HOW THE GREEKS LIVED
THE GREEK CITIES. The Greeks lived in cities so much of the time that
we do not often think of them as ever living in the country. The
reason for this was that their government and everything else
important was carried on in the city. The cities were usually
surrounded by high, thick stone walls, which made them safe from
sudden attack. Within or beside the city there was often a lofty hill,
which we should call a fort or citadel, but which they called the
upper city or acropolis. There the people lived at first when they
were few in number, and thither they fled if the walls of their city
were broken down by enemies.
In Athens such a hill rose two hundred feet above the plain. Its top
was a thousand feet long, and all the sides except one were steep
cliffs. On it the Athenians built their most beautiful temples.
PRIVATE HOUSES. Unlike people nowadays the Greeks did not spend much
money on their dwelling-houses. To us these houses would seem small,
badly ventilated, and very uncomfortable. But what their houses lacked
was more than made up by the beauty and splendor of the public
buildings, halls, theaters, porticoes, and especially the temples.
TEMPLES. The temples were not intended to hold hundreds of worshipers
like the large churches of Europe and America to-day. Religious
ceremonies were most often carried on in the open air. The Parthenon,
the most famous temple of Ancient Times, was small. Its principal room
measured less than one hundred feet in length. Part of this room was
used for an altar and for the ivory and gold statue of the goddess
Athena.
[Illustration: THE ACROPOLIS AT ATHENS AS IT IS TO-DAY]
THE PARTHENON. In a picture of the Parthenon, or of a similar temple,
we notice the columns in front and along the sides. The Parthenon had
eight at each end and seventeen on each side. They were thirty-four
feet high. A few feet within the columns on the sides was the wall of
the temple. Before the vestibule and entrances at the front and at the
rear stood six more columns. The beauty of the marble from which
stones and columns were cut might have seemed enough, but the builders
carved groups of figures in the three-cornered space (called the
pediment) in front between the roof and the stones resting upon the
columns. The upper rows of stones beneath the roof and above the
columns were also carved, and continuous carvings (called a frieze)
ran around the top of the temple wall on the outside. The temple was
not left a glistening white, but parts of it were painted in blue, or
red, or gilt, or orange.
[Illustration: THE TOP OF THE ACROPOLIS 2000 YEARS AGO The
Parthenon is the large temple on the right]
OTHER GREEK TEMPLES. This beautiful temple is now partly ruined. Ruins
of other temples are on the Acropolis, and one better preserved,
called the Theseum, stands on a lower hill. There are also similar
ruins in many places along the shores of the Mediterranean. The most
interesting are at Paestum in Italy, and at Girgenti in Sicily. Long
before these temples were ruined they had taught the Romans how to
construct one of the most beautiful kinds of buildings, and this the
Romans later taught the peoples of western Europe.
GREEK METHODS OF BUILDING STILL USED. If we look at our large
buildings, we shall see much to remind us of the Greek buildings.
Sometimes the exact form of the Greek building is imitated; sometimes
this form is changed as the Romans changed it, or as it was changed by
builders who lived after the time of the Romans. If the model of the
whole building is not used, there are similar pillars, or gables, or
the sculpture in the pediment and the frieze is imitated. The Greeks
had three kinds of pillars, named Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. The
Doric is simple and solid, the Ionic shows in its capital, or top,
delicate and beautiful curves, while the Corinthian is adorned with
leaves springing gracefully from the top of the pillar.
[Illustration: Doric Ionic Corinthian GREEK ORDERS OF
ARCHITECTURE]
[Illustration: RUINS OF THE GREEK THEATER AT EPIDAURUS]
THEATERS. The first Greek theater was only a smooth open space near a
hillside, with a tent, called a _skené_, or scene, in which the
actors dressed. Later an amphitheater of stone seats was constructed
on the hillside, and across the open end was placed the _scene_,
which had been changed into a stone building. On its front sometimes a
house or a palace was painted, just as nowadays theaters are furnished
with painted scenery. In these open-air theaters thousands of people
gathered. Plays were generally given as a part of religious festivals,
and there were contests between writers to see which could produce the
best play. Sometimes the plays followed one another for three days
from morning until night. Many of them are so interesting that people
still read them, after twenty-five hundred years. The Romans studied
them, and so do modern men who are preparing themselves to write
plays.
[Illustration: THE MODERN STADIUM AT ATHENS]
THE STADIUM. A building which somewhat resembled the theater was the
stadium, where races were run. The difference was that it was oblong
instead of half round. The most famous stadium, at Olympia, was seven
hundred and two feet long, with raised seats on both sides and around
one end of the running track. The other end was open. About fifty
thousand persons used to gather there to watch the races.
PORTICOES. There were other buildings, some for meeting places, some
for gymnasiums, and still others called porticoes, where the judges
held court or the city officers carried on their business. The
porticoes were simply rows of columns, roofed over, with occasionally
a second story. As they stretched along the sides of a square or
market place they added much to the beauty of a city.
GREEK SCULPTURE. We know that the Greeks were skilful sculptors
because from the ruins of their cities have been dug wonderful marble
and bronze statues which are now preserved in the great museums of the
world, in Paris, London, Berlin, and Rome, and here in America, in New
York and Boston. Museums which cannot have the original statues
usually contain copies or casts of them in plaster. The statues are
generally marred and broken, but enough remains to show us the
wonderful beauty of the artist's work. Among the most famous are the
Venus, of Melos (or "de Milo"), which stands in a special room in a
museum called the Louvre in Paris; the Hermes in the museum of Olympia
in Greece; and the figures from the Parthenon in the British Museum in
London.
[Illustration: THE DISCUS-THROWER (DISCOBOLOS) An ancient
Greek statue now in the Vatican]
Artists nowadays, like the Roman artists long ago, study the Greek
statues and the Greek sculpture, in order that they may learn how such
beautiful things can be made. They do not hope to excel the Greeks,
but are content to remain their pupils.
PAINTING AND POTTERY. The Greeks were also painters, makers of
pottery, and workers in gold and silver. Many pieces of their
workmanship have been discovered by those who have dug in the ruins of
ancient buildings and tombs.
[Illustration: A GREEK BOOK The upper picture, shows the book
open.]
WHAT THE BOYS WERE TAUGHT. The Greek boys were not very good at
arithmetic, and even grown men used counting boards or their fingers
to help them in reckoning. In learning to write they smeared a thin
layer of wax over a board and marked on that. There was a kind of
paper called papyrus, made from a reed which grew mostly in Egypt, but
this was expensive. Rolls were made of sheets of it pasted together,
and these were their books. One of the books the boys studied much was
the poems of Homer--the Iliad and the Odyssey--which tell about the
siege of Troy and the wanderings of Ulysses. Boys often learned these
long poems by heart. They also stored away in their memories the
sayings of other poets and wise men, so that they could generally know
what to think, having with them so many good and wise thoughts put in
such excellent words.
GAMES AND EXERCISES FOR BOYS. It is not surprising that Greek boys
knew how to play, but it is surprising that they played many of the
games which boys play now, such as hide-and-seek, tug of war, ducks
and drakes, and blind man's buff. They even "pitched pennies." In
school the boys were taught not only to read and write, but to be
skilful athletes, and to play on the lyre, accompanying this with
singing. The gymnasium was often an open space near a stream into
which they could plunge after their exercises were over. They were
taught to box, to wrestle, to throw the discus, and to hurl the spear.
Military training was important for them, since all might be called to
fight for the safety of their city.
THE OLYMPIC GAMES. Boys and young men were trained as runners,
wrestlers, boxers, and discus throwers, not only because they enjoyed
these exercises and the Greeks thought them an important part of
education, but also that they might bring back honors and prizes to
their city from the great games which all the Greeks held every few
years. The most famous of these games were held at Olympia. There the
Greeks went from all parts of the country, carrying their tents and
cooking utensils with them, because there were not enough houses in
Olympia to hold so many people. Wars even were stopped for a time in
order that the games might not be postponed.
THE REWARDS OF THE VICTORS. The principal contest was a dash for two
hundred yards, although there were longer races and many other kinds
of contests. Unfortunately the Greeks liked to see the most brutal
sort of boxing, in which the boxer's hands and arms were covered with
heavy strips of leather stiffened with pieces of iron or lead. For the
games men trained ten months, part of the time at Olympia. The prize
was a crown of wild olive, and the winner returned in triumph to his
city, where poets sang his praises, a special seat at public games was
reserved for him, and often artists were employed to make a bronze
statue of him to be set up in Olympia or in his own city.
[Illustration: GREEK GAMES--RUNNING From an antique vase]
THE GOVERNMENT OF ATHENS. The citizen of Athens, and of other Greek
cities, had more to do with his government than do most Americans with
theirs. As nearly all work was done by slaves, he had plenty of time
to attend meetings. All the citizens could attend the great assembly,
or _ecclesia_, where six thousand at least must be present before
anything could be decided. By this assembly foreigners might be
admitted to citizenship or citizens might be expelled, or ostracized,
from Athens as hurtful to its welfare.
There was a smaller council of five hundred which decided less
important questions without laying them before the general assembly.
This body was chosen by lot just as our juries are, but members of the
council whose term had ended had a right to object to any new member
as an unworthy citizen A tenth of the council ruled for a tenth of the
year, and they chose their president by lot every day, so that any
worthy man at Athens had a chance to be president for a day and a
night.
[Illustration: A DECREE OF THE COUNCIL--ABOUT 450 B.C.]
Many citizens also served in the courts, for there were six thousand
judges, and in deciding important cases as many as a thousand and one,
or even fifteen hundred and one, took part. Before such large courts
and assemblies it was necessary to be a good speaker to be able to win
a case or persuade the citizens. Some of the greatest orators of the
world were Athenians, the best known being Demosthenes.
SOCRATES. The Athenians were not always just, although so many of them
acted as judges. One court, composed of five hundred and one judges,
condemned to death Socrates, the wisest man of the Greeks and one of
the wisest in the world. He did not make speeches, or write books, or
teach in school. He went about, in the market place, at the gymnasium,
and on the streets, asking men, young and old, questions about what
interested him most, that is, What is the true way to live? If people
did not give him an answer which seemed good, he asked more questions,
until sometimes they went away angry. Many of them thought because he
asked questions about everything that he did not believe in anything,
not even in the religion of his city.
[Illustration: SOCRATES After the marble bust in the Vatican]
THE DEATH OF SOCRATES, 399 B.C. After a while the enemies of Socrates
accused him of being a wicked man who persuaded young men to be
wicked. He was tried by an Athenian court, which made the terrible
blunder of finding him guilty and condemning him to death. According
to the Athenian custom he was obliged to drink a cup of poisonous
hemlock. This he did, after talking to his friends cheerily about how
a good man should live. As he wrote no books we have learned about him
from his friends. The most famous of these was Plato, who is also
counted among the wisest men that ever lived. The story of the lives
of these men is another gift which the Greeks made to all who were to
live after them, and it is quite as valuable as are the ways of
building, artistic skill, or great poems and plays.
QUESTIONS
1. Why do we wish to know how the Greeks lived?
2. What was an Acropolis? How does the Acropolis at Athens look?
3. On the picture of the Parthenon point out the pediment. Show
where the frieze was placed. Find on a map Paestum.
4. What did the Greeks first mean by a _scene_? Why do we still
study Greek plays? What is left of the Greek theaters?
5. What was a stadium, a portico, a gymnasium? Do we have such
buildings?
6. How do we know that the Greeks made beautiful statues?
7. What games for Greek boys were like our games? Tell about the
great public games of the Greeks.
8. How were the Greek rolls or books made?
9. Tell the story of Socrates.
EXERCISES
1. Are there any buildings in your town which are like Greek
buildings?
2. Find in your town Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian columns.
3. Get from a wall-paper dealer a sample of a frieze for a papered
room.
4. What is the difference between the government of Athens and the
government of your town?
5. What is the difference between the courts at Athens and the
courts in your town?
6. Are Olympic games held now? Where?
7. Which prizes would you prefer, the prizes given to winners at
Greek games or the prizes given to winners in our athletic games?