A Day in Old Athens Part 16

151. Wrestling.--The real crowds, however, are around the wrestlers and the racers. Wrestling in its less brutal form is in great favor. It brings into play all the muscles of a man; it tests his resources both of mind and body finely. It is excellent for a youth and it fights away old age. The Greek language is full of words and allusions taken from the wrestler's art. The palaestras for the boys are called "the wrestling school" par excellence.

It is no wonder that now the ring on the sands is a dense one and constantly growing. Two skilful amateurs will wrestle. One--a speedy rumor tells us--is, earlier and later in the day, a rising comic poet; the other is not infrequently heard on the Bema. Just at present, however, they have forgotten anapests and oratory. A crowd of cheering, jesting friends thrusts them on. Forth they stand, two handsome, powerful men, well oiled for suppleness, but also sprinkled with fine sand to make it possible to get a fair grip in the contest.

For a moment they wag their sharp black beards at each other defiantly, and poise and edge around. Then the poet, more daring, rushes in, and instantly the two have grappled--each clutching the other's left wrist in his right hand. The struggle that follows is hot and even, until a lucky thrust from the orator's foot lands the poet in a sprawling heap; whence he rises with a ferocious grin and renews the contest. The second time they both fall together.

"A tie!" calls the long-gowned friend who acts as umpire, with an officious flourish of his cane.

The third time the poet catches the orator trickily under the thigh, and fairly tears him to the ground; but at the fourth meeting the orator slips his arm in decisive grip about his opponent's wrist and with a might wrench upsets him.

"Two casts out of three, and victory!"

Everybody laughs good-naturedly. The poet and the orator go away arm in arm to the bathing house, there to have another good oiling and rubbing down by their slaves, after removing the heavily caked sand from their skin with the stirgils. Of course, had it been a real contest in the "greater games," the outcome might have been more serious for the rules allow one to twist a wrist, to thrust an arm or foot into the foeman's belly, or (when things are desperate) to dash your forehead--bull fas.h.i.+on--against your opponent's brow, in the hope that his skull will prove weaker than yours.

152. Foot Races.--The continued noise from the stadium indicates that the races are still running; and we find time to go thither.

The simple running match, a straight-away dash of 600 feet, seems to have been the original contest at the Olympic games ere these were developed into a famous and complicated festival; and the runner still is counted among the favorites of Greek athletics.

As we sit upon the convenient benches around the academy stadium we see at once that the track is far from being a hard, well-rolled "cinder path"; on the contrary, it is of soft sand into which the naked foot sinks if planted too firmly, and upon it the most adept "hard-track" runner would at first pant and flounder helplessly.

The Greeks have several kinds of foot races, but none that are very short. The shortest is the simple "stadium" (600 feet), a straight hard dash down one side of the long oval; then there is the "double course" ("diaulos") down one side and back; the "horse race"--twice clear around (2400 feet); and lastly the hard-testing "long course"

("dolichos") which may very in length according to arrangement,--seven, twelve, twenty, or even twenty-four stadia, we are told; and it is the last (about three miles) that is one of the most difficult contests at Olympia.

At this moment a part of four hale and hearty men still in the young prime are about to compete in the "double race." They come forward all rubbed with the glistening oil, and crouch at the starting point behind the red cord held by two attendants. The gymnasiarch stands watchfully by, swinging his cane to smite painfully whoever, in over eagerness, breaks away before the signal. All is ready; at his nod the rope falls. The four fly away together, pressing their elbows close to their sides, and going over the soft sands with long rhythmic leaps, rather than with the usual rapid running motion. A fierce race it is, amid much exhortation from friends and shouting. At length, as so often--when speeding back towards the stretched cord,--the rearmost runner suddenly gathers amazing speed, and, flying with prodigious leaps ahead of his rivals, is easily the victor. His friends are at once about him, and we hear the busy tongues advising, "You must surely race at the Pythia; the Olympia; etc."

This simple race over, a second quickly follows: five heavy, powerful men this time, but they are to run in full hoplite's armor--the ponderous s.h.i.+eld, helmet, cuira.s.s, and greaves. This is the exacting "Armor Race" ("Hoplitodromos"), and safe only for experienced soldiers or professional athletes.[*] Indeed, the Greeks take all their foot races seriously, and there are plenty of instances when the victor has sped up to the goal, and then dropped dead before the applauding stadium. There are no stop watches in the Academy; we do not know the records of the present or of more famous runners; yet one may be certain that the "time" made, considering the very soft sand, has been exceedingly fast.

[*]It was training in races like these which enabled the Athenians at Marathon to "charge the Persians on the run" (Miltiades' orders), all armored though they were, and so get quickly through the terrible zone of the Persian arrow fire.

153. The Pentathlon: the Honors paid to Great Athletes.--We have now seen average specimens of all the usual athletic sports of the Greeks. Any good authority will tell us, however, that a truly capable athlete will not try to specialize so much in any one kind of contest that he cannot do justice to the others. As an all around well-trained man he will try to excel in the "Pentathlon,"

the "five contests." Herein he will successfully join in running, javelin casting, quoit throwing, leaping, and wrestling.[*] As the contest proceeds the weaker athletes will be eliminated; only the two fittest will be left for the final trial of strength and skill. Fortunate indeed is "he who overcometh" in the Pentathlon.

It is the crown of athletic victories, involving, as it does, no scanty prowess both of body and mind. The victor in the Pentathlon at one of the great Pan-h.e.l.lenic games (Olympian, Pythian, Isthmian, or Nemean) or even in the local Attic contest at the Panathenaea is a marked man around Athens or any other Greek city. Poets celebrate him; youths dog his heels and try to imitate him; his kinsfolk take on airs; very likely he is rewarded as a public benefactor by the government. But there is abundant honor for one who has triumphed in ANY of the great contests; and even as we go out we see people pointing to a bent old man and saying, "Yes; he won the quoit hurling at the Nema when Ithycles was archon."[+]

[*]The exact order of these contests, and the rules of elimination as the games proceeded, are uncertain--perhaps they varied with time and place.

[+]This would make it 398 B.C. The Athenians dated their years by the name of their "first Archon" ("Archon eponymos").

...The Academy is already thinning. The beautiful youths and their admiring "lovers" have gone homeward. The last race has been run.

We must hasten if we would not be late to some select symposium.

The birds are more melodious than ever around Colonus; the red and golden glow upon the Acropolis is beginning to fade; the night is sowing the stars; and through the light air of a glorious evening we speed back to the city.

Chapter XVIII. Athenian Cookery and the Symposium.

154. Greek Meal Times.--The streets are becoming empty. The Agora has been deserted for hours. As the warm balmy night closes over the city the house doors are shut fast, to open only for the returning master or his guests, bidden to dinner. Soon the ways will be almost silent, to be disturbed, after a proper interval, by the dinner guests returning homeward. Save for these, the streets will seem those of a city of the dead: patrolled at rare intervals by the Scythian archers, and also ranged now and then by cutpurses watching for an unwary stroller, or miscreant roisterers trolling lewd songs, and pounding on honest men's doors as they wander from tavern to tavern in search of the lowest possible pleasures.

We have said very little of eating or drinking during our visit in Athens, for, truth to tell, the citizens try to get through the day with about as little interruption for food and drink as possible.

But now, when warehouse and gymnasium alike are left to darkness, all Athens will break its day of comparative fasting.

Roughly speaking, the Greeks antic.i.p.ate the latter-day "Continental"

habits in their meal hours. The custom of Germans and of many Americans in having the heartiest meal at noonday would never appeal to them. The hearty meal is at night, and no one dreams of doing any serious work after it. When it is finished, there may be pleasant discourse or varied amus.e.m.e.nts, but never real business; and even if there are guests, the average dinner party breaks up early. Early to bed and early to rise, would be a maxim indorsed by the Athenians.

Promptly upon rising, our good citizen has devoured a few morsels of bread sopped in undiluted wine; that has been to him what "coffee and rolls" will be to the Frenchmen,--enough to carry him through the morning business, until near to noon he will demand something more satisfying. He then visits home long enough to partake of a substantial dejeuner ("ariston," first breakfast = "akratisma").

He has one or two hot dishes--one may suspect usually warmed over from last night's dinner--and partakes of some more wine. This "ariston" will be about all he will require until the chief meal of the day--the regular dinner ("depnon") which would follow sunset.

155. Society desired at Meals.--The Athenians are a gregarious sociable folk. Often enough the citizen must dine alone at home with "only" his wife and children for company, but if possible he will invite friends (or get himself invited out). Any sort of an occasion is enough to excuse a dinner-party,--a birthday of some friend, some kind of family happiness, a victory in the games, the return from, or the departure upon, a journey:--all these will answer; or indeed a mere love of good fellows.h.i.+p. There are innumerable little eating clubs; the members go by rotation to their respective houses. Each member contributes either some money or has his slave bring a hamper of provisions. In the find weather picnic parties down upon the sh.o.r.e are common.[*] "Anything to bring friends together"--in the morning the Agora, in the afternoon the gymnasium, in the evening they symposium--that seems to be the rule of Athenian life.

[*]Such excursions were so usual that the literal expression "Let us banquet at the sh.o.r.e" ([Note from Brett: The Greek letters are written out here as there is no way to portray them properly]

sigma eta mu epsilon rho omicron nu [next word] alpha kappa tau alpha sigma omega mu epsilon nu [here is a rough transliteration into English letters "semeron aktasomen"]) came often to mean simply "Let us have a good time."

However, the Athenians seldom gather to eat for the mere sake of animal gorging. They have progressed since the Greeks of the Homeric Age. Odysseus[*] is made to say to Alcinous that there is nothing more delightful than sitting at a table covered with bread, meat, and wine, and listening to a bard's song; and both Homeric poems show plenty of gross devouring and guzzling. There is not much of this in Athens, although B?otians are still reproached with being voracious, swinish "flesh eaters," and the Greeks of South Italy and Sicily are considered as devoted to their fare, though of more refined table habits. Athenians of the better cla.s.s pride themselves on their light diet and moderation of appet.i.te, and their neighbors make considerable fun of them for their failure to serve satisfying meals. Certain it is that the typical Athenian would regard a twentieth century "table d'hote" course dinner as heavy and unrefined, if ever it dragged its slow length before him.

[*]"Odyssey," IX. 5-10.

156. The Staple Articles of Food.--However, the Athenians have honest appet.i.tes, and due means of silencing them. The diet of a poor man is indeed simple in the extreme. According to Aristophanes his meal consists of a cake, bristling with bran for the sake of economy, along with an onion and a dish of sow thistles, or of mushrooms, or some other such wretched vegetables; and probably, in fact, that is about all three fourths of the population of Attica will get on ordinary working days, always with the addition of a certain indispensable supply of oil and wine.

Bread, oil, and wine, in short, are the three fundamentals of Greek diet. With them alone man can live very healthfully and happily; without them elaborate vegetable and meat dishes are poor subst.i.tutes. Like latter-day Frenchmen or Italians with their huge loaves or macaroni, BREAD in one form or another is literally the stuff of life to the Greek. He makes it of wheat, barley, rye, millet, or spelt, but preferably of the two named first. The barley meal is kneaded (not baked) and eaten raw or half raw as a sort of porridge. Of wheat loaves there are innumerable shapes on sale in the Agora,--slender rolls, convenient loaves, and also huge loaves needing two or three bushels of flour, exceeding even those made in a later day in Normandy. At every meal the amount of bread or porridge consumed is enormous; there is really little else at all substantial. Persian visitors to the Greeks complain that they are in danger of rising from the table hungry.

But along with the inevitable bread goes the inevitable OLIVE OIL.

No latter-day article will exactly correspond to it. First of all it takes the place of b.u.t.ter as the proper condiment to prevent the bread from being tasteless.[*] It enters into every dish.

The most versatile cook will be lost without it. Again, at the gymnasium we have seen its great importance to the athletes and bathers. It is therefore the h.e.l.lenic subst.i.tute for soap. Lastly, it fills the lamps which swing over very dining board. It takes the place of electricity, gas, or petroleum. No wonder Athens is proud of her olive trees. If she has to import her grain, she has a surplus for export of one of the three great essentials of Grecian life.

[*]There was extremely little cow's b.u.t.ter in Greece. Herodotus (iv.

2) found it necessary to explain the process of "cow-cheese-making"

among the Scythians.

The third inevitable article of diet is WINE. No one has dreamed of questioning its vast desirability under almost all circ.u.mstances.

Even drunkenness is not always improper. It may be highly fitting, as putting one in a "divine frenzy," partaking of the nature of the G.o.ds. Musaeus the semi-mythical poet is made out to teach that the reward of virtue will be something like perpetual intoxication in the next world. aeschines the orator will, ere long, taunt his opponent Demosthenes in public with being a "water drinker"; and Socrates on many occasions has given proof that he possessed a very hard head. Yet naturally the Athenian has too acute a sense of things fit and dignified, too n.o.ble a perception of the natural harmony, to commend drunkenness on any but rare occasions. Wine is rather valued as imparting a happy moderate glow, making the thoughts come faster, and the tongue more witty. Wine raises the spirits of youth, and makes old age forget its gray hairs. It chases away thoughts of the dread hereafter, when one will lose consciousness of the beautiful sun, and perhaps wander a "strengthless shade" through the dreary underworld.

There is a song attributed to Anacreon, and nearly everybody in Athens approves the sentiment:--

Thirsty earth drinks up the rain, Trees from earth drink that again; Ocean drinks the air, the sun Drinks the sea, and him, the moon.

Any reason, canst thou think, I should thirst, while all these drink?[*]

[*]Translation from Von Falke's "Greece and Rome."

157. Greek Vintages.--All Greeks, however, drink their wine so diluted with water that it takes a decided quant.i.ty to produce a "reaction." The average drinker takes three parts water to two of wine. If he is a little reckless the ratio is four of water to three of wine; equal parts "make men mad" as the poet says, and are probably reserved for very wild dinner parties. As for drinking pure wine no one dreams of the thing--it is a practice fit for Barbarians. There is good reason, however, for this plentiful use of water. In the original state Greek wines were very strong, perhaps almost as alcoholic as whisky, and the Athenians have no Scotch climate to excuse the use of such stimulants.[*]

[*]There was a wide difference of opinion as to the proper amount of dilution. Odysseus ("Odyssey," IX. 209) mixed his fabulously strong wine from Maron in Thrace with twenty times its bulk of water. Hesiod abstemiously commended three parts of water to one of wine. Zaleucus, the lawgiver of Italian Locri, established the death penalty for drinking unmixed wine save by physicians' orders ("Athenaeus," X. 33).

No wine served in Athens, however, will appeal to a later-day connoisseur. It is all mixed with resin, which perhaps makes it more wholesome, but to enjoy it then becomes an acquired taste.

There are any number of choice vintages, and you will be told that the local Attic wine is not very desirable, although of course it is the cheapest. Black wine is the strongest and sweetest; white wine is the weakest; rich golden is the driest and most wholesome.