These would be disputing, and pupils listening to them, imbibing lessons in oratory and philosophy, and then out in the street might perhaps pass some important person like Pericles, the great statesman, or Alcibiades, or Nicias, the admiral. Any of these would be followed by a great retinue of friends and hangers-on and slaves.
In another part of the city there would be busy shops. Most of the Grecian cities were on the coast; and there would be the port and ships coming and going. Then there would be the gymnasia, where the athletes could be watched, doing exercises, playing games, throwing the javelin or the discus, wrestling, and so on.
Some half of the population of the city would probably be slaves, slaves taken in war or by purchase from their parents in Thrace or other barbarous lands. There was a great slave market in Athens itself, and the sea-faring traders and pirates of whom we have spoken did a little slave-trading among their other business. Probably it was seldom that the slaves were badly treated, and we know that they often were set free and often had quite a good time even while they were slaves. The name "slave" really comes from Slav. It is taken from the name of the Slavonic people, because it was from them that most of the slaves were taken. It is not derived from that Latin word "servus," which is translated "slave," and from which our "serf"—the serfs of the Anglo-Saxons—is taken. A slave might rise to quite high employment, and it is curious to think that the large police force in Athens was at one time composed of more than a thousand slaves from Scythia, that land of wild tribes even farther north and east than Thrace.
It seems that the disputations and all the business were very much the affair of the men only. The women took hardly any part. We have spoken of the poetess Sappho; but this was long before. It is evident that the ladies were more important in the Greek society of Homer's day than they were later. We read of no Greek lady of the glorious days as famous in art or music or literature; and only a very few seem to have been allowed to give their opinions on philosophy or politics. It seems as if they counted for less than they ought to count.
The Greeks were great game-players, especially great at athletic games; and we must not forget that though religion appears to have made little difference in their lives, they were a people who had great respect for old customs and were therefore careful to keep up and perform in proper manner religious ceremonies. In some of them the women took a part.
Even in the very midst of their struggle against the Persians, the Greek states were only with the greatest difficulty able to lay aside their jealousy of each other and to come together to fight; and after that danger from the east had been dispelled they were free to fight with each other, or to quarrel about the leadership. They did fight and quarrel unceasingly for some 150 years. After the final repulse of the Persians, Athens for a time gained the leadership, owing to the disgust of the states at the insolence of the Spartans, who had been leaders before. But Sparta was too strong to be put down easily. At last a combination of the rest of the states under the leadership of Thebes fairly conquered Sparta and took possession of the Spartan territory.
Peloponnesian War
The most famous of this long succession of fights is that between Sparta on the one side and Athens, as the leader, on the other. It is usually called the Peloponnesian War, the Peloponnese being all that part of Greece below the Isthmus of Corinth, and it is chiefly famous because its story has been so wonderfully well told by Thucydides.
Thucydides was a very famous Greek historian. So, too, was Herodotus, who wrote long before him. But Herodotus was more of a story-teller. He was a traveller who wrote about what he saw; and always writes truly when he is telling us of what he himself saw. He has strange tales to tell, about one-eyed men and men who carried their heads under one arm, and so on, which were told him by people whom he met; but he tells them with a warning that he will not vouch for them, because he did not see such things himself.