A Day In Old Athens

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[*]Plato again says ("Politicus," 277 b), "To intelligent persons,
a living being is more truly delineated by language and discourse
than by any painting or work of art."

[+]In his "Symposium"--which is far less perfect as literature than
Plato's, but probably corresponds more to the average instance.

165. The Symposiarch and his Duties.--"Let's cast for our Symposiarch!"
is Prodicus's next order, and each guest in turn rattles the dice
box. Tyche (Lady Fortune) gives the presidency of the feast to
Eunapius, a bright-eyed, middle-aged man with a keen sense of humor,
but a correct sense of good breeding. He assumes command of the
symposium; takes the ordering of the servants out of Prodicus's
hands, and orders the wine to be mixed in the craters with proper
dilution. He then rises and pours out a libation from each bowl
"to the Olympian Gods," "to the Heroes," and "to Zeus the Saviour,"
and casts a little incense upon the altar. The guests all sing a
"Pean," not a warrior's charging song this time, but a short hymn
in praise of the Wine-God, some lilting catch like Alceus's

In mighty flagons hither bring
The deep red blood of many a vine,
That we may largely quaff and sing
The praises of the God of wine.

166. Conversation at the Symposium.--After this the symposium will
proceed according to certain general rules which it is Eunaius's
duty to enforce; but in the main a "program" is something to be
avoided. Everybody must feel himself acting spontaneously and freely.
He must try to take his part in the conversation and neither speak
too seldom nor too little. It is not "good form" for two guests
to converse privately among themselves, nor for anybody to dwell
on unpleasant or controversial topics. Aristophanes has laid down
after his way the proper kind of things to talk about.[*] "[Such
as]'how Ephudion fought a fine pancratium with Ascondas though old
and gray headed, but showing great form and muscle.' This is the
talk usual among refined people [or again] 'some manly act of your
youth; for example, how you chased a boar or a hare, or won a torch
race by some bold device.' [Then when fairly settled at the feast]
straighten your knees and throw yourself in a graceful and easy
manner upon the couch. Then make some observations upon the beauty
of the appointments, look up at the ceiling and praise the tapestry
of the room."

[*] "Wasps," 1174-1564.

As the wine goes around, tongues loosen more and more. Everybody
gesticulates in delightful southern gestures, but does not lose
his inherent courtesy. The anecdotes told are often very egoistic.
The first personal pronoun is used extremely often, and "I" becomes
the hero of a great many exploits. The Athenian, in short, is an
adept at praising himself with affected modesty, and his companions
listen good-humoredly, and retaliate by praising themselves.

167. Games and Entertainments.--By the time the craters are one
third emptied the general conversation is beginning to be broken
up. It is time for various standard diversions. Eunapius therefore
begins by enjoining on each guest in turn to sing a verse in which
a certain letter must not appear, and in event of failure to pay
some ludicrous forfeit. Thus the bald man is ordered to begin to
comb his hair; the lame man (halt since the Mantinea campaign), to
stand up and dance to the flute player, etc. There are all kinds of
guessing of riddles--often very ingenious as become the possessors
of "Attic salt." Another diversion is to compare every guest
present to some mythical monster, a process which infallibly ends
by getting the "Parasite" likened to Cerberus, the Hydra, or some
such dragon, amid the laughter of all the rest. At some point in the
amusement the company is sure to get to singing songs:--"Scolia"--drinking
songs indeed, but often of a serious moral or poetic character,
whereof the oft-quoted song in praise of Harmodius and Aristogeiton
the tyrant-slayers is a good example.[*] No "gentleman" will profess
to be a public singer, but to have a deep, well-trained voice, and
to be able to take one's part in the symposium choruses is highly
desirable, and some of the singing at Proicus's banquet is worth
hearing.

[*]Given in "Readings in Ancient History," Vol. I, p. 117, and in
many other volumes.

Before the evening is over various games will be ordered in, especially
the "cottabus," which is in great vogue. On the top of a high
stand, something like a candelabrum, is balanced rather delicately
a little saucer of brass. The players stand at a considerable
distance with cups of wine. The game is to toss a small quantity
of wine into the balanced saucer so smartly as to make the brass
give out a clear ringing sound, and to tilt upon its side.[+] Much
shouting, merriment, and a little wagering ensues. While most of
the company prefer the cottabus, two, who profess to be experts, call
for a gaming board and soon are deep in the "game of towns"--very
like to latter-day "checkers," played with a board divided into
numerous squares. Each contestant has thirty colored stones, and
the effort is to surround your opponent's stones and capture them.
Some of the company, however, regard this as too profound, and
after trying their skill at the cottabus betake themselves to the
never failing chances of dice. Yet these games are never suffered
(in refined dinner parties) to banish the conversation. That
after all is the center, although it is not good form to talk over
learnedly of statecraft, military tactics, or philosophy. If such
are discussed, it must be with playful abandon, and a disclaimer of
being serious; and even very grave and gray men remember Anacreon's
preference for the praise of "the glorious gifts of the Muses and
of Aphrodite" rather than solid discussions of "conquest and war."

[+]This was the simplest form of the COTTABUS game; there were
numerous elaborations, but our accounts of them are by no means
clear.

168. Going Home from the Feast: Midnight Revellers.--At length the
oil lamps have begun to burn dim. The tired slaves are yawning.
Their masters, despite Prodicus's intentions of having a very
proper symposium, have all drunk enough to get unstable and silly.
Eunapius gives the signal. All rise, and join in the final libation
to Hermes. "Shoes and himation, boy," each says to his slave, and
with thanks to their host they all fare homeward.

Such will be the ending to an extremely decorous feast. With gay
young bloods present, however, it might have degenerated into an
orgy; the flute girl (or several of them) would have contributed
over much to the "freedom"; and when the last deep crater had been
emptied, the whole company would have rushed madly into the street,
and gone whirling away through the darkness,--harps and flutes
sounding, boisterous songs pealing, red torches tossing. Revellers
in this mood would be ready for anything. Perhaps they would end in
some low tavern at the Peireus to sleep off their liquor; perhaps
their leader would find some other Symposium in progress, and after
loud knockings, force his way into the house, even as did the mad
Alcibiades, who (once more to recall Plato) thrust his way into
Agathon's feast, staggering, leaning on a flute girl, and shouting,
"Where's Agathon!" Such an inroad would be of course the signal
for more and ever more hard drinking. The wild invaders might make
themselves completely at home, and dictate all the proceedings:
the end would be even as at Agathon's banquet, where everybody but
Socrates became completely drunken, and lay prone on the couches or
the floor. One hopes that the honest Prodicus has no such climax
to his symposium.

...At length the streets grow quiet. Citizens sober or drunken
are now asleep: only the vigilant Scythian archers patrol the ways
till the cocks proclaim the first gray of dawn.

Chapter XIX. Country Life Around Athens

169. Importance of his Farm to an Athenian.--We have followed the
doings of a typical Athenian during his ordinary activities around
the city, but for the average gentleman an excursion outside the
town is indispensable at least every two or three days, and perhaps
every day. He must visit his farm; for his wealth and income are
probably tied up there, rather than in any unaristocratic commercial
and manufacturing enterprises. Homer's "royal" heroes are not
ashamed to be skilful at following the plow[*]: and no Athenian
feels that he is contaminating himself by "trade" when he supervises
the breeding of sheep or the raising of onions. We will therefore
follow in the tracks of certain well-to-do citizens, when we turn
toward the Itonian gate sometime during the morning, while the
Agora is still in a busy hum, even if thus we are curtailing our
hypothetical visits to the Peireus or to the bankers.

[*]See Odysseus's boasts, "Odyssey," XVIII. 360 et passim. The
gentility of farming is emphasized by a hundred precepts from
Hesiod.

170. The Country by the Ilissus: the Greeks and Natural Beauty.--Our
companions are on horseback (a token of tolerable wealth in Athens),
but the beasts amble along not too rapidly for nimble grooms to
run behind, each ready to aid his respective master. Once outside
the gate the regular road swings down to the south towards Phalerum;
we, however, are in no great haste and desire to see as much as
possible. The farms we are seeking lie well north of the city, but
we can make a delightful circuit by skirting the city walls with
the eastern shadow of the Acropolis behind us, and going at first
northeast, along the groves and leafy avenues which line the thin
stream of the Ilissus,[*] the second "river" of Athens.

[*]The Ilissus, unlike its sturdier rival, the Cephisus, ran dry
during the summer heats; but there was enough water along its bed
to create a dense vegetation.

Before us through the trees came tantalizing glimpses of the open
country running away towards shaggy gray Hymettus. Left to itself
the land would be mostly arid and seared brown by the summer sun;
but everywhere the friendly work of man is visible. One can count
the little green oblong patches, stretching even up the mountain
side, marked with gleaming white farm buildings or sometimes with
little temples and chapels sacred to the rural gods. Once or
twice also we notice a plot of land which seems one tangled waste
of trees and shrubbery. This is a sacred "temenos," an inviolate
grove, set apart to some god; and within the fences of the compound
no mortal dare set foot under pain of direful sacrilege and pollution.

Following a kind of bridle path, however, we are soon amid the
groves of olive and other trees, while the horses plod their slow
way beside the brook. Not a few citizens going or coming from
Athens meet us, for this is really one of the parks and breathing
spaces of the closely built city. The Athenians and Greeks in
general live in a land of such natural beauty that they take this
loveliness as a matter of course. Very seldom do their poets
indulge in deliberate descriptions of "beautiful landscapes"; but
none the less the fair things of nature have penetrated deeply
into their souls. The constant allusions in Homer and the other
masters of song to the great storm waves, the deep shades of the
forest, the crystal books, the pleasant rest for wanderers under
the shade trees, the plains bright with spring flowers, the ivy
twining above a grave, the lamenting nightingale, the chirping
cicada, tell their own story; men seldom describe at length what
is become warp and woof of their inmost lives. The mere fact that
the Greeks dwell CONSTANTLY in such a beautiful land, and have
learned to love it so intensely, makes frequent and set descriptions
thereto seem trivial.

171. Plato's Description of the Walk by the Ilissus.--Nevertheless
occasionally this inborn love of the glorious outer world must find
its expression, and it is of these very groves along he Ilissus
that we have one of the few "nature pieces" in Athenian literature.
As the plodding steeds take their way let us recall our Plato--his
"Phoedrus," written probably not many years before this our visit.

Socrates is walking with Phedrus outside the walls, and urges the
latter: "Let us go to the Ilissus and sit down in some quiet spot."
"I am fortunate," answers Phedrus, "in not having my sandals on,
and, as you never have any, we may go along the brook and cool
our feet. This is the easiest way, and at midday is anything but
unpleasant." He adds that they will go on to the tallest plane
tree in the distance, "where are shade and gentle breezes, and
grass whereon we may either sit or lie.... The little stream is
delightfully clear and bright. I can fancy there might well be
maidens playing near [according to the local myth of Boreas's rape
of Orithyia]." And so at last they come to the place, when Socrates
says: "Yes indeed, a fair and shady resting place it is, full of
summer sounds and scents. There is the lofty and spreading plane
tree, and the agnus castus, high and clustering in the fullest
blossom and the greatest fragrance, and the stream which flows
beneath the plane tree is deliciously cool to the feet. Judging
by the ornaments and images [set] about, this must be a spot sacred
to Achelous and the Nymphs; moreover there is a sweet breeze and
the grasshoppers are chirruping; and the greatest charm of all is
the grass like a pillow, gently sloping to the head."[*]

[*]Jewett, translator; slightly altered.

172. The Athenian Love of Country Life.--So the two friends had
sat them down to delve in delightful profundities; but following
the bridle path, the little brook and its groves end for us all too
soon. We are in the open country around Athens, and the fierce
rays of Helios beat strongly on our heads. We are outside the city,
but by no means far from human life. Farm succeeds farm, for the
land around Athens has a goodly population to maintain, and there
is a round price for vegetables in the Agora. Truth to tell, the
average Athenian, though he pretends to love the market, the Pnyx,
the Dicasteries, and the Gymnasia, has a shrewd hankering for the
soil, and does not care to spend more time in Athens then necessary.
Aristophanes is full of the contrasts between "country life" and
"city life" and almost always with the advantage given the former.
Says his Strepsiades (in "The Clouds"), "A country life for me--dirty,
untrimmed, lolling around at ease, and just abounding in bees and
sheep and oil cake." His Diceepolis ("Acharnians") voices clearly
the independence of the farmer: "How I long for peace.[*] I'm
disgusted with the city; and yearn for my own farm which never
bawled out [as in the markets] 'buy my coals' or 'buy my vinegar'
or 'oil,' or KNEW the word 'buy,' but just of itself produced
everything." And his Trygeus (in "The Peace") states the case
better yet: "Ah! how eager I am to get back into the fields, and
break up my little farm with the mattock again...[for I remember]
what kind of a life we had there; and those cakes of dried fruits,
and the figs, and the myrtles, and the sweet new wine, and the
violet bed next to the well, and the olives we so long for!"

[*]I.e. the end of the Peloponnesian War, which compelled the
farming population to remove inside the walls.

There is another reason why the Athenians rejoice in the country.
The dusty streets are at best a poor playground for the children,
the inner court of the house is only a respectable prison for the
wife. In the country the lads can enjoy themselves; the wife and
the daughters can roam about freely with delightful absence of
convention. There will be no happier day in the year than when
the master says, "Let us set out for the farm."

173. Some Features of the Attic Country.--Postponing our examination
of Athenian farmsteads and farming methods until we reach some
friendly estate, various things strike us as we go along the road.
One is the skilful system of irrigation,--the numerous watercourses
drawn especially from the Cephisus, whereby the agriculturists make
use of every possible scrap of moisture for the fields, groves, and
vineyards. Another is the occasional olive tree we see standing,
gnarled and venerable, but carefully fenced about; or even
(not infrequently) we see fences only with but a dead and utterly
worthless stump within. Do not speak lightly of these "stumps,"
however. They are none the less "moriai"--sacred olive trees of
Athena, and carefully tended by public wardens.[*] Contractors
are allowed to take the fruit of the olive trees under carefully
regulated conditions; but no one is allowed to remove the stumps,
much less hew down a living tree. An offender is tried for
"impiety" before the high court of the Areopagus, and his fate is
pretty surely death, for the country people, at least, regard their
sacred trees with a fanatical devotion which it would take long to
explain to a stranger.

[*]Athenians loved to dwell on the "divine gift" of the olive.
Thus Euripides sang ("Troades," 799):--

In Salamis, filled with the foaming
Of billows and murmur of bees,
Old Telamon stayed from his roaming
Long ago, on a throne of the seas,
Looking out on the hills olive laden,
Enchanted, where first from the earth
The gray-gleaming fruit of the Maiden
Athena had birth.

--Murray, translator.

The hero Telamon was reputed an uncle of Achilles and one of the
early kings of Salami.

Also upon the way one is pretty sure to meet a wandering beggar--a
shrewd-eyed, bewhiskered fellow. He carries, not a barrel organ
and monkey, but a blinking tame crow perched on his shoulder, and
at every farmstead he halts to whine his nasal ditty and ask his
dole.

Good people, a handful of barley bestow
On the child of Apollo, the sleek sable crow;
Or a trifle of whet, O kind friends, give;--
Or a wee loaf of bread that the crow may live.

It is counted good luck by the housewife to have a chance to feed
a "holy crow," and the owner's pickings are goodly. By the time
we have left the beggar behind us we are at the farm whither our
excursion has been tending.

174. An Attic Farmstead.--We are to inspect the landed estate of
Hybrias, the son of Xanthippus. It lies north of Athens on the
slopes of Anchesmus, one of the lesser hills which roll away toward
the marble-crowned summits of Pentelicus. Part of the farm lands
lie on the level ground watered by the irrigation ditches; part
upon the hillsides, and here the slopes have been terraced in a
most skilful fashion in order to make the most of every possible
inch of ground, and also to prevent any of the precious soil from
being washed down by the torrents of February and March. The owner
is a wealthy man, and has an extensive establishment; the farm
buildings--once whitewashed, but now for the most part somewhat
dirty--wander away over a large area. There are wide courts, deep
in manure, surrounded by barns; there are sties, haymows, carefully
closed granaries, an olive press, a grain mill, all kinds of stables
and folds, likewise a huge irregularly shaped house wherein are
lodged the numerous slaves and the hired help. The general design
of this house is the same as of a city house--the rooms opening
upon an inner court, but naturally its dimensions are ampler, with
the ampler land space.

Just now the courtyard is a noisy and animated sight. The master
has this moment ridden in, upon one of his periodic visits from
Athens; the farm overseer has run out to meet him and report, and
half a dozen long, lean hunting dogs--Darter, Roarer, Tracker,
Active, and more[*]--are dancing and yelping, in the hope that
their owner will order a hare hunt. The overseer is pouring forth
his usual burden of woe about the inefficient help and the lack of
rain, and Hybrias is complaining of the small spring crop--"Zeus
send us something better this summer!" While these worthies are
adjusting their troubles we may look around the farm.

[*]For an exhaustive list of names for Greek dogs, see Xenophon's
curious "Essay on Hunting," ch. VII, section 5.

175. Plowing, Reaping, and Threshing.--Thrice a year the Athenian
farmer plows, unless he wisely determines to let his field lie
fallow for the nonce; and the summer plowing on hybrias's estate is
now in progress. Up and down a wide field the ox team is going.[*]
The plow is an extremely primitive affair--mainly of wood, although
over the sharpened point which forms the plowshare a plate of iron
has been fitted. Such a plow requires very skilful handling to
cut a good furrow, and the driver of the team has no sinecure.

[*]Mules were sometimes used for drawing the plow, but horses, it
would seem, never.

In a field near by, the hinds are reaping a crop of wheat which
was late in ripening.[*] The workers are bending with semicircular
sickles over their hot task; yet they form a merry, noisy crowd,
full of homely "harvest songs," nominally in honor of Demeter,
the Earth Mother, but ranging upon every conceivable rustic topic.
Some laborers are cutting the grain, others, walking behind, are
binding into sheaves and piling into clumsy ox wains. Here and
there a sheaf is standing, and we are told that this is left "for
luck," as an offering to the rural Field Spirit; for your farm
hand is full of superstitions. Also amid the workers a youth is
passing with a goodly jar of cheap wine, to which the harvesters
make free to run from time to time for refreshment.

Close by the field is the threshing floor. More laborers--not a few
bustling country lasses among them--are spreading out the sheaves
with wooden forks, a little at a time, in thin layers over this
circular space, which is paved with little cobblestones. More oxen
and a patient mule are being driven over it--around and around--until
every kernel is trodden out by their hoofs. Later will come the
tossing and the winnowing; and, when the grain has been thoroughly
cleaned, it will be stored in great earthen jars for the purpose
of sale or against the winter.

176. Grinding at the Mill.--Nearer the farmhouses there rises a
dull grinding noise. It is the mill preparing the flour for the
daily baking, for seldom--at least in the country--will a Greek
grind flour long in advance of the time of use. There the round
upper millstone is being revolved upon an iron pivot against its
lower mate and turned by a long wooden handle. Two nearly naked
slave boys are turning this wearily--far pleasanter they consider
the work of the harvesters, and very likely this task is set them
as a punishment. As the mill revolves a slave girl pours the grain
into a hole in the center of the upper millstone. As the hot, slow
work goes on, the two toilers chant together a snatch from an old
mill song, and we catch the monotonous strain:--

Grind, mill, grind,
For Pittacus did grind--
Who was king over great Mytilene.

It will be a long time before there is enough flour for the day.
The slaves can at least rejoice that they live on a large farm.
If Hybrias owned a smaller estate, they would probably be pounding
up the grain with mortar and pestle--more weary yet.

177. The Olive Orchards.--We, at least, can leave them to their
work, and escape to the shade of the orchards and the vineyards.
Like every Athenian farmer, Hybrias has an olive orchard. The
olives are sturdy trees. They will grow in any tolerable soil and
thrive upon the mountain slopes up to as far as 1800 feet above
sea level. They are not large trees, and their trunks are often
grotesquely gnarled, but there is always a certain fascination
about the wonderful shimmer of their leaves, which flash from gray
to silver-white in a sunny wind. Hybrias has wisely planted his
olives at wide intervals, and in the space between the ground has
been plowed up for grain. Olives need little care. Their harvest
comes late in the autumn, after all the other crops are out of the
way. They are among the most profitable products of the farm, and
the owner will not mind the poor wheat harvest "if only the olives
do well."[*]

[*]The great drawback to olive culture was the great length of time
required to mature the trees--sixteen years. The destruction of
the trees, e.g. in war by a ravaging invader, was an infinitely
greater calamity than the burning of the standing grain or even
of the farmhouses. Probably it was the ruin of their olive trees
which the Athenians mourned most during the ravaging of Attica in
the Peloponnesian War.

178. The Vineyards.--The fig orchard forms another great part
of the farm, but more interesting to strangers are the vineyards.
Some of the grapes are growing over pointed stakes set all along
the upland terraces; a portion of the vineyards, however, is on
level ground. Here a most picturesque method has been used for
training the vines. Tall and graceful trees have been set out--elm,
maple, oak, poplar. The lower limbs of the trees have been cut
away and up their trunks and around their upper branches now swing
the vines in magnificent festoons. The growing vines have sprung
from tree to tree. The warm breeze has set the rich clusters--already
turning purple or golden--swaying above our heads. The air is
filled with brightness, greenery, and fragrance. The effect of
this "vineyard grove" is magical.

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