608 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



State. There were some, it has been said, who, skilled in the art of 

 pleasing, held the salon of the Greeks. 



The greatest statesman of Athens, Pericles (died in 429), who 

 belongs to the fifth century, left his legal wife for one of these famous 

 women, Aspasia; and this woman, with whom Socrates associated, 

 to the knowledge and in sight of all Greece, had an influence so great 

 in the affairs of State and was so highly educated that to her was 

 attributed the composition of many of the orations of Pericles. She 

 was a ]\Iilesian woman, of which ancient country she had been a 

 princess. She bore a son to Pericles. This son, of the same name 

 as himself, received the rights of a legitimate child on the demand 

 of liis father, and, notwithstanding the prescriptions of the law, 

 became a recognized citizen of Athens. Such examples in such 

 high places and so well known everywhere assuredly found many 

 imitators. 



In correlation with these economic conditions and these customs, 

 the morale of the family was lowered and its number decreased. 

 Voluntary restriction and lack of enthusiasm prevailed. The Greeks, 

 enriched by slave labor, purchasing men and women abroad, re- 

 nounced the raising of children. 



In these events, so old, and the circumstances which accompanied 

 and followed them, one could readily find a standard for close com- 

 parison with social phenomena of our day. Useful to know, these 

 facts are always beneficial to recall. 



