There is very little to say about the heroic period, and we cannot form any complete picture of it. Homer describes only the life of the nobles, but he does not tell us how they spent their time when they were not fighting, though this was a very common occupation, owing to the numerous feuds and predatory expeditions against their neighbours. It is not likely that the princes and nobles spent all their time at festive banquets, delighting in plentiful food and drink, and listening to the songs of the bard, though there are many passages in Homer which might lead us to suppose so. No doubt the pleasures of the feast and of wine were held in very high estimation in the heroic period, yet serious and respectable citizens can hardly have spent their whole day in luxurious idleness, like the wooers of Penelope, who daily feasted at the expense of others. Laertes, who, even in his old age, worked in his garden, was far more typical of the Homeric noble, who was in reality only a landed proprietor on a large scale, and devoted the greater part of his time to agricultural pursuits, himself often taking active part in them. He was also occupied with gymnastic exercises, and occasionally by political duties, such as attendance at the popular assemblies which concerned the interests of the country. But the great mass of the people, as opposed to the few members of the nobility, occupied themselves chiefly with agriculture and cattle rearing, and, to a small extent, with handicrafts which were but slightly developed at this time, when many things were imported from other countries, and others chiefly made at home. Of course they all had to attend their Prince as vassals in case of war, and in consequence there must have been military training for the lower classes, even in time of peace. Apart, however, from military details, we learn nothing from Homer about the life of these classes of society, and very little about that of the nobility, for his description of the life of the Phaeacians bears only a very partial analogy to Greek circumstances at that time, since the poet desires to represent this people as specially fortunate beyond others. We may, therefore, forsake the misty domain of legend and turn to those ages which are enlightened for us by writers, though even there we shall find many gaps unfilled.
It is a natural consequence of the nature of our authorities that, even in historic times, the descriptions of authors present us principally with a reflection of life in towns, and especially large towns or capitals. At the present day life in large towns differs in many essential respects from that in small ones, and even more from that in the country; and doubtless, even in antiquity, there were strong contrasts, though, perhaps, less clearly marked than in modern times. In large towns, too, there were many differences due to the character of the race and the nature of the town itself; the life of a citizen in a large trading city must have been very different from that at a place where there was very little trade, and the interest of the inhabitants was centred in agriculture. But of all this in reality we know very little.
The life of the Spartan citizens was the most regular and uniform, and this in consequence of the fixed and severe demands made on them by the State. Their dwellings, though large and roomy, were of the simplest description, and in other respects, too, the life of the Dorians was distinguished by simplicity, yet even here refinements of life gradually gained ground, and in the Dorian colonies often went so far as to produce effeminacy. Life at Sparta itself adhered longest to its primitive simplicity. Here, too, the old Dorian custom of common meals, called Syssitia or Pheiditia, prevailed longest; a Spartan took his meals, not with his family, but with other companions, usually connected by relationship. They were small parties of about fifteen men, who clubbed together for this purpose; each contributed his appointed share to the expenses of the meal, partly in kind (especially barley, wine, cheese, figs, or dates), partly in money for the purchase of meat. This last was, however, supplied in part by the frequent sacrifices, and also by hunting, for the custom prevailed of contributing additional gifts now and then, apart from the legal contribution: sometimes some game or wheaten bread, instead of the usual barley bread, or poultry, young cattle, fruits, etc., according to opportunity or season. The notorious “black broth,” which played a great part at these meals, was not so much soup as a solid meat dish with broth, and though simple and easily prepared, was probably not as bad as it seemed to the dainty palates of the other Greeks. These common meals, though by no means luxurious, were not in any sense meagre; and though plentiful drinking after the meal was not as customary at Sparta as in other places, yet every guest had his cup beside him filled with mixed wine, and as soon as it was empty it was filled up again by the cup-bearer. The intercourse among these men was cheerful and free; they discussed political and military matters, and also found time for merriment and even singing. Women dined alone at home with the smaller children and the daughters; the boys, as soon as they had outgrown their mother’s care, were taken by their fathers to the mess, and sat beside them there on low stools, receiving little portions of the dishes which were considered suitable for youth. When they grew older they dined together with their own mess.
No Greek race despised handicrafts when pursued for the sake of money as much as the Dorians; no Spartan would pursue a craft or trade. Still the life of the Laconian must not be imagined as one of pure idleness; there were sufficient opportunities for other occupations. In the first place there were the gymnastic and military exercises, which occupied a great part of the day, then there was the study of music, which was continued even after their education had ended; hunting, too, was a very favourite occupation among the Dorians, and was valued on account of its tendency to harden the body. Some time, too, was occupied by State matters, and also by the exercise of religious duties, such as sacrifices, choruses, etc. Moreover, there was a great deal of social life among the men. In most Dorian cities there were special meeting-halls, or club-rooms (λέσχαι), which existed at Athens also and other places. The older citizens used to assemble there and discuss various matters of interest.
We must now turn to Athens, where, in consequence of the more numerous literary authorities, we can form a clearer idea of the conditions, and attempt also to form a picture of the town itself, such as it appeared in its most flourishing period under Pericles, and after his time. It would be a great mistake to form an idea of the appearance of the whole city from the splendid buildings on the Acropolis, the temples which are partly standing at the present day, and the other public buildings which were constructed and decorated without regard to expense. Most private houses were quite plain outside; the ground-floor generally had no windows; there were no splendid porticoes, or elaborate façades, and they were low, seldom having more than two storeys. There was no regular arrangement of streets in the older period, any more than there was in our cities in the middle ages; and even after the burning of the city by the Persians, when dwellings had to be constructed for the returning population, the town was quickly rebuilt without any regular plan. It was not till later that streets were methodically laid out, and this was largely due to the influence of Hippodamus of Miletus, who flourished about the middle of the fifth century, and reformed the ancient style of building cities. Athens itself could not profit by his system, which adopted a uniform artistic plan for the construction of a whole town; but he was able to carry out his scheme in the building of the lower city, near the Peiraeus, which took place under Pericles. Here Hippodamus constructed a network of straight broad streets, cutting each other at right angles, and in the middle he placed a large market, evidently in the form of a square, called the “Market of Hippodamus.” The land belonging to this suburb had probably been very little built on; we do not know whether the State had any right of ownership over these new buildings. The flourishing suburbs, the numerous public squares planted with trees and laid out in the manner of parks, did much to improve the appearance of the city, but a great deal must still have been wanting to make it appear really comfortable to us moderns, or even to the Romans of the Empire. In the first place, the streets were unpaved, and there were no sidewalks; these improvements were not introduced until the Roman period, and Greek antiquity was content with ordinary high roads; it is natural, therefore, that in dry weather the dust, and in rainy weather the mud, should have been disagreeable. Very little attention was paid to the cleanliness of public roads; all kitchen refuse, bath water, etc., was simply poured out of doors; at night it was even thrown straight from the windows on to the street, and though it was usual to call, “Out of the way,” yet careless people might sometimes be besprinkled on their way home at night. There was no public cleansing of the streets; it was left to beneficent rains to wash away all uncleanness, although the street and market police (ἀστυνόμοι) and (ἀγορανόμοι), whose duty it was to maintain order in the streets and market places, were supposed to see that they were kept in proper condition, and could compel proprietors who threw out ashes or other refuse to clear this away; yet they probably confined themselves to keeping the streets in fairly good building condition, and seeing that all was in order when processions had to pass along certain roads. Generally speaking, Nissen[D] is probably right when he maintains that, to form an idea of the life at Athens by any modern counterpart, we must not think of Florence or Munich, but rather of Cairo or Tunis.
As regards the interior of the houses, we know very little about the arrangement and appointment of the rooms. Naturally these were liable to variations, since a small family might inhabit a modest little dwelling, or there might be larger houses, containing numerous apartments. The front door, which opened (sometimes outwards) into the street, at which those who desired entrance knocked with their fingers or the knocker, was opened by a slave, acting as porter, and generally led to a hall, through which, either direct or through a second door, an open hall surrounded with a colonnade (Peristylium) was reached, which in the dwelling-houses of the historic period corresponded to the open courtyard of the Homeric palace, and bears an analogy to the Atrium of the Roman house. This space, which was uncovered in the middle, and surrounded by colonnades, was the usual dwelling-place of the family; sometimes they took their meals there, and the altar to Zeus Herkeios generally stood there. Round about were apartments whose doors, and probably windows, too, opened into the central hall; for it was not customary to have ground-floor windows opening on the street, and the sides of the houses usually touched the walls of the neighbouring buildings, so that the rooms on the ground-floor could, as a rule, only obtain their light from the central hall. Some of these apartments were destined for the men, and others for the women, but there was no general room. If the house was built on a considerable space, and had only one storey, the men’s rooms generally opened direct on the central hall, while the women’s were placed behind these, and were separate from them, having a special door, and doubtless, too, a special corridor, through which the women could reach the street without passing through the men’s apartments. If the house was small it was built in two storeys, and the women’s apartments were then situated in the upper storey. This latter arrangement appears to have been the more frequent. We often find allusions to women looking down on to the street from the windows of the upper storeys, and we also often find women represented on vase pictures sitting at upper-storey windows. These window openings were closed either by bars or wooden shutters, since glass panes were unknown in the Greek period. Where there were a good many slaves, it seems that the male slaves slept in the men’s apartments, and the female in the women’s apartments, except in those cases where the master allowed certain couples to live together. In larger houses, which contained a great number of rooms, we must imagine not only special sleeping and dining apartments, along with guest-chambers, rooms for the slaves, store-rooms, work-rooms, library, bathroom, etc., but also a second hall in the centre of the women’s apartments, and gardens connected with this; though flower gardens seem to have been a late introduction at Athens—it is said, indeed, that they date from the time of Epicurus. We must not assume that everyone had his own house in ancient Athens. It is true that a house could be acquired for a very low price, as is proved by the example of Socrates, whose whole wealth was taxed as five minae (something under twenty pounds), and yet included a house; but still there were a great number of poorer citizens who hired their dwellings. The upper storey, which no doubt had a special entrance, and which occasionally projected beyond the ground-floor, was let to lodgers, while the owner lived on the ground-floor. Large lodging-houses, many storeys high, such as existed at Rome, were probably not found at Athens in the classical period.
We have no certain information about the place of the kitchen. It was probably always on the ground-floor, and was certainly the only room in the house which had a chimney, since there was no heating apparatus in the dwelling rooms. There appears to have been a complete absence of all sanitary conveniences.
At the present day an indispensable factor in our daily occupations is some apparatus for measuring the time. This was not of so much consequence in Greek antiquity, and, in fact, the means for exact division were wanting. They had no exact arrangement of days extending from midnight to midnight, with twenty-four hours of equal length, but instead they distinguished between day-time and night-time, calculating from sunrise to sunset, and naturally the length of these periods differed according to the time of year. These two chief divisions were again subdivided; first came early morning (from about 6 till 9, if we take the equinoctial periods), the forenoon, when the market-place began to fill (9 to 12), the mid-day heat (12 to 3), and the late afternoon (3 to 6); in the night there was, first, the time when the lamps were lit (6 to 10), next the dead hours of the night (10 to 2), last the dawn (2 to 6). Besides this, they divided the day into twelve equal divisions, the length of which naturally varied according to the length of the day. For this purpose they made use of the sun, which was, of course, only available on cloudless days, though these are by no means infrequent in the south. All these arrangements for measuring the time were probably invented by the Babylonians in very ancient times, and introduced among the Greeks by Anaximander about 500 B.C. The most primitive is the “shadow-pointer,” which is only a pointed stick fixed in the earth, or a column, or anything else of the kind; the length of the shadow, which varies with the position of the sun, supplied the standard for calculating the hours. The length of the shadow, which changed from morning to evening, made a superficial division of time possible, but it could not fix the time once for all, for all days of the year, but had to be specially calculated according to the changes of the seasons. Twelve divisions of the day, to be determined by the shadow, corresponded with ours only at the equinox; these hours, if we may use the expression, were longer in summer and shorter in winter than our equinoctial hours. This explains why the time of the chief meal, which was usually taken at about five or six in the afternoon, was indicated sometimes by a 7-foot, sometimes by a 10-or 12-foot, or even a 20-foot shadow; for though at midsummer the shadow would be quite small at this time, it would have a considerable length at the equinox, and at the time of the winter solstice it is probable that they did not dine until after sunset. Unfortunately, we have not sufficient information to determine exactly the length of this shadow-pointer, which was doubtless always the same, in order to prevent confusion. The assumption that the pointer was about the average height of a human being, and that people even used their own shadows for measuring time, is very improbable. Such shadow-pointers probably stood in public places, where everyone could make use of them with help of the lines drawn on the ground; they could only be set up in private dwellings when these had large open spaces (which was not often the case) to which the sun could have access all day long. In later times inventions were made which supplied what was wanting in this mode of reckoning time; lines were graven on the stone floor on which the shadow-pointer stood, which gave, at any rate, some indication of the change in the length of the hours according to the months; a network of lines of this description belonged to the obelisk which Augustus set up on the Campus Martius, and also used as a shadow-pointer.
The sun-dials, invented later than the shadow-pointers, probably by Aristarchus, about 270 B.C., were different; here the shadow of a stick placed in a semicircle, on which the hours were marked by lines, indicated the time of day. There were three kinds: first, those that were calculated at the place on which they were set up, and could not be moved, and which indicated the hours of the day according as they changed in the course of the year; second, those which were arranged for moving, and could be set up at different places; and, third, those used by mathematicians, which showed the equinoctial hours such as we use to-day. It is impossible, however, to determine whether the Greeks were acquainted with all the three kinds which we find in use in the Roman period.
Besides this, water clocks were used, and here again we must distinguish two kinds. The common water clock, which, like our hour-glass, marked a definite period of time by the flowing away of a certain quantity of water, is certainly a very ancient invention. This clock consisted of a vessel of clay or glass, in the shape of a jar or a basin, which was filled with water by an opening above, and a second cup-shaped vessel, on the top of which the former was arranged in such a way that the water poured out slowly through little sieve-like openings into the lower vessel. Water clocks of this kind probably existed in most households, but were not real clocks, since they did not indicate the hour of the day, but were only used for calculating some particular period of time. They were chiefly used in the law courts to mark the time allowed to each speaker, and when a speech was interrupted in order to hear witnesses, or to read out documents, or for any other purpose, the flow of the water was stopped, and it was set going again when the orator continued his speech. These water clocks were also used on other occasions wherever certain periods of time had to be calculated, and this might take place in any household. The same principle underlay the water clocks which were supposed to have been invented by Plato, and perfected by the Alexandrine Ctesibius, by means of which a long period of time could be subdivided into equal parts, and thus the hours of the night could be calculated, which was of great importance. These water clocks could only be constructed when it was possible to make transparent glass vessels large enough to hold a quantity of water sufficient to last for twelve hours and longer; on the glass there was a scale graven, which gave the relation of the hours to the height of the water. But as the length of the night decreases and increases in the course of the