More reputable, though not less noisy, is the fish market. Athenians boast themselves of being no hearty “meat eaters” like their Bœotian neighbors, but of preferring the more delicate fish. No dinner party is successful without a seasonable course of fish. The arrival of a fresh cargo from the harbor is announced by the clanging of a bell, which is likely to leave all the other booths deserted, while a crowd elbows around the fishmonger. He above all others commands the greatest flow of billingsgate, and is especially notorious for his arrogant treatment of his customers, and for exacting the uttermost farthing. The “Fish” and the “Myrtles” can be sure of a brisk trade on days when all the other booth keepers around the Agora stand idle.
All this trade, of course, cannot find room in the booths of the open Agora. Many hucksters sit on their haunches on the level ground with their few wares spread before them. Many more have little stands between the pillars of the stoæ; and upon the various streets that converge on the market there is a fringe of shops, but these are usually of the more substantial sort. Here are the barbers’ shops, the physicians’ offices (if the good leech is more than an itinerant quack), and all sorts of little factories, such as smithies, where the cutler’s apprentices in the rear of the shop forge the knives which the proprietor sells over the counter, the slave repositories, and finally wine establishments of no high repute, where wine may not merely be bought by the skin (as in the main Agora), but by the potful to be drunk on the premises.
17. The Morning Visitors to the Agora.—The first tour of inspection completed, several facts become clear to the visitor. One is the extraordinarily large proportion of men among the moving multitudes. Except for the bread women and the flower girls, hardly one female is to be found among the sellers. Among the purchasers there is not a single reputable lady. No Athenian gentlewoman dreams of frequenting the Agora. Even a poor man’s wife prefers to let her spouse do the family marketing. As for the “men folk,” the average gentleman will go daily indeed to the Agora, but if he is really pretentious, it will be merely to gossip and to meet his friends; a trusted servant will attend to the regular purchasing. Only when an important dinner party is on hand will the master take pains to order for himself. If he does purchase in person, he will never carry anything himself. The slaves can attend to that; and only the slaveless (the poorest of all) must take away their modest rations of boiled lentils, peas, beans, onions, and garlic, usually in baskets, though yonder now is a soldier who is bearing off a measure of boiled peas inside his helmet.
Another thing is striking. The average poor Athenian seems to have no purse. Or rather he uses the purse provided by nature. At every booth one can see unkempt buyers solemnly taking their small change from their mouths.[*] Happy the people that has not learned the twentieth century wisdom concerning microbes! For most Athenians seem marvelously healthy.
[*] A wealthier purchaser would, of course, have his own pouch, or more probably one carried for him by a slave.
Still one other fact is brought home constantly. “Fixed prices” are absolutely unknown. The slightest transaction involves a war of bargaining. Wits are matched against wits, and only after a vast deal of wind do buyer and seller reach a fair compromise. All this makes retail trade in the Agora an excellent school for public affairs or litigation.
18. The Leisured Class in Athens.—Evidently Athens, more than many later-day cities, draws clear lines between the workers and the “gentlemen of leisure.” There is no distinction of dress between the numerous slaves and the humbler free workers and traders; but there is obvious distinction between the artisan of bent shoulders who shambles out of yonder pungent tannery, with his scant garments girded around him, and the graceful gentleman of easy gestures and flowing drapery who moves towards the Tholos. There is great political democracy in Athens, but not so much social democracy. “Leisure,” i.e. exemption from every kind of sordid, money-getting, hard work, is counted the true essential for a respectable existence, and to live on the effort of others and to devote oneself to public service or to letters and philosophy is the open satisfaction or the private longing of every Athenian.
A great proportion of these, therefore, who frequent the Agora are not here on practical business, unless they have official duties at the government offices.[*] But in no city of any age has the gracious art of doing nothing been brought to such perfection. The Athenians are an intensely gregarious people. Everybody knows everybody else. Says an orator, “It is impossible for a man to be either a rascal or an honest man in this city without your all knowing it.” Few men walk long alone; if they do keep their own company, they are frowned on as “misanthropes.” The morning visit to the Agora “to tell or to hear some new thing”[+] will be followed by equally delightful idling and conversation later in the day at the Gymnasia, and later still, probably, at the dinner-party. Easy and unconventional are the personal greetings. A little shaking out of the mantle, an indescribable flourish with the hands. A free Greek will despise himself for “bowing,” even to the Great King. To clasp hands implies exchanging a pledge, something for more than mere salutation.
“Chaire, Aristomenes!”
“Chaire, Cleandros!”