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PUBLIC GAMES OF GREECE. 51
became leaders in Grecian musical culture, or poetry, for the two are inseparable. The two poets seem to have formed a mutual friendship. Of Sappho we have remaining an ode to Aphrodite which makes it a matter of regret that the remains of her poetry are so fragmentary.* At Mytilene she seems to have gathered around her a large and elegant circle, composed entirely of females to whom she taught poetry and music; in fact her house must have been a musical university for her list of scholars embraces names from all parts of Greece. Ottfried Miiller compares her life, surrounded by all these fair followers, with that of Socrates surrounded by the flower of Athenian youth.
Sappho's career is the more wonderful from the fact, that among the ancient Greeks, the entire mission of woman was supposed to consist in rearing her family, attending to the first education of her sons, who at an early age passed into the hands of their teachers, teaching housewife's duties to her daughters, and attending to them herself; according to Pericles, that woman was most to be prized of whom no one spoke, either in praise or blame.
Sappho's poetry had great effect even on the rough character of Solon, the law giver; hearing for the first time one of her songs, which his nephew sang to him, he vehemently expressed the
•Jullien however, thinks Sappho in common with many other ancient poets much overrated. These* Supplementaires, p. 439 t Geschkhte der Oriech. Lit |
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