A Day in Old Athens; a Picture of Athenian Life

ross the Attic plain, and touching the opposite slopes of ?galeos with livid fire. Already, however, life is stirring outside the city. Long since, little market boats h

en statue of the Athena Promachos are flashing from the noble citadel, as a kind of day beacon, beckoning onward toward the city. From the Peir?us, the harbor town,

kins, his legs wound with woolen bands in lieu of stockings; before him and his wolf-like dog shambles a flock of black sheep or less manageable goats, bleating and baaing as they are propelled toward market. After him there may come an unkempt, long-bearded farmer flogging on a pack ass or a mule attached to a clumsy cart with solid wheels, and laden with all kinds of market produce. The roadway, be it said, is not good, and all carters have their troubles; therefore, there is a deal of gesticulating and profane invocation of Hermes and all other gods of traffic; for, ear

ude becomes slow. If it is one of the main thoroughfares, it is now very likely to be almost blocked with people. There are few late risers at Athens; the Council of Five Hundred[*], the huge Jury Courts, and the Public Assembly (if it has met to-day[+]) are appointed to gather at sunrise. The plays in the theater, which, however,

ommittee of the Athenian people to a

, the regular courts and th

e they wait their turn with the pitchers, and laugh and exchange banter with the passing farmers' lads. Many in the street crowds are rosy-cheeked schoolboys, walking decorously, if they are lads of good breeding, and blushing modestly when they are greeted by their fathers' acquaintances. They do not loiter on the way. Close behind, carrying their writing tablets, follow the faithful 'pedagogues,' the body-servants appointed to conduct them to school, give the

Worse still, they are contaminated by great accumulations of filth; for the city is without an efficient sewer system or regular scavengers. Even as the crowd elbows along, a house door will frequently open, an ill-favored slave boy show his head, and with the yell, "Out of the way!" slap a bucket o

t plague of 430 B.C. (during the Pelopon

es, but all around seems only monotonous squalor. The houses seem one continuous series of blank walls; mostly of one, occasionally of two stories, and with flat roofs. These walls are usually spread over with some dirty gray or perhaps yellow stucco. For most houses, the only break in the street walls are the simple doors, all jealously barred and admitting no glance within. There are usually no street windows, if the house is only one story high. If it has two stories, a few na

ERSONS (including the METICS-resident foreigners without citizenship); and a rather smaller number of slaves-say 150,000 or less. Of this total of some 350,000, probably something under one half resided in the city of Athe

hinning, now gaining, but the main stream

supposed[*]. It is easy enough to say that the Athenians lacked such things as railways, telephones, gas, grapefruit, and cocktails. All such matters we realize were not known by our fathers and grandfathers, and we are not yet so removed from THEM that we cannot transport ourselves in imagination back to the world of say 1820 A.D.; but the Athenians are far behind even our grandfathers. When we investigate, we will find conditions like these-houses absolutely without plumbing, beds without sheets, rooms as hot or as cold as the outer

ysical limitations of the old Athenian life i

mmern

e himself well able to live happily under conditions where the average American or Englishman would be cold, semi-starved, and miserable. He would declare that HIS woe or happiness was retained far more under his own control than we retain ours, an

The difference in viewpoint, however, must still stand. Pre?minently Athens may be called the "City of the Simple Life." Bearing this fact in

nfinitely more complex along the material side when he tried to live like a "kalos-k'agathos"-i.e. a "noble and good man," or a "gen