Early European History Part 49

ORIGIN OF THE CITY

A Greek or a Roman city usually grew up about a hill of refuge (_acropolis, capitolium_), to which the people of the surrounding district could flee in time of danger. The hill would be crowned with a fortress and the temples of the G.o.ds. Not far away was the market place (_agora, forum_), where the people gathered to conduct their business and to enjoy social intercourse. About the citadel and market place were grouped the narrow streets and low houses of the town.

GENERAL APPEARANCE OF AN ANCIENT CITY

The largest and most beautiful buildings in an ancient city were always the temples, colonnades, and other public structures. The houses of private individuals, for the most part, had few pretensions to beauty.

They were insignificant in appearance and were often built with only one story. From a distance, however, their whitewashed walls and red-tiled roofs, s.h.i.+ning brightly under the warm sun, must have made an attractive picture.

LIFE IN THE CITY

To the free-born inhabitant of Athens or of Rome his city was at once his country and his church, his club and his home. He shared in its government; he took part in the stately ceremonies that honored its patron G.o.d; in the city he could indulge his taste for talking and for politics; here he found both safety and society. No wonder that an Athenian or a Roman learned, from early childhood, to love his city with pa.s.sionate devotion.

89. EDUCATION AND THE CONDITION OF CHILDREN

IMPORTANCE OF MALE CHILDREN

The coming of a child, to parents in antiquity as to parents now, was usually a very happy event. Especially welcome was the birth of a son. The father felt a.s.sured that through the boy his old age would be cared for and that the family name and the wors.h.i.+p of the family ancestors would be kept up after his own death. "Male children," said an ancient poet, "are the pillars of the house." [2] The city, as well, had an interest in the matter, for a male child meant another citizen able to take the father's place in the army and the public a.s.sembly. To have no children was regarded as one of the greatest calamities that could befall a Greek or a Roman.

INFANTICIDE

The ancient att.i.tude toward children was in one respect very unlike our own. The law allowed a father to do whatever he pleased with a newly born child. If he was very poor, or if his child was deformed, he could expose it in some desert spot, where it soon died. An infant was sometimes placed secretly in a temple, where possibly some kind-hearted person might rescue it. The child, in this case, became the slave of its adopter. This custom of exposure, an inheritance from prehistoric savagery, tended to grow less common with advancing culture. The complete abolition of infanticide was due to the spread of Christian teachings about the sacredness of human life. [3]

NAMES

A Greek boy generally had but one name. The favorite name for the eldest son was that of his paternal grandfather. A father, however, might give him his own name or that of an intimate friend. The Romans at first seem to have used only the one name, then two were given; and later we have the familiar three-fold name, representing the individual, the clan, and the family. [4]

GREEK EDUCATION

Greek education consisted of three main branches, known as gymnastics, music, and grammar. By gymnastics the Greeks meant the physical training in the palestra, an open stretch of ground on the outskirts of the city.

Here a private teacher gave instruction in the various athletic sports which were so popular at the national games. The training in music was intended to improve the moral nature of young men and to fit them for pleasant social intercourse. They were taught to play a stringed instrument, called the lyre, and at the same time to sing to their own accompaniment. Grammar, the third branch of education, included instruction in writing and the reading of the national literature. After a boy had learned to write and to read, the schoolmaster took up with him the works of the epic poets, especially Homer, besides _Aesop's Fables_ and other popular compositions. The student learned by heart much of the poetry and at so early an age that he always remembered it. Not a few Athenians, it is said, could recite the entire _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN ATHENIAN SCHOOL (Royal Museum, Berlin) A painting by Duris on a drinking-cup, or cylix. The picture is divided by the two handles. In the upper half, beginning at the left: a youth playing the double flute as a lesson to the boy before him; a teacher holding a tablet and stylus and correcting a composition; a slave (_paedagogus_), who accompanied the children to and from school. In the lower half: a master teaching his pupil to play the lyre; a teacher holding a half- opened roll, listening to a recitation by the student before him; a bearded _paedagogus_. The inner picture, badly damaged, represents a youth in a bath.]

ROMAN EDUCATION

A Roman boy began his school days at about the age of seven. He learned to read, to write with a stylus on wax tablets, and to cipher by means of the reckoning board, or abacus. He received a little instruction in singing and memorized all sorts of proverbs and maxims, besides the laws of the Twelve Tables. [5] His studying went on under the watchful eyes of a harsh schoolmaster, who did not hesitate to use the rod. After Rome began to come into close contact with Greece, the curriculum was enlarged by the study of literature. The Romans were the first people who made the learning of a foreign tongue an essential part of education. Schools now arose in which the Greek language and literature formed the chief subject of instruction. As Latin literature came into being, its productions, especially the orations of Cicero and the poems of Vergil and Horace, were also used as texts for study.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A ROMAN SCHOOL SCENE Wall painting, Herculaneum.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: YOUTH READING A PAPYRUS ROLL Relief on a sarcophagus. The papyrus roll was sometimes very long. The entire _Iliad_ or _Odyssey_ might be contained in a single ma.n.u.script measuring one hundred and fifty feet in length. In the third century A.D.

the unwieldy roll began to give way to the tablet, composed of a number of leaves held together by a ring. About this time, also, the use of vellum, or parchment made of sheepskin, became common.]

TRAVEL AND STUDY ABROAD

Persons of wealth or n.o.ble birth might follow their school training by a university course at a Greek city, such as Athens, Alexandria, or Rhodes.

Here the Roman youth would listen to lectures on philosophy, delivered by the deep thinkers whom Greece still produced, and would profit by the treasures of art and science preserved in these ancient capitals. Many famous Romans thus pa.s.sed several years abroad in graduate study. During the imperial age, as we have already seen, [6] schools of grammar and rhetoric arose in the West, particularly in Gaul and Spain, and attracted students from all parts of the empire.

90. MARRIAGE AND THE POSITION OF WOMEN

ENGAGEMENTS

A young man in Athens or in Rome did not, as a rule, marry immediately on coming of age. He might remain a bachelor for several years, sometimes till he was thirty or over. The young man's father had most to do with the selection of a wife. He tried to secure for his son some daughter of a friend who possessed rank and property equal to his own. The parents of the two parties would then enter into a contract which, among other things, usually stated how large a dowry the bride's father was to settle on his daughter. An engagement was usually very little a matter of romance and very much a matter of business.

WEDDING CUSTOMS

The wedding customs of the Greeks and Romans presented many likenesses.

Marriage, among both peoples, was a religious ceremony. On the appointed day the princ.i.p.als and their guests, dressed in holiday attire, met at the house of the bride. In the case of a Roman wedding the auspices [7] were then taken, and the words of the nuptial contract were p.r.o.nounced in the presence of witnesses. After a solemn sacrifice to the G.o.ds of marriage, the guests partook of the wedding banquet. When night came on, the husband brought his wife to her new abode, escorted by a procession of torchbearers, musicians, and friends, who sang the happy wedding song.

POSITION OF WOMEN

An Athenian wife, during her younger years, always remained more or less a prisoner. She could not go out except by permission. She took no part in the banquets and entertainments which her husband gave. She lived a life of confinement in that quarter of the house a.s.signed to the women for their special abode. Married women at Rome enjoyed a far more honorable position. Although early custom placed the wife, together with her children, in the power of the husband, [8] still she possessed many privileges. She did not remain all the time at home, but mingled freely in society. She was the friend and confidante of her husband, as well as his housekeeper. During the great days of Roman history the women showed themselves virtuous and dignified, loving wives and excellent companions.

91. THE HOME AND PRIVATE LIFE

CLOTHING

There were no great differences between the dress of the two cla.s.sical peoples. Both wore the long, loosely flowing robes that contrast so sharply with our tight-fitting garments. [9] Athenian male attire consisted of but two articles, the tunic and the mantle. The tunic was an undergarment of wool or linen, without sleeves. Over this was thrown a large woolen mantle, so wrapped about the figure as to leave free only the right shoulder and head. In the house a man wore only his tunic; out of doors and on the street he usually wore the mantle over it. Very similar to the two main articles of Greek clothing were the Roman _tunica_ and _toga_. [10]

COVERING FOR THE HEAD AND FEET

On a journey or out in the country broad-brimmed hats were used to s.h.i.+eld the head from the sun. In rainy weather the mantle, pulled up over the head, furnished protection. Sandals, merely flat soles of wood or leather fastened by thongs, were worn indoors, but even these were laid aside at a dinner party. Outside the house leather shoes of various shapes and colors were used. They cannot have been very comfortable, since stockings were not known in antiquity.

EXTERIOR OF THE HOUSE

The ancient house lay close to the street line. The exterior was plain and simple to an extreme. The owner was satisfied if his mansion shut out the noise and dust of the highway. He built it, therefore, round one or more open courts, which took the place of windows supplying light and air.

Except for the doorway the front of the house presented a bare, blank surface, only relieved by narrow slits or lattices in the wall of the upper story. The street side of the house wall received a coating of whitewash or of fine marble stucco. The roof of the house was covered with clay tiles. This style of domestic architecture is still common in eastern lands.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOUSE OF THE VETTII AT POMPEII (RESTORED) Notice the large area of blank wall both on the front and on the side. The front windows are very small and evidently of less importance for admitting light than the openings of the two _atria_. At the back is seen the large, well-lighted peristyle.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ATRIUM OF POMPEIAN HOUSE The view shows the _atrium_ with the basin for rainwater, in the center the _tabinum_ with its wall paintings, and the peristyle at the rear.]

INTERIOR OF THE HOUSE

In contrast with its unpretentious exterior a cla.s.sical dwelling indoors had a most attractive appearance. We cannot exactly determine just what were the arrangements of a Greek interior. But the better cla.s.s of Roman houses, such as some of those excavated at Pompeii, [11] followed Greek designs in many respects. The Pompeian remains, therefore, will give some idea of the sort of residence occupied by a well-to-do citizen of Athens or Rome.

[Ill.u.s.tration: POMPEIAN FLOOR MOSAIC]

THE ATRIUM

The visitor at one of these ancient houses first entered a small vestibule, from which a narrow pa.s.sage led to the heavy oaken door. A dog was sometimes kept chained in this hallway; in Pompeii there is a picture of one worked in mosaic on the floor with the warning beneath it, "Beware of the dog." Having made known his presence by using the knocker, the guest was ushered into the reception room, or _atrium_. This was a large apartment covered with a roof, except for a hole in the center admitting light and air. A marble basin directly underneath caught the rain water which came through the opening. The _atrium_ represents the single room of the primitive Roman house without windows or chimney. [12]

THE PERISTYLE

A corridor from the _atrium_ led into the _peristyle_, the second of the two main sections of a Roman house. It was a s.p.a.cious court, open to the sky and inclosed by a colonnade or portico. This delightful spot, rather than the formal _atrium_, served as the center of family life. About it were grouped the bedchambers, bathrooms, dining rooms, kitchen, and other apartments of a comfortable mansion. Still other rooms occupied the upper stories of the dwelling.

BUSINESS OF THE FORENOON