furnace to a fresh glow with a long pole curved at the end, and a second apprentice stands looking at him, leaning on his hammer. On the walls hang a variety of tools—hammers, files, a saw, etc.; also models of feet and heads, and little tablets representing sketches of whole men and animals.
No less interesting is the workshop of a vase painter, represented in Fig. [203]. Here we see a youth seated in an armchair, with a large two-handled cup on his knee, which he is painting with the brush held in his right hand; near him stands a little low table, on which are several pots containing paints or varnish. Behind him a young apprentice, who also has pots on the ground near him, is painting a large amphora; on the right a second boy and a girl are working at a cup and another amphora, while a jar and a large drinking-cup (κάνθαρος) stand on the ground, and other vessels hang on the wall. Athene, the patroness of the arts, and Nike are hasting to crown the skilful labourers as the reward of industry.
It is difficult to determine the kind of work which the magnificent old man in Fig. [204], a terra-cotta figure from Tanagra, is doing; in front of him is a board with which he is occupied, and a little gridiron. Some have pronounced him a baker, others a maker of plaster of Paris tablets, others a tanner; perhaps he might be a cook, seated in the street, and frying some quickly-cooked dish over the gridiron, in order to sell it to the common people, who often procured their food in this way from travelling cooks.
Even worse than the position of the artisans was that of the hired workmen, that is, those labourers who, though free citizens, had not learnt any technical art with which they could earn their living, and who were therefore obliged to hire themselves out for
Fig. 202.
hard bodily labour. Not only citizens, but even their wives, were often driven by need to perform such menial offices as day labourers in mills or in the fields; many such workmen carried weights in the harbour, or helped to load or unload the goods, to carry stones for building, etc. The pay was very small, if only on account of the competition of slave labour; sometimes a day’s wages was three or four obols, though higher amounts are mentioned. The fleets, and in particular the rowing boats, were manned out of this class, which was socially regarded as the lowest, and which bore the name of “thetes.”