The measure adopted by Solon for the regulation of prostitution, and his division of women into classes for the convenience of all conditions of men, indicate clearly the disgrace and shamelessness which characterized the Athenians at this stage of their career, and depict with unerring fidelity the depth of horror into which womanhood had been dragged.
The condition of public morals during the three hundred years following the age of Solon is plainly indicated not only in the laws but in the mythologies of Greece and Rome. Prostitution was enjoined by religion and when Draco, suddenly shocked by the degeneracy of his time, affixed the penalty of death to rape, seduction, and adultery, it has been said that by the performance of the prescribed religious rites within the temple, the “rigour of his edicts was considerably softened.”
The restraint imposed upon the Athenians by the Draconian regulations was, however, of short duration; for when Solon, the successor of Draco, assumed the position of archon, he at once legally established a sufficient number of houses of prostitution at Athens to supply the demand, filling them with female slaves who had been taken captives in war, or who had been otherwise provided by the munificence of the government.
But you did well for every man, O Solon; For they do say you were the first to see The justice of a public-spirited measure, The Saviour of the State.[229]
[229] Philemon. Quoted by _Athenæus_, book xiii.
By this time, so degraded had womanhood become, that the traffic in female captives for sexual purposes was regarded as a legitimate business, and the revenue accruing from their services was considered a lawful source of gain to the state, its use being devoted to the rearing of temples and to the carrying out of the various projects connected with religious worship.
That the Athenians of this period were wholly given over to luxury and licentiousness is shown by the fact that at their bacchanalian feasts, the troops of women who were in attendance and who had been provided for the occasion by the generosity of the state, performed all their duties under direct and explicit instruction of the government “to disobey no order of a guest”; for which wise regulations Solon received the praise and commendation of Athenian men.