  HOW THE GREEKS LIVED The Greek Cities. The Greeks lived in cities so much of the time that we do not often think of them as ever living in the country. The reason for this was that their government and everything else important was carried on in the city. The cities were usually surrounded by high, thick stone walls, which made them safe from sudden attack. Within or beside the city there was often a lofty hill, which we should call a fort or citadel, but which they called the upper city or acropolis. There the people lived at first when they were few in number, and thither they fled if the walls of their city were broken down by enemies. In Athens such a hill rose two hundred feet above the plain. Its top was a thousand feet long, and all the sides except one were steep cliffs. On it the Athenians built their most beautiful temples. Private Houses. Unlike people nowadays the Greeks did not spend much money on their dwelling-houses. To us these houses would seem small, badly ventilated, and very uncomfortable. But what their houses lacked was more than made up by the beauty and splendor of the public buildings, halls, theaters, porticoes, and especially the temples. Temples. The temples were not intended to hold hundreds of worshipers like the large churches of Europe and America to-day. Religious ceremonies were most often carried on in the open air. The Parthenon, the most famous temple of Ancient Times, was small. Its principal room measured less than one hundred feet in length. Part of this room was used for an altar and for the ivory and gold statue of the goddess Athena.
The Parthenon. In a picture of the Parthenon, or of a similar temple, we notice the columns in front and along the sides. The Parthenon had eight at each end and seventeen on each side. They were thirty-four feet high. A few feet within the columns on the sides was the wall of the temple. Before the vestibule and entrances at the front and at the rear stood six more columns. The beauty of the marble from which stones and columns were cut might have seemed enough, but the builders carved groups of figures in the three-cornered space (called the pediment) in front between the roof and the stones resting upon the columns. The upper rows of stones beneath the roof and above the columns were also carved, and continuous carvings (called a frieze) ran around the top of the temple wall on the outside. The temple was not left a glistening white, but parts of it were painted in blue, or red, or gilt, or orange.
Other Greek Temples. This beautiful temple is now partly ruined. Ruins of other temples are on the Acropolis, and one better preserved, called the Theseum, stands on a lower hill. There are also similar ruins in many places along the shores of the Mediterranean. The most interesting are
Greek Methods of Building still used. If we look at our large buildings, we shall see much to remind us of the Greek buildings. Sometimes the exact form of the Greek building is imitated; sometimes this form is changed as the Romans changed it, or as it was changed by builders who lived after the time of the Romans. If the model of the whole building is not used, there are similar pillars, or gables, or the sculpture in the pediment and the frieze is imitated. The Greeks had three kinds of pillars, named Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. The Doric is simple and solid, the Ionic shows in its capital, or top, delicate and beautiful curves, while the Corinthian is adorned with leaves springing gracefully from the top of the pillar.
Theaters. The first Greek theater was only a smooth open space near a hillside, with a tent, called a skenÉ, or scene, in which the actors dressed. Later an amphitheater of stone seats was constructed on the hillside, and across the open end was placed the scene, which had been changed into a stone building. On its front sometimes a house or a palace was painted, just as nowadays theaters are furnished with painted scenery. In these open-air theaters thousands of people gathered. Plays were generally given as a part of religious festivals, and there were contests between writers to see which could produce the best play. Sometimes the plays followed one another for three days from morning until night. Many of them are so interesting that people still read them, after twenty-five hundred years. The Romans studied them, and so do modern men who are preparing themselves to write plays.
The Stadium. A building which somewhat resembled the theater was the stadium, where races were run. The difference was that it was oblong instead of half round. The most famous stadium, at Olympia, was seven hundred and two feet long, with raised seats on both sides and around one end of the running track. The other end was open. About fifty thousand persons used to gather there to watch the races. Porticoes. There were other buildings, some for meeting places, some for gymnasiums, and still others called porticoes, where the judges held court or the city officers carried on their business. The porticoes were simply rows of columns, roofed over, with occasionally a second story. As they stretched along the sides of a square or market place they added much to the beauty of a city. Greek Sculpture. We know that the Greeks were skilful sculptors because from the ruins of their cities have been dug wonderful marble and bronze statues which are now preserved in the great museums of the world, in Paris, London, Berlin, and Rome, and here in America, in New York and Boston. Museums which cannot have the original statues usually contain copies or casts of them in plaster. The statues are generally marred and broken, but enough remains to show us the wonderful beauty of the artist's work. Among the most famous are the Venus, of Melos (or "de Milo"), which stands in a special room in a museum called the Louvre in Paris; the Hermes in the museum of Olympia in Greece; and the figures from the Parthenon in the British Museum in London.
Artists nowadays, like the Roman artists long ago, study the Greek statues and the Greek sculpture, in order that they may learn how such beautiful things can be made. They do not hope to excel the Greeks, but are content to remain their pupils. Painting and Pottery. The Greeks were also painters, makers of pottery, and workers in gold and silver. Many pieces of their workmanship have been discovered by those who have dug in the ruins of ancient buildings and tombs.
What the Boys were taught. The Greek boys were not very good at arithmetic, and even grown men used counting boards or their fingers to help them in reckoning. In learning to write they smeared a thin layer of wax over a board and marked on that. There was a kind of paper called papyrus, made from a reed which grew mostly in Egypt, but this was expensive. Rolls were made of sheets of it pasted together, and these were their books. One of the books the boys studied much was the poems of Homer--the Iliad and the Odyssey--which tell about the siege of Troy and the wanderings of Ulysses. Boys often learned these long poems by heart. They also stored away in their memories the sayings of other poets and wise men, so that they could generally know what to think, having with them so many good and wise thoughts put in such excellent words. Games and Exercises for Boys. It is not surprising that Greek boys knew how to play, but it is surprising that they played many of the games which boys play now, such as hide-and-seek, tug of war, ducks and drakes, and blind man's buff. They even "pitched pennies." In school the boys were taught not only to read and write, but to be skilful athletes, and to play on the lyre, accompanying this with singing. The gymnasium was often an open space near a stream into which they could plunge after their exercises were over. They were taught to box, to wrestle, to throw the discus, and to hurl the spear. Military training was important for them, since all might be called to fight for the safety of their city. The Olympic Games. Boys and young men were trained as runners, wrestlers, boxers, and discus throwers, not only because they enjoyed these exercises and the Greeks thought them an important part of education, but also that they might bring back honors and prizes to their city from the great games which all the Greeks held every few years. The most famous of these games were held at Olympia. There the Greeks went from all parts of the country, carrying their tents and cooking utensils with them, because there were not enough houses in Olympia to hold so many people. Wars even were stopped for a time in order that the games might not be postponed. The Rewards of the Victors. The principal contest was a dash for two hundred yards, although there were longer races and many other kinds of contests. Unfortunately the Greeks liked to see the most brutal sort of boxing, in which the boxer's hands and arms were covered with heavy strips of leather stiffened with pieces of iron or lead. For the games men trained ten months, part of the time at Olympia. The prize was a crown of wild olive, and the winner returned in triumph to his city, where poets sang his praises, a special seat at public games was reserved for him, and often artists were employed to make a bronze statue of him to be set up in Olympia or in his own city.
The Government of Athens. The citizen of Athens, and of other Greek cities, had more to do with his government than do most Americans with theirs. As nearly all work was done by slaves, he had plenty of time to attend meetings. All the citizens could attend the great assembly, or ecclesia, where six thousand at least must be present before anything could be decided. By this assembly foreigners might be admitted to citizenship or citizens might be expelled, or ostracized, from Athens as hurtful to its welfare. There was a smaller council of five hundred which decided less important questions without laying them before the general assembly. This body was chosen by lot just as our juries are, but members of the council whose term had ended had a right to object to any new member as an unworthy citizen A tenth of the council ruled for a tenth of the year, and they chose their president by lot every day, so that any worthy man at Athens had a chance to be president for a day and a night. Many citizens also served in the courts, for there were six thousand judges, and in deciding important cases as many as a thousand and one, or even fifteen hundred and one, took part. Before such large courts and assemblies it was necessary to be a good speaker to be able to win a case or persuade the citizens. Some of the greatest orators of the world were Athenians, the best known being Demosthenes.
Socrates. The Athenians were not always just, although so many of them acted as judges. One court, composed of five hundred and one judges, condemned to death Socrates, the wisest man of the Greeks and one of the wisest in the world. He did not make speeches, or write books, or teach in school. He went about, in the market place, at the gymnasium, and on the streets, asking men, young and old, questions about what interested him most, that is, What is the true way to live? If people did not give him an answer which seemed good, he asked more questions, until sometimes they went away angry. Many of them thought because he asked questions about everything that he did not believe in anything, not even in the religion of his city.
The Death of Socrates, 399 B.C. After a while the enemies of Socrates accused him of being a wicked man who persuaded young men to be wicked. He was tried by an Athenian court, which made the terrible blunder of finding him guilty and condemning him to death. According to the Athenian custom he was obliged to drink a cup of poisonous hemlock. This he did, after talking to his friends cheerily about how a good man should live. As he wrote no books we have learned about him from his friends. The most famous of these was Plato, who is also counted among the wisest men that ever lived. The story of the lives of these men is another gift which the Greeks made to all who were to live after them, and it is quite as valuable as are the ways of building, artistic skill, or great poems and plays.
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