A Day In Old Athens

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In one "circle" may be found onions and garlic (a favorite food
of the poor); a little further on are the dealers in wine, fruit,
and garden produce. Lentils and peas can be had either raw, or
cooked and ready to eat on the spot. An important center is the
bread market. The huge cylindrical loaves are handed out by shrewd
old women with proverbially long tongues. Whosoever upsets one of
their delicately balanced piles of loaves is certain of an artistic
tongue lashing. Elsewhere there is a pottery market, a clothes
market, and, nearer the edge of the Agora, are "circles," where
objects of real value are sold, like jewelry, chariots, good
furniture. In certain sections, too, may be seen strong-voiced
individuals, with little trays swung by straps before them, pacing
to and fro, and calling out, not foods, but medicines, infallible
cure-alls for every human distemper. Many are the unwary fools
who patronize them.

16. The Flower and the Fish Vendors.--Two circles attract especial
attention, the Myrtles and the Fish. Flowers and foliage, especially
when made up into garlands, are absolutely indispensable to the
average Greek. Has he a great family festival, e.g. the birth
of a son, then every guest should wear a crown of olives; is it a
wedding, then one of flowers.[*] Oak-leaves do the honors for Zeus;
laurel for Apollo; myrtle for Aphrodite (and is not the Love-Goddess
the favorite?). To have a social gathering without garlands, in
short, is impossible. The flower girls of Athens are beautiful,
impudent, and not at all prudish. Around their booths press
bold-tongued youths, and not too discreet sires; and the girls can
call everybody familiarly by name. Very possibly along with the
sale of the garlands they make arrangements (if the banquet is
to be of the less respectable kind) to be present in the evening
themselves, perhaps in the capacity of flute girls.

[*]The Greeks lacked many of our common flowers. Their ordinary
flowers were white violets, narcissus, lilies, crocuses, blue
hyacinths, and roses ("the Flower of Zeus"). The usual garland
was made of myrtle or ivy and then entwined with various flowers.

More reputable, though not less noisy, is the fish market. Athenians
boast themselves of being no hearty "meat eaters" like their Boeotian
neighbors, but of preferring the more delicate fish. No dinner
party is successful without a seasonable course of fish. The arrival
of a fresh cargo from the harbor is announced by the clanging of
a bell, which is likely to leave all the other booths deserted,
while a crowd elbows around the fishmonger. He above all others
commands the greatest flow of billingsgate, and is especially notorious
for his arrogant treatment of his customers, and for exacting the
uttermost farthing. The "Fish" and the "Myrtles" can be sure of
a brisk trade on days when all the other booth keepers around the
Agora stand idle.

All this trade, of course, cannot find room in the booths of the
open Agora. Many hucksters sit on their haunches on the level
ground with their few wares spread before them. Many more have
little stands between the pillars of the stoe; and upon the various
streets that converge on the market there is a fringe of shops,
but these are usually of the more substantial sort. Here are the
barbers' shops, the physicians' offices (if the good leech is more
than an itinerant quack), and all sorts of little factories, such
as smithies, where the cutler's apprentices in the rear of the shop
forge the knives which the proprietor sells over the counter, the
slave repositories, and finally wine establishments of no high
repute, where wine may not merely be bought by the skin (as in the
main Agora), but by the potful to be drunk on the premises.

17. The Morning Visitors to the Agora.--The first tour of inspection
completed, several facts become clear to the visitor. One is the
extraordinarily large proportion of MEN among the moving multitudes.
Except for the bread women and the flower girls, hardly one female
is to be found among the sellers. Among the purchasers there is
not a single reputable lady. No Athenian gentlewoman dreams of
frequenting the Agora. Even a poor man's wife prefers to let her
spouse do the family marketing. As for the "men folk," the average
gentleman will go daily indeed to the Agora, but if he is really
pretentious, it will be merely to gossip and to meet his friends;
a trusted servant will attend to the regular purchasing. Only when
an important dinner party is on hand will the master take pains to
order for himself. If he does purchase in person, he will never
CARRY anything himself. The slaves can attend to that; and only
the slaveless (the poorest of all) must take away their modest
rations of boiled lentils, peas, beans, onions, and garlic, usually
in baskets, though yonder now is a soldier who is bearing off a
measure of boiled peas inside his helmet.

Another thing is striking. The average poor Athenian seems to
have no purse. Or rather he uses the purse provided by nature. At
every booth one can see unkempt buyers solemnly taking their small
change from their mouths.[*] Happy the people that has not learned
the twentieth century wisdom concerning microbes! For most Athenians
seem marvelously healthy.

[*]A wealthier purchaser would, of course, have his own pouch, or
more probably one carried for him by a slave.

Still one other fact is brought home constantly. "Fixed prices"
are absolutely unknown. The slightest transaction involves a war of
bargaining. Wits are matched against wits, and only after a vast
deal of wind do buyer and seller reach a fair compromise. All
this makes retail trade in the Agora an excellent school for public
affairs or litigation.

18. The Leisured Class in Athens.--Evidently Athens, more than
many later-day cities, draws clear lines between the workers and the
"gentlemen of leisure." There is no distinction of dress between
the numerous slaves and the humbler free workers and traders; but
there is obvious distinction between the artisan of bent shoulders
who shambles out of yonder pungent tannery, with his scant garments
girded around him, and the graceful gentleman of easy gestures
and flowing drapery who moves towards the Tholos. There is great
POLITICAL democracy in Athens, but not so much SOCIAL democracy.
"Leisure," i.e. exemption from every kind of sordid, money-getting,
hard work, is counted the true essential for a respectable existence,
and to live on the effort of others and to devote oneself to public
service or to letters and philosophy is the open satisfaction or
the private longing of every Athenian.

A great proportion of these, therefore, who frequent the Agora are
not here on practical business, unless they have official duties
at the government offices.[*] But in no city of any age has the
gracious art of doing nothing been brought to such perfection.
The Athenians are an intensely gregarious people. Everybody knows
everybody else. Says an orator, "It is impossible for a man to
be either a rascal or an honest man in this city without your all
knowing it." Few men walk long alone; if they do keep their own
company, they are frowned on as "misanthropes." The morning visit
to the Agora "to tell or to hear some new thing"[+] will be followed
by equally delightful idling and conversation later in the day at
the Gymnasia, and later still, probably, at the dinner-party. Easy
and unconventional are the personal greetings. A little shaking
out of the mantle, an indescribable flourish with the hands. A
free Greek will despise himself for "bowing," even to the Great
King. To clasp hands implies exchanging a pledge, something for
more than mere salutation.

"Chaire, Aristomenes!"

"Chaire, Cleandros!"

Such is the usual greeting, using an expressive word which can mean
equally well "hail!" and "farewell!"

[*]To serve the state in any official capacity (usually without any
salary attached to the office) would give the highest satisfaction
to any Greek. The desire for participation in public affairs might
be described as a mania.

[+]Acts of the Apostles, 17:21.

19. Familiar Types around the Agora.--These animated, eager-faced
men whose mantles fall in statuesque folds prefer obviously to walk
under the Painted Porch, or the blue roof of heaven, while they
evolve their philosophies, mature their political schemes, or
organize the material for their orations and dramas, rather than to
bend over desks within close offices. Around the Athenian Agora,
a true type of this preference, and busy with this delightful
idleness, half a century earlier could have been seen a droll
figure with "indescribable nose, bald head, round body, eyes rolling
and twinkling with good humor," scantily clad,--an incorrigible
do-nothing, windbag, and hanger-on, a later century might assert,--yet
history has given to him the name of Socrates.

Not all Athenians, of course, make such justifiable use of their
idleness. There are plenty of young men parading around in long
trailing robes, their hair oiled and curled most effeminately,
their fingers glittering with jewels,--"ring-loaded, curly-locked
coxcombs," Aristophanes, the comic poet, has called them,--and
they are here only for silly display. Also there are many of their
elders who have no philosophy or wit to justify their continuous
talking; nevertheless, all considered, it must be admitted that
the Athenian makes a use of their dearly loved "leisure," which
men of a more pragmatic race will do well to consider as the fair
equivalent of much frantic zeal for "business." Athenian "leisure" has
already given the world Pericles, Thucydides, Aeschylus, Sophocles,
Euripides, Socrates, and Plato, not to name such artists as Phidias,
whose profession cannot exempt them from a certain manual occupation.

20. The Barber Shops.--This habit of genteel idleness naturally
develops various peculiar institutions. For example, the barber
shops are almost club rooms. Few Hellenes at this time shave their
beards[*], but to go with unkempt whiskers and with too long hair
is most disgraceful. The barber shops, booths, or little rooms let
into the street walls of the houses, are therefore much frequented.
The good tonsors have all the usual arts. They can dye gray hair
brown or black; they can wave or curl their patrons' locks (and
an artificially curled head is no disgrace to a man). Especially,
they keep a good supply of strong perfumes; for many people will
want a little scent on their hair each morning, even if they wish
no other attention. But it is not an imposition to a barber to
enter his shop, yet never move towards his low stool before the
shining steel mirror. Anybody is welcome to hang around indefinitely,
listening to the proprietor's endless flow of talk. He will pride
himself on knowing every possible bit of news or rumor: Had the
Council resolved on a new fleet-building program? Had the Tyrant
of Syracuse's "four" the best chance in the chariot race in the
next Olympic games? The garrulity of barbers is already proverbial.

[*] Alexander the Great (336-323 B.C.) required his soldiers to be
shaved (as giving less grasp for the enemy!), and the habit then
spread generally through the whole Hellenic world.

"How shall I cut your hair, sir?" once asked the court tonsure of
King Archelaus of Macedon.

"In silence," came the grim answer.

But the proprietor will not do all the talking. Everybody in the
little room will join. Wits will sharpen against wits; and if the
company is of a grave and respectable sort, the conversation will
grow brisk upon Plato's theory of the "reality of ideas," upon
Euripides's interpretation of the relations of God to man, or upon
the spiritual symbolism of Scopas's bas-reliefs at Halicarnassus.

The barber shops by the Agora then are essential portions of
Athenian social life. Later we shall see them supplemented by the
Gymnasia;--but the Agora has detained us long enough. The din and
crowds are lessening. People are beginning to stream homeward.
It lacks a little of noon according to the "time-staff" (gnomon),
a simple sun dial which stands near one of the porticoes, and we
will now follow some Athenian gentleman towards his dwelling.

Chapter IV. The Athenian House and its Furnishings.

21. Following an Athenian Gentleman Homeward.--Leaving the Agora
and reentering the streets the second impression of the residence
districts becomes more favorable. There are a few bay trees planted
from block to block; and ever and anon the monotonous house walls
recede, giving space to display some temple, like the Fane of
Hephestos[*] near the Market Place, its columns and pediment flashing
not merely with white marble, but with the green, scarlet, and gold
wherewith the Greeks did not hesitate to decorate their statuary.

[*]Wrongly called the "Theseum" in modern Athens.

At street corners and opposite important mansions a Hermes-bust
like those in the plaza rises, and a very few houses have a couple
of pillars at their entrances and some outward suggestion of hidden
elegance.

We observe that almost the entire crowd leaving the Agora goes
on foot. To ride about in a chariot is a sign of undemocratic
presumption; while only women or sick men will consent to be borne
in a litter. We will select a sprucely dressed gentleman who has
just been anointed in a barber's shop and accompany him to his home.
He is neither one of the decidedly rich, otherwise his establishment
would be exceptional, not typical, nor is he of course one of
the hard-working poor. Followed by perhaps two clean and capable
serving lads, he wends his way down several of the narrow lanes that
lie under the northern brow of the Acropolis[*]. Before a plain
solid house door he halts and cries, "Pai! Pai!" ["Boy! Boy!"].
There is a rattle of bolts and bars. A low-visaged foreign-born
porter, whose business it is to show a surly front to all unwelcome
visitors, opens and gives a kind of salaam to his master; while
the porter's huge dog jumps up barking and pawing joyously.

[*]This would be a properly respectable quarter of the city, but
we do not know of any really "aristocratic residence district" in
Athens.

As we enter behind him (carefully advancing with right foot foremost,
for it is bad luck to tread a threshold with the LEFT) we notice
above the lintel some such inscription as "Let no evil enter here!"
or "To the Good Genius," then a few steps through a narrow passage
bring us into the Aula, the central court, the indispensable feature
of every typical Greek house.

22. The Type and use of a Greek House.--All domestic architecture,
later investigators will discover, falls into two great categories--of
the northern house and the southern house. The northern house begins
with a single large room, "the great hall," then lesser rooms are
added to it. It gets its light from windows in the outer walls,
and it is covered by a single steep roof. The southern (Greek and
Oriental) house is a building inclosing a rectangular court. The
rooms, many or few, get their light from this court, while they
are quite shut off from the world outside. All in all, for warm
climates this style of house is far more airy, cool, comfortable
than the other. The wide open court becomes the living room of
the house save in very inclement weather.

Socrates is reported to have uttered what was probably the average
sensible view about a good house.[*] The good house, he thought,
should be cool in summer, and warm in winter, convenient for the
accommodation of the family and its possessions. The central rooms
should therefore be lofty and should open upon the south, yet for
protection in summer there should be good projecting eaves (over
the court) and again the rooms on the northern exposure should be
made lower. All this is mere sense, but really the average male
Athenian does not care a great deal about his dwelling. He spends
surprisingly little money beautifying it. Unless he is sick, he
will probably be at home only for sleeping and eating. The Agora,
the Public Assembly, the Jury Courts, the Gymnasium, the great
religious festivals consume his entire day. "I never spend my time
indoors," says Xenophon's model Athenian, "my wife is well able
to run the household by herself."[+] Such being the case, even
wealthy men have very simple establishments, although it is at length
complained (e.g. by Demosthenes) that people are now building more
luxurious houses, and are not content with the plain yet sufficient
dwellings of the great age of Pericles.[@]

[*]In Xenophon's "Memorabilia," III. 8, sections 9,10.

[+]Xenophon, "Economics," VII. 3.

[@]Very probably in such outlying Greek cities as Syracuse, Taras
(Tarentum), etc., more elegant houses could be found than any at
this time in Athens.

23. The Plan of a Greek House.--The plan of a Greek house naturally
varies infinitely according to the size of the land plot, the size
of the owner's family, his own taste, and wealth. It will usually
be rectangular, with the narrower side toward the street; but this
is not invariable. In the larger houses there will be two courts
(aule), one behind the other, and each with its own circuit of
dependent chambers. The court first entered will be the Andronitis
(the Court of the Men), and may be even large enough to afford a
considerable promenade for exercise. Around the whole of the open
space run lines of simple columns, and above the opening swings an
awning if the day is very hot. In the very center rises a small
stone alter with a statue of Zeus the Protector (Zeus Herkeios),
where the father of the family will from time to time offer sacrifice,
acting as the priest for the household. Probably already on the
alter there has been laid a fresh garland; if not, the newcomers
from the Agora have now fetched one.

+---------------------+
| |
| GARDEN |
| |
+----+-----------+----+ Conjectural Plan for the House
| Y | D | Y | of A Wealthy Athenian.
| | | |
+--+=+-----=-----+=+--+ A = Alter of Zeus Herkelos.
| | | | B = Alter of Hestia.
|Y = o o o o = Y| C = Entrance Hall.
| | o o | | D = Kitchen.
+--+ GYNAECONITIS +--+ T = Thalmos.
| | o o | | T' = Anti-thalmos.
|Y = o o o o = Y| X = Rooms for the Men.
| | | | Y = Rooms for the Women.
+--+=+-----=-+---+=+--+
| | |B o| |
| T | +---+ T' |
| | ANDRON | |
+----+ +----+
| X | | X |
+--+=+----' '----+=+--+
|X = o o o o = X|
+--+ o A o +--+
|X = o O o = X|
+--+ ANDRONITIS +--+
|X = o o o o = X|
+--+=+-=-+ +-=-+=+--+
| | | | | |
| X | X | C | X | X |
| | | | | |
+----+---+===+---+----+

The Andronitis is the true living room of the house: here the
master will receive his visitors, here the male slaves will work,
and the women also busy themselves (promptly retiring, however,
on the appearance of masculine strangers). The decoration is very
plain: the walls are neatly tinted with some kind of wash; the
floor is of simple plaster, or, in a humbler house, common earth
pounded hard. Under the colonnade at all four sides open the
various chambers, possibly twelve in all. They really are cells
or compartments rather than rooms, small and usually lighted only
by their doors. Some are used for storerooms, some for sleeping
closets for the male slaves and for the grown-up sons of the
house, if there are any. Dark, ill ventilated, and most scantily
furnished, it is no wonder that the average Athenian loves the
Agora better than his chamber.

The front section of the house is now open to us, but it is time
to penetrate farther. Directly behind the open court is a sizable
chamber forming a passage to the inner house. This chamber is the
Andron, the dining hall and probably the most pretentious room in
the house. Here the guests will gather for the dinner party, and
here in one corner smokes the family hearth, once the real fire for
the whole household cooking, but now merely a symbol of the domestic
worship. It is simply a little round alter sacred to Hestia, the
hearth goddess,[*] and on its duly rekindled flame little "meat
offerings and drink offerings" are cast at every meal, humble or
elaborate.

[*]Who corresponds to the Roman goddess Vesta.

In the rear wall of the Andron facing the Andronitis is a solid
door. We are privileged guests indeed if we pass it. Only the
father, sons, or near male kinsmen of the family are allowed to go
inside, for it leads into the Gyneconitis, the hall of the women.
To thrust oneself into the Gyneconitis of even a fairly intimate
friend is a studied insult at Athens, and sure to be resented by
bodily chastisement, social ostracism, and a ruinous legal prosecution.
The Gyneconitis is in short the Athenian's holy of holies. Their
women are forbidden to participate in so much of public life that
their own peculiar world is especially reserved to them. To invade
this world is not bad breeding; it is social sacrilege.

In the present house, the home of a well-to-do family, the Gyneconitis
forms a second pillared court with adjacent rooms of substantially
the same size and shape as the Andronitis. One of the rooms in
the very rear is proclaimed by the clatter of pots and pans and
the odor of a frying turbot to be the kitchen; others are obviously
the sleeping closets of the slave women. On the side nearest to
the front of the house, but opening itself upon this inner court,
is at least one bed chamber of superior size. This is the Thalamos,
the great bedroom of the master and mistress, and here are kept all
the most costly furnishings and ornaments in the house. If there
are grown-up unmarried daughters, they have another such bedroom
(anti-thalamos) that is much larger than the cells of the slave
girls. Another special room is set apart for the working of wool,
although this chief occupation of the female part of the household
is likely to be carried on in the open inner court itself, if the
weather is fine. Here, around a little flower bed, slave girls
are probably spinning and embroidering, young children playing or
quarreling, and a tame quail is hopping about and watching for a
crumb. There are in fact a great many people in a relatively small
space; everything is busy, chattering, noisy, and confusing to an
intruding stranger.

24. Modifications in the Typical Plan.--These are the essential
features of an Athenian house. If the establishment is a very
pretentious one, there may be a small garden in the rear carefully
hedged against intruders by a lofty wall.[*] More probably the
small size of the house lot would force simplifications in the
scheme already stated. In a house one degree less costly, the
Gyneconitis would be reduced to a mere series of rooms shut off in
the rear. In more simple houses still there would be no interior
section of the house at all. The women of the family would be
provided for by a staircase rising from the main hall to a second
story, and here a number of upper chambers would give the needful
seclusion.[+] Of course as one goes down the social scale, the
houses grow simpler and simpler. Small shops are set into the
street wall at either side of the entrance door, and on entering
one finds himself in a very limited and utterly dingy court with
a few dirty compartments opening thence, which it would be absurd
to dignify by the name of "rooms." Again one ceases to wonder
that the male Athenians are not "home folk" and are glad to leave
their houses to the less fortunate women!

[*]Such a luxury would not be common in city houses; land would be
too valuable.

[+]Houses of more than two stories seem to have been unknown
in Athens. The city lacked the towering rookeries of tenements
(insule) which were characteristic of Rome; sometimes, however, a
house seems to have been shared between several families.

25. Rents and House Values.--Most native Athenians own their houses.
Houses indeed can be rented, usually by the foreign traders and
visitors who swam into the city; and at certain busy seasons one can
hire "lodgings" for a brief sojourn. Rents are not unreasonable,
8% or 8 1/3% of the value of the house being counted a fair annual
return. But the average citizen is also a householder, because
forsooth houses are very cheap. The main cost is probably for
the land. The chief material used in building, sun-dried brick,
is very unsubstantial,[*] and needs frequent repairs, but is
not expensive. Demosthenes the Orator speaks of a "little house"
(doubtless of the kind last described) worth only seven minue [about
$126.00 (1914) or $2,242.80 (2000)], and this is not the absolute
minimum. A very rich banker has had one worth 100 minue [about
$1,800.00 (1914) or $32,040.00 (2000)], and probably this is close
to the maximum. The rent question is not therefore one of the
pressing problems at Athens.

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