in earlier times, and if a republic is more favorable
to the exercise by them of the elective franchise, we should expect to
find women reaching their highest power under the Areopagus. Exactly the
contrary appears to be true. Native and honorable Greek women retired to
domestic life as the liberty of their people grew. Grote, in his "History
of Greece," referring to the legendary period, says: "We find the wife
occupying a station of great dignity and influence, though it was the
practice of the husband to purchase her by valuable presents to her
parents. She even seems to live less secluded, and to enjoy a wider sphere