THE ATHENIAN PEOPLE
In the fifth century the society of Athens was definitely formed: three classes inhabited the district of Attica—slaves, foreigners, and citizens.
The Slaves.—The slaves constituted the great majority of the population; there was no man so poor that he did not have at least one slave; the rich owned a multitude of them, some as many as five hundred. The larger part of the slaves lived in the house occupied with grinding grain, kneading bread, spinning and weaving cloth, performing the service of the kitchens, and in attendance on their masters. Others labored in the shops as blacksmiths, as dyers, or in stone quarries or silver mines. Their master fed them but sold at a profit everything which they produced, giving them in return nothing but their living. All the domestic servants, all the miners, and the greater part of the artisans were slaves. These men lived in society but without any part in it; they had not even the disposition of their own bodies, being wholly the property of other men. They were thought of only as objects of property; they were often referred to as "a body" (σωμα). There was no other law for them than the will of their master, and he had all power over them—to make them work, to imprison them, to deprive them of their sustenance, to beat them. When a citizen went to law, his adversary had the right to require that the former's slaves should be put to the torture to tell what they knew. Many Athenian orators commend this usage as an ingenious means for obtaining true testimony. "Torture," says the orator Isæus, "is the surest means of proof; and so when you wish to clear up a contested question, you do not address yourselves to freemen, but, placing the slaves to the torture, you seek to discover the truth."
Foreigners.—The name Metics was applied to people of foreign origin who were established in Athens. To become a citizen of Athens it was not enough, as with us, to be born in the country; one must be the son of a citizen. It might be that some aliens had resided in Attica for several generations and yet their family not become Athenian. The metics could take no part in the government, could not marry a citizen, nor acquire land. But they were personally free, they had the right of commerce by sea, of banking and of trade on condition that they take a patron to represent them in the courts. There were in Athens more than ten thousand families of metics, the majority of them bankers or merchants.
The Citizens.—To be a citizen of Athens it was necessary that both parents should be citizens. The young Athenian, come to maturity at about eighteen years of age, appeared before the popular assembly, received the arms which he was to bear and took the following oath: "I swear never to dishonor these sacred arms, not to quit my post, to obey the magistrates and the laws, to honor the religion of my country." He became simultaneously citizen and soldier. Thereafter he owed military service until he was sixty years of age. With this he had the right to sit in the assembly and to fulfil the functions of the state.
Once in a while the Athenians consented to receive into the citizenship a man who was not the son of a citizen, but this was rare and a sign of great favor. The assembly had to vote the stranger into its membership, and then nine days after six thousand citizens had to vote for him on a secret ballot. The Athenian people was like a closed circle; no new members were admitted except those pleasing to the old members, and they admitted few beside their sons.
THE GOVERNMENT OF ATHENS
The Assembly.—The Athenians called their government a democracy (a government by the people). But this people was not, as with us, the mass of inhabitants, but the body of citizens, a true aristocracy of 15,000 to 20,000 men who governed the whole nation as masters. This body had absolute power, and was the true sovereign of Athens. It assembled at least three times a month to deliberate and to vote. The assembly was held in the open air on the Pnyx; the citizens sat on stone benches arranged in an amphitheatre; the magistrates before them on a platform opened the session with a religious ceremony and a prayer, then a herald proclaimed in a loud voice the business which was to occupy the assembly, and said, "Who wishes to speak?" Every citizen had the right to this privilege; the orators mounted the tribune according to age. When all had spoken, the president put the question; the assembly voted by a show of hands, and then dissolved.
The Courts.—The people itself, being sovereign, passed judgment in the courts. Every citizen of thirty years of age could participate in the judicial assembly (the Heliæa). The heliasts sat in the great halls in sections of five hundred; the tribunal was, then, composed of one thousand to fifteen hundred judges. The Athenians had no prosecuting officer as we have; a citizen took upon himself to make the accusation. The accused and the accuser appeared before the court; each delivered a plea which was not to exceed the time marked off by a water-clock. Then the judges voted by depositing a black or white stone. If the accuser did not obtain a certain number of votes, he himself was condemned.
The Magistrates.—The sovereign people needed a council to prepare the business for discussion and magistrates to execute their decisions. The council was composed of five hundred citizens drawn by lot for one year. The magistrates were very numerous: ten generals to command the army, thirty officials for financial administration, sixty police officials to superintend the streets, the markets, weights and measures, etc.[69]
Character of This Government.—The power in Athens did not pertain to the rich and the noble, as in Sparta. In the assembly everything was decided by a majority of votes and all the votes were equal. All the jurors, all the members of the council, all the magistrates except the generals were chosen by lot. The citizens were equal not only in theory, but also in practice. Socrates said[70] to a well-informed Athenian who did not dare to speak before the people: "Of what are you afraid? Is it of the fullers, the shoe-makers, the masons, the artisans, or the merchants? for the assembly is composed of all these people."
Many of these people had to ply their trade in order to make a living, and could not serve the state gratuitously; and so a salary was instituted: every citizen who sat in the assembly or in the courts received for every day of session three obols (about eight cents of our money), a sum just sufficient to maintain life at that time. From this day the poor administered the government.
The Demagogues.—Since all important affairs whether in the assembly or in the courts were decided by discussion and discourse, the influential men were those who knew how to speak best. The people accustomed themselves to listen to the orators, to follow their counsels, to charge them with embassies, and even to appoint them generals. These men were called Demagogues (leaders of the people). The party of the rich scoffed at them: in a comedy Aristophanes represents the people (Demos) under the form of an old man who has lost his wits: "You are foolishly credulous, you let flatterers and intriguers pull you around by the nose and you are enraptured when they harangue you." And the chorus, addressing a charlatan, says to him, "You are rude, vicious; you have a strong voice, an impudent eloquence, and violent gestures; believe me, you have all that is necessary to govern Athens."
PRIVATE LIFE
The Athenians created so many political functions that a part of the citizens was engaged in fulfilling them. The citizen of Athens, like the functionary or soldier of our days, was absorbed in public affairs. Warring and governing were the whole of his life. He spent his days in the assembly, in the courts, in the army, at the gymnasium, or at the market. Almost always he had a wife and children, for his religion commanded this, but he did not live at home.
The Children.—When a child came into the world, the father had the right to reject it. In this case it was laid outside the house where it died from neglect, unless a passer-by took it and brought it up as a slave. In this custom Athens followed all the Greeks. It was especially the girls that were exposed to death. "A son," says a writer of comedy, "is always raised even if the parents are in the last stage of misery; a daughter is exposed even though the parents are rich."
If the father accepted the child, the latter entered the family. He was left at first in the women's apartments with the mother. The girls remained there until the day of their marriage; the boys came out when they were seven years old. The boy was then entrusted to a preceptor (pedagogue), whose business it was to teach him to conduct himself well and to obey. The pedagogue was often a slave, but the father gave him the right to beat his son. This was the general usage in antiquity.
Later the boy went to school, where he learned to read, write, cipher, recite poetry, and to sing in the chorus or to the sound of the flute. At last came gymnastics. This was the whole of the instruction; it made men sound in body and calm in spirit—what the Greeks called "good and beautiful."
To the young girl, secluded with her mother, nothing of the liberal arts was taught; it was thought sufficient if she learned to obey. Xenophon represents a rich and well-educated Athenian speaking thus of his wife with Socrates: "She was hardly twenty years old when I married her, and up to that time she had been subjected to an exacting surveillance; they had no desire that she should live, and she learned almost nothing. Was it not enough that one should find in her a woman who could spin the flax to make garments, and who had learned how to distribute duties to the slaves?" When her husband proposed that she become his assistant, she replied with great surprise, "In what can I aid you? Of what am I capable? My mother has always taught me that my business was to be prudent." Prudence or obedience was the virtue which was required of the Greek woman.
Marriage.—At the age of fifteen the girl married. The parents had chosen the husband; it might be a man from a neighboring family, or a man who had been a long-time friend of the father, but always a citizen of Athens. It was rare that the young girl knew him; she was never consulted in the case. Herodotus, speaking of a Greek, adds: "This Callias deserves mention for his conduct toward his daughters; for when they were of marriageable age he gave them a rich dowry, permitted them to choose husbands from all the people, and he then married them to the men of their choice."
Athenian Women.—In the inner recess of the Athenian house there was a retired apartment reserved for the women—the Gynecæum. Husband and relatives were the only visitors; the mistress of the household remained here all day with her slaves; she directed them, superintended the house-keeping, and distributed to them the flax for them to spin. She herself was engaged with weaving garments. She left the house seldom save for the religious festivals. She never appeared in the society of men: "No one certainly would venture," says the orator Isæus, "to dine with a married woman; married women do not go out to dine with men or permit themselves to eat with strangers." An Athenian woman who frequented society could not maintain a good reputation.
The wife, thus secluded and ignorant, was not an agreeable companion. The husband had taken her not for his life-long companion, but to keep his house in order, to be the mother of his children, and because Greek custom and religion required that he should marry. Plato says that one does not marry because he wants to, but "because the law constrains him." And the comic poet Menander had found this saying: "Marriage, to tell the truth, is an evil, but a necessary evil." And so the women in Athens, as in most of the other states of Greece, always held but little place in society.
FOOTNOTES:
[66] The marble of Pentelicus and the honey of Hymettus.
[67] This legendary king was called Theseus.
[68] Certain limitations, however, are referred to below, under "Metics."—ED.
[69] Not to mention the Archons, whom they had not ventured to suppress.
[70] Xenophon, "Memorabilia," iii., 7, 6.