The morning is breaking.

CHAPTER VIII.

Famous Women of Antiquity.

It has been so often asserted that women are incompetent to form any thing like correct opinions on civil or political questions, or to govern with discretion, even when by chance the reins are committed to their control for a brief season; and that they have always been found so; and, also, that they are naturally incapable of a sufficiently great degree of mental effort to entitle them to celebrity,—­that the statement has come to be regarded as a fact by the masses, who have lacked either the ability or the desire to investigate the matter.  With the majority of men, as such assertions fostered their love of power, and the idea of their own self-consequence, it was natural for them to accept them without question, as undoubted truth.  With women, until within the present century, the facilities for acquiring an education have been so meagre that, except where they were possessed of both a large fortune and an unlimited amount of perseverance, they had slight opportunities for acquiring accurate information on that or any other subject.  What their fathers, husbands, or brothers told them, they might believe if they chose; for the rest, to the very large majority of women, history was a sealed book; so that, for want of correct information, they were not in a position to contradict any assertion, however extravagant, untruthful, or absurd it might be.

In the foregoing pages of this treatise, it has been maintained that the statements concerning the alleged mental inferiority of women are untruthful; and that history, both ancient and modern, proves them to be so.  In order, therefore, to establish this proposition more fully, the following sketches have been added, giving an account of a few women eminent for the founding of colonies, for piety, for patriotism, and for attainments in science, literature, and arts; and some, alas! for wickedness.

ELISA, OR DIDO, FOUNDER OF CARTHAGE.

Carthage, one of the most noted nations of antiquity, was founded by a woman, and flourished under her rule.  A Tyrian princess, Dido—­or Elisa, as she is indiscriminately named in history—­was in jeopardy from the tyranny and oppression of an unnatural brother, who, not content with what he had inherited from his father, had cast covetous eyes upon the immense possessions of his sister’s husband, whose death he compassed.  All the powers of mind which had hitherto lain dormant within her, being roused by the horrid act of her brother, Dido at once set about rescuing her treasure from his grasp, and her retainers from his unbridled fury.  Not choosing to seek protection from any of the princes of the surrounding countries, and knowing herself to be unsafe while in the vicinity of her brother, she, as speedily as possible, and with the utmost secresy, gathered