By J. P. MAHAFFY, A.M.

General Features of the Greek Household.—While the citizen prized above all things his liberty and his rights as a member of the state—a feeling which produced in many cases a citizen democracy—this principle was unknown within the household, in which he was a despot, ruling absolutely the inferior members, who had no legal grades except as distinguished into free and slaves. The laws were very cautious about interfering with his rights, and he was permitted to exercise much injustice and cruelty without being punished. If in such a case he was murdered by his dependants, the whole household of slaves was put to death, unless the culprit was detected. Nor could a household exist (except perhaps in Sparta) without the master. If he died, his widow became again the ward of her father or eldest brother, or son; and so strongly was this sometimes felt that men on their death-beds betrothed their wives to friends, who were likely to treat them and their orphan children with kindness. Of course clever women and servants often practically had their own way, and ruled their lord or master; but the theory of the Greek home was nevertheless always that of an absolute monarchy, if not a despotism.

The Lady of the House—Her Dress.—There were two distinct styles of female dress prevalent. The first was the Dorian, which was noted for its simplicity. Unmarried girls at Sparta often wore but a single light garment (chitonion) fastened with clasps down the sides—a dress much criticized by their neighbors. Over this was the Doric peplos, fastened on the shoulders with clasps and leaving the arms bare. The Ionians wore a long linen chiton with sleeves, which reached down to the ground, and over it a large flowing wrapper, fastened with a girdle, worn high or low according to fashion; whereas the other band called strophion was worn under the chiton, and took the place of modern stays. As a general rule, unmarried women confined their hairdressing to mere artistic arrangement of the hair itself, while married women wore bands, fillets, nets, and coronets. Dyeing the hair was not uncommon, and the fashionable color was auburn, or reddish fair hair. Women’s shoes were very carefully made, and they carried fans and parasols, as may be seen in the terra-cotta figures so common in our museums. Both sexes wore rings, but in addition the women wore earrings, armlets, and ankle-rings, generally of gold. These were the ornaments against which lawgivers made enactments, and which were forbidden or discouraged in days of trouble or poverty. The ornaments of one rich lady are spoken of as worth 50 minÆ (about £195), a very large sum in those days. The ordinary color of women’s dress was white, but saffron cloaks, and even flowered patterns, are mentioned.

Her Duties.—The constant outdoor life of the Greek gentleman, his many occupations in politics, and campaigns in war, must have made a sensible wife even more necessary than she is to modern men, and yet we do not find that any Greeks valued her high qualities for these important duties rightly except the Spartans. For among them alone we find the mistress of the house a person of real importance, appearing when she chooses in public, and even offering an opinion which is respected on public affairs. In cultivated Athens, on the contrary, she was only taught spinning and cooking, and what rude medicine might be wanting for the treatment of her household in trifling illness. One of her main duties was always the weighing out of wool to her women slaves, and her own working at the loom. If a lady of the higher classes, she was not supposed to appear to male visitors, but only saw her lady friends and her nearest male relatives in her own house. She seldom went out, except either to the funeral of a near relation or to some religious procession and sacrifice. Thus the liberty of women varied from a freedom as great as need be in Sparta to a life of seclusion and neglect at Athens. Other states may have held an intermediate position. As for the vaunted dignity and liberty of ladies in Homer, it is to be remarked that he speaks of the wives and daughters of reigning princes, who probably retained the same importance in historical Greece, wherever they were to be found. For example, aristocratic ladies, such as Cimon’s sister, Elpinice, were unrestrained, even at Athens, and went where they chose. This was also the case everywhere with the poor people, who could not afford to keep their wives and daughters in the idleness and the restraint unfortunately so fashionable in higher life.

Her Rights.—In Homeric days we find the old barbarous custom still surviving of buying a girl from her father for a wife, and this was commonly done, unless the father himself offered her as a compliment. The father, however, usually gave her an outfit from the price he received for her. In case of a separation this outfit came back to the father, but he was also obliged to restore the price he had received for his daughter. She does not appear to have had any legal rights whatever. In later days the custom of paying money was reversed, and the husband received with his wife a dowry, which was regarded as common property with his own, so long as she lived with him. In case of separation or divorce, this dowry had to be repaid to her father, and at Athens 18 per cent. was charged upon it in case of delay in repayment. In many states to marry a second wife during the life of the first was against the practice, and probably the law, of the Greeks, but concubinage was tolerated and even recognized by them, though a married woman had at Athens a right to bring an action for general ill-treatment against her husband, in which she was obliged to appear and give evidence in person. The dowry seems to have been partly intended as a useful obstacle to divorce, which required its repayment, but we find that heiresses made themselves troublesome by their airs of importance, and this is referred to in Greek literature, in which men are frequently advised not to marry above them in wealth or connections. As all citizens were considered equal in birth, and as marriages with aliens were illegal and void, we do not hear of advice to young men not to marry beneath them. To marry a poor citizen girl was always considered a good deed, and is commended as such.

Wedding Customs.—Though marriage among the Greeks was recognized thoroughly as a civil contract, for the purpose of maintaining the household, and raising citizens for the state, yet a religious solemnity was considered by them not less essential to its dignity than by us, and though this ceremony was not performed by an official priest, it consisted in prayers and offerings to the gods who presided over marriage. These were generally Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite, and Artemis, but many local fashions existed. So also the full moon and the winter season were generally but not everywhere preferred. A bath in the most sacred water of the district was thought necessary before the union, by way of purification. Omens were carefully observed, and votive offerings dedicated to the gods. The preliminaries closed with a solemn sacrifice and feast combined, at which the bride was present, closely veiled, with her female friends. This was often a large dinner party, for we find laws restricting the number to thirty, and complaints of the bad taste of much display. She was then brought in solemn procession late in the evening to her husband’s house, generally on a carriage, with the bridegroom and his best man sitting on either side of her. Both were covered with garlands and perfumed, while the HymenÆus or marriage song was sung by the company to the sound of harps and flutes. The bride’s mother had the special duty of carrying a torch behind the carriage, while the bridegroom’s mother received them torch in hand at his door. The bride brought with her some household utensils, and was presented with others, and with sweetmeats, on her arrival. The next morning the married pair separated for a day (apaulia), and the bridegroom slept at the house of his father-in-law, when the bride sent him a present of a garment. Then only the young couple were to receive their friends, who offered congratulations and wedding-presents, which were called anakalupteria, because the bride unveiled herself to her friends on that day. Such were the general customs of a Greek marriage, but many old and rude habits survived in various places. Of these the most primitive was that of Sparta, where the bridegroom pretended to carry off his bride by violence, and visited her secretly for some time even after his marriage. This marriage by capture is still common among savages, and points to a ruder state of life than the marriage by purchase, which was common in Homer’s time.

Of the Birth and Treatment of Infants.—When a child was born in the house, it was usual in Attica, and probably elsewhere also, to hang a wreath of olive in case of a boy, a fillet of wool in case of a girl, over the door. This served as an announcement to friends and neighbors. Greek law permitted the parents absolutely to dispose of it as their property, and there was no provision against exposing it, which was often done in case of girls, in order to avoid expense. These exposed children if found and brought up, became the slaves of the finder. But on the other hand, the laws showed special favor to the parents of large families. If a child was not exposed, there followed on the fifth day a solemn purification of all the people in the house, and on the seventh a sacrifice, when the relations assembled and the child was named, generally after parents and grand-parents, sometimes by reason of special wants or fancies—in fact on the same principles which we follow in christening our children. There is no evidence until the later Macedonian times that birthday feasts were held yearly; and Epicurus’ direction that his should be kept after his death was thought very peculiar. Children of rich people were often nursed by hired nurses—an employment to which respectable Athenian citizens were reduced in the hard times at the end of the Peloponnesian war. But a LacedÆmonian nurse was specially valued, and often bought at a great price among prisoners, as they were famed for bringing up the child without swaddling-clothes, and making him hardy and courageous. The Greeks used cradles for children as we do, and gave them honey as we do sugar, and the nurses represented on the vases are distinguished by a peculiar kerchief on the head, as they often are in our day by a cap or national costume.

Of Toys and Games for Children.—As might be expected, the inventive genius of the Greeks showed itself in the constructing of all manner of toys, and children devised for themselves perhaps all the games now known and many more besides. Aristotle says you must provide them with toys, or they will break things in the house, and the older philosopher Archytas was celebrated for inventing the child’s rattle. Plato also complains of the perpetual roaring of younger, and the mischievousness of older, children. We may infer from these things that the Greek boys were fully as troublesome as our own. They had balls, hoops, swings, hobbyhorses, and dice, with dolls for the girls, and various animals of wood and earthenware, like the contents of our Noah’s arks. They played hide and seek, blind man’s buff, French and English, hunt the slipper, the Italian morra, and many other games which the scholiasts and Germans have in vain endeavored to explain. But for grown people, we do not find many games, properly speaking, played for the game’s sake, like our cricket. There was very simple ball-playing, and, of course, gambling with dice. Of gymnastic exercises I will speak separately.

Greek Education Generally.—As for the girls of the house, they were brought up to see and hear as little as possible. They only went out upon a few state occasions, and knew how to work wool and weave, as well as to cook. We may fairly infer that the great majority of them could not read or write. The boys, on the contrary, were subjected to the most careful education, and on no point did the Greek law-givers and philosophers spend more care than in the proper training, both physical and mental, of their citizens. The modern system, however, of public school training was not practiced anywhere save at Sparta, where a state schoolmaster (paidonomos) was appointed, and all the Spartan boys taken out of the control of their parents. They lived together under the care of elder boys, as well as masters, so that the system of monitors, and even that of fagging, was in ordinary practice. They were encouraged to fight out their disputes, and were much given to sports and athletic amusements, just like our schoolboys. But the public school training and discipline lasted much longer at Sparta than among us, and embraced the university period, as well as the school period, of life.

In the other states of Greece, which were chiefly towns, or suburbs of towns, the system of day schools was universal, and the boys went to and from home under the charge of a special slave, chosen because he was no longer fit for hard work. He was called the boy’s leader, or pedagogue (paidagogos), a word which never meant schoolmaster among the Greeks, though it is so rendered in our English Bible (Gal. iii. 24). The discipline of boys was severe, and they were constantly watched and repressed, nor were they allowed to frequent the crowded market place. Corporal punishment was commonly applied to them, and the quality most esteemed in boys was a blushing shyness and modesty, hardly equalled by the girls of our time. Nevertheless Plato speaks of the younger boys as the most sharp-witted, insubordinate, and unmanageable of animals.

Of Schools and Schoolmasters.—It does not seem that the office of schoolmaster was thought very honorable, except of course in Sparta, where he was a sort of Minister of Education. It was, as with us, a matter of private speculation, but controlled by police regulations that the school should open and close with sunrise and sunset and that no grown men should be allowed to go in and loiter there. The infant-school teachers, who merely taught children their letters (grammatodidaskolos), were of a low class in society, sometimes even teaching in open air, like the old hedge schoolmasters in Ireland. The more advanced teaching of reading and writing was done by the grammatikos, whose house was called, like that of philosophers and rhetoricians, schole, a place of leisure. For the physical and the Æsthetic side we have still to mention the trainer (paidotribes) and the teacher of music (kitharistes), the former of whom taught in the palÆstra the exercises and sports afterward carried on by the full-grown citizens in the gymnasia, which were a feature in all Greek towns. The teachers of riper youth stood in social position above the mere teachers of letters, but beneath the professors of rhetoric and philosophy (sophists). These latter performed the functions of college tutors at our universities, and completed the literary side of Greek education. The fees paid to the various teachers were in proportion to their social importance. Some of the sophists made great fortunes, and exacted very high fees; the mere schoolmasters are spoken of as receiving a miserable pittance.

Of what they Taught.—The Greeks never thought of making foreign languages a matter of study, and contented themselves with learning to read and write their own. In so doing the schoolmasters used as text-books the works of celebrated epic or elegiac poets, above all Homer, and then the proverbial philosophy of Hesiod, Solon, Phocylides, and others, so that the Greek boy read the great classics of his language at an early age. He was required to learn much of them by heart, especially when books were scarce; and his teacher pointed out the moral lessons either professedly or accidentally contained in these poets. Thus they stood in the place of our Bible and hymns in education. All this was grammatike, which with music and gymnastics, made up the general education of the Greeks. It excluded the elementary arithmetic of our “three R’s,” and included what they do not, a gentlemanly cultivation in music and field sports. It is very doubtful whether swimming was included, though Herodotus speaks of the Greeks generally as being able to swim. There is, however, evidence that from the fourth century B. C. onwards both elementary geometry and arithmetic, and also drawing, were ordinarily taught.

As regards music every Greek boy (like modern young ladies) either had or was supposed to have a musical ear, and he was accordingly taught either the harp or the flute, and with it singing. Here again the lyric poems of the greatest poets were taught him, and the Greek music always laid the greatest stress on the words. Aristotle and others complain that amateurs were spending too much time on the practising of difficult music, and we know from the musical treatises preserved to us that the Greeks thought and taught a great deal more about musical theory and the laws of sound than we do. The Greek tunes preserved are not pleasing, but we know that they used the strictest and most subtle principles in tuning instruments, and understood harmony and discord as well as we do. Great Athenians, like Cimon, were often able to sing and accompany themselves on the harp, or lyre as we should rather call it. The Greeks laid great stress on the moral effects of music, especially as regards the performer, and were very severe in their censure of certain styles of music. They distinguished their scales as modes, and are said to have put far greater stress on keys than we do, calling some manly and warlike (Dorian), others weak and effeminate, or even immoral (Mixo-Lydian). The modern Chinese have the same beliefs about the moral effects of music. The Greeks had their keynote in the middle of the scale, and used chiefly the minor scale of our music. They had different names and signs for the notes of the various octaves which they used, and also different signs for vocal and for instrumental music.

Gymnastics.—Among the various exercises taught were those in fashion in the public contests in the games—throwing the discus, running, and wrestling, and those of use in war—throwing the dart, managing the sword and shield, and riding. Boxing was not highly esteemed, and seems not to have been properly understood by the Greeks, who would have had no chance against an English prize-fighter. The severest contest was the pancration, where the combatants, who were naked and unarmed, were allowed to use any violence they liked to overcome their adversary. It was therefore a combination of boxing, wrestling, and kicking, with occasional biting and gouging by way of additional resource. We hear of a wonderful jumping feat by Phayllus of Croton, who leaped forty-four feet; but as he probably jumped down-hill, and used artificial aids, we can not be sure that it was more than can be done now-a-days. The Spartans specially forbad boxing and the pancration, because the vanquished was obliged to confess his defeat and feel ashamed; and they did not tolerate professional trainers. All the special exercises for developing muscle practised in our gymnasia seem to have been known, and they were all practised naked, as being sunburnt was highly valued. The Greeks smeared themselves first with oil and then with sand before their exercises, and cleaned themselves with a scraper or strigil, or in later days by taking a bath.

Customs on Coming of Age.—Most Greek states seem to have wished to free young men as soon as possible from the control of their parents. Hence, having passed the age of boyhood, when they were called children (paides), they were made epheboi, or “men of age,” at the age of sixteen or eighteen, when they were enrolled solemnly in the list of citizens. This was done at Athens with a religious service, and with a solemn oath on the part of the youth, who declared his allegiance to the laws and to the religion of his city, and promised to defend it against all enemies and seditions. He was then enrolled on the list of his deme or parish, and this roll was called the lexiarchikon grammateion. He was then competent to join in debate at the assembly, to plead in court, to marry, and perform all the duties of citizenship. It is not clear how he stood as regards his father, except that, if the latter became unable to manage his affairs, the son could have him so declared by an action in court, and so become the owner during his father’s life. Before the young men settled down, they were employed for two years in outlying garrison duty and in patrolling the frontiers of the land, during which time they were called peripoloi. This gave them the necessary training for war, and made them acquainted with the bounds of their country. Many remains of these frontier forts which were once garrisoned by the youth of Athens still survive in Attica.

The Servants of the House.—These were of course slaves, with the exception of some field laborers, and of nurses in times of depression and distress, when some free women went out for hire. To these cases we may add the cook, who was not an inmate of the house before the Macedonian time, but was hired for the day when wanted for a dinner party. All the rest were slaves, and were very numerous in every respectable household. The principal sorts of servants were as follows: There was a general steward, a butler who had charge of the store-room and cellar, a marketing slave, a porter, baking and cooking slaves for preparing the daily meals, an attendant upon the master in his walks, and this was an indispensable servant, a nurse, an escort for the children, and a lady’s maid. In richer houses there was also a groom or mule-boy. This list shows a sub-division of labor more like the habits of our East-Indian families than those of ordinary households in England. I have spoken above of the purchasing and value of these slaves. If faithful, they were often made free, especially by the will of their master on his death-bed, but they did not become citizens. They remained in the position of resident aliens under the patronage of their former master or his representatives.

In proportion as the free population of Greece diminished the freeing of slaves became more and more common, until it actually appears to have been the leading feature in the life of the small towns. Thousands of inscriptions recording this setting free of individual slaves are still found, and on so many various stones, even tombstones, that it almost appears as if material for recording had failed them by reason of the quantity of these documents. The same increase of liberation was a leading feature in the Roman empire, but there the freedman obtained the right and position of a citizen, which was not the case in Greece. The most enlightened moralists of both countries exhorted benevolence toward slaves, and the frequent freeing of them as the duty of humane masters, but none of these writers ever dreamt of the total abolishing of slavery, which they all held to be an institution ordained by nature. This seems also the view of the early Christian writers, who nowhere condemn the principle of slavery as such.

The Domestic Animals.—These were first the horses and mules, which do not seem to have been treated with any great familiarity, but were carefully groomed, and after exercise were allowed to roll in sand before being brought in—a treatment still common in southern Italy, where the old Greek fashion of driving four-in-hand abreast also prevails. The two center horses were yoked to the pole, the others were fastened by loose traces, and called paraseiroi (outriggers). The commonest and most valued domestic animal was the dog, which maintains a very important place in Greek society up to the present day. There were various kinds of breeds for hunting, chosen both for nose and for speed; there were watch-dogs; and also ornamental kinds, such as little lap-dogs, which are represented in the sad scenes of leave-taking on the tombs. Many anecdotes are told of their faithfulness, and we hear of at least one case where a handsome dog, which belonged to Alcibiades cost about 70l. Cats were also common, so common as to be charged with the breaking of household ware by guilty servants, and they are often described as wandering along the roofs of houses. Sundry birds were kept in cages, and for ornament, such as pheasants and peacocks; the quail was used for combats corresponding to English cock fights.

Customs of Burial.—I will conclude our consideration of the Greek household by describing the customs when death laid its hand upon one of the inmates.

At the moment of the death struggle the face was veiled, that no man might see it; then it was uncovered for a moment to close his eyes and mouth. The body was then washed by female relatives, scented with unguents, dressed in white and with a garland, and placed upon a couch adorned with branches, and with an unguent bottle beside it. This laying out was done in the entrance hall of the house and the feet were turned to the door. Outside was a cypress branch and water for sprinkling those who came out, as the dead defiled the house and its inmates. The laying out was limited to one day, during which both male and female relatives, together with hired mourners, stood round the bier, and uttered laments in refrain very like the Irish cry of our day. This almost universal custom in Asia was discountenanced and restricted by Greek law-givers, especially the tearing of the hair and laceration of the face which accompanied it. Burial took place in the morning dawn, before the sun could shine upon the corpse; in later days a small coin was placed in his mouth to pay his passage in the nether world—a custom which still survives in some parts of Greece. In the funeral procession the male relatives went before, the female followed after, and in Athens and other places where women lived secluded, only aged women and near relatives were allowed to attend, as young men took this opportunity of seeing the ladies, who were at other times invisible. When the dead was laid in the tomb, he was called by name aloud, and farewell was bidden him. There was afterward a funeral feast, and offerings at the tomb, but the time of mourning and of wearing black or gray garments was short; in Sparta twelve days, at Athens a month; at Ceos, exceptionally, a mother mourned her growing son for a whole year. Praising speeches were not delivered over private persons as at Rome, but only in the case of a public funeral, such as that of the bones of the dead who had fallen in battle, and were burned on the battle field. These ashes were brought home in urns, and treated as the corpses of the dead would have been at home. The burning of the dead, though known early, and often practiced in war and travel, was decidedly the exception. To cast earth upon the dead was of the last importance, and even when the body could not be found an empty grave received the due honors.

Sepulchral Monuments.—In the oldest times the dead were buried in their own ground, and close beside the house they had occupied. Afterward the burying of the dead within the walls of cities was forbidden except in the case of great public benefactors, who were worshipped as heroes and had a shrine set over them. The rest were buried in the fairest and most populous suburb, generally along both sides of the high road, as at Athens and at Syracuse, where their tombs and the inscriptions occupied the attention of everyone that passed by. The oldest and rudest monuments placed over the tomb were great mounds of earth, then these mounds came to be surrounded by a circle of great stones; afterward chambers were cut underground in the earth or rock, and family vaults established. Handsome monuments in marble, richly painted and covered with sculpture, were set up over the spot. These monuments sometimes attained a size almost as great as a temple. The scenes sculptured on the marble were from the life and occupation of the deceased, more often parting scenes, where they were represented taking leave of their family and friends, nor do we possess any more beautiful and touching remains of Greek life than some of these tombs. In the chamber of the dead many little presents, terra-cotta figures, trinkets and vases were placed, nay, in early times favorite animals, and even slaves or captives were sacrificed in order to be with him; for the Greeks believed that though the parting with the dead was for ever, he still continued to exist, and to interest himself in human affairs and in pursuits like those of living men. The crowded suburbs where the tombs were placed were generally ornamented with trees and flowers, and were a favorite resort of the citizens. The dead bodies of executed criminals were either given back to their relatives or, in extreme cases, cast into a special place, generally some natural ravine or valley hidden from view and ordinary thoroughfare. Here the executioner dwelt, who was generally a public slave. This place was called barathrum at Athens, and Ceadas at Sparta.