Part 2 (1/2)
18. The Leisured Cla.s.s 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 partic.i.p.ation 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 a.s.sert,--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 c.o.xcombs,” 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 inst.i.tutions. For example, the barber shops are almost club rooms. Few h.e.l.lenes 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 h.e.l.lenic 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 G.o.d to man, or upon the spiritual symbolism of Scopas's bas-reliefs at Halicarna.s.sus.
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 Furnis.h.i.+ngs.
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 s.p.a.ce to display some temple, like the Fane of Hephaestos[*] near the Market Place, its columns and pediment flas.h.i.+ng 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.