A Roman copy after a Greek original, Glyptotek, Munich.
In the fourth century
B.C.
Athens became a base for various philosophical think tanks. The young Aristotle studied at Plato’s Academy before setting up his own school at the Lyceum. He and his team conducted scholarly research of all kinds, including ethics, metaphysics, and the natural sciences. His works on logic remained current and valid until the nineteenth century. Like many philosophers of his day, Aristotle intervened in political affairs and for some years was tutor to the teenaged Alexander the Great.
Roman copy of a lost bronze by Lysippus, Museo Nazionale Romano.
THE DAILY ROUND
Pottery is our best source of what it was like to be an ordinary ancient Athenian. Skilled craftsmen painted vases, bottles, bowls, and plates with the scenes of everyday life. Thousands have survived and even a random selection gives the flavor of a vanished world.
Every self-respecting youth would spend much of his time at the open-air gymnasium developing his physical skills. In a typical scene, a boy gets ready to throw a discus. Nearby a pick will be used to prepare the landing ground for the long jump. A pair of dumbbells, hanging from a hook, will help the athlete keep his balance during the jump. The legend reads: “Kleomelos is beautiful.”
Attic red-figure drinking cup by the Kleomelos Painter, between 510 and 500
B.C.
, Louvre Museum.
A life-size bronze statue is being assembled at a busy foundry. While most Athenians worked on farms, small industrial firms manufactured goods of various kinds, including metal tools; weapons and armor; leather items, among them shoes and boots; painted pottery; and masonry. Workers were highly skilled, and many of their products were exported to foreign markets.
Attic red-figure ware, about 490 to 480
B.C.
, Staatliche Museen, Berlin.
Most women spent their lives at home running their households and looking after the children. They could not vote or play an active part in public life. Here a slave hands a baby over to its mother.
Red-figure olive-oil bottle from Eretria, about 470 to 460
B.C.
, National Archaeological Museum, Athens.
There was one class of women that broke the convention of seclusion. The
hetaira
was a high-class courtesan who was expected to offer companionship and intelligent conversation as well as sex. As this depiction of haggling customers shows, the relationships were essentially financial.
Vase by the Kleophrades Painter, about 490 to 480
B.C.
, Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Munich.
A priest, wearing a wreath, and a boy prepare to slaughter a young boar at an altar. The Greeks were very religious. Their gods were human in appearance and in behavior. Like forces of nature, they were dangerous. They needed to be placated at every opportunity with offerings and burnt sacrifices.
Drinking cup by the Epidromos Painter, about 510 to 500
B.C.
, Louvre Museum.
A guest at a dinner party, or symposium, listens to a musician playing. His bag hangs beside his stick and a cup of wine stands on a table next to his couch. Gatherings of this kind were popular among upper-class Athenian men. Serious conversation and drinking often followed a meal, but if handsome waiters and dancing girls were present, the proceedings could degenerate into something approaching an orgy.
Attic red-figure drinking cup by the Colmar Painter, about 490
B.C.
, Louvre Museum.
THE VILLAGE
For many centuries after the classical era, Athens was no more than a dozy village encumbered by ruins. It occupied a neglected corner of the Ottoman Empire, until Greece won its independence in 1832. One year later, the German artist Johann Michael Wittmer painted the Acropolis as seen from the Temple of Olympian Zeus. The dusty backwater he evoked had just started out on its new career as the Hellenic capital. Today, it has grown into a metropolis of more than four million inhabitants.
Benaki Museum, Athens.
GLOSSARY
Achaemenid Empire: the Persian Empire.
Acropolis: citadel, the highest part of a polis.
agogē: the Spartan education and training system.
agora: marketplace, the center of the public affairs of a polis, and of commercial and retail activities.
Amphictyonic League: association of twelve states in central Greece charged with the upkeep and management of the oracle at Delphi.
Archon: one of nine high government officials, who served for one year. The Eponymous Archon was so-called because he gave his name to the year, which unlike our calendar was not numbered.
Areopagus: hill in Athens; council of former Archons.
aretē: excellence of every kind, moral virtue.
barbarian: non-Greek speaker
Boeotarch: chief official of the Boeotian League.
boulē: state council; in Athens it managed the day-to-day operations of the democracy and prepared the agenda for the ecclesia.
bouleuterion: meeting place for the boulē, city hall.
cella: chamber in a Greek temple.
Cerameicus: a district of Athens inside and outside the city walls, also a public cemetery.
chiliarch: commander of a thousand men.
choregos: a wealthy citizen who paid for and produced dramatic or musical events.
cleruchy: a small colony of Athenian citizens. Unlike ordinary colonies cleruchies retained their Athenian citizenship. Their numbers ranged from 250 to 4,000 settlers.
Companions: members of the elite cavalry of Macedon, royal bodyguards.
Crypteia: a secret police in Sparta.
demos: the people; in Athens the totality of male citizens. A local ward or deme.
Dionysia: annual festival in honor of Dionysus at which plays were performed. Great Dionysia, March/April, and Lenaea or Rural Dionysia, December/January.
drachma: silver coin, equivalent to a day’s pay in the late fifth century.
ecclesia: the general assembly; in Athens it met frequently and made all the important political decisions.
emporion: a trading post.
ephebos, or ephebe: an adolescent male seventeen or eighteen years old.
ephors: five ephors were elected annually, the executive arm of the Spartan state.
Equaclass="underline" an adult Spartan citizen. Also Spartiate.
erastes: a male lover.
eromenos: a male beloved.
eunomia: good order.
eupatridae: noblemen.
Euxine Sea: literally the Hospitable Sea (meaning the opposite); today’s Black Sea.
gerousia: council of elders at Sparta.
gymnasium: exercise ground.
harmost: a Spartan military governor.
heliaea: supreme court of Athens.