A Day In Old Athens

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Children wear miniature imitations of the dress of their elders.
Boys are taught to toughen their bodies by refraining from thick
garments in cold weather. In hot weather they can frequently be
seen playing about with very little clothing at all!

36. Footwear and Head Coverings.--Upon his feet the Athenian
frequently wears nothing. He goes about his home barefoot; and not
seldom he enjoys the delight of running across the open greensward
with his unsandaled feet pressing the springing ground; but normally
when he walks abroad, he will wear SANDALS, a simple solid pair of
open soles tied to his feet by leather thongs passing between the
toes. For hard country walking and for hunting there is something
like a high leather boot,[*] though doubtless these are counted
uncomfortable for ordinary wear. As for the sandals, simple as
they are, the Attic touch of elegance is often upon them. Upon the
thongs of the sandals there is usually worked a choice pattern, in
some brilliant color or even gilt.

[*]Actors, too, wore a leather boot with high soles to give them
extra height--the COTHURNUS.

The Athenians need head coverings even less than footgear. Most of
them have thick hair; baldness is an uncommon affliction; everybody
is trained to walk under the full glare of Helios with little
discomfort. Of course certain trades require hats, e.g. sailors
who can be almost identified by their rimless felt caps. Genteel
travelers will wear wide-brimmed hats; but the ladies, as a rule,
have no headgear besides their tastefully arranged hair, although
they will partly atone for the lack, by having a maid walk just
behind them with a gorgeously variegated parasol.

37. The Beauty of the Greek Dress.--Greek Costume, then, is
something fully sharing in the national characteristics of harmony,
simplicity, individuality. It is easy to see how admirably this
style of dress is adapted to furnish over ready models and inspiration
for the sculptor.[*] Unconventional in its arrangement, it is
also unconventional in its color. A masculine crowd is not one
unmitigated swarm of black and dark grays or browns, as with the
multitude of a later age. On the contrary, white is counted as
theoretically the most becoming color on any common occasion for
either sex;[+] and on festival days even grave and elderly men
will appear with chitons worked with brilliant embroidery along the
borders, and with splendid himatia of some single clear hue--violet,
red, purple, blue, or yellow. As for the costume of the groom at
a wedding, it is far indeed from the "conventional black" of more
degenerate days. He may well wear a purple-edged white chiton of
fine Milesian wool, a brilliant scarlet himation, sandals with blue
thongs and clasps of gold, and a chaplet of myrtle and violets.
His intended bride is led out to him in even more dazzling array.
Her white sandal-thongs are embroidered with emeralds, rubies, and
pearls. Around her neck is a necklace of gold richly set,--and
she has magnificent golden armlets and pearl eardrops. Her hair
is fragrant with Oriental nard, and is bound by a purple fillet
and a chaplet of roses. Her ungloved fingers shine with jewels
and rings. Her main costume is of a delicate saffron, and over it
all, like a cloud, floats the silvery tissue of the nuptial veil.

[*]"The chiton became the mirror of the body," said the late writer
Achilles Tatius.

[+]No doubt farmers and artisans either wore garments of a
non-committal brown, or, more probably, let their originally white
costume get utterly dirty.

38. Greek Toilet Frivolities.--From the standpoint of inherent
fitness and beauty, this Athenian costume is the noblest ever seen
by the world. Naturally there are ill-advised creatures who do
not share the good taste of their fellows, or who try to deceive
the world and themselves as to the ravages of that arch-enemy of
the Hellene,--Old Age. Athenian women especially (though the men
are not without their follies) are sometimes fond of rouge, false
hair, and the like. Auburn hair is especially admired, and many
fine dames bleach their tresses in a caustic wash to obtain it.
The styles of feminine hair dressing seem to change from decade to
decade much more than the arrangements of the garments. Now it is
plaited and crimped hair that is in vogue, now the more beautiful
"Psyche-knots"; yet even in their worst moods the Athenian women
exhibit a sweet reasonableness. They have not yet fallen into the
clutches of the Parisian hairdresser.

The poets, of course, ridicule the foibles of the fair sex.[*]
Says one:--

The golden hair Nikylla wears
Is hers, who would have thought it?
She swears 'tis hers, and true she swears
For I know where she bought it!

And again:--

You give your cheeks a rosy stain,
With washes dye your hair;
But paint and washes both are vain
To give a youthful air.
An art so fruitless then forsake,
Which, though you much excel in,
You never can contrive to make
Old Hecuba young Helen.

[*]Translated in Falke's "Greece and Rome" (English translation,
p. 69). These quotations probably date from a time considerably
later than the hypothetical period of this sketch; but they are
perfectly proper to apply to conditions in 360 B.C.

But enough of such scandals! All the best opinion--masculine and
feminine--frowns on these follies. Let us think of the simple,
dignified, and esthetically noble costume of the Athenians as not
the least of their examples to another age.

Chapter VII. The Slaves.

39. Slavery an Integral Part of Greek Life.--An Athenian lady cares
for everything in her house,--for the food supplies, for the clothing,
yet probably her greatest task is to manage the heterogeneous
multitude of slaves which swarm in every wealthy or even well-to-do
mansion.[*]

[*]The Athenians never had the absurd armies of house slaves which
characterized Imperial Rome; still the numbers of their domestic
servants were, from a modern standpoint, extremely large.

Slaves are everywhere: not merely are they the domestic servants,
but they are the hands in the factories, they run innumerable little
shops, they unload the ships, they work the mines, they cultivate
the farms. Possibly there are more able-bodied male slaves in
Attica than male free men, although this point is very uncertain.
Their number is the harder to reckon because they are not required
to wear any distinctive dress, and you cannot tell at a glance
whether a man is a mere piece of property, or a poor but very proud
and important member of the "Sovereign Demos [People] of Athens."

No prominent Greek thinker seems to contest the righteousness and
desirability of slavery. It is one of the usual, nay, inevitable,
things pertaining to a civilized state. Aristotle the philosopher
puts the current view of the case very clearly. "The lower sort
of mankind are BY NATURE slaves, and it is better for all inferiors
that they should be under the rule of a master. The use made of
slaves and of tame animals is not very different; for both by their
bodies minister to the needs of life." The intelligent, enlightened,
progressive Athenians are naturally the "masters"; the stupid,
ignorant, sluggish minded Barbarians are the "inferiors." Is it
not a plain decree of Heaven that the Athenians are made to rule,
the Barbarians to serve?--No one thinks the subject worth serious
argument.

Of course the slave cannot be treated quite as one would treat an
ox. Aristotle takes pains to point out the desirability of holding
out to your "chattel" the hope of freedom, if only to make him work
better; and the great philosopher in his last testament gives freedom
to five of his thirteen slaves. Then again it is recognized as
clearly against public sentiment to hold fellow Greeks in bondage.
It is indeed done. Whole towns get taken in war, and those of
the inhabitants who are not slaughtered are sold into slavery.[*]
Again, exposed children, whose parents have repudiated them, get
into the hands of speculators, who raise them "for market." There
is also a good deal of kidnapping in the less civilized parts of
Greece like Aetolia. Still the proportion of genuinely GREEK slaves
is small. The great majority of them are "Barbarians," men born
beyond the pale of Hellenic civilization.

[*]For example, the survivors, after the capture of Melos, in the
Peloponesian War.

40. The Slave Trade in Greece.--There are two great sources of
slave supply: the Asia Minor region (Lydia and Phrygia, with Syria
in the background), and the Black Sea region, especially the northern
shores, known as Scythia. It is known to innumerable heartless
"traders" that human flesh commands a very high price in Athens
or other Greek cities. Every little war or raid that vexes those
barbarous countries so incessantly is followed by the sale of the
unhappy captives to speculators who ship them on, stage by stage,
to Athens. Perhaps there is no war; the supply is kept up then
by deliberately kidnapping on a large scale, or by piracy.[*] In
any case the arrival of a chain gang of fettered wretches at the
Peireus is an everyday sight. Some of these creatures are submissive
and tame (perhaps they understand some craft or trade); these can
be sold at once for a high price. Others are still doltish and
stubborn. They are good for only the rudest kind of labor, unless
they are kept and trained at heavy expense. These brutish creatures
are frequently sold off to the mines, to be worked to death by the
contractors as promptly and brutally as one wears out a machine;
or else they become public galley slaves, when their fate is
practically the same. But we need not follow such horrors.

[*]A small but fairly constant supply of slaves would come from
the seizure of the persons and families of bankrupt debtors, whose
creditors, especially in the Orient, might sell them into bondage.

The remainder are likely to be purchased either for use upon the
farm, the factory, or in the home. There is a regular "circle"
at or near the Agora for traffic in them. They are often sold at
auction. The price of course varies with the good looks, age,[*]
or dexterity of the article, or the abundance of supply. "Slaves
will be high" in a year when there has been little warfare and
raiding in Asia Minor. "Some slaves," says Xenophon, "are well
worth two mine [$36.00 (1914) or $640.80 (2000)] and others barely
half a mina [$9.00 (1914) or $160.20 (2000)]; some sell up to five
mine [$90.00 (1914) or $1,602.00 (2000)] and even for ten [$180.00
(1914) or $3,204.00 (2000)]. Nicias, the son of Nicaretus, is
said to have given a talent [over $1,000.00 (1914) or $17,800.00
(2000)] for an overseer in the mines."[+] The father of Demosthenes
owned a considerable factory. He had thirty-two sword cutters
worth about five mine each, and twenty couch-makers (evidently less
skilled) worth together 40 mine [about $720.00 (1914) or $12,816.00
(2000)]. A girl who is handsome and a clever flute player, who will
be readily hired for supper parties, may well command a very high
price indeed, say even 30 mine [about $540.00 (1914) or $9,612.00
(2000)].

[*]There was probably next to no market for old women; old men in
broken health would also be worthless. Boys and maids that were
the right age for teaching a profitable trade would fetch the most.

[+]Xenophon, "Memorabilia," ii. 5, section 2.

41. The Treatment of Slaves in Athens.--Once purchased, what is
the condition of the average slave? If he is put in a factory, he
probably has to work long hours on meager rations. He is lodged
in a kind of kennel; his only respite is on the great religious
holidays. He cannot contract valid marriage or enjoy any of the
normal conditions of family life. Still his evil state is partially
tempered by the fact that he has to work in constant association
with free workmen, and he seems to be treated with a moderate amount
of consideration and good camaraderie. On the whole he will have
much less to complain of (if he is honest and industrious) than
his successors in Imperial Rome.

In the household, conditions are on the whole better. Every Athenian
citizen tries to have at least ONE slave, who, we must grant, may
be a starving drudge of all work. The average gentleman perhaps
counts ten to twenty as sufficient for his needs. We know of
households of fifty. There must usually be a steward, a butler in
charge of the storeroom or cellar, a marketing slave, a porter,
a baker, a cook,[*] a nurse, perhaps several lady's maids,
the indispensable attendant for the master's walks (a graceful,
well-favored boy, if possible), the pedagogue for the children,
and in really rich families, a groom, and a mule boy. It is the
business of the mistress to see that all these creatures are kept
busy and reasonably contented. If a slave is reconciled to his
lot, honest, cheerful, industrious, his condition is not miserable.
Athenian slaves are allowed a surprising amount of liberty, so
most visitors to the city complain. A slave may be flogged most
cruelly, but he cannot be put to death at the mere whim of his
master. He cannot enter the gymnasium, or the public assembly; but
he can visit the temples. As a humble member of the family he has
a small part usually in the family sacrifices. But in any case he is
subject to one grievous hardship: when his testimony is required
in court he must be "put to the question" by torture. On the
other hand, if his master has wronged him intolerably, he can take
sanctuary at the Temple of Theseus, and claim the privilege of being
sold to some new owner. A slave, too, has still another grievance
which may be no less galling because it is sentimental. His name
(given him arbitrarily perhaps by his master) is of a peculiar
category, which at once brands him as a bondsman: Geta, Manes,
Dromon, Sosias, Xanthias, Pyrrhias,--such names would be repudiated
as an insult by a citizen.

[*]Who, however, could not be trusted to cook a formal dinner. For
such purpose an expert must be hired.

42. Cruel and Kind Masters.--Slavery in Athens, as everywhere
else, is largely dependent upon the character of the master; and
most Athenian masters would not regard crude brutality as consistent
with that love of elegance, harmony, and genteel deliberation
which characterizes a well-born citizen. There do not lack masters
who have the whip continually in their hands, who add to the raw
stripes fetters and branding, and who make their slaves unceasingly
miserable; but such masters are the exception, and public opinion
does not praise them. Between the best Athenians and their slaves
there is a genial, friendly relation, and the master will put up
with a good deal of real impertinence, knowing that behind this
forwardness there is an honest zeal for his interests.

Nevertheless the slave system of Athens is not commendable. It
puts a stigma upon the glory of honest manual labor. It instills
domineering, despotic habits into the owners, cringing subservience
into the owned. Even if a slave becomes freed, he does not become
an Athenian citizen; he is only a "metic," a resident foreigner,
and his old master, or some other Athenian, must be his patron and
representative in every kind of legal business. It is a notorious
fact that the MERE STATE of slavery robs the victim of his self-respect
and manhood. Nevertheless nobody dreams of abolishing slavery as
an institution, and the Athenians, comparing themselves with other
communities, pride themselves on the extreme humanity of their
slave system.

43. The "City Slaves" of Athens.--A large number of nominal "slaves"
in Athens differ from any of the creatures we have described. The
community, no less than an individual, can own slaves just as it
can own warships and temples. Athens owns "city slaves" (Demosioi)
of several varieties. The clerks in the treasury office, and the
checking officers at the public assemblies are slaves; so too are
the less reputable public executioners and torturers; in the city
mint there is another corps of slave workers, busy coining "Athena's
owls"--the silver drachmas and four-drachma pieces. But chiefest
of all, THE CITY OWNS ITS PUBLIC POLICE FORCE. The "Scythians"
they are called from their usual land of origin, or the "bowmen,"
from their special weapon, which incidentally makes a convenient
cudgel in a street brawl. There are 1200 of them, always at the
disposal of the city magistrates. They patrol the town at night,
arrest evil-doers, sustain law and order in the Agora, and especially
enforce decorum, if the public assemblies or the jury courts become
tumultuous. They have a special cantonment on the hill of Areopagus
near the Acropolis. "Slaves" they are of course in name, and
under a kind of military discipline; but they are highly privileged
slaves. The security of the city may depend upon their loyal zeal.
In times of war they are auxiliaries. Life in this police force
cannot therefore be burdensome, and their position is envied by
all the factory workers and the house servants.

Chapter VIII. The Children.

44. The Desirability of Children in Athens.--Besides the oversight
of the slaves the Athenian matron has naturally the care of the
children. A childless home is one of the greatest of calamities.
It means a solitary old age, and still worse, the dying out of the
family and the worship of the family gods. There is just enough
of the old superstitious "ancestor worship" left in Athens to make
one shudder at the idea of leaving the "deified ancestor" without
any descendants to keep up the simple sacrifices to their memory.
Besides, public opinion condemns the childless home as not contributing
to the perpetuation of the city. How Corinth, Thebes, or Sparta
will rejoice, if it is plain that Athens is destroying herself by
race suicide! So at least ONE son will be very welcome. His advent
is a day of happiness for the father, of still greater satisfaction
for the young mother.

45. The Exposure of Infants.--How many more children are welcome
depends on circumstances. Children are expensive luxuries. They
must be properly educated and even the boys must be left a fair
fortune.[*] The girls must always have good dowries, or they cannot
"marry according to their station." Public opinion, as well as
the law, allows a father (at least if he has one or two children
already) to exercise a privilege, which later ages will pronounce
one of the foulest blots on Greek civilization. After the birth
of a child there is an anxious day or two for the poor young mother
and the faithful nurses.--Will he 'nourish' it? Are there boys
enough already? Is the disappointment over the birth of a daughter
too keen? Does he dread the curtailment in family luxuries necessary
to save up for an allowance or dowry for the little stranger? Or
does the child promise to be puny, sickly, or even deformed? If
any of these arguments carry adverse weight, there is no appeal
against the father's decision. He has until the fifth day after
the birth to decide. In the interval he can utter the fatal words,
"Expose it!" The helpless creature is then put in a rude cradle,
or more often merely in a shallow pot and placed near some public
place; e.g. the corner of the Agora, or near a gymnasium, or the
entrance to a temple. Here it will soon die of mere hunger and
neglect unless rescued. If the reasons for exposure are evident
physical defects, no one will touch it. Death is certain. If,
however, it seems healthy and well formed, it is likely to be
taken up and cared for. Not out of pure compassion, however. The
harpies who raise slaves and especially slave girls, for no honest
purposes, are prompt to pounce upon any promising looking infant.
They will rear it as a speculation; if it is a girl, they will
teach it to sing, dance, play. The race of light women in Athens
is thus really recruited from the very best families. The fact
is well known, but it is constantly winked at. Aristophanes, the
comic poet, speaks of this exposure of children as a common feature
of Athenian life. Socrates declares his hearers are vexed when
he robs them of pet ideas, "like women who have had their children
taken from them." There is little or nothing for men of a later
day to say of this custom save condemnation.[+]

[*]The idea of giving a lad a "schooling" and then turning him loose
to earn his own living in the world was contrary to all Athenian
theory and practice.

[+]About the only boon gained by this foul usage was the fact that,
thanks to it, the number of physically unfit persons in Athens
was probably pretty small, for no one would think of bringing up
a child which, in its first babyhood, promised to be a cripple.

46. The Celebration of a Birth.--But assuredly in a majority
of cases, the coming of a child is more than welcome. If a girl,
tufts of wool are hung before the door of the happy home; if a boy,
there is set out an olive branch. Five days after the birth, the
nurse takes the baby, wrapped almost to suffocation in swaddling
bands, to the family hearth in the "andron," around which she runs
several times, followed doubtless, in merry, frolicking procession,
by most of the rest of the family. The child is now under the care
of the family gods. There is considerable eating and drinking.
Exposure now is no longer possible. A great load is off the mind
of the mother. But on the "tenth day" comes the real celebration
and the feast. This is the "name day." All of the kinsmen are
present. The house is full of incense and garlands. The cook is
in action in the kitchen. Everybody brings simple gifts, along with
abundant wishes of good luck. There is a sacrifice, and during
the ensuing feast comes the naming of the child. Athenian names
are very short and simple.[*] A boy has often his father's name,
but more usually his grandfather's, as, e.g., Themistocles, the
son of Neocles, the son of Themistocles: the father's name being
usually added in place of a surname. In this way certain names
will become a kind of family property, and sorrowful is the day
when there is no eligible son to bear them!

The child is now a recognized member of the community. His father
has accepted him as a legitimate son, one of his prospective heirs,
entitled in due time to all the rights of an Athenian citizen.

[*]Owing to this simplicity and the relatively small number of
Athenian names, a directory of the city would have been a perplexing
affair.

47. Life and Games of Young Children.--The first seven years of a
Greek boy's life are spent with his nurses and his mother. Up to
that time his father takes only unofficial interest in his welfare.
Once past the first perilous "five days," an Athenian baby has
no grounds to complain of his treatment. Great pains are taken
to keep him warm and well nourished. A wealthy family will go to
some trouble to get him a skilful nurse, those from Sparta being
in special demand, as knowing the best how to rear healthy infants.
He has all manner of toys, and Aristotle the philosopher commends
their frequent donation; otherwise, he says, children will be
always "breaking things in the house." Babies have rattles. As
they grow older they have dolls of painted clay or wax, sometimes
with movable hands and feet, and also toy dishes, tables, wagons,
and animals. Lively boys have whipping toys, balls, hoops, and
swings. There is no lack of pet dogs, nor of all sorts of games on
the blind man's bluff and "tag" order.[*] Athenian children are,
as a class, very active and noisy. Plato speaks feelingly of their
perpetual "roaring." As they grow larger, they begin to escape
more and more from the narrow quarters of the courts of the house,
and play in the streets.

[*]It is not always easy to get the exact details of such ancient
games, for the "rules" have seldom come down to us; but generally
speaking, the games of Greek children seem extremely like those of
the twentieth century.

48. Playing in the Streets.--Narrow, dirty, and dusty as the
streets seem, children, even of good families, are allowed to play
in them. After a rain one can see boys floating toy boats of
leather in every mud puddle, or industriously making mud pies. In
warm weather the favorite if cruel sport is to catch a beetle, tie
a string to its legs, let it fly off, then twitch it back again.
Leapfrog, hide-and-seek, etc., are in violent progress down every
alley. The streets are not all ideal playgrounds. Despite genteel
ideas of dignity and moderation, there is a great deal of foul talk
and brawling among the passers, and Athenian children have receptive
eyes and ears. Yet on the other hand, there is a notable regard
and reverence for childhood. With all its frequent callousness and
inhumanity, Greek sentiment abhors any brutality to young children.
Herodotus the historian tells of the falling of a roof, whereby one
hundred and twenty school children perished, as being a frightful
calamity,[*] although recounting cold-blooded massacres of thousands
of adults with never a qualm; and Herodotus is a very good spokesman
for average Greek opinion.

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