The Greeks never thought of making foreign languages a matter of study, and contented themselves with learning to read and write their own. In so doing the schoolmasters used as text books the works of celebrated epic or elegiac poets, above all Homer, and then the proverbial philosophy of Hesiod, Solon, Phocylides,[7] and others, so that the Greek boy read the great classics of his language at an early age. He was required to learn much of them by heart,[8] especially when books were scarce; and his teacher pointed out the moral lessons either professedly or accidentally contained in these poets. Thus they stood in the place of our Bible and hymns in education. All this was grammar, which with music and gymnastics made up the general education of the Greeks. It excluded the elementary arithmetic of our “three R’s,” and included what they do not, a gentlemanly cultivation in music and field sports. It is very doubtful whether swimming was included, though Herodotus speaks of the Greeks generally as being able to swim. There is, however, evidence that from the fourth century B. C. onwards both elementary geometry and arithmetic, and also drawing, were ordinarily taught.
As regards music, every Greek boy (like modern young ladies) either had or was supposed to have a musical ear, and he was accordingly taught either the harp or the flute, and with it singing. Here again the lyric poems of the greatest poets were taught him, and the Greek music always laid the greatest stress on the words. Aristotle and others complain that amateurs were spending too much time on the practicing of difficult music, and we know from the musical treatises preserved to us that the Greeks thought and taught a great deal more about musical theory and the laws of sound than we do. The Greek tunes preserved are not pleasing, but we know that they used the strictest and most subtle principles in tuning instruments, and understood harmony and discord as well as we do. Great Athenians, like Cimon, were often able to sing and accompany themselves on the harp, or lyre as we should rather call it. The Greeks laid great stress on the moral effects of music, especially as regards the performer, and were very severe in their censure of certain styles of music. They distinguished their scales as modes, and are said to have put far greater stress on keys than we do, calling some manly and warlike (Dorian), others weak and effeminate, or even immoral (Mixo-Lydian). The modern Chinese have the same beliefs about the moral effects of music. The Greeks had their keynote in the middle of the scale, and used chiefly the minor scale of our music. They had different names and signs for the notes of the various octaves which they used, and also different signs for vocal and for instrumental music.
Among the various exercises taught were those in fashion at the public contests in the games—throwing the discus, running, and wrestling, and those of use in war—throwing the dart, managing the sword and shield, and riding. Boxing was not highly esteemed, and seems not to have been properly understood by the Greeks, who would have had no chance against an English prize-fighter. The severest contest was the pancration, where the combatants, who were naked and unarmed, were allowed to use any violence they liked to overcome their adversary. It was therefore a combination of boxing, wrestling and kicking, with occasional biting and gouging by way of additional resource. We hear of a wonderful jumping feat by Phayllus of Croton, who leaped forty-four feet; but as he probably jumped down-hill, and used artificial aids, we can not be sure that it was more than can be done now-a-days. The Spartans specially forbade boxing and the pancration, because the vanquished was obliged to confess his defeat and feel ashamed; and they did not tolerate professional trainers. All the special exercises for developing muscle practiced in our gymnasia seem to have been known, and they were all practiced naked, as being sunburnt was highly valued. The Greeks smeared themselves first with oil and then with sand before their exercises, and cleaned themselves with a scraper or strigil, or in later days by taking a bath.
The servants of the house were of course slaves, with the exception of some field-laborers, and of nurses in times of depression and distress, when some free women went out for hire. To these cases we may add the cook, who was not an inmate of the house before the Macedonian time, but was hired for the day when wanted for a dinner party. All the rest were slaves, and were very numerous in every respectable household. The principal sorts of servants were as follows: There was a general steward; a butler who had charge of the store-room and cellar; a marketing slave; a porter; baking and cooking slaves for preparing the daily meals; an attendant upon the master in his walks, and this was an indispensable servant; a nurse, an escort for the children; and a lady’s maid. In richer houses there was also a groom or mule-boy. This list shows a subdivision of labor more like the habits of our East-Indian families than those of ordinary households in England. If faithful, slaves were often made free, especially by the will of their master on his death-bed, but they did not become citizens. They remained in the position of resident aliens under the patronage of their former master or his representatives.
In proportion as the free population of Greece diminished the freeing of slaves became more and more common, until it actually appears to have been the leading feature in the life of the small towns. Thousands of inscriptions recording this setting free of individual slaves are still found, and on so many various stones, even tombstones, that it almost appears as if material for recording had failed them by reason of the quantity of these documents. The same increase of liberation was a leading feature in the Roman empire, but there the freedman obtained the right and position of a citizen, which was not the case in Greece. The most enlightened moralists of both countries exhorted benevolence toward slaves, and the frequent freeing of them as the duty of humane masters, but none of these writers ever dreamt of the total abolishing of slavery, which they all held to be an institution ordained by nature. This seems also the view of the early Christian writers, who nowhere condemn the principle of slavery as such.
In the oldest times the dead were buried in their own ground, and close beside the house they had occupied. Afterward the burying of the dead within the walls of cities was forbidden except in the case of great public benefactors, who were worshiped as heroes and had a shrine set over them. The rest were buried in the fairest and most populous suburb, generally along both sides of the high road, as at Athens and at Syracuse, where their tombs and the inscriptions occupied the attention of everyone that passed by. The oldest and rudest monuments placed over the tomb were great mounds of earth, then these mounds came to be surrounded by a circle of great stones; afterward chambers were cut underground in the earth or rock, and family vaults established. Handsome monuments in marble, richly painted and covered with sculpture, were set up over the spot. These monuments sometimes attained a size almost as great as a temple. The scenes sculptured on the marble were from the life and occupation of the deceased, more often parting scenes, where they were represented taking leave of their family and friends, nor do we possess any more beautiful and touching remains of Greek life than some of these tombs. In the chamber of the dead many little presents, terra-cotta figures, trinkets and vases were placed, nay, in early times favorite animals, and even slaves or captives were sacrificed in order to be with him; for the Greeks believed that though the parting with the dead was for ever, he still continued to exist, and to interest himself in human affairs and in pursuits like those of living men. The crowded suburbs where the tombs were placed were generally ornamented with trees and flowers, and were a favorite resort of the citizens. The dead bodies of executed criminals were either given back to their relations or, in extreme cases, cast into a special place, generally some natural ravine or valley hidden from view and ordinary thoroughfare. Here the executioner dwelt, who was generally a public slave. This place was called barathrum[9] at Athens, and Ceadas[10] at Sparta.