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.
