ATHENS 65 posia, or drinking bouts, generally scenes of the wildest license. The education of the citi- zen before this period of luxury fois as follows : After having his name inscribed by his father or other relative in the catalogue of his phratry (see ATTICA) when he was but three or four years old, the young Athenian was brought up during the next few years in the part of the house devoted to the women (gynceceum). At seven his actual education was begun under a pedagogue or tutor, under whose guidance he visited the schools and places of public ath- letic exercises, pursuing courses of rhetoric, mathematics, music, philosophy, and also of manly arts riding, spear-throwing, wrestling, &c. Women and girls were scarcely allowed by decorum any social intercourse, nor were any facilities furnished them for education. This accounts for the fact that the most intel- ligent and brilliant women of Athens were found among the hetarte, a term which is wrongly translated by our word prostitutes; for these women, though actually hired mis- tresses, were generally an orderly, highly educa- ted class, and only obeyed customs which were sanctioned by the age. An Athenian could marry at or after the age of 14. Heiresses were compelled by law to marry their next of kin, outside the natural limits of course, that the property might not pass to another gens. Di- vorce was obtained by the simple consent of both parties ; adultery was severely punished. General View of Modern Athens. (From a recent Photograph.) The Athenian private houses were generally small frame buildings, with tiled roofs: the streets between them were narrow and crooked. Only as late as the time of Olisthenes were fine private houses constructed, and the custom once begun, it increased so fast that Demos- thenes severely reprimanded certain citizens for building houses far surpassing the public edi- fices ; no ruins remain to give us an idea of these. The dress of the Athenians was very simple. The older men wore white robes or Mmatia, the younger the saffron-colored Mamys or tunic. The women wore the chiton, a long woollen robe ; over it a cloak or wrapping, the diploi- don ; and outside this again a simple shoulder cloak or cape, the hemidiploidon. This dress varied little in times of festival. In the present political division of the kingdom of Greece, Athens is the capital of the nomarchy of At- tica and Boeotia, as well as of the entire king- dom. Its population in 1871, after a slow in- crease for several years, was 48,107. It is the residence of the king and court, and the seat of several important institutions of learning, art, and public charity. Among these are the university, employing more than 50 professors and instructors, and having a free library of more than 90,000 volumes ; an observatory and botanical garden; two gymnasia on the Ger- man system; a military school, schools for the special education of priests and teachers, a polytechnic school, a seminary for girls, &c.
