Part 22 (1/2)

Upon reaching maturity, the youth was enrolled in the list of citizens.

But his graduation from school was his ”commencement” in a much more real sense than with the average modern graduate. Never was there a people besides the Greeks whose daily life was so emphatically a discipline in liberal culture. The schools of the philosophers, the debates of the popular a.s.sembly, the practice of the law-courts, the religious processions, the representations of an unrivalled stage, the Panh.e.l.lenic games--all these were splendid and efficient educational agencies, which produced and maintained a standard of average intelligence and culture among the citizens of the Greek cities that probably has never been attained among any other people on the earth. Freeman, quoted approvingly by Mahaffy, says that ”the average intelligence of the a.s.sembled Athenian citizens was higher than that of our [the English] House of Commons.”

SOCIAL POSITION OF WOMAN.--Woman's social position in ancient Greece may be defined in general as being about half-way between Oriental seclusion and Western freedom. Her main duties were to cook and spin, and to oversee the domestic slaves, of whom she herself was practically one. In the fas.h.i.+onable society of Ionian cities, she was seldom allowed to appear in public, or to meet, even in her own house, the male friends of her husband. In Sparta, however, and in Dorian states generally, she was accorded much greater freedom, and was a really important factor in society.

The low position generally a.s.signed the wife in the home had a most disastrous effect upon Greek morals. She could exert no such elevating or refining influence as she casts over the modern home. The men were led to seek social and intellectual sympathy and companions.h.i.+p outside the family circle, among a cla.s.s of women known as Hetairae, who were esteemed chiefly for their brilliancy of intellect. As the most noted representative of this cla.s.s stands Aspasia, the friend of Pericles. The influence of the Hetairae was most harmful to social morality.

THEATRICAL ENTERTAINMENTS.--Among the ancient Greeks the theatre was a state establishment, ”a part of the const.i.tution.” This arose from the religious origin and character of the drama (see p. 193), all matters pertaining to the popular wors.h.i.+p being the care and concern of the state.

Theatrical performances, being religious acts, were presented only during religious festivals, and were attended by all cla.s.ses, rich and poor, men, women, and children. The women, however, except the Hetairae, were, it would seem, permitted to witness tragedies only; the comic stage was too gross to allow of their presence. The spectators sat under the open sky; and the pieces followed one after the other in close succession from early morning till nightfall.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GREEK TRAGIC FIGURE.]

There were companies of players who strolled about the country, just as the English actors of Shakespeare's time were wont to do. While the better cla.s.s of actors were highly honored, ordinary players were held in very low esteem. The tragic actor increased his height and size by wearing thick-soled buskins, an enormous mask, and padded garments. The actor in comedy wore thin-soled slippers, or socks. The _sock_ being thus a characteristic part of the make-up of the ancient comic actor, and the _buskin_ that of the tragic actor, these foot coverings have come to be used as the symbols respectively of comedy and tragedy, as in the familiar lines of Dryden:--

”Great Fletcher never treads in buskins here, Nor greater Jonson dares in socks appear.”

The theatre exerted a great influence upon Greek life. It performed for ancient Greek society somewhat the same service as that rendered to modern society by the pulpit and the press. During the best days of h.e.l.las the frequent rehearsal upon the stage of the chief incidents in the lives of the G.o.ds and the heroes served to deepen and strengthen the religious faith of the people; and later, in the Macedonian period, the theatre was one of the chief agents in the diffusion of Greek literary culture over the world.

BANQUETS AND SYMPOSIA.--Banquets and drinking-parties among the Greeks possessed some features which set them apart from similar entertainments among other peoples.

The banquet proper was partaken, in later times, by the guest in a reclining position, upon couches or divans, arranged about the table in the Oriental manner. After the usual courses, a libation was poured out and a hymn sung in honor of the G.o.ds, and then followed that characteristic part of the entertainment known as the _symposium_.

The symposium was ”the intellectual side of the feast.” It consisted of general conversation, riddles, and convivial songs rendered to the accompaniment of the lyre pa.s.sed from hand to hand. Generally, professional singers and musicians, dancing-girls, jugglers, and jesters were called in to contribute to the merrymaking. All the while the wine- bowl circulated freely, the rule being that a man might drink ”as much as he could carry home without a guide,--unless he were far gone in years.”

Here also the Greeks applied their maxim, ”Never too much.”

The banqueters usually consumed the night in merry-making, sometimes being broken in upon from the street by other bands of revellers, who made themselves self-invited guests.

OCCUPATION.--The enormous body of slaves in ancient Greece relieved the free population from most of those forms of labor cla.s.sed as drudgery. The aesthetic Greek regarded as degrading any kind of manual labor that marred the symmetry or beauty of the body.

At Sparta, and in other states where oligarchical inst.i.tutions prevailed, the citizens formed a sort of military cla.s.s, strikingly similar to the military aristocracy of Feudal Europe. Their chief occupation was martial and gymnastic exercises and the administration of public affairs. The Spartans, it will be recalled, were forbidden by law to engage in trade.

In other aristocratic states, as at Thebes, a man by engaging in trade disqualified himself for full citizens.h.i.+p.

In the democratic states, however, speaking generally, labor and trade were regarded with less contempt. A considerable portion of the citizens were traders, artisans, and farmers.

Life at Athens presented some peculiar features. All Attica being included in what we should term the corporate limits of the city, the roll of Athenian citizens included a large body of well-to-do farmers, whose residence was outside the city walls. The Attic plains, and the slopes of the half-encircling hills, were dotted with beautiful villas and inviting farmhouses.

And then Athens being the head of a great empire of subject cities, a large number of Athenian citizens were necessarily employed as salaried officials in the minor positions of the public service, and thus politics became a profession. In any event, the meetings of the popular a.s.sembly and the discussion of matters of state engrossed more or less of the time and attention of every citizen.

Again, the great Athenian jury-courts, which were busied with cases from all parts of the empire, gave constant employment to nearly one fourth of the citizens, the fee that the juryman received enabling him to live without other business. It is said that, in the early morning, when the jurymen were pa.s.sing through the streets to the different courts, Athens appeared like a city wholly given up to the single business of law.

Furthermore, the great public works, such as temples and commemorative monuments, which were in constant process of erection, afforded employment for a vast number of artists and skilled workmen of every cla.s.s.

In the Agora, again, at any time of the day, a numerous cla.s.s might have been found whose sole occupation, as in the case of Socrates, was to talk.

The writer of the ”Acts of the Apostles” was so impressed with this feature of life at Athens that he summarized the habits of the people by saying, ”All the Athenians, and strangers which were there, spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.”

(Chap. xvii. 21.)

SLAVERY.--There was a dark side to Greek life. h.e.l.lenic art, culture, refinement--”these good things were planted, like exquisite exotic flowers, upon the black, rank soil of slavery.”