A Day In Old Athens

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Certain features of some Athenian trials have not explained
themselves in the example just witnessed. To prevent frivolous or
blackmailing litigation it is provided that, if the plaintiff in
a suit gets less than one fifth of the ballots in his favor (thus
clearly showing he had no respectable case), he is liable to a heavy
fine or, in default thereof, exile. Again, we have not waited for
the actual closing scene--the dicasts each giving up his colored
staff as a kind of voucher to the court officers, and in return
getting his three obols (9 cents) daily jury fee, which each man
claps promptly in his cheek, and then goes off home to try the case
afresh at the family supper.

124. The Usual Punishments in Athens.--Trials involving murder or
manslaughter come before the special court of Areopagus, and cannot
well be discussed here, but most other criminal cases are tried
before the dicasts in much the same way as a civil trial. When the
law does not have a set penalty, the jury virtually has to sentence
the defendant after convicting him, choosing between one of two
proposed penalties. Greek courts can inflict death, exile, fines,
but almost never imprisonment. There is no "penitentiary" or
"workhouse" in Athens; and the only use for a jail is to confine
accused persons whom it is impossible to release on bail before
their trial. The Athens city jail ("The House," as it is familiarly
called--"Oikema") is a very simple affair, one open building,
carelessly guarded and free to visitors all through the daylight.
The inmates have to be kept in heavy fetters, otherwise they would
be sure to take flight; and indeed escapes from custody are somewhat
common.

125. The Heavy Penalty of Exile.--An Athenian will regard locking
a criminal up for a term of years as a very foolish and expensive
proceeding. If he has nothing wherewith to pay a round fine, why,
simply send him into exile. This penalty is direful indeed to a
Greek. The exile has often no protector, no standing in the courts
of the foreign city, no government to avenge any outrage upon him.
He can be insulted, starved, stripped, nay, murdered, often with
impunity. Worse still, he is cut off from his friends with whom
all his life is tied up; he is severed from the guardian gods of
his childhood,--"THE City," the city of his birth, hopes, longings,
exists no more for him. If he dies abroad, he is not sure of a
decent funeral pyre; and meanwhile his children may be hungering
at home. So long as the Athenians have this tremendous penalty of
exile at their disposal, they do not feel the need of penitentiaries.

126. The Death Penalty at Athens.--There are also the stocks and
whipping posts for meting out summary justice to irresponsible
offenders. When the death penalty is imposed (and the matter
often lies in the discretion of the dicasts), the criminal, if of
servile or Barbarian blood, may be put to death in some hideous
manner and his corpse tossed into the Barathron, a vile pit on the
northwest side of Athens, there to be dishonored by the kites and
crows. The execution of Athenian citizens, however, is extremely
humane. The condemned is given a cup of poisonous hemlock juice
and allowed to drink it while sitting comfortably among his friends
in the prison. Little by little his body grows numb; presently
he becomes senseless, and all is over without any pain.[*] The
friends of the victim are then at liberty to give his body a suitable
burial.

[*]No one can read the story of the death of Socrates in the prison,
as told by Plato in the "Phedo," without feeling (aside from the
noble philosophical setting) how much more humane were such executions
by hemlock than is the modern gallows or electric chair.

An Athenian trial usually lasts all day, and perhaps we have been
able to witness only the end of it. It may well happen, however,
that we cannot attend a dicastery at all. This day may be one which
is devoted to a meeting of the public assembly, and duty summons
the jurors, not in the court room, but to the Pnyx. This is no
loss to us, however. We welcome the chance to behold the Athenian
Ecclesia in action.

Chapter XVI. The Ecclesia of Athens.

127. The Rule of Democracy in Athens.--The Ecclesia, or Public
Assembly, of Athens is something more than the chief governmental
organ in the state. It is the great leveling engine which makes
Athens a true democracy, despite the great differences in wealth
between her inhabitants, and the marked social pretensions of "the
noble and the good"--the educated classes. At this time Athens
is profoundly wedded to her democratic constitution. Founded by
Solon and Clisthenes, developed by Themistocles and Pericles, it
was temporarily overthrown at the end of the Peloponnesian War;
but the evil rule then of the "Thirty Tyrants" has proved a better
lesson on the evils of oligarchic rule than a thousand rhetoricians'
declamations upon the advantages of the "rule of the many" as
against the "rule of the few." Attica now acknowledges only one
Lord--KING DEMOS--"King Everybody"--and until the coming of bondage to
Macedon there will be no serious danger of an aristocratic reaction.

128. Aristocracy and Wealth. Their Status and Burdens.--True,
there are old noble families in Athens,--like the Alcmeonide
whereof Pericles sprang, and the Eumolpide who supply the priests
to Demeter, the Earth Mother. But these great houses have long
since ceased to claim anything but SOCIAL preeminence. Even then
one must take pains not to assume airs, or the next time one is
litigant before the dicastery, the insinuation of "an undemocratic,
oligarchic manner of life" will win very many adverse votes among
the jury. Nobility and wealth are only allowed to assert themselves
in Athens when justified by an extraordinary amount of public
service and public generosity.

Xenophon in his "Memorabilia" makes Socrates tell Critobuls, a
wealthy and self-important individual, that he is really so hampered
by his high position as to be decidedly poor. "You are obliged,"
says Socrates, "to offer numerous and magnificent sacrifices; you
have to receive and entertain sumptuously a great many strangers,
and to feast [your fellow] citizens. You have to pay heavy contributions
towards the public service, keeping horses and furnishing choruses
in peace times and in war bearing the expense of maintaining triremes
and paying the special war taxes; and if you fail to do all this,
they will punish you with as much severity as if you were caught
stealing their money."

129. Athenian Society Truly Democratic up to a Certain Point.--Wealth,
then, means one perpetual round of public services and obligations,
sweetened perhaps with a little empty praise, an inscription, an
honorary crown, or best of all, an honorary statue "to the public
benefactor" as the chief reward. On the other hand one may be
poor and be a thoroughly self-respecting, nay, prominent citizen.
Socrates had an absurdly small invested fortune and the gods knew
that he did little enough in the way of profitable labor.[*] He
had to support his wife and three children upon this income. He
wore no chiton. His himation was always an old one, unchanged
from summer to winter. He seems to have possessed only one pair
of good sandals all his life. His rations were bread and water,
save when he was invited out. Yet this man was welcome in the "very
best society." Alcibiades, leader of the fast, rich set, and many
more of the gilded youth of Athens dogged his heels. One meets not
the slightest evidence that his poverty ever prevented him from
carrying his philosophic message home to the wealthy and the noble.
There is no snobbishness, then, in this Athenian society. Provided
a man is not pursuing a base mechanic art or an ignoble trade,
provided he has a real message to convey,--whether in literature,
philosophy, or statecraft,--there are no questions "who was
your father?" or "what is your income?"[+] Athens will hear him
and accept his best. For this open-mindedness--almost unique in
ancient communities--one must thank King Demos and his mouthpiece,
the Ecclesia.

[*]Socrates's regular income from invested property seems to have
been only about $12 per year. It is to be hoped his wife, Xanthippe,
had a little property of her own!

[+]Possibly the son of a man whose parents notoriously had been
slaves in Athens would have found many doors closed to him.

Athenians are intensely proud of their democracy. In Aeschylus's
"Persians," Atossa, the Barbarian queen, asks concerning the
Athenians:--

"Who is the lord and shepherd of their flock?"

Very prompt is the answer:--

"They are not slaves, they bow to no man's rule."

Again in Euripides's "Supplicants" there is this boast touching
Athens:--

"No will of one
Holdeth this land: it is a city and free.
The whole folk year by year, in parity of service is our king."

130. The Voting Population of Athens.--Nevertheless when we ask
about this "whole folk," and who the voters are, we soon discover
that Athens is very far from being a pure democracy. The multitudes
of slaves are of course without votes, and so is the numerous
class of the important, cultivated, and often wealthy metics. To
get Athenian citizenship is notoriously hard. For a stranger (say
a metic who had done some conspicuous public service) to be given
the franchise, a special vote must be passed by the Ecclesia itself;
even then the new citizen may be prosecuted as undeserving before
a dicastery, and disfranchised. Again, only children both of whose
parents are free Athenian citizens can themselves be enrolled on the
carefully guarded lists in the deme books. The status of a child,
one of whose parents is a metic, is little better than a bastard.[*]

[*]Of course women were entirely excluded from the Ecclesia, as from
all other forms of public life. The question of "woman's rights"
had been agitated just enough to produce comedies like Aristophanes's
"Parliament of Women," and philosophical theories such as appear
in Plato's "Republic."

Under these circumstances the whole number of voters is very much
less than at a later day will appear in American communities of
like population. Before the Peloponneisan War, when the power of
Athens was at its highest point, there were not less than 30,000
full citizens and possibly as many as 40,000. But those days of
imperial power are now ended. At present Athens has about 21,000
citizens, or a few more. It is impossible, however, to gather all
these in any single meeting. A great number are farmers living
in the remote villages of Attica; many city dwellers also will be
too busy to think the 3-obol (9-cent [1914 or $1.55 2000]) fee for
attendance worth their while.[*] Six thousand seems to be a good
number for ordinary occasions and no doubt much business can be
dispatched with less, although this is the legal quorum set for most
really vital matters. Of course a great crisis, e.g. a declaration
of war, will bring out nearly every voter whose farm is not too
distant.

[*]Payment for attendance at the Pnyx seems to have been introduced
about 390 B.C. The original payment was probably only one obol,
and then from time to time increased. It was a sign of the relative
decay of political interest in Athens when it became needful thus
to reward the commonalty for attendance at the Assembly.

131. Meeting Time of the Ecclesia.--Four times in every prytany[*]
the Ecclesia must be convened for ordinary business, and oftener
if public occasion requires. Five days' notice has to be given of
each regular meeting, and along with the notice a placard announcing
the proposals which are to come up has to be posted in the Agora.
But if there is a sudden crisis, formalities can be thrown to the
winds; a sudden bawling of the heralds in the streets, a great
smoky column caused by burning the traders' flimsy booths in the
Agora,--these are valid notices of an extraordinary meeting to
confront an immediate danger.

[*]"A prytany" was one tenth of a year, say 35 or 36 days, during
which time the 50 representatives of one of the ten Athenian tribes
then serving as members of the Council of 500 (each tribe taking
its turn) held the presidency of the Council and acted as a special
executive committee of the government. There were thus at least
40 meetings of the Ecclesia each year, as well as the extraordinary
meetings.

If this has been a morning when the Ecclesia has been in session,
nothing unusual has occurred at first in the busy Agora, except
that the jury courts are hardly in action, and a bright flag is
whipping the air from the tall flagpole by the Pnyx (the Assembly
Place). Then suddenly there is a shouting through the Agora. The
clamor of traffic around the popular flower stalls ceases; everybody
who is not a slave or metic (and these would form a large fraction
of the crowd of marketers) begins to edge down toward one end of
the Agora. Presently a gang of Scythian police-archers comes in
sight. They have a long rope sprinkled with red chalk wherewith
they are "netting" the Agora. The chalk will leave an infallible
mark on the mantle of every tardy citizen, and he who is thus marked
as late at the meeting will lose his fee for attendance, if not
subject himself to a fine. So there is a general rush away from
the Agora and down one of the various avenues leading to the Pnyx.

132. The Pnyx (Assembly Place) at Athens.--The Pnyx is an open
space of ground due west from the Acropolis. It originally sloped
gently away towards the northeast, but a massive retaining wall
had been built around it, in an irregular semicircle, and the space
within filled with solidly packed earth sloping inwards, making a
kind of open air auditorium. It is a huge place, 394 feet long,
and 213 feet at the widest. The earthen slope is entirely devoid
of seats; everybody casts himself down sprawling or on his haunches,
perhaps with an old himation under him. Directly before the sitters
runs a long ledge hewn out of the rock, forming, as it were, the
"stage" side of the theater. Here the rock has been cut away, so
as to leave a sizable stone pulpit standing forth, with a small
flight of steps on each side. This is the "Bema," the orator's
stand, whence speak the "demagogues,"[*] the molders of Athenian
public opinion. In front of the Bema there is a small portable
altar for the indispensable sacrifices. In the rear of the Bema
are a few planks laid upon the rock. Here will sit the fifty
"Pryantes" in charge of the meeting. There is a handsome chair
for the presiding officer upon the Bema itself. These are all the
furnishings of the structure wherein Athens makes peace and war,
and orders her whole civil and foreign policy. The Hellenic azure
is the only roof above her sovran law makers. To the right, as
the orators stand on the Bema, they can point toward the Acropolis
and its glittering temples; to the left towards the Peireus, and
the blue sea with the inevitable memories of glorious Salamis.
Surely it will be easy to fire all hearts with patriotism!

[*]A "demagogue" (=people-leader) might well be a great statesman,
and not necessarily a cheap and noisy politician.

133. The Preliminaries of the Meeting.--Into this space the voters
swarm by hundreds--all the citizens of Athens, from twenty years
and upward, sufficiently interested to come. At each crude entrance
stands a crops of watchful LEXIARCHS and their clerks, checking
off those present and turning back interlopers. As the entering
crowds begin to thin, the entrance ways are presently closed by wicker
hurdles. The flag fluttering on high is struck. The Ecclesia is
ready for action.

Much earlier than this, the farmers and fishmen from the hill
towns or from Salamis have been in their places, grumbling at the
slowness of the officials. People sit down where they can; little
groups and clans together, wedged in closely, chattering up to the
last minute, watching every proceeding with eyes as keen as cats'.
All the gossip left over from the Agora is disposed of ere the
prytanes--proverbially late--scramble into their seats of honor.
The police-archers move up and down, enforcing a kind of order.
Amid a growing hush a suckling pig is solemnly slaughtered by some
religious functionary at the altar, and the dead victim carried
around the circuit of the Pnyx as a symbolic purification of the
audience.

"Come inside the purified circuit," enjoins a loud herald to the
little groups upon the edge.[*]

[*]Aristophanes's "Acharnians" (ll. 50 ff.) gives a valuable
picture of this and other proceedings at the Pnyx, but one should
never forget the poet's exaggerations for comedy purposes, nor his
deliberate omission of matters likely to be mere tedious detail to
his audience.

Then comes a prayer invoking the gods' favor upon the Athenians,
their allies, and this present meeting in particular, winding up
(the herald counts this among the chief parts of his duty) with
a tremendous curse on any wretch who should deceive the folk with
evil counsel. After this the real secular business can begin.
Nothing can be submitted to the Ecclesia which has not been previously
considered and matured by the Council of 500. The question to be
proposed is now read by the heralds as a "Pro-bouleuma"--a suggested
ordinance by the Council. Vast as is the audience, the acoustic
properties of the Pnyx are excellent, and all public officers and
orators are trained to harangue multitudes in the open air, so that
the thousands get every word of the proposition.

134. Debating a Proposition.--"Resolved by the Boule, the tribe
Leontis holding the prytany, and Heraclides being clerk, upon the
motion of Timon the son of Timon the Eleusinian,[*] that"--and then
in formal language it is proposed to increase the garrison of the
allied city of Byzantium by 500 hired Arcadian mercenaries, since
the king of Thrace is threatening that city, and its continued
possession is absolutely essential to the free import of grain into
Attica.

[*]This seems to have been the regular form for beginning a
"probouleuma" although nearly all our information comes from the
texts of proposals AFTER they have been made formal decrees by the
sovran Demos.

There is a hush of expectancy; a craning of necks.

"Who wishes to speak?" calls the herald.

After a decent pause Timon, the mover of the measure, comes forward.
He is a fairly well-known character and commands a respectable
faction among the Demos. There is some little clapping, mixed with
jeering, as he mounts the Bema. The president of the prytanes--as
evidence that he has now the right to harangue--hands him a myrtle
wreath which he promptly claps on his head, and launches into his
argument. Full speedily he has convinced at least a large share
of the audience that it was sheer destruction to leave Byzantium
without an efficient garrison. Grain would soon be at famine
prices if the town were taken, etc., etc. The only marvel is that
the merciful gods have averted the disaster so long in the face of
such neglect.--Why had the board of strategi, responsible in such
matters, neglected this obvious duty? [Cheers intermixed with
catcalls.] This was not the way the men who won Marathon had dealt
with dangers, nor later worthies like Nicias or Thrasybulus. [More
cheers and catcalls.] He winds up with a splendid invocation to
Earth, Sky, and Justice to bear witness that all this advice is
given solely with a view to the weal of Athens.

"He had Isocrates teach him how to launch that peroration," mutters
a crabbed old citizen behind his peak-trimmed beard, as Timon
descends amid mingled applause and derision.

"Very likely; Iphicrates is ready to answer him," replies a fellow.

"Who wishes to speak?" the herald demands again. From a place
directly before the Bema a well-known figure, the elderly general,
Iphicrates, is rising. At a nod from the president, he mounts the
Bema and assumes the myrtle. He has not Timon's smooth tones nor
oratorical manner. He is a man of action and war, and no tool of
the Agora coteries. A salvo of applause greets him. Very pithily
he observes that Byzantium will be safe enough if the city will only
be loyal to the Athenian alliance. Athens needs all her garrisons
nearer home. Timon surely knows the state of the treasury. Is
he going to propose a special tax upon his fellow countrymen to
pay for those 500 mercenaries? [Loud laughter and derisive howls
directed at Timon.] Athens needs to keep her strength for REAL
dangers; and those are serious enough, but not at Byzantium. At
the next meeting he and the other strategi will recommend--etc.,
etc. When Iphicrates quits the Bema there is little left of Timon's
fine "Earth, Sky and Justice."

135. Voting at the Pnyx.--But other orators follow on both sides.
Once Timon, egged on by many supporters, tries to gain the Bema
a second time, but is told by the president that one cannot speak
twice on the same subject. Once the derision and shouting becomes
so violent that the president has to announce, "Unless there is
silence I must adjourn the meeting." Finally, after an unsuccessful
effort to amend the proposal, by reducing the garrison at Byzantium
to 250, the movers of the measure realize that the votes will
probably be against them. They try to break up the meeting.

"I hear thunder!" "I feel rain!" they begin shouting, and such ill
omens, if really in evidence, would be enough to force an adjournment;
but the sky is delightfully clear. The president simply shrugs
his shoulders; and now the Pnyx is fairly rocking with the yell,
"A vote! A vote!"

The president rises. Taking the vote in the Ecclesia is a very
simple matter when it is a plain question of "yes" or "no" on a
proposition.[*]

[*]When an INDIVIDUAL had to be voted for, then ballots were used.

"All who favor the 'probouleuma' of Timon will raise the right
hand!"

A respectable but very decided minority shows itself.

"Those who oppose."

The adverse majority is large. The morning is quite spent. There
is a great tumult. Men are rising, putting on their himatia,
ridiculing Timon; while the herald at a nod from the president
declares the Ecclesia adjourned.

136. The Ecclesia as an Educational Instrument.--Timon and his
friends retire crestfallen to discuss the fortunes of war. They
are not utterly discouraged, however. The Ecclesia is a fickle
creature. What it withholds to-day it may grant to-morrow.
Iphicrates, whose words have carried such weight now, may soon be
howled down and driven from the Bema much as was the unfortunate
litigant in the jury court. Still, with all its faults, the Ecclesia
is the great school for the adults of Athens. All are on terms of
perfect equality. King Demos is not the least respecter of wealth
or family. Sophistries are usually penetrated in a twinkling
by some coarse expletive from a remote corner of the Pnyx. Every
citizen understands the main issues of the public business. HE IS
PART OF THE ACTUAL WORKING GOVERNMENT, not once per year (or less
often) at the ballot box, but at least forty times annually; and
dolt he would be, did he not learn at least all the superficialities
of statecraft. He may make grievous errors. He may be misled by
mob prejudice or mob enthusiasm; but he is not likely to persist
in a policy of crass blundering very long. King Demos may indeed
rule a fallible human monarchy, but it is thanks to him, and to
his high court held at the Pnyx, that Athens owes at least half of
that sharpness of wit and intelligence which is her boast.

Chapter XVII. The Afternoon at the Gymnasia.

137. The Gymnasia. Places of General Resort.--The market is thinning
after a busy day; the swarms of farmer-hucksters with their weary
asses are trudging homeward; the schoolrooms are emptying; the
dicasteries or the Ecclesia, as the case may be, have adjourned.
Even the slave artisans in the factories are allowed to slacken
work. The sun, a ball of glowing fire, is slowly sinking to westward
over the slopes of Aegaleos; the rock of the Acropolis is glowing
as if in flame; intense purple tints are creeping over all the
landscape. The day is waning, and all Athenians who can possibly
find leisure are heading towards the suburbs for a walk, a talk,
and refreshment of soul and body at the several Gymnasia.

Besides various establishments and small "wrestling schools" for
the boys, there are three great public Gymnasia at Athens,--the
Lyceum to the east of the town; the Cynosarges[*] to the southward;
and last, but at all least, the Academy. This is the handsomest,
the most famous, the most characteristic. We shall do well to
visit it.

[*]The Cynosarges was the only one of these freely opened to such
Athenians as had non-Athenian mothers. The other two were reserved
for the strictly "full citizens."

138. The Road to the Academy.--We go out toward the northwest of
the city, plunging soon into a labyrinth of garden walls, fragrant
with the fruit and blossoms within, wander amid dark olive groves
where the solemn leaves of the sacred trees are talking sweetly;
and presently mount a knoll by some suburban farm buildings, then
look back to find that slight as is the elevation, here is a view
of marvelous beauty across the city, the Acropolis, and the guardian
mountains. From the rustling ivy coverts come the melodious notes
of birds. We are glad to learn that this is the suburb of Colonus,
the home of Sophocles the tragedian, and here is the very spot made
famous in the renowned chorus of his "idipous at Colonus." It is
too early, of course, to enjoy the nightingale which the poet asserts
sings often amid the branches, but the scene is one of marvelous
charm. We are not come, however, to admire Colonus. The numerous
strollers indicate our direction. Turning a little to the south, we
see, embowered amid the olive groves which line the unseen stream
of the Cephissos, a wall, and once beyond it find ourselves in
a kind of spacious park combined with an athletic establishment.
This is the Academy,--founded by Hipparchus, son of Peisistratus
the tyrant, but given its real embellishments and beauty by Cimon,
the son of Militiades the victor of Marathon.

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