A General History for Colleges and High Schools (Myers)/Chapter 21
CHAPTER XXI.
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE GREEKS.
Education.—Education at Sparta, where it was chiefly gymnastic, as we have seen (p. 115), was a state affair; but at Athens and throughout Greece generally, the youth were trained in private schools. These schools were of all grades, ranging from those kept by the most obscure teachers, who gathered their pupils in some recess of the street, to those established in the Athenian Academy and Lyceum by such philosophers as Plato and Aristotle.
It was only the boys who received education. These Grecian boys, Professor Mahaffy imagines, were "the most attractive the world has ever seen." At all events, we may believe that they were trained more carefully and delicately than the youth among any other people before or since the days of Hellenic culture.
In the nursery, the boy was taught the beautiful myths and stories of the national mythology. At about seven he entered school, being led to and from the place of training by an old slave, who bore the name of pedagogue, which in Greek means a guide or leader of boys—not a teacher. His studies were grammar, music, and gymnastics, the aim of the course being to secure a symmetrical development of mind and body alike.
Grammar included reading, writing, and arithmetic; music, which embraced a wide range of mental accomplishments, trained the boy to appreciate the masterpieces of the great poets, to contribute his part to the musical diversions of private entertainments, and to join in the sacred choruses and in the pæan of the battle-field. The exercises of the palestræ and the gymnasia trained him for the Olympic contests, or for those sterner hand-to-hand battle-struggles, in which so much depended upon personal strength and dexterity.
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 assembly, the practice of the law-courts, the religious processions, the representations of an unrivalled stage, the Panhellenic 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 assembled 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 fashionable 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 assigned 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 companionship outside the family circle, among a class of women known as Hetairæ, who were esteemed chiefly for their brilliancy of intellect. As the most noted representative of this class stands Aspasia, the friend of Pericles The influence of the Hetairæ was most harmful to social morality.
Theatrical Entertainments.—Among the ancient Greeks the theatre was a state establishment, "a part of the constitution." This arose from the religious origin and character of the drama (see p. 193), all matters pertaining to the popular worship being the care and concern of the state. Theatrical performances, being religious acts, were presented only during religious festivals, and were attended by all classes, rich and poor, men, women, and children. The women, however, except the Hetairæ, 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.
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 class 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 Hellas the frequent rehearsal upon the stage of the chief incidents in the lives of the gods and the heroes served to deepen and strengthen the religious faith of the people j 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 gods, 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 passed 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 classed 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 institutions prevailed, the citizens formed a sort of military class, 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 citizenship.
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-todo 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 assembly 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 passing 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 class.
In the Agora, again, at any time of the day, a numerous class 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. Hellenic art, culture, refinement—"these good things were planted, like exquisite exotic flowers, upon the black, rank soil of slavery."
The proportion of slaves to the free population in many of the states was astonishingly large. In Corinth and Ægina there were ten slaves to every freeman. In Attica the proportion was four to one; that is to say, out of a population of about 500,000, 400,000 were slaves.[1] Almost every freeman was a slave owner. It was accounted a real hardship to have to get along with less than half a dozen slaves.
This large class of slaves was formed in various ways. In the prehistoric period, the fortunes of war had brought the entire population of whole provinces into a servile condition, as in certain parts of the Peloponnesus. During later times, the ordinary captives of war still further augmented the ranks of these unfortunates. Their number was also largely added to by the slave traffic carried on with the barbarian peoples of Asia Minor. Criminals and debtors, too, were often condemned to servitude; while foundlings were usually brought up as slaves.
The relation of master and slave was regarded by the Greek as being, not only a legal, but a natural one. A free community, in his view, could not exist without slavery. It formed the natural basis of both the family and the state,—the relation of master and slave being regarded as " strictly analogous to the relation of soul and body." Even Aristotle and other Greek philosophers approved the maxim that "slaves are simply domestic animals possessed of intelligence." They were regarded as just as necessary in the economy of the family as cooking utensils.
In general, Greek slaves were not treated harshly—judging their treatment by the standard of humanity that prevailed in antiquity. Some held places of honor in the family, and enjoyed the confidence and even the friendship of their master. Yet at Sparta, where slavery assumed the form of serfdom, the lot of the slave was peculiarly hard and unendurable.
If slavery was ever justified by its fruits, it was in Greece. The brilliant civilization of the Greeks was its product, and could never have existed without it. As one truthfully says, " Without the slaves the Attic democracy would have been an impossibility, for they alone enabled the poor, as well as the rich, to take a part in public affairs." Relieving the citizen of all drudgery, the system created a class characterized by elegant leisure, refinement, and culture.
We find an almost exact historical parallel to all this in the feudal aristocracy of Mediaeval Europe. Such a society has been well likened to a great pyramid, whose top may be gilded with light, while the base lies in dark shadows. The civilization of ancient Hellas was splendid and attractive, but it rested with a crushing weight upon all the lower orders of Greek society.
- ↑ The population of Attica in 317 B.C. is reckoned at about 527,000. That of Athens in its best days was probably not far from 150,000.