The Children.
44. The Desirability of Children in Athens.—Besides the oversight of
the slaves the Athenian matron has naturally the care of the children.
A childless home is one of the greatest of calamities. It means a
solitary old age, and still worse, the dying out of the family and the
worship of the family gods. There is just enough of the old
superstitious “ancestor worship” left in Athens to make one shudder at
the idea of leaving the “deified ancestor” without any descendants to
keep up the simple sacrifices to their memory. Besides, public opinion
condemns the childless home as not contributing to the perpetuation of
the city. How Corinth, Thebes, or Sparta will rejoice, if it is plain
that Athens is destroying herself by race suicide! So at least _one_
son will be very welcome. His advent is a day of happiness for the
father, of still greater satisfaction for the young mother.
45. The Exposure of Infants.—How many more children are welcome
depends on circumstances. Children are expensive luxuries. They must
be properly educated and even the boys must be left a fair fortune.[*]
The girls must always have good dowries, or they cannot “marry
according to their station.” Public opinion, as well as the law,
allows a father (at least if he has one or two children already) to
exercise a privilege, which later ages will pronounce one of the
foulest blots on Greek civilization. After the birth of a child there
is an anxious day or two for the poor young mother and the faithful
nurses.—Will he ‘nourish’ it? Are there boys enough already? Is the
disappointment over the birth of a daughter too keen? Does he dread
the curtailment in family luxuries necessary to save up for an
allowance or dowry for the little stranger? Or does the child promise
to be puny, sickly, or even deformed? If any of these arguments carry
adverse weight, there is no appeal against the father’s decision. He
has until the fifth day after the birth to decide. In the interval he
can utter the fatal words, “Expose it!” The helpless creature is then
put in a rude cradle, or more often merely in a shallow pot and placed
near some public place; _e.g._ the corner of the Agora, or near a
gymnasium, or the entrance to a temple. Here it will soon die of mere
hunger and neglect unless rescued. If the reasons for exposure are
evident physical defects, no one will touch it. Death is certain. If,
however, it seems healthy and well formed, it is likely to be taken up
and cared for. Not out of pure compassion, however. The harpies who
raise slaves and especially slave girls, for no honest purposes, are
prompt to pounce upon any promising looking infant. They will rear it
as a speculation; if it is a girl, they will teach it to sing, dance,
play. The race of light women in Athens is thus really recruited from
the very best families. The fact is well known, but it is constantly
winked at. Aristophanes, the comic poet, speaks of this exposure of
children as a common feature of Athenian life. Socrates declares his
hearers are vexed when he robs them of pet ideas, “like women who have
had their children taken from them.” There is little or nothing for
men of a later day to say of this custom save condemnation.[+]
[*] The idea of giving a lad a “schooling” and then turning him loose
to earn his own living in the world was contrary to all Athenian theory
and practice.
[+] About the only boon gained by this foul usage was the fact that,
thanks to it, the number of physically unfit persons in Athens was
probably pretty small, for no one would think of bringing up a child
which, in its first babyhood, promised to be a cripple.
46. The Celebration of a Birth.—But assuredly in a majority of cases,
the coming of a child is more than welcome. If a girl, tufts of wool
are hung before the door of the happy home; if a boy, there is set out
an olive branch. Five days after the birth, the nurse takes the baby,
wrapped almost to suffocation in swaddling bands, to the family hearth
in the _andron_, around which she runs several times, followed
doubtless, in merry, frolicking procession, by most of the rest of the
family. The child is now under the care of the family gods. There is
considerable eating and drinking. Exposure now is no longer possible.
A great load is off the mind of the mother. But on the “tenth day”
comes the real celebration and the feast. This is the “name day.” All
of the kinsmen are present. The house is full of incense and garlands.
The cook is in action in the kitchen. Everybody brings simple gifts,
along with abundant wishes of good luck. There is a sacrifice, and
during the ensuing feast comes the naming of the child. Athenian names
are very short and simple.[*] A boy has often his father’s name, but
more usually his grandfather’s, as, _e.g._, Themistocles, the son of
Neocles, the son of Themistocles: the father’s name being usually
added in place of a surname. In this way certain names will become a
kind of family property, and sorrowful is the day when there is no
eligible son to bear them!
The child is now a recognized member of the community. His father has
accepted him as a legitimate son, one of his prospective heirs,
entitled in due time to all the rights of an Athenian citizen.
[*] Owing to this simplicity and the relatively small number of
Athenian names, a directory of the city would have been a perplexing
affair.
47. Life and Games of Young Children.—The first seven years of a Greek
boy’s life are spent with his nurses and his mother. Up to that time
his father takes only unofficial interest in his welfare. Once past the
first perilous “five days,” an Athenian baby has no grounds to complain
of his treatment. Great pains are taken to keep him warm and well
nourished. A wealthy family will go to some trouble to get him a
skilful nurse, those from Sparta being in special demand, as knowing
the best how to rear healthy infants. He has all manner of toys, and
Aristotle the philosopher commends their frequent donation; otherwise,
he says, children will be always “breaking things in the house.”
Babies have rattles. As they grow older they have dolls of painted
clay or wax, sometimes with movable hands and feet, and also toy
dishes, tables, wagons, and animals. Lively boys have whipping toys,
balls, hoops, and swings. There is no lack of pet dogs, nor of all
sorts of games on the blind man’s bluff and “tag” order.[*] Athenian
children are, as a class, very active and noisy. Plato speaks
feelingly of their perpetual “roaring.” As they grow larger, they
begin to escape more and more from the narrow quarters of the courts of
the house, and play in the streets.
[*] It is not always easy to get the exact details of such ancient
games, for the “rules” have seldom come down to us; but generally
speaking, the games of Greek children seem extremely like those of the
twentieth century.
[Illustration: The Maternal Slipper]
48. Playing in the Streets.—Narrow, dirty, and dusty as the streets
seem, children, even of good families, are allowed to play in them.
After a rain one can see boys floating toy boats of leather in every
mud puddle, or industriously making mud pies. In warm weather the
favorite if cruel sport is to catch a beetle, tie a string to its legs,
let it fly off, then twitch it back again. Leapfrog, hide-and-seek,
etc., are in violent progress down every alley. The streets are not
all ideal playgrounds. Despite genteel ideas of dignity and
moderation, there is a great deal of foul talk and brawling among the
passers, and Athenian children have receptive eyes and ears. Yet on
the other hand, there is a notable regard and reverence for childhood.
With all its frequent callousness and inhumanity, Greek sentiment
abhors any brutality to young children. Herodotus the historian tells
of the falling of a roof, whereby one hundred and twenty school
children perished, as being a frightful calamity,[*] although
recounting cold-blooded massacres of thousands of adults with never a
qualm; and Herodotus is a very good spokesman for average Greek
opinion.
[*] Herodotus, VI. 27.
49. The First Stories and Lessons.—Athens has no kindergartens. The
first teaching which children will receive is in the form of fables and
goblin tales from their mothers and nurses,—usually with the object of
frightening them into “being good,”—tales of the spectral Lamiæ, or of
the horrid witch Mormo who will catch nasty children; or of Empusa, a
similar creature, who lurks in shadows and dark rooms; or of the
Kabaloi, wild spirits in the woods. Then come the immortal fables of
Æsop with their obvious application towards right conduct. Athenian
mothers and teachers have no two theories as to the wisdom of corporeal
punishment. The rod is never spared to the spoiling of the child,
although during the first years the slipper is sufficient. Greek
children soon have a healthy fear of their nurses; but they often learn
to love them, and funeral monuments will survive to perpetuate their
grateful memory.
50. The Training of Athenian Girls.—Until about seven years old
brothers and sisters grow up in the _Gynæconitis_ together. Then the
boys are sent to school. The girls will continue about the house until
the time of their marriage. It is only in the rarest of cases that the
parents feel it needful to hire any kind of tutor for _them_. What the
average girl knows is simply what her mother can teach her. Perhaps a
certain number of Athenian women (of good family, too) are downright
illiterate; but this is not very often the case. A normal girl will
learn to read and write, with her mother for school mistress.[*] Very
probably she will be taught to dance, and sometimes to play on some
instrument, although this last is not quite a proper accomplishment for
young women of good family. Hardly any one dreams of giving a woman
any systematic intellectual training.[+] Much more important it is
that she should know how to weave, spin, embroider, dominate the cook,
and superintend the details of a dinner party. She will have hardly
time to learn these matters thoroughly before she is “given a husband,”
and her childhood days are forever over (see § 27).
[*] There has come down to us a charming Greek terra-cotta (it is true,
not from Athens) showing a girl seated on her mother’s knee, and
learning from a roll which she holds.
[+] Plato suggested in his _Republic_ (V. 451 f.) that women should
receive the same educational opportunities as the men. This was a
proposition for Utopia and never struck any answering chord.
Meantime her brother has been started upon a course of education which,
both in what it contains and in what it omits, is one of the most
interesting and significant features of Athenian life.