The most famous schools for medicine were at Croton, Cnidus, Rhodes, and Cos, where the name of Hippocrates is celebrated as the founder. These schools were guilds or trade unions, into which the apprentice entered with a very remarkable and solemn oath. Such accredited physicians were specially exempted by law, in some cities, from prosecution for manslaughter, if their patients died. The descriptions of the symptoms and the treatment of various diseases still preserved in the works attributed to Hippocrates, are so striking for their good sense and acute observation, that the most competent judges consider them the foundation of all rational medicine in Europe.
In all the larger Greek towns the art collections were always the main object of curiosity, which every one went to see. There were the temples either venerable for age, or remarkable for architectural splendor, and in them the statues of the gods, and the portraits of heroes and victors which were the work of famous sculptors. The inner walls of both temples and porticoes were often covered with frescoes, and had even separate pictures hung upon them. In fact, just as we now-a-days go to see in such a town as Antwerp or Rouen the churches, the pictures, the statues and carvings, and the antiquities, so every educated Greek enjoyed the arts, and thought his life incomplete without having seen their highest products. Crowds went to see the Pheidian statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Eros of Praxiteles at Thespiæ, the cow of Myron at Athens. Such great works were constantly copied, and to this practice we owe the inestimable benefit of finding in Roman galleries close imitations of the Greek masterpieces brought from Greece itself.
Each important state was indeed represented in considerable cities by a proxenus, who corresponds to our modern consuls, but of course he could not be expected to offer hospitality to all travelers, though he did so to official visitors. Every distinguished family had accordingly family friends in foreign cities, to whom they were bound by mutual ties of hospitality. These friendships were handed down from generation to generation, and when the traveler had never seen his host he often brought with him a token formerly given to his family by the family he went to visit. On his arrival the host gave him a separate set of apartments, and supplied him with light, fuel and salt; he also sent him his dinner the first day, and invited him to dine afterward, but for the rest the guest was attended by his own servants, and supplied himself. As to the actual traveling, so much of it was done by sea that there seems to have been but indifferent means of journeying on land. To Delphi, Olympia, and such public resorts there were good roads, which could be traveled in carriages, but elsewhere pack mules and riding, or even walking was, as it now is, the only way of crossing the country.
Athletic contests were always held conjointly with festivals, so that we must separate two phases in the greatest and most complex enjoyment of Greek society. In fact, the Greeks always combined religion with sport. The greatest of these meetings was undoubtedly that held at Olympia every five years, and at which the victors were recorded since 776 B. C. It was gradually thrown open to all Peloponnesians, then to all European Greeks, and finally to all the colonies, in 620 B. C. This extension was followed by the founding in rapid succession of the public contests at Delphi (586), the Isthmos of Corinth (582), and Nemea (576 B. C.). They were celebrated in honor of the peculiar god honored at the place—Apollo at Delphi, Poseidon at the Isthmus, Zeus at Nemea and Olympia. There was a solemn truce declared throughout Greece during the Olympic games, and all the world flocked thither to enjoy the sports, meet their friends, transact mercantile or even political business, and publish or advertise new works and new inventions. At Delphi musical and poetical contests predominated, but at the others the athletic elements.
In addition to athletic games, many musical and poetical contests were encouraged at the festivals, as, for example, at the Pythian games, held at Delphi, and at the Dionysia, held at Athens. So much did these competitions come into fashion, that the best advertisement and publication of a new poem, or of a novelty in music, was its production on one of these occasions. The great tragedies handed down to us were all composed in this way, and brought out at Athens in honor of the god Dionysus. For a fee of two obols, granted him by the state, every citizen and his wife, at some contests even resident strangers, could go and sit at the theater, and hear four plays of Æschylus pitted against four plays of Sophocles, and four of Euripides. The endurance of an audience not given to reading, and not fond of staying at home, is of course much greater than that of our modern play-going people.
FESTIVALS.
As the games and dramatic shows were in honor of the gods, or sometimes in honor of deceased heroes, the real celebration consisted in sacrifices, prayers, and solemn processions. These sacrifices were combined with public feasts, as a great many victims were slain. In all processions the military, or citizens in armor, and on horseback, formed, as they now do, an important and imposing part. But we are bound to add that in addition to all the splendor of the festivals and athletic contests, there was the usual collection of mountebanks, jugglers, thimble-riggers, and other bad characters, who now frequent horse races. This was so much the case in later days, that Cicero indignantly denies the report that he had gone to the Olympic games. On the other hand, we must regard the home festivals in each Greek city among the most humane and kindly institutions in their life. They corresponded to our Sundays and holidays, when the hard-worked and inferior classes are permitted to meet and enjoy themselves. This was particularly the case with the slaves, who enjoyed many indulgences on these special days. The women also in such cities as usually insisted upon their seclusion, were allowed to join in processions, and see something of the world; and “the stranger that was within their gates,” or who came to worship at the feast, was received with kindness and hospitality. No executions or punishments were allowed; prisoners were let out on bail, and the sentences of the law for debts or fines were postponed in honor of the gods, who were worshiped not in sadness, but with joy.