A Day In Old Athens

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[*]This material was so friable and poor that the Greek burglar
was known as a "Wall-digger." It did not pay him to pick a lock;
it was simpler for him to quarry his way through the wall with a
pickax.

26. The Simple yet Elegant Furnishings of an Athenian Home.--These
houses, even owned by the lordly rich, are surprisingly simple
in their furnishings. The accumulation of heavy furniture, wall
decorations, and bric-a-brac which will characterize the dwellings
of a later age, would be utterly offensive to an Athenian--contradicting
all his ideas of harmony and "moderation." The Athenian house
lacks of course bookcases and framed pictures. It probably too
lacks any genuine closets. Beds, couches, chairs (usually backless),
stools, footstools, and small portable tables,--these alone seem
in evidence. In place of bureaus, dressers and cupboards, there
are huge chests, heavy and carved, in which most of the household
gear can be locked away. In truth, the whole style of Greek
household life expresses that simplicity on which we have already
commented. Oriental carpets are indeed met with, but they are
often used as wall draperies or couch covers rather than upon the
floors. Greek costume (see p. 43) is so simple that there is small
need for elaborate chests of drawers, and a line of pegs upon the
wall cares for most of the family wardrobe.

All this is true; yet what furniture one finds is fashioned with
commendable grace. There is a marked absence of heavy and unhealthful
upholstery; but the simple bed (four posts sustaining a springless
cushion stuffed with feathers or wool) has its woodwork adorned
with carving which is a true mean betwixt the too plain and the
too ornate; and the whole bed is given an elegant effect by the
magnificently embroidered scarlet tapestry which overspreads it.
The lines of the legs of the low wooden tables which are used at
the dinner parties will be a lesson (if we have time to study them)
upon just proportion and the value of subtle curves. Moreover,
the different household vessels, the stone and bronze lamps, the
various table dishes, even the common pottery put to the humblest
uses, all have a beauty, a chaste elegance, a saving touch of deft
ornamentation, which transforms them out of "kitchen ware" into
works of art. Those black water pots covered with red-clay figures
which the serving maids are bearing so carelessly into the scullery
at the screaming summons of the cook will be some day perchance
the pride of a museum, and teach a later age that costly material
and aristocratic uses are not needful to make an article supremely
beautiful.

Of course the well-to-do Athenian is proud to possess certain
"valuables." He will have a few silver cups elegantly chased,
and at least one diner's couch in the andron will be made of rare
imported wood, and be inlaid with gilt or silver. On festival
days the house will be hung with brilliant and elaborately wrought
tapestries which will suddenly emerge from the great chests. Also,
despite frowns and criticisms, the custom is growing of decorating
one's walls with bright-lined frescoes after the manner of the Agora
colonnades. In the course of a few generations the homes of the
wealthier Greeks will come to resemble those of the Romans, such
as a later age has resurrected at Pompeii.

Chapter V. The Women of Athens.

27. How Athenian Marriages are Arranged.--Over this typical Athenian
home reigns the wife of the master. Public opinion frowns upon
celibacy, and there are relatively few unmarried men in Athens.
An Athenian girl is brought up with the distinct expectation of
matrimony.[*] Opportunities for a romance almost never will come
her way; but it is the business of her parents to find her a suitable
husband. If they are kindly people of good breeding, their choice
is not likely to be a very bad one. If they have difficulties,
they can engage a professional "matchmaker," a shrewd old woman
who, for a fee, will hunt out an eligible young man. Marriage is
contracted primarily that there may be legitimate children to keep
up the state and to perpetuate the family. That the girl should
have any will of her own in the matter is almost never thought of.
Very probably she has never seen "Him," save when they both were
marching in a public religious procession, or at some rare family
gathering (a marriage or a funeral) when there were outside guests.
Besides she will be "given away" when only about fifteen, and
probably has formed no intelligent opinion or even prejudices on
the subject.

[*]The vile custom of exposing unwelcome female babies probably
created a certain preponderance of males in Attica, and made it
relatively easy to marry off a desirable young girl.

If a young man (who will marry at about thirty) is independent in
life, the negotiations will be with him directly. If he is still
dependent on the paternal allowance, the two sets of parents will
usually arrange matters themselves, and demand only the formal
consent of the prospective bridegroom. He will probably accept
promptly this bride whom his father has selected; if not, he risks
a stormy encounter with his parents, and will finally capitulate.
He has perhaps never seen "Her," and can only hope things are for
the best; and after all she is so young that his friends tell him
that he can train her to be very useful and obedient if he will only
take pains. The parents, or, failing them, the guardians, adjust
the dowry--the lump sum which the bride will bring with her towards
the new establishment.[*] Many maxims enjoin "marry only your equal
in fortune." The poor man who weds an heiress will not be really
his own master; the dread of losing the big dowry will keep him in
perpetual bondage to her whims.

[*]The dowry was a great protection to the bride. If her husband
divorced her (as by law he might), the dowry must be repaid to her
guardians with 18 per cent. interest.

28. Lack of Sentiment in Marriages.--Sometimes marriages are
arranged in which any sentiment is obviously prohibited. A father
can betroth his daughter by will to some kinsman, who is to take
her over as his bride when he takes over the property. A husband
can bequeath his wife to some friend who is likely to treat her and
the orphan children with kindness. Such affairs occur every day.
Do the Athenian women revolt at these seemingly degrading conditions,
wherein they are handed around like slaves, or even cattle?--According
to the tragic poets they do. Sophocles (in the "Tereus") makes
them lament,

"We women are nothing;--happy indeed is our childhood, for THEN we
are thoughtless; but when we attain maidenhood, lo! we are driven
away from our homes, sold as merchandise, and compelled to marry
and say 'All's well.'"

Euripides is even more bitter in his "Medea":--

Surely of creatures that have life and wit,
We women are of all things wretchedest,
Who first must needs, as buys the highest bidder,
Thus buy a husband, and our body's master.[*/

[*]Way's translation.

29. Athenian Marriage Rites.--However, thus runs public custom.
At about fifteen the girl must leave her mother's fostering care
and enter the house of the stranger. The wedding is, of course,
a great ceremony; and here, if nowhere else, Athenian women can
surely prepare, flutter, and ordain to their heart's content. After
the somewhat stiff and formal betrothal before witnesses (necessary
to give legal effect to the marriage), the actual wedding will
probably take place,--perhaps in a few days, perhaps with a longer
wait till the favorite marriage month Gamelion [January].[*] Then
on a lucky night of the full moon the bride, having, no doubt
tearfully, dedicated to Artemis her childish toys, will be decked
in her finest and will come down, all veiled, into her father's
torchlit aula, swarming now with guests. Here will be at last
that strange master of her fate, the bridegroom and his best man
(paranymphos). Her father will offer sacrifice (probably a lamb),
and after the sacrifice everybody will feast on the flesh of the
victim; and also share a large flat cake of pounded sesame seeds
roasted and mixed with honey. As the evening advances the wedding
car will be outside the door. The mother hands the bride over to
the groom, who leads her to the chariot, and he and the groomsman
sit down, one on either side, while with torches and song the
friends to with the car in jovial procession to the house of the
young husband.

[*]This winter month was sacred to Hera, the marriage guardian.

"Ho, Hymen! Ho, Hymen! Hymeneous! Io!"

So rings the refrain of the marriage song; and all the doorways
and street corners are crowded with onlookers to shout fair wishes
and good-natured raillery.

At the groom's house there is a volley of confetti to greet the
happy pair. The bride stops before the threshold to eat a quince.[*]
There is another feast,--possibly riotous fun and hard drinking. At
last the bride is led, still veiled, to the perfumed and flower-hung
marriage chamber. The doors close behind the married pair. Their
friends sing a merry rollicking catch outside, the Epithalamium.
The great day has ended. The Athenian girl has experienced the
chief transition of her life.

[*]The symbol of fertility.

30. The Mental Horizon of Athenian Women.--Despite the suggestions
in the poets, probably the normal Athenian woman is neither degraded
nor miserable. If she is a girl of good ancestry and the usual
bringing up, she has never expected any other conditions than
these. She knows that her parents care for her and have tried to
secure for her a husband who will be her guardian and solace when
they are gone. Xenophon's ideal young husband, Ischomachus, says
he married his wife at the age of fifteen.[*] She had been "trained
to see and to hear as little as possible"; but her mother had taught
her to have a sound control of her appetite and of all kinds of
self-indulgence, to take wool and to make a dress of it, and to
manage the slave maids in their spinning tasks. She was at first
desperately afraid of her husband, and it was some time before he
had "tamed" her sufficiently to discuss their household problems
freely. Then Ischomachus made her join with him in a prayer to
the gods that "he might teach and she might learn all that could
conduce to their joint happiness"; after which they took admirable
counsel together, and her tactful and experienced husband (probably
more than twice her age) trained her into a model housewife.

[*]See Xenophon's "The Economist," VII ff. The more pertinent
passages are quoted in W. S. Davis's "Readings in Ancient History,"
Vol. I, pp. 265-271.

31. The Honor paid Womanhood in Athens.--Obviously from a young
woman with a limited intellectual horizon the Athenian gentleman
can expect no mental companionship; but it is impossible that he
can live in the world as a keenly intelligent being, and not come
to realize the enormous value of the "woman spirit" as
it affects all things good. Hera, Artemis, Aphrodite, above
all Pallas-Athena,--city-warder of Athens,--who are they all
but idealizations of that peculiar genius which wife, mother, and
daughter show forth every day in their homes? An Athenian never
allows his wife to visit the Agora. She cannot indeed go outside
the house without his express permission, and only then attended by
one or two serving maids; public opinion will likewise frown upon
the man who allowed his wife to appear in public too freely[*];
nevertheless there are compensations. Within her home the Athenian
woman is within her kingdom. Her husband will respect her, because
he will respect himself. Brutal and harsh he may possibly be, but
that is because he is also brutal and harsh in his outside dealings.
In extreme cases an outraged wife can sue for divorce before the
archon. And very probably in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred
the Athenian woman is contented with her lot: partly because she
knows of nothing better; partly because she has nothing concrete
whereof to complain.

[*]Hypereides, the orator, says, "The woman who goes out of her
own home ought to be of such an age that when men meet her, the
question is not 'Who is her husband?' but 'Whose mother is she?'"
Pericles, in the great funeral oration put in his mouth by Thucydides,
says that the best women are those who are talked of for good or
ill the very least.

Doubtless it is because an Athenian house is a "little oasis
of domesticity," tenderly guarded from all insult,--a miniature
world whose joys and sorrows are not to be shared by the outer
universe,--that the Athenian treats the private affairs of his
family as something seldom to be shared, even with an intimate
friend. Of individual women we hear and see little in Athens, but
of NOBLE WOMANHOOD a great deal. By a hundred tokens, delightful
vase paintings, noble monuments, poetic myths, tribute is paid to
the self-mastery, the self-forgetfulness, the courage, the gentleness "of
the wives and mothers who have made Athens the beacon of Hellas";
and there is one witness better than all the rest. Along the
"Street of Tombs," by the gate of the city, runs the long row of
stele (funeral monuments), inimitable and chaste memorials to the
beloved dead; and here we meet, many times over, the portrayal of
a sorrow too deep for common lament, the sorrow for the lovely and
gracious figures who have passed into the great Mystery. Along
the Street of the Tombs the wives and mothers of Athens are honored
not less than the wealthy, the warriors, or the statesmen.

32. The Sphere of Action of Athenian Women.--Assuredly the Athenian
house mother cannot match her husband in discussing philosophy or
foreign politics, but she has her own home problems and confronts
them well. A dozen or twenty servants must be kept busy. From
her, all the young children must get their first education, and the
girls probably everything they are taught until they are married.
Even if she does not meet many men, she will strive valiantly to
keep the good opinion of her husband. If she has shapely feet and
hands (whereupon great stress is laid in Hellas), she will do her
utmost to display them to the greatest advantage[*]; and she has,
naturally, plenty of other vanities (see section 38). Her husband has
turned over to her the entire management of the household. This
means that if he is an easy-going man, she soon understands his
home business far better than he does himself, and really has him
quite at her mercy. Between caring for her husband's wants, nursing
the sick slaves, acting as arbitress in their inevitable disputes,
keeping a constant watch upon the storeroom, and finally in attending
to the manufacture of nearly all the family clothing, she is not
likely to rust in busy idleness, or sit complaining of her lot. At
the many great public festivals she is always at least an onlooker
and often she marches proudly in the magnificent processions. She
is allowed to attend the tragedies in the theater.[+] Probably,
too, the family will own a country farm, and spend a part of the
year thereon. Here she will be allowed a delightful freedom of
movement, impossible in the closely built city. All in all, then,
she will complain of too much enforced activity rather than of too
much idleness.

[*]The custom of wearing sandals instead of shoes of course aided
the developing of beautiful feet.

[+]Not the comedies--they were too broad for refined women. But
the fact that Athenian ladies seem to have been allowed to attend
the tragedies is a tribute to their intellectual capacities. Only
an acute and intelligent mind can follow Aeschylus, Sophocles, and
Euripides.

Nevertheless our judgment upon the Athenian women is mainly one
of regret. Even if not discontented with their lot, they are not
realizing the full possibilities which Providence has placed within
the reach of womanhood, much less the womanhood of the mothers of
the warriors, poets, orators, and other immortals of Athens. One
great side of civilization which the city of Athens might develop
and realize is left unrealized. THIS CIVILIZATION OF ATHENS IS
TOO MASCULINE; it is therefore one sided, and in so far it does not
realize that ideal "Harmony" which is the average Athenian's boast.

Chapter VI. Athenian Costume.

33. The General Nature of Greek Dress.--In every age the important
kingdom of dress has been reserved for the peculiar sovereignty of
woman. This is true in Athens, though not perhaps to the extent of
later ages. Still an Athenian lady will take an interest in "purple
and fine linen" far exceeding that of her husband, and where is there
a more fitting place than this in which to answer for an Athenian,
the ever important question "wherewithal shall I be clothed"?

Once again the Athenian climate comes in as a factor, this time
in the problem of wardrobe. Two general styles of garment have
divided the allegiance of the world,--the clothes that are PUT ON
and the clothes that are WRAPPED AROUND. The former style, with
its jackets, trousers, and leggings, is not absolutely unknown to
the Athenians,--their old enemies, the Persians, wear these[*];
but such clumsy, inelegant garments are despised and ridiculed as
fit only for the "Barbarians" who use them. They are not merely
absurdly homely; they cannot even be thrown off promptly in an
emergency, leaving the glorious human form free to put forth any
noble effort. The Athenians wear the wrapped style of garments,
which are, in final analysis, one or two large square pieces of cloth
flung skillfully around the body and secured by a few well-placed
pins. This costume is infinitely adjustable; it can be expanded
into flowing draperies or contracted into an easy working dress
by a few artful twitches. It can be nicely adjusted to meet the
inevitable sense of "beauty" bred in the bone of every Athenian.
True, on the cold days of midwinter the wearers will go about
shivering; but cold days are the exception, warm days the rule, in
genial Attica.[+]

[*]The Persians no doubt learned to use this style of garment during
their life on the cold, windy steppes of Upper Asia, before they
won their empire in the more genial south.

[+]The whole civilization of Athens was, of course, based on a
climate in which artificial heat would be very little needed. A
pot of glowing charcoal might be used to remove the chill of a
room in the very coldest weather. Probably an Athenian would have
regarded a climate in which furnace heat was demanded nearly eight
months in the year as wholly unfit for civilized man.

This simplicity of costume has produced certain important results.
There are practically no tailors in Athens, only cloth merchants,
bleachers, and dyers. Again fashions (at least in the cut of the
garments) seldom change. A cloak that was made in the days of
Alcibiades (say 420 B.C.) can be worn with perfect propriety to-day
(360 B.C.) if merely it has escaped without severe use or moth
holes. It may be more usual this year to wear one's garments a
little higher or a little more trailing than formerly; but THAT is
simply a matter for a shifting of the pins or of the girdle.

As a result, the Athenian seldom troubles about his "spring" or
"winter" suit. His simple woolen garments wear a very long time;
and they have often been slowly and laboriously spun and woven by
his wife and her slave girls. Of course even a poor man will try
to have a few changes of raiment,--something solid and coarse for
every day, something of finer wool and gayer color for public and
private festivals. The rich man will have a far larger wardrobe,
and will pride himself on not being frequently seen in the same
dress; yet even his outfit will seem very meager to the dandies of
a later age.

34. the Masculine Chiton, Himation, and Chlamya.--The essential
garments of an Athenian man are only two--the CHITON and the HIMATION.
The chiton may be briefly described as an oblong of woolen cloth
large enough to wrap around the body somewhat closely, from the
neck down to just above the knees. The side left open is fastened
by fibule--elegantly wrought pins perhaps of silver or gold; in the
closed side there is a slit for the arm. There is a girdle, and,
if one wishes, the skirt of the chiton may be pulled up through it,
and allowed to hang down in front, giving the effect of a blouse.
The man of prompt action, the soldier, traveler, worker, is "well
girded,"--his chiton is drawn high, but the deliberate old gentleman
who parades the Agora, discussing poetry or statecraft, has his
chiton falling almost to a trailing length. Only occasionally short
sleeves were added to this very simple garment; they are considered
effeminate, and are not esteemed. If one's arms get cold, one can
protect them by pulling up the skirt, and wrapping the arms in the
blouse thus created.

An Athenian gentleman when he is in the house wears nothing but
his chiton; it is even proper for him to be seen wearing nothing
else upon the streets, but then more usually he will add an outer
cloak,--his HIMATION.

The himation is even simpler than the chiton. It is merely a generous
oblong woolen shawl. There are innumerable ways of arranging it
according to the impulse of the moment; but usually it has to be
worn without pins, and that involves wrapping it rather tightly
around the body, and keeping one of the hands confined to hold the
cloak in place. That is no drawback, however, to a genteel wearer.
It proclaims to the world that HE does not have to work, wearing
his hands for a living; therefore he can keep them politely idle.[*]
The adjustment of the himation is a work of great art. A rich man
will often have a special slave whose business it is to arrange
the hang and the folds before his master moves forth in public;
and woe to the careless fellow if the effect fails to display due
elegance and dignity!

[*]Workingmen often wore no himation, and had a kind of chiton (an
exomis) which was especially arranged to leave them with free use
of their arms.

There is a third garment sometimes worn by Athenians. Young men
who wish to appear very active, and genuine travelers, also wear
a CHLAMYS, a kind of circular mantle or cape which swings jauntily
over their shoulders, and will give good protection in foul weather.

There are almost no other masculine garments. No shirts (unless
the chiton be one), no underwear. In their costume, as in so many
things else, the Athenians exemplify their oft-praised virtue of
simplicity.

35. The Dress of the Women.--The dress of the women is like that
of the men, but differs, of course, in complexity. They also have
a chiton,[*] which is more elaborately made, especially in the
arrangement of the blouse; and probably there is involved a certain
amount of real SEWING[+]; not merely of PINNING.

[*]This robe was sometimes known by the Homeric name of PEPLOS.

[+]Probably with almost all Greek garments the main use of the
needle was in the embroidery merely, or in the darning of holes
and rents. It was by no means an essential in the real manufacture.

Greater care is needed in the adjustment of the "zone" (girdle),
and half sleeves are the rule with women, while full sleeves are
not unknown. A Greek lady again cannot imitate her husband, and
appear in public in her chiton only. A himation, deftly adjusted,
is absolutely indispensable whenever she shows herself outside the
house.

These feminine garments are all, as a rule, more elaborately
embroidered, more adorned with fringes and tassels, than those of
the men. In arranging her dress the Athenian lady is not bound
by the rigid precepts of fashion. Every separate toilette is an
opportunity for a thousand little niceties and coquetries which she
understands exceedingly well. If there is the least excuse for an
expedition outside the house, her ladyship's bevy of serving maids
will have a serious time of it. While their mistress cools herself
with a huge peacock-feather fan, one maid is busy over her hair; a
second holds the round metallic mirror before her; a third stands
ready to extend the jewel box whence she can select finger rings,
earrings, gold armlets, chains for her neck and hair, as well as the
indispensable brooches whereon the stability of the whole costume
depends. When she rises to have her himation draped around her,
the directions she gives reveal her whole bent and character. A
dignified and modest matron will have it folded loosely around her
entire person, covering both arms and hands, and even drawing it
over her head, leaving eyes and nose barely visible. Younger ladies
will draw it close around the body so as to show the fine lines of
their waists and shoulders. And in the summer heat the himation
(for the less prudish) will become a light shawl floating loose
and free over the shoulders, or only a kind of veil drawn so as to
now conceal, now reveal, the face.

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