UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES r A MANUAL OP GEEEK ANTIQUITIES 3 6 8 9 STANDARD WORKS. HISTORIES OF LITERATURE . A HISTORY OF GREEK LITERATURE. From the Earliest Period to the Death of Demosthenes. By F. B. Jevoxs, M.A., Litt.D. Second Edition. Cloth, Ss. 6d. " Beyond all question the best history of Greek literature published." — Spectator. " Mr, Jevons' work is distinguished by the Author's thokough acquaintance with THE OLD WRITERS. . . . His great merit lies in his excellent exposition of the political and social causes concerned in the development of the Literature of Greece." — Berlin Philologische Wochenschrijt. A HISTORY OF ROMAN LITERATURE. From the Earliest Period to the Times of the Antonines. By the Rev. C. T. Cruttwell, M.A., formerly Fellow of Merton CoUege, Oxford. Fifth Edition. Cloth, 8s. 6d. " Mr. Cruttwell has done a real service to all students of tlie Latin language and literature. . . . Full of good scholarship and good criticism.."— Athenceum. "A most serviceable — indeed, indispensable — guide for the student. . . . The general reader' will be both charmed and instructed." — Saturday Revieic. A LITERARY HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. By the Rev. C. T. Cruttwell, M.A., formerly Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. lu Two Vols., Demy Svo, Handsome Cloth, 21s. "Mr. Cruttwell has accomplished his task with remaukable success. His History is eminently readable." — Athtnmim. AMTIQUITIES, COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY, AMD PHILOSOPHY. ROMAN antiquities (A MANUAL OF). By William Rajisat, M.A., late Professor of Humanity in the University of Glasgow. Revised and Edited by Rodolfo Lanciani, D'C.L. Oxon., LL.d'., &:c., Professor of Classical Topography in tlie University of Rome. Fifteenth Edition. lOs. 6d. "The chief interest in the New Edition centi-es in the chapter on Roman Topo- graphy, which has been entirely re-written by Prof. Lanciani, the greatest living authority on this subject. ... It is the best and handiest guide yet produced." — Athenceum. PREHISTORIC ANTIQUITIES OF THE ARYAN PEOPLES : A Manual of Comparative Philology and the Earliest Culture. By Dr. O. SCHRADER, of Jcua. Translated from the Second German Edition by F. B. Jevons, M.A., Litt.D. In Large Svo, Handsome Cloth, 21s. "Dr. Schrader's great Work." — The Times. " It would be hard to find any book more to be recommended to the early student in Piiilology and Prehistoric Archaeology." — Classical Review. THE VOCABULARY OF PHILOSOPHY; op, Student's Book of Reference. On the basis of Prof. Fleming's Vocabulary. Re-constructed and partly Re- written by Henry Caldekwood, LL.D., Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. Fifth Edition. 10s. 6d. London : CHARLES GRIFFIX & CO., Ltd., Exeter St., Strand. A MANUAL OK GREEK ANTIQUITIES. BOOKS I.~Y. BY PERCY GARDNER , M.A., Litt.D. LINCOLN AND MERTON PROFESSOR OF CLASSICAL ARCHEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. BOOKS VI.— IX. BY FRANK BYRON JEVONS, M.A., Litt.D. PRINCIPAL OF BISHOP HATFIELD'S HALL; IN THE UNIVERSITY OP DURHAM. SECOND EDITION. OTitf) Elluc^tratians. LONDON: CHARLES GRIFFIN AND COMPANY, Limited EXETER STREET, STRAND. 1898. [All rights reserved.'] 3U57^^ Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson &= Co. At the Ballantyiie Press, Edinburgh ■-^ a C JL y ,4^ i\ri Library DF77 Gr |7m PEEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION The second edition is a reprint of the first; but a consider- able number of corrections have been inserted in the text, and a few addenda are printed at the end. The authors owe most of these improvements to the suggestions of critics in English and Continental Reviews, all of which they have carefully considered. March, 1898. I'KEFACE The present work is an attempt to compress into a single C) volume, for the use of students, an introduction to all the main branches of Hellenic antiquities — social, religious, and -- political. Hitherto, in England, such information as is here ! supplied has appeared only in the form of dictionaries. For rj many purposes the aljAabetic arrangement under subjects y is best, but a more logical and systematic arrangement has also its advantages. In Germany several monumental works J have appeared in which Greek antiquities have been syste- ;. matically treated, such as the Handbooks of Karl Fr. Her- N mann and Iwan von Miiller. Writing on a far smaller scale, Ci we make no attempt to rival these great works in fulness or detail; but we do endeavour to present to the English reader the elements of the subject in a more readable form. The share in the work taken by each of the two contri- butors is stated on the title-page. Each writer is wholly responsible for the part which he has contributed. In dealing with a subject of such vast extent, it is clear that no two scholars could in all cases write from complete or first-hand VI 11 PREFSCTT knowledge This is a defect inseparable from the plan of the work. Illustrations are sometimes introduced, especially in Books III. and lY., but limits of space required the reduction of their number to a minimum. A complete and ordered series of illustrations for all branches of Greek Antiquities will be found in Schreiber's Atlas of Classical Antiquities, edited in English by Mr. W. C. F. Anderson, which may advan- tageously be used as a companion to the present volume. August 1895. CONTENTS BOOK I THE SURROUNDINGS OF GREEK LIFE CHAP. I. THE LAND AND PEOPLE II. THE CITIES : ARRANGEMENT AND PLAN III. THE HOMERIC HOUSE .... IV. PRIVATE HOUSES : HISTORICAL TIMES V. THE DRESS OF MEN AND WOMEN PAGE I ID 21 49 BOOK II RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY I. NATIONAL ELEMENTS IN RELIGION II. BORROWED ELEMENTS IN RELIGION IIL CLASSIFICATION OF MYTHS . IV, FORMATION OF THE PANTHEON . V. THE HOMERIC AND HESIODIC PAN THEON VI. THE PANTHEON OF HISTORIC TIMES . 68 82 88 94 loS 121 BOOK III CULTUS I. SACRED PRECINCTS AND TEMPLES II. TEMPLE-PROPERTY .... in. ORGANISATION OF RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES lY. ORGIASTIC CULTS 163 186 196 212 CONTENTS CHAP. V. TEMPLE-RITUAL . VL SACRIFICE . VIL DIVINATION AND ORACLES VIIL THE PUBLIC GAMES . IX. THE MYSTERIES . X. THE ATTIC CALENDAR PAOB 222 251 269 274 286 BOOK IV THE COURSE OF LIFE I. CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION IL PHYSICAL TRAINING .... IIL DAILY LIFE OF MEN .... IV. TRAVELLING V. POSITION AND EMPLOYMENTS OF WOMEN VL TREATMENT OF DISEASE VIL BURIAL AND TOMBS .... 297 3'3 3^5 336 340 355 360 BOOK V COMMERCE L AGRICULTURE AND PASTURAGE . IL MANUFACTURES AND PROFESSIONS III. COMMERCE AND TRADE-ROUTES . IV. THE MONEY-MARKET AND COINS 370 377 386 394 BOOK VI CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL ANTIQUITIES I. THE HOMERIC STATE ....... 404 IL THE HISTORY OF THE SPARTAN CONSTITUTION . 414 IIL THE SPARTAN CONSTITUTION 423 IV. CRETE ..... . 432 CONTENTS XI CHAP. V. THE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF ATHENS VI. ATHENS : METICS, CITIZENS, DEMES, TRIBES VII. ATHENS : THE MAGISTRATES IN GENERAL VIII. ATHENS : THE MAGISTRATES . IX. ATHENS : THE BOUL^ AND THE AREOPAGUS X. ATHENS : THE ECCLESIA .... XL ATHENS : FINANCE XIL THE GOVERNMENT OF ATHENS XIIL ATTIC LAW : LAWS FOR THE PROTECTION OF LIFE XIV. ATTIC LAW : LAWS FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE PERSON . XV. ATTIC LAW XVI. ATTIC LAW XVII. ATTIC LAW XVIII. ATTIC LAW THE LAW OF PROPERTY THE LAW OF INHERITANCE . MARRIAGE LAWS . OFFENCES AGAINST THE STATE XIX. THE LAWS OF GORTYNA .... XX. THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM OF ATHENS . XXL LEGAL PROCEDURE IN ATHENS XXII. GREEK STATES IN THEIR RELATIONS TO EACH OTHER PACK 440 454 463 468 484 492 504 514 526 534 537 542 553 558 560 574 581 597 BOOK VII SLA VERY L THE SOURCES OF THE SLAVE SUPPLY . . . 6tI II. THE EMPLOYMENT AND TREATMENT OF SLAVES . 617 IIL EMANCIPATION AND PRICE OF SLAVES . . 622 IV. THE EFFECTS OF SLAVERY 625 BOOK VIII WAR I. ARMOUR AND DRILL II. ARMY Organisation 630 635 xu CONTENTS CHAP. III. THE ARMY IN THE FIELD IV. SIEGE WARFARE AND FORTIFICATIONS V. THE TRIREME .... VI. NAVAL WARFARE . . . , BOOK IX THE THEATRE I. THE ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA . . . . n. THE BUILDINGS III. SCENERY IV. THE ACTORS AND THEIR COSTUMES V. THE PRODUCTION AND PERFORMANCE OF A PLAY 662 671 685 695 704 Appendix A. — List of Works on Greek Anti- quities 713 „ B. — Addenda 718 General Index 721 Index of Greek Words . . . . . . y^^ A MANUAL OF GREEK ANTIQUITIES BOOK I THE SURROUNDINGS OF GREEK LIFE CHAPTER I THE LAND AND PEOPLE It is universally allowed that the position and physical features of a country have great influence on the life and manners of its inhabitants, and nowhere may we more clearly trace such influence than in the case of Greece. Although Greece is not so large as Portugal, yet the extent of its coast is greater than that of the whole coast of the Iberian Peninsula. Everywhere deep bays and long arms of the sea stretch inland, so that scarcely any race of Greeks was out of sound, and none out of sight, of the sea. Cicero with truth writes,^ "ipsa Pelo- ponnesus fere tota in mari est." Only the people of Arcadia, of Doris, and a few other parts were without a port. And as the sea ran into the land, so the land ran into the sea in long promontories continued far out by chains of islands. The voyage from Greece to Asia, to Italy, to Sicily, and to Crete may be made without ever venturing more than a few leagues from land. If overtaken by a storm anywhere in his own seas, the Greek could in a very short time reach either a protected harbour or an island to leeward of which he could lie in quiet and safety. In the infancy of navigation the efifect of the chains of islands which lured the mariner from the mainland from one ^ De Jiepvbl. ii. 4. 2 THE SUEROUNDINGS OF GREEK LIFE to another, and offered him constant shelter and protection, in producing a roving and mercantile spirit, must have been very great. Starting from Argos, for instance, a ship could sail northwards to Thessaly, or crossing the isthmus, by the Gulf of Corinth, to Leucas and Epirus, without once reaching the open sea; and could pass eastwards amid a cluster of islands as far as Rhodes. If the west coast of Scotland were bright and fertile, the sea there warm and calm, and America only fifty miles beyond the Hebrides, then Scotland might resemble Greece, and it is easy to imagine how wealthy and powerful it would have become in the Middle Ages. In Greece the winter lasts but four months, and for all the rest of the year in the morning a breeze blows down the ^gean from the north, falling towards sunset and being replaced in the night by a light wind from the south. ^ Therefore the sailor can rely on the winds to favour his course, and can calculate his times with nicety. The configuration of the Peloponnesus was compared in ancient times to that of a plane leaf, and in the Middle Ages to that of a mulberry leaf, and the comparison is apt. If a mulberry, a vine, or sycamore leaf be taken and laid on its face, the back will present a set of ridges starting from the stalk and ending at the points of the leaf, with valleys between the ridges. The highlands of northern Arcadia represent the stalk, and from them run five ridges, one westwards through Achaia, one east- wards through Argolis, and three southwards towards the three great southern promontories of Greece. Arcadia itself is partly a medley of rocks and hills strewn in Alpine profusion, and partly a lofty tableland surrounded by higher hills, and having a comparatively rigorous climate. Between the offspringing ranges of hills are river-valleys, fertile, rich, and warm, dotted in ancient times with wealthy towns, and now at last beginning to recover some of their ancient prosperity. The same formation is repeated in northern Greece. The great ranges of the Cambunian Mountains and of lUyria in the north shut off Greece from the lands of the barbarians, and Pindus and its offshoots run south to the extremities of Attica and of Euboea, breaking off the land into smaU districts, each with its own valley, and each with its own lake or river. Thus it results that the whole of Greece proper may be divided into three sets of districts, each with different physical characters, and appropriate each to a different kind of life. ^ Curtius, H'mtory of Greece, cliap. i. THE LAND AND PEOPLE 3 The first set of districts comprises the plains about the mouths of streams. The largest rivers of Greece, leaving aside the Epirote Achelous, such as the Alpheus and Eurotas, are but small streams ; some of the most celebrated, as the Inachus and Ilissus, are but mountain torrents. The upper courses of these streams are straitened by the hills, but as they approach the sea their bed widens out, and they pass througli a triangle of alluvial soil. In such deltas are built almost all the oldest great and wealthy Greek cities, Athens, Argos, Sicyon, jMessene, and the rest. Landwards these cities only have communica- tions by mountain-passes or along a narrow belt of shore; but their face is towards the sea, and their natural outlet in that direction. The second class of districts consists of the mountain regions. Among these the most important are Epirus, ^tolia, Doris, Locri, and the greater part of Arcadia. The nature of the Greek highlands is determined by the character of the rocks of which they are composed. This is almost everywhere cal- careous stone ; and the consequence is the existence of a multitude of sharp or rounded peaks, of caves and of fissures, KaTd/3o6pa, mostly natural, though in some cases made by man, through which rivers often flow for a considerable distance without reaching the surface. In ancient times the mountains of Greece were covered with forest, and inhabited by a numerous and hardy race of herdsmen and hunters. The mountain valleys were highly cultivated, producing abundance of corn, and up the sides of many of the hills may still be traced the artificial terraces formed for the culture of the vine. The third class of districts comprises the elevated inland })lains or tablelands surrounded by mountains. This is an ordinary formation in Greece. The largest tableland is that of Thessaly, the whole surface of which is drained by the branches of a single river, the Peneius, which cuts through the mountain barrier at the vale of Tempo, and so reaches the sea. The greater part of Boeotia is likewise a plain encircled by moun- tains, as is the district of Mantinea and Tegea in Arcadia. These districts belong neither to the mountain nor the sea ; they are mostly rich and fertile ; but their climate is bleaker and severer than that of the plains near the sea. " In March," writes Ernst Curtius, "one finds Tripolitza (Tegea) in deep winter, in Laconia and Argos the spring is progressing, wliile at Calamata (Messenia) a summer sun already glows." ^ But * Peloponnesos, i. 52. 4 THE SURROUNDINGS OF GREEK LIFE of course by winter is not to be understood a winter of snow and ice. Greece lies in a region particularly subject to the influence of earthquakes and volcanic action. At present there are no active volcanoes in the country ; but in the second century B.C. there was a terrible submarine eruption close to the island Thera, when flames rose through the sea, and a new island was thrown up between Thera and Therasia. In the days of Pliny these islands were still liable to eruptions. Earthquakes have been frequent in certain regions from the earliest times. Sparta was visited thus more than once in the course of her history. In B.C. 464 the houses of the town were shattered, many Lacedaemonians lost their lives, and Taygetus itself lost one of its peaks. Achaia and the Corinthian Gulf are especially in the track of these subterranean convulsions : the Achaian cities of Helice and Bura were destroyed in historic times, B.C. 372. Athens, on the contrary, is comparatively exempt, whence it results that so much of the Parthenon is still standing, while most of the temples in other parts of Greece have been completely shattered by earthquakes. Earthquakes also have had much to do with the deep fissures of the mountains, their caves and rugged edges, and have produced in many cases deep and narrow, or even subterranean courses for the streams. The climate of Greece was praised by the ancients for its avoidance of the extremes both of heat and cold. This is its character as compared with the plains of Asia Minor or the highlands of Syria, which suffer from both extremes, rather than as compared with Western Europe. Attica is especially free from cold and wet, and the heat in the middle of summer is tempered by a charming sea-breeze. Still the present average of annual temperature (63.5 degrees) is rather high, according to our notions. About the middle of January snow falls, but does not lie long. It is succeeded by rains, and usually by the beginning of March spring is in full progress. The corn is cut in IMay, after which a few months of heat and drought occur. Such is now the climate of Attica. Some of tlie sea- board plains of the south, such as that of Messenia, are still warmer, and the air being less bright and clear than in Attica, the heat there is more oppressive. On the other hand the hilly districts and tablelands of the interior experience a very severe winter at times. In Arcadia and Boeotia the snow sometimes lies for weeks, and most of the hills of Epirus are capped with snow from November to March. The summer THE LAND AND PEOI'LE 5 heat in these inland districts is also great, and not tempered by proximity to the sea. The wind from the north-east, Bopea?, is the coldest ; the north-west wind, Ze^v/^os, soft and dry ; the south-west, NoTo?, moist. The scirocco, which blows from the south-east, is noted for causing lassitude and depression of spirits. Greece is still an extremely picturesque and beautiful country. For those who specially admire bold outline of hill and rock, and distant views of mountain, sea, and island seen through an atmosphere of brilliant purity and sometimes tinged with splendid colours at sunrise and sunset, no country could be more admirable. The prospects are wide and varied. From the Kock of Corinth, Parnassus and Athens seem quite near to the spectator. From the moderate height of Pentelicus, near Athens, one can watch the shadows on the hills of Euboea, At sea landmarks at a distance of twenty miles are perfectly clear. But in the softer and more pleasing features of land- scape Greece is deficient. The lakes and rivers are insignificant, the culture of the valleys, except near Patrae, poor. Above all there is a terrible want of trees on the hills. There is little doubt that in the early times of Greek history the country was well wooded ; and as a result the rainfall was much greater than at present, the rivers fuller, the land more fertile, and the climate cooler and more temperate. At the same time the swamps, now a constant source of malaria and fever, were kept drained by the industry of the inhabitants. The wasting aAvay of the forests began very early. Even Plato ^ laments the decline of vegetation, and compares the bare hills of Greece to the limbs wasted by disease of a once robust body. Within historical times in ancient Greece the size and energy of the rivers greatly decreased, and plains which had once been fertile, like that of Mycenae, became dry and barren. Therefore we must not forget, in judging ancient Greece by modern, that the former was cooler, more rainy, and more fertile, with a richer vegetation, and waving forests where now there is only bare stone and rock. During the historical age only a moderate proportion of the Hellenes dwelt in Hellas. They were spread over all the shores of the Mediterranean and Euxine, and experienced all climates from the burning heat of Gyrene to the fogs and frosts of the Crimea. Throughout lower Italy, Sicily, and Asia Minor all the harbours and the strips of land by the sea-shore ^ Critias 1 1 1 B. 6 THE SURROUNDINGS OF GREEK LIFE were in their hands. ^ Yet we are justified in confining our remarks on the physical surroundings of the Greeks to Hellas. When the Hellenes went out to found colonies they were already a nation with formed manners and customs, and dis- position which might indeed be modified by new surroundings but could not be radically altered. The facile Greek could easily adapt himself to his neighbours, and become, while still retaining his cherished native tongue, half-Gaulish at Massilia, half- African in Gyrene, half- Scythian in Russia. But it was European Hellas, with the islands, and the kindred coast of Asia Minor alone which formed the Greek race and impressed upon it the characters which it was to bear for all time. In no Greek colony did a moral or intellectual life arise capable of eclipsing or rivalling that of the mother country. In popula- tion and wealth Tarentum and Antioch might surpass Argos and Athens, but could not rival them in art and literature. In fact in both the physical and the moral characteristics of the Greeks may be seen the influence of their native country. Their bodily frames acciuired vigour from toiling up the moun- tains and labouring at the oar, while the genial winds and fostering sun gave grace and symmetry to their limbs. Their strength and activity were nurtured by daily gymnastic exer- cise, and a glow of health maintained by constant bathing and an open-air life. Of their physique it is fair to judge from their art, for although this no doubt loves the ideal, yet the sculptors must have found their prototypes in real life. All Greeks were not so happily framed, but some must have been ; and it is hard to imagine that so splendid an ideal of manly and womanly beauty could have arisen in any other country. To this day travellers often remark on the extreme beauty in face and shape of young Greek peasants in certain districts. The peoples of the south do not eat and drink like those of the north, and lack their restless energy and hardy perseverance ; but under favourable circumstances they are more supple, as muscular, and as active. If we may trust most the later and more realistic sculptors, the ancient Greeks were not so much distinguished for force, though by no means wanting in that, as for beauty of outline and a noble propor- tion throughout. We know less of the forms of Greek women, because the statues which have come down to us preserve comparatively few types ; and realistic statues of beautiful ^ Cicero, Repuhl. ii. 4, "All the lands of the barbarians are surrounded by a sort of Greek fringe." THE LAND AND PEOPLE J women were for obvious reasons rcire. A soft and sensuous beauty specially distinguished the ladies of Ionia, and the sinewy Lacouian girls must have furnished apt models for the statues of Artemis the huntress. The moral character of the race also owed much to mountains and to sea. The mountains, by dividing town from town and shutting off tribe from tribe, encouraged in them a strong love of independence, and a spirit to preserve it. It is ever the people of the hills who maintain tlieir autonomy in the face of an invader to whom the plains submit. The presence of the sea stimulated their faculties and roused their curiosity. Every day brought strangers and new kinds of merchandise to their shores, to furnish fresh stimulus and to prevent them from rusting in sloth. Their land was not rich enough to save them from the necessity of daily toil and exertion, yet it answered readily to their efforts. Their climate was gentle and genial enough to encourage a somewhat sensuous and pleasure-loving disposition, such a disposition as art and poetry love best, and yet not soft enough to produce enervation and luxury. In disposition, in temper, and stability, the Greek races differed much one from the other. But as a whole the people of Hellas surpassed all nations, ancient and modern, in one quality. This is the love and perception of a mean or measure in all things. In physical growth, intellectual pursuits, and moral conduct they seemed to move by a certain rhythm. The sense of mea- sure marks their philosophy, their poetry, and their art, and there can be no doubt that tlie more of measure that we dis- cover in their religion, their thought, and their private life, the nearer we shall be to understanding them. To the above-mentioned threefold division of the physical surface of Greece correspond the classes of its inhabitants. We might divide these by races into Dorian, Ionian, and ^Eolian. But far deeper than the distinctions of race lie those produced by life and employment. When the Dorians settled at a maritime city like Sicyon or ^gina, they soon came to re- semble the lonians in manners and external character, only preserving some remains of their gravity and staidncss of demeanour. The term /Eolians, too, includes races differing one from the other so much as the Boeotians and the ^tolians. We shall therefore prefer the division which was recognised in Attica in Solon's time, and divide Greeks into three classes, as inhabitants of the mountains, the shore, and the plains. To the end the peoples of the mountains remained comparatively rude and therefore simple, retaining the virtues and the vices 8 THE SURROUNDINGS OF GREEK LIFE of semi-barbarians. In the later times of Greece they became mercenaries in troops, like the Swiss in the Middle Ages. In earlier times they composed the armies which marched under the headship of Sparta. Sparta, though situated in a river- valley, was yet the head of the hill-tribes. Its manners and customs all bespeak an origin among rude herdsmen and hunters. The conservatism of Sparta corresponds to the stag- nation of the clans living in remote mountain glens, on whom the course of Greek development had no effect, who knew nothing of arts, or letters, or commerce. In Arcadia the primitive, even the pre-Hellenic religions of Greece found a dwelling-place. It was the land of nymphs and river-gods, of Pan and his rout, of the herdsman's god Hermes. Supersti- tions of all kinds sheltered themselves among its hills. The people of ^tolia never, until the Koman conquest, gave up their predatory and piratical habits. Like the Highland clans of Scotland some centuries ago, they lived by the plunder which they amassed in incursions into neighbouring lands. All the cities near had to pay them tribute. The Epirotes, who may fairly be considered as Greeks by blood, long maintained a rugged independence under native chiefs, who were little more than leaders in war. It was in the cities of the shore and the islands that all that we think of as specially Hellenic in art, philosophy, and literature developed. Yet Greece could not have spared her rude moun- taineers. As the mountains formed a backbone to the land, so the mountaineers formed a backbone to the race. But for the Arcadian and the Dorian, the fate of Miletus would have over- taken Athens. As in modern England so in Greece there was a constant overflow from the country to the cities ; and when a new colony was planned or an expedition undertaken, many of the recruits came from the hills. The Greek of the shore and the sea was more quick-witted and active than the mountaineer, with far more understanding, taste, and refinement, but with a certain tendency towards idleness and gossiping, and towai'ds overreaching. In modern Greece these vices are very widely spread ; but one may still get beyond them after a day's march into the hills of the interior. In the plains and tablelands there was space for a wider division between rich and poor than among the mountains or in trading cities. This was especially the case in Thessaly, where a chivalrous aristocracy possessed the soil and oppressed its cultivators. This wealthy class was given to horse-riding and gymnastics, and possessed the usual virtues of slaveholders, THE LAND AND PEOI'LE 9 while the poor, the Penestse, acquired the vices of slaves. In Boeotia the people were noted for their gross feeding and gluttony, which was a consequence of the richness of their soil, and reacted upon their brains, which were duller than those of their neighbours. Other plains of Greece were small ; but their tendency, as far as it went, was towards producing social inequalities and aristocratical government. In Attica, in the time of Solon, the Pediaei were devoted to aristocracy, and the flatter countries were the strongholds of oligarchical insti- tutions. Even the rich valleys of Laconia and Messenia were in later times full of the large properties of a few wealthy pro- prietors. But the only aristocracies which encouraged literature and art were those of the great cities. As the special home of culture, Athens needs a few separate remarks. Whatever might be the case with the Piraeus, Athens itself was by no means exclusively a city of the sea. The Athenian territory comprised all Attica, a district greater than that of any other city of Hellas, except Sparta. Attica consists of an agreeable mixture of hills and plains. In the latter, barley, the olive, and the fig flourished abundantly, though the soil was somewhat poor and needed careful tilling. Parnes and Pente- licus aff'orded good pasturage for sheep and goats, and Hymettus fed innumerable bees. In early Athenian times each wealthy citizen spent much of his time at his country house : it was not until the Peloponnesians had made themselves masters of the country that all Athenians were cooped up in the city and became a purely urban population. And the Athenians them- selves were ready to acknowledge their debt to the climate of their district. The air of Athens is the driest and brightest in Greece ; and the ancients used to say that the wits of the people partook of the character of their air, while on the other hand the fogs and mists of Boeotia ^ tended to induce, no less than their rustic plenty and habits of gluttony, stupidity in the Boeotian population. It is not fanciful to connect with this clearness of air the keenness of sense which the Athenians enjoyed, and the finish which that keenness of sense caused them to cultivate in their works of plastic art, temples, and pictures, and in their music and acting. And the fine taste which accompanies fine sense they exercised in other fields, oratory, philosophy, and poetry ; while the keenness of wit which was native to them made them quick in discovery and ever ready to imbibe new ideas. ^ So in Pindar, Botunla Cj, 01. vi. 1 53. lO THE SURROUNDINGS OF GREEK LIFE CHAPTER II THE CITIES: ARRANGEMENT AND PLAN Scattered as they were through all lands, from the banks of the Indus to the coast of Spain, and from the Crimea to the deserts of Africa, men of Greek race must have experienced all climates, and chansijed, in accordance with their material sur- roundings, many of their customs. But wherever they dwelt out of Hellas proper, one feature specially distinguished them, that they dwelt in cities; and about the city all their life grouped itself. Alexander the Great's plan for holding the East rested entirely on the frequent foundation of Greek cities, and to this day there is an irresistible tendency among those of Greek race to flock into towns and leave the life of the country to duller races. But of course, though to us the Greeks appear as a race of citizens, their cities were gradually evolved out of earlier forms. The city resulted from a combination of villages, Kco/xai, and if it fell into the hands of its enemies, was broken up into villages again. The history of Mantineia is in this respect specially interesting. When the Spartans conquered Mantineia, ^ they destroyed the wall, and compelled the people to separate into their original villages; and it was not until the victories of Epaminondas that the wall of Mantineia was again built to enclose the inhabitants. So Athens, as Thucydides tells us,^ sprang from an amalgamation of early hamlets, in the time and under the influence of Theseus. Greece is a land of hills ; and whenever the traveller in Greece sees before him a detached hill advancing from the main range into one of the little plains which open on to the sea, he is at once almost sure that he is looking on the site of an early city. On such eminences, at some distance from the shore for security from pirates, yet not out of reach of it, and surrounded by a plain, were situate Athens, Argos, Corinth, Mycenae, and almost all the cities which were early great. Recent excavations have enabled us clearly to trace in the case of acropolis hills of early cities, such as Athens, Mycenje, and Tiryns, three uses in three successive ages.^ In the earliest 1 Hellen. v. 2, 4. 2 jj, i^_ 3 See, among other works, Botticher's Akropolis von Athen, Schliemann's Tiryns, &c. THE CITIES 1 ARRANGEMENT AND PLAN I I period which we can discover they were roiiglily walled in and covered with small cabins, mere village-fastnesses, whither the dwellers in the plains around could flee in case of invasion or attack by pirates. Some early graves cut in the rock belong to this stage. Next we find them surrounded by far more care- fully made and elaborate walls, and occupied by the splendid palaces of races of wealthy rulers, of which palaces that un- earthed at Tiryns may best give us a notion. It was thus that acropolis-rocks were used by the lines of kings of whom we hear in legend, and of whom the Homeric poems are full. In the third period, which belongs to recorded history, the heights are used no longer for the dwellings of men but for the temples of the deities of the state, as well as, in the last resort, fortified posts whence tyrants might control the cities around, or from the walls of which the citizens might repel the attacks of the enemy. With the growth of security and population the cities spread downwards ; an agora and a town were formed at the foot or on the lower slopes of the hill, the top of which remained fort- fied and the seat of ancient religious cults. ^ At the nearest point of the coast a small harbour-town was formed, a sort of marine suburb of the mother city. Thus Athens had Pircef^s ; Corinth, Lechteum and Cenchrese ; Argos, Kauplia; and Megara, Nissea. At a later time long w^alls ^ were in many cases built from city to harbour, in order to prevent an enemy from cutting oft" the one from the other ; but this did not take place until after the Persian wars. The circumstances under which those of Athens were built are notorious. Some part of their course may even yet be traced When in and after the ninth century B.C. the Greeks began to found colonies, they often chose sites in foreign lands close to the sea-shore or on the banks of a great river, as suited the interests of trade ; and commercial cities so founded always looked back with the utmost veneration to the rock where stood the oldest shrines of their mother city. Of the cities of the times of Homer we have to judge partly from the terms in which he speaks of them, partly from the facts revealed in the recent disinterment of INIycenae. The most frequent phrase of Homer in reference to cities is cvkti- [X€vov TTToXUOpov, wcU built, on which phrase the admirably ^ See Thuc. ii. 15, for a full account of this process in the case of Athens. ^ For representations of Greek walls and gates, see Schreiber's BUderallas. pi. xlviii.-l. 12 THE SUEROUNDINGS OF GREEK LIFE preserved walls of Tiryns and Mycenae, walls of massive Cyclo- pean construction, form the best commentary. What is above said as to the position of early cities is confirmed by Homer's occasional application to them of the term ^Jve/xoets, windy. The iise of other Homeric epithets seems less appropriate. When he calls a city evpvxopos and cvpvdyvta, broad spaced and broad- streeted, we must allow a considerable margin for poetic and imaginative fervour, for in ancient as in modern cities the oldest streets were almost always the most narrow and irregular. So, too, when Homer calls a city populous, evvaiofMevov,^ we must understand the phrase in connection with the usual size of early cities, and suppose that the poet meant to contrast it with a mere open village. This Homer shows himself, for when he distinguishes a group of Argive cities, he does so not by any characteristic belonging to their importance or position in commerce, but by the circumstances of their position and terri- tory. Thus Ira is grassy, Trotvjecro-a,^ Antheia deep-meadowed, fSaOvXeifjios, Pedasus and Pyrasus are flowery, Epidaurus vine- clad, and so forth. Such language shows how much in its infancy was the pushing, restless, trading city-life of later Greece. Nevertheless, in his mention of the agora, he shows us the germs of that life. As time went on and commerce increased in the Greek cities, many of the functions for which the agora had served were carried on in more convenient and sheltered places. First the administration of justice was removed. Next went the meetings of political and deliberative assemblies, though these lingered longer in democratic than in aristocratic communities. ^ Even at Athens the Ecclesia was transferred from the agora to the Pnyx, and later to the Theatre of Dionysus. By degrees the agora was appropriated to commerce and social union. Pausanias ^ distinguishes two kinds of agora, the old, and the Ionian or new. The former was more rambling and scattered, and the streets went through, not merely to it. The latter was square or oblong, surrounded by continuous arcades ; often even completely enclosed by arcades and doors. In the later Greek foundations the market-place was of immense size. Thus at Syracuse a large number of troops under Dion encamped in the ^ The word evvaiofj-evov may, however, mean well situate or well built. 2 11. ix. 150. 2 At the same time the word dyopd ceased to be used of the assembled people as well as the place. Cp., however, yEsch. in Ctes. 27 : dyopdiu TToirjaaL tup (pvKdv. The verb dyopeveiv bore testimony to the old use. * vi. 24. THE. CITIES: ARRANGEMENT AND PLAN I 3 agora,^ and when, in Timoleon's time, the population of the city had fallen off, cattle could pasture on the grass which grew there in places. ^ The arcades also gained in stateliness, trees were planted for the convenience of loungers, and fountains built, and the whole place rendered attractive.^ In the neigh- bourhood of the agora of most cities were the great temples, especially those of local heroes; here statues were erected in vast quantities, and here the /SovXevr/jpLov and other public offices were to be found. Through the arcades, a-roat, and at the feet of the statues, were crowded the stalls of the vendors of all kinds of commodities, a particular part of the area being appropriated to the sale of each class of ware. These separate divisions and districts were named from the articles sold in each, such name being sometimes singular in form and some- times plural ; each was full of a-Kr^vat, or booths, divided one from another with wicker crates, ykppa,^ which seem to have been permanent or only cleared away in case of necessity. The most important of all the markets to Athenian tastes was the t'x^*^?, or fish-market ; next to it came the \vrpai, or crockery- market, the wine-market, and the slave-market. One region was called the yvvaiKeta dyopa,^ a phrase which has caused much controversy in modern times, chiefly because it is known that women did not frequent the market as purchasers. Some think that in the ywatKeta dyopd specially womanly articles, such as paint and perfumes, were sold ; some think that the sellers there were women, who certainly did sometimes act in that capacity ; and some think that women stood there for hire. Some special articles were not only sold in the agora, but taken also round to the houses by women ; thus bread was dispensed by the dpToirioXtSes, and ribbons by a raLVLOTrcoXis. No doubt when the agora was full the noise and confusion w^ere distract- ing ; sellers calling their wares, purchasers cheapening goods, and the ayopavo/xot Avandering about to detect false weights and settle the many disputes which were sure to arise. Also the agora was frequented by all wdio sought publicity — tlie masters of the Socratic elenchus, rhapsodists, poets who wanted to recite their verses, and musicians whose art claimed recognition. Pro- bably to most of the latter classes the bell which announced tlie opening of the fish-market, ringing at a fixed time every day, ' Diod. XX i. 10. Cp. Cic. Vcrr. iv. c. 53. 2 Plut. Timol. 22. ^ So by Ciinon at Athens. Plut. Cimo7i, 13. * Demosth. de Cor. § 169. 5 Theophr. Char. 2 ; Pollux, x. 18. 14 THE SURROUNDINGS OF GREEK LIFE was a formidable rival. Wliile it was considered churlish for a man entirely to absent himself from places of public resort, yet the ordinary Athenian gentleman would not spend too much of his time in the agora. Loungers, dyopaioi, had a bad reputation. At Athens the principal market was in the inner Ceramicus.^ On one side of it was the /Saa-iXetos crTod, so named from the King Archon who sat there, near which were portrait-statues of Timotheus, Conon, and Evagoras, the Cyprian king, together with an image of Zeus Eleutherius. By these was the stoa, containing pictures of the twelve great gods, also of Theseus, Demos, and Democracy, and of the battle of Mantinea, in which the Athenians fought on the Spartan side. Next stood a temple of Apollo Patroiis, and one of the Mother of the Gods, and close by the Senate-house of the five hundred. Further on was the Tholus where the Prytanes sacrificed, and the statues of the Athenian eponymous tribal heroes, on the basis of which the official notices of the government were posted. Besides these might be mentioned the temples of Hephaestus and Aplirodite Urania and Pandemos, together with the stoa called Poecile, containing the pictured battles of the Athenians, the altar of Pity, and many other erections. The whole market- place was a vast museum of splendid works of art, as indeed are those of all the cities described by Pausanias. By a strange contrast in the open space in the midst of the agora camped the Scythian ro^oTai, the policemen who kept order in the Athenian assemblies. Athens had other smaller markets be- sides that of the Ceramicus, for instance, a corn-market, a-rod aA.. THE CITIES : ARRANGEMENT AND RLAN 1 9 fine houses doubtless arose in the suburbs in later times. The narrowness of the streets of Argos was fatal to Pyrrhus when he forced his way into the city. But the streets through which processions passed must have been broader and more imposing.- Thus the street of the Tripods, wherein were set up the tripods won by Athenians in musical and other contests, and the street of the Hermse^ at Athens were wider and adorned with many fine monuments. These contained the better houses. Many streets were appropriated to the dealers in particular articles ; for instance, the Kt/^wTOTrotoi (boxmakers) and the €piioykv(f)d<; at Athens had streets named after them. In front of most of the houses stood rude pillar-like figures of Apollo 'Ayvtev?, and often also of Hecate. Little shrines of these and other deities were of frequent recurrence. Hippodamus of IVIiletus - was the first to introduce regularity into town building. This architect laid out the Piraeus and the new cities of Thurii in Italy and Rhodes. Dinocrates, following in his footsteps, constructed Alexandria on most methodical plans. These cities were laid out with wide streets at rvj}\t angles one to the other, and had many open spaces. Temples were erected in them, not on spots hallowed by legend, but where they would show best and be most acces- sible. Large stose and gymnasia adorned the most frequented streets. The streets of Alexandria in particular were really fine ; we are told that one stretched uninterrupted from the western to the eastern gate, a distance of thirty stadcs, or more than a league, and had a breadth of more than a hundred feet. The houses of the same city were all built of stone or brick, and never of wood, wliicli was in older cities a common material. Some of these houses rose to a height of three storeys, and from their flat roofs a good view over the city might be obtained. In the same city a great feature was the Royal Palace of the Ptolemies, which occupied from a fifth to a third of the entire area of the towm, and included, together with endless halls and apartments, the Museum with all its literary treasures. The places above mentioned being maritime, the builders of them bestowed on their docks and arsenals great labour and expense. Moles Avere built to protect their harbours from injury, and on the island of Pharos at Alex- ^ The Hermrc were not, however, confined to this street, but to be found in all parts of the city. On these Hermce Hipparchus engraved moral saws. Plato, Ilipparch. 22S. 2 Arist. Pol. ii. 5, For fuller information ou these matters see Krause'a De'inokratts. 20 THE SURROUNDINGS OF GREEK LIFE andria was erected the great lighthouse which has ever since been renowned. Some of the cities built by the successors of Alexander in Asia were constructed most methodically, and included refine- ments quite new in the history of civic architecture. Thus of the city of Nicaea, built by Lysimachus, it was said that you could stand by a stone in the agora and look through the four principal gates of the city, which were turned to the four points of the compass. At Antioch on the Orontes there were pillared arcades on each side of the principal streets, so that a man might go on wet days dry-shod for mile after mile. Close to the same city was the park of Daphne, a place where all that was beautiful in nature was cultivated in profusion. Older towns had their trim olive and myrtle groves, but this was the first city to possess something like what we should call a park. The suburbs of ancient as of modern cities were more loosely built, witli spaces between the houses, gardens, and open places. In the immediate vicinity of the principal city gates, outside them, the roads were flanked with rows of handsome marble monuments erected over the dead. But these were not of a character to cause depression and melancholy, rather calculated, on the other hand, to please and refresh by the beauty of their designs and reliefs. Frequently on the outskirts of a town was the temple of some popular deity, with its spaces and groves, and a little town of the ministrants to the temple. Thus in the suburb of Corinth called Craneion was situate the great temple of Aphrodite, which was the centre of the dissolute life of the place, as the agora was of the commercial life. We can better understand the life and character of Diogenes the Cynic if we reflect that it was here that his cask was placed during part of his life. These suburban temples were in some cases the seats of games. Then they were surrounded by an extensive re/xevos, which included a stadium, a theatre, the shrines of inferior deities and daemons, and a number of statues set up by grateful cities or by winners at the games. There were also, in the case of the great centres of worship, treasuries belonging to various cities and states specially erected to contain their votive ofl'erings. Around the refxevos at the time of the solemn festival were set up the tents and huts of thousands of visitors from all parts of Greece, and the booths of those who frequented such places of assembly with goods for sale. The whole neighbour- hood bore for the time the appearance of a fair, and sacrifices, processions, and feasts crowded one another all day. THE HOMERIC HOUSE 2 1 The water supply of tlie Greeks was rendered cnsier from the fact that Greece is a land of springs and streams, and it was seldom necessary to bring a supply from a distance by canals or aqueducts. When such necessity was imposed the Greeks did not raise their watercourses in Roman fashion on arches striding imperially over the valleys, but made the best use of existing slopes and gradients.^ At the city end of an aqueduct, or over a city spring, was almost always erected a stately grotto, with marble pillars and steps. Hither in the morning would flock the girls with their water-pots, as we see them flocking in the paintings on those very hydrice which they carried, many of which are preserved in modern museums. Often the spring Avas without the walls, in which case the water-carriers had often to dread an ambush of an enemy in its neighbour- hood. In the numerous public buildings of Greece — the gymnasia, the baths, the Government buildings, the innumerable halls and arcades — the men passed the greater part of their time. It must never be forgotten that during the great time of Greece these were the real dwelling-place of the freeman. The private houses were quite of secondary importance, the men only retired to them to eat and to sleep ; all their energies centred about the market-place, the council-hall, the gymnasium, and the theatre. It was not until the decline of Greece had set in that the private buildings at all rivalled the public ones in splendour. CHAPTER III THE HOMERIC HOUSE The plan and arrangement of houses in the Homeric age is a subject which has of late years roused a good deal of interest, and called forth several dissertations.^ Such of these as were written before the discovery of the ancient palaces on the acropolis hills of Tiryns and Mycenae are necessarily out of date, since it is indubitable that this discovery has given us important data. On the other hand, it is a mistake to recon- ^ Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, iv. 377. 2 A list of these at p. 170 of vol. vii. of the Journ. IIcll. Stud. See also my chap. iv. m Nexo Chapters in Greek Ilistori/ ; Bie in Jahrbuch des Arch. Inst. 1891, p. I ; Lange, Ilaus und Halle, 1SS5 ; and Joseph, Paldste des Ilomcrischen Epos, 1893. 2 2 THE SURROUNDINGS OF GREEK LIFE struct the Homeric palace entirely on the basis offered by remains of the Greek heroic age, since it appears certain that there was a considerable gap . in time between the civilisation revealed by the spade in Argolis, and that reflected in the poems of Homer. The plan we propose to follow is to take our start from the Homeric poems, but to welcome any light which may be gained from the comparison of the palaces at Mycenae and Tiryns. The houses of Homeric chiefs consisted of three parts, avA?}, Soj/xa or jxeyapov, and OdXa^ios,^ of which the first was the front court, the second the hall of the men, the third the apartments of the women. All these parts will be reviewed in order. All were enclosed by a massive stone wall, doubtless of Cyclopean construction. As one approached the house this wall would be most con- spicuous, with the roof of the buildings within it showing over the top. Vivid are the words in which Odysseus as he ap- proaches his own house describes it to Eumaeus, " There is building beyond building, and the court is furnished with wall and battlements, and there are solid twofold doors; no man might scorn it."^ This wall was for defence rather than any other purpose. It was pierced only at one point and at that defended by massive folding- doors, Ovpai 8lkXl8€5o6ev 6 Ti fxr] de?, /xrire TeKVoiroLwvrai oi oU^rai Avev t^s rj/Merepas ypic/jL-qs. 2 Menander apnd Stob. Scrm. Ixxiv. 11 : iripas yap aSXios dvpa, eXevdepq. yvvaiKl v€vbfJ.LaT oiKla%. 38 THE SURROUNDINGS OF GREEK LIFE we knocked again ; and he, with door shut, answered us : * Fellows,' said he, ' did you not hear that he is not at leisure?' 'But, friend,' said I, 'we did not come to see Callias, nor are we Sophists ; cheer up, for we came in hope of seeing Protagoras. Come, announce us.' Grudgingly then the man opened the door to us. When we entered, we saw Protagoras walking up and down in the prostobn, and in a line with him walked, on one side of him, Callias, the son of Hipponicus, and his brother on the mother's side, Paralus, son of Pericles ; and Charmides, son of Glaucon ; and on the other side, the other son of Pericles, Xanthippus ; and Philippides, the son of Philomelus ; and Antimoerus of Mende, who is the most notable of Protagoras' pupils, and learns with a view to practise, intending to be a Sophist. These were followed by a throng listening to the talk, who were mostly strangers, whom Protagoras attracts from all cities through which he passes, charming them with his voice, like Orpheus, so that they follow the witchery of his talk : in the chorus, however, were some Athenians. I was particularly pleased as I watched this chorus to see what care they took never to be in the way in front of Protagoras; but when he turned, and those with him, in good and orderly fashion, they separated in this direc- tion and that, and, wheeling round, kept themselves always in the rear most admirably. ' Next after him I beheld,' as Homer puts it, Hippias of Elis sitting on a chair in the opposite prostoon. Around him sat on benches Eryximachus, the son of Acumenus ; and Phaedrus of Myrrhine ; and Andron, the son of Androtion, and various strangers, some his own countrymen and some not. They seemed to be questioning Hippias about physics and astronomical subjects, while he, sitting on his chair, was deciding matters for each, and going through the questions in detail. Then, ' Tantalus, I saw ; ' for Prodicus of Ceos was staying there : he was in a room which Hipponicus had before used as a store-room; but now Callias, in conse- quence of the crowd of visitors, had emptied it and made it a guest-chamber. Prodicus indeed was still in bed, covered up, it seemed, with fleeces and coverlets many in number ; and on couches near there sat by him Pausanias of Ceramis [and others]. But what they were talking about I could not tell from outside, though very desirous to hear Prodicus, for he seems to me an all-^vise man and a divine ; but because of the grave tone of his voice, a certain echo rising in the house kept making his words indistinct." There is in this passage one important term connected with PKIVATE HOUSES: HISTORICAL TIMES 39 the house which we have not explained. This is the irpocrTioov. When Socrates reached the house of Callias he found on enter- ing Protagoras walking up and down in the tt/docttwov, accom- panied by his disciples, and Hippias seated in the opposite TT/oocTTcoov (Iv TO) KaravTLKpv irpodTiiHo) among his followers. It is difficult to be certain of the meaning of the terms here em- ployed, but it would seem that the two prostoa are the two ends of the andronitis, that next the street and that next the women's apartments, in which case the rival Sophists mentioned by Plato would be separated by the whole length of the first court. The third Sophist, Prodicus, lay in one of the chambers opening out of the peristyle. If three discussions could go on at once in the andronitis, and three parties of pupils assemble, it must have been of considerable size. The ground plan of the women's court was probably in general similar to that of the men. There was the same hypsethral opening, with chambers round, chambers mostly tenanted by female slaves or used as the offices of the mistress. But here the peristyle, according to Yitruvius, stretched round three sides of the court only. On the fourth side, that furthest, as a rule, from the street and the [xeo-avXos, was a different arrangement. There were here two pillars only, and between them a recess called iracrTas or Trpoa-rds (10), which seems to have been a shallow room with walls on three sides, but open to the court. This Tracrras is mentioned by Xenophon,^and would appear to be an ancient and essential part of the house, if we consider the passage of Galen already discussed, where we find mention of something closely resembling it in rude and primitive farmhouses. About this recess were grouped the most important rooms of the court. On one side of it, according to Yitruvius, was the OdXapLos (11), the bedroom of the master and mistress of the house, where were stored the most precious pieces of furniture and coverlets. 2 On the other side was the a/x. ^ vii. 49. Fig. 9.— Bronze Figure FROM HeRCULANEUM. THE DRESS OF MEN AND WOMEN 55 ment from that of women, but was very much shorter, being arranged without a diplois or kolpos, and yet reaching only half-way down the thigh. The himation was worn in much the same way by both sexes, by women as the upper, by men frequently as the sole garment. It consisted of a large nearly square piece of cloth, doubled over {abed, see Fig. lo, I.) at the line I m, so as to be oblong (l m c d, Fig. lo, II.). This was then taken up and the point X placed on the left shoulder, the line x m reaching down the chest. It was then brought round the back until the point y passed under the right arm, which was left quite free. It was then brought round the chest until the point z reached the left shoulder, when the remainder z I was gathered together Fig. io— I. ii. and thrown over the back (Fig. lo. III.). It was not fastened at all, but held together by its own weight and by the arms. Thus it required skilful adjustment; but a little practice with a blanket will soon convince the student that it could easily be kept on except during exercise or in a high wind. The above is the most usual mode of adjustment, but several others were common for the sake of comfort or variety. Thus sometimes the order of arrangement just described was reversed, and the garment brought first round the chest, under the right arm and then round the back, in which case the end gathered together would hang down in front of instead of behind the left shoulder. Sometimes when this reverse order was observed the end of the himation was at starting placed under the left arm instead of being thrown backward over the shoulder. Sometimes it was 56 THE SUmiOUNDlNGS OF GREEK LIFE fastened on one shoulder with a fibula. Other variations may be observed by any one who takes the trouble to examine the monuments. It would seem from reliefs that when a Greek sat do^vll or reclined, he usually allowed his himation to fall to his waist, about which he gathered it. Women commonly draw the himation over instead of under the right shoulder and turned up the outer fold over the head and shoulders to form an ample veil. A good in stance is the colossal statue called Artemisia in the Brit- ish Museum. The himation of women was called dfJiTrey^ovr] or (fioipos.^ Such were the ordinary or standard shapes of the Greek garments, but of course they varied a good deal at various times. Thus the x^^l^^'^) which was originally a riding and war cloak of the Thes- salians and other northern races, was early introduced into Greece and almost en- tirely superseded the hima- tion as a cloak for young men and for men on active business. The mode of wear- ing the chlamys was very simple. It was of oblong shape and doubled until nearly square, as in the en- graving; m n thus becomes the closed side and ab,cd the open one. The wearer stand- ing with his back to the reader puts his head through at 7n e and fastens the chlamys at e with a buckle on his right shoulder. The ends would hang down or flap in the wind, whence they were called irrepvyes. 1 The standard work un Greek dress is Studniczka, Altgriechische Tracht. 1886. I may say, however, that though the above views correspond nearly with those of Studniczka, they had been written and expressed in lectures before his work appeared. F;G. 10. — III. ASKLEPIOS. THE DRESS OF MEN AND WOMEN 57 In this Avay the left arm, which was in riding naturally used only to hold the reins, would be entirely covered, but the right quite free to hold whip or lance ; the points c d would hang down and nearly touch the ground. The mention made of dress in various passages in Homer shows that at that period all Greeks wore two garments, one under and one upper. The under garment is called in Homer by its later Greek name, the x^''^^^?^ in the case of men, but in the case of women it was called TreTrAos.^ No doubt it was a garment worn in Dorian fashion, short in the case of all men except the Taoves kXKexiraives, but longer in the case of women. Over this the Greek men wore a double or folded garment, called by Homer xkalva^'^ or sometimes Awtti/, which are only older names for the Greek i/xartov. Women wore, in addition Fig. II.— I. II. to the TTCTrAos, a veil, KaXv-n-rpa or Kp-j8€[xvov.^ The ^'^'^"'"^ served not only as a protection against weather, but being a large square or oblong piece of woollen, was used as a bed- covering. Coming down to historical times, we do not find in the case of dress so great changes as we found in the case of houses. First we will speak of men. In historical times the lon;^ chiton had gone out of use, except in the case of priests and other persons of dignity, as well as those who, like the charioteer, required protection from the wind. Men wore as ^ Od. xiv. 488, &c. This word is rendered "'doublet" by Butcher ami Lang. It clearly, however, corresponds to our " shirt." - Thus Athena, when arming {/I. v. 734), takes off her peplos, and puts on in its place the chiton of her father Zeus. 2 Od. xix. 226. "* Od. xviii. 292. 58 THE SUKROUNDINGS OF GREEK LIFE the normal dress a short Dorian chiton and a himation. This miglit be proved by a score of passages ; but it will be sufficient to cite one. It is said that Hippias at Olympia ^ wore nothing that he had not made himself ; the list of his clothes includes for the body only t/xanov, x'-'^^^^^'^^^^ and ^lovrj, or girdle. To this rule, however, there were exceptions. At Athens boys in early times wore only the chiton, went yvfxvob in the snow,^ as Dikaios Logos says in Aristophanes ; and it was not until the time of the Peloponnesian war that they took to wrapping themselves up in himatia. When the boys reached the ephebic age, they wore, besides the chiton, a chlamys, the manner of wearing which garment may be studied in the Parthenon frieze. At Sparta, as might have been supposed, dress was ruder and scantier. The boys, as Plutarch ^ tells us, began at twelve years old to go about without a chiton, getting one himation a year. And this custom they commonly kept up even as men, going about with the himation only ; and the Spartan himation was a small and rough garment. It was called contemptuously TpijSMv by more luxurious Greeks. From the Spartans the custom of dispensing with an under-garment spread among the hardier, more simple, or more philosophical of the Greeks. Socrates* wore only a poor himation, the same summer and winter, with no chiton; so did the orator Lycurgus. Gelon, King of Syracuse, sometimes surprised the citizens by coming to the Ecclesia a;>(iTa)v ev i/xarttf). The followers of Antisthenes carried the custom to a further extreme. Of course when occu- pied in physical labour, a Greek would throw aside the outer garment and wear the chiton only. The rude chiton, fastened on one shoulder only, ere/DO/xao-xaXos ;>(tTwv or e^w/x6s, belonged especially to slaves and those who had to undergo hard labour. Freemen fastened the chiton over both shoulders, a/Ac^f/xdurxaAos X^TiOV. Gentlemen were particular as to the way of putting on and the way of wearing the himation. The correct way of putting on was called IttI Se^ta dvafSdXXccrdaL. Poseidon, in the Birds of Aristophanes,^ ridicules Triballus for putting on his garment, cTT dpiarrepa. By the former phrase seems to be implied the gathering together of the end of the garment and throwing it over the left shoulder. It was also well-bred to keep the left- hand under the himation ; and it was considered the part of a 1 Plato, Hip. Min. p. 368. ^ Nubes, 1. 964. ^ Lycurg. 16. 4 Xenoph. Memor. i. 6, 2. ^ 1. 1567. THE DRESS OF MEN AND WOMEN 59 lout, aypoLKos, to hoist the ends above the knee, so as to show the legs;i it was far better to let it trail slightly on the ground. We hear that it was one of the affectations of the young Alcibiades ^ to let his himation trail on the ground. Next as regards women : of these the usual house-dress con- sisted of the chiton, the outdoor and comi)any dress of that together with the himation. On the Athenian stelae, young girls commonly wear only an ample chiton ; matrons wear the himation also ; and slaves wear a garment with long sleeves. It has been doubted whether in addition an under-chiton, XiTiovLov, was not frequently worn. It is difficult to settle this point by reference to the writers ; but probability is certainly in favour of the wearing of warm underclothing in cold weather. We find also in sculpture a few clear instances of an under- chiton, as in case of one of the female figures on a drum of a column from Ephesus in the British Museum. The Laconian women, like the Laconian men, wore fewer and more scanty clothes than their Attic sisters. Thus we hear ^ that Periander of Epidaurus saw the daughter of Procles, Melitta, dressed in Laconian fashion, pouring out wine for men at work in the fields and fell in love with her. This Laconian dress is more closely described in the passage dva/x7re;>^ovos Kal jxovox^tojv -qv, " She had one chiton and no over-garment." And not only did Dorian women go about clad in chiton only, but that chiton was quite short. This we may judge from the numerous statues of Amazons and Artemis, wherein the chiton barely reaches to the knee. So too Pausanias* says of the women who ran races at Olympia that their x^'^^^ stopped short a little above the knee, and they showed the right shoulder down to the chest, a statement fully borne out by the celebrated statue in the Vatican of a virgin victorious in the race. Sometimes the diplois of a woman's dress was not a mere fold of the chiton, but a separate garment, put on over it ; and those Greek women who were in fear of losing their shape wore something remotely resembling the modern stays. This was the (TTpocfiLov, a broad band tied round the body just below the breasts and restraining them and the abdomen. This article appears in vase-paintings. Archaic sculpture shows a tendency to contracting the waist of women ; but this tendency entirely disappears in the period of developed art : it is clear that the ^ Theoplir. Char. 4. ^ piutarch, Alcib. i. ' Pythoenetus in A then. xiii. 56. ** v. 16, 3. 6o THE SUKROUNDINGS OF GREEK LIFE Greeks regarded a small waist not merely as unhealthy but as ugly. The colours of Greek dress were many. Men indeed wore both chiton and himation usually either of white or of some sober colour, such as brown. But that women wore the gayest and brightest colours we know not only from statements of writers, but from the statuettes discovered at Tanagra. The ground- colour of the chiton was white or yellow ; it had a broad border either of some bright colour, red or blue, or of deep embroidery. As to the himatia of Avomen there is no rule. They were of the gayest colours, frequently covered with stars, flowers, or checks, and sometimes adorned with elaborate embroidery, rows of animals, or human figures, beautiful designs of all sorts. ^ The material of the dress of the men seems to have been wool. The chiton of the women was of far lighter and more elegant material, as any one may see by examining the dresses of the figures from the Parthenon. Linen was in use from the oldest times, but some kinds of it were of great delicacy, particularly a variety grown in the island of Amorgus. Byssus also, the nature of which is somewhat obscure, was a very delicate material. At a later period, silk, /?o/x^vK'iva, a-rjpiKa, was much used by the rich, being imported by merchants from the far East. The silkworm itself was not introduced until Byzantine times. As early as Aristophanes we find mention of the djxara Sta^avrj, which were affected by courtesans, such as the notable Coan robes. The rough working-dresses of slaves and artisans were often of leather, sometimes of the hide of goats or sheep with the hair on. Such was the Sucfidepa of herdsmen, and such the aegis, which Pallas retained in a modified form to the latest times. Homer's heroes in some cases wear the skin of a wild beast over their armour or chitons ; thus Paris is clad in a panther's and Agamemnon in a lion's skin, as is Heracles in monuments of all periods. ^ A few words must be added as to Greek military dress, though that subject belongs more strictly to the antiquities of war, treated of in a future chapter. The Greek hoplite, of whom a typical figure is here engraved (Fig. 13), wore on his head a helmet of bronze or iron with tall crest of horse- hair. Some forms of helmet, the so-called Corinthian, could ^ The colours of Greek dresses may be studied not only in the Tanagra statuettes, but also in the female archaic figures recently discovered at Athens. A fragment of an actual dress adorned with figures of ducks, chariots, and other devices was found in a grave in the Crimea [Comptes Rendus, 1S78, pi. iv.) -' II. iii. 17 ; x. 23. THE DRESS OF MEN AND WOMEN 61 either he drawn down over the face or rest on the hack of I he head. Otlier forms merely fitted the hack part of the head, leaving the face free, but sometimes having cheek pieces to protect the cheeks. The helmet of the iNIacedonians and Thessalians had a broad brim, like that of their riding-hats. I'lG. 12.- Garment of Demetkk. (From a Vase by Hieron. The heavy cuirass, which was worn over a chiton, consisted of two plates of metal, one for the front and one for the back, which were laced together and connected also by metal shoulder- pieces. In early days the Homeric fxirpr], plated with metal, was worn below the waist,i but fell out of use. From b.c. 500 ^ W. Leaf, Armou7' of Homeric Heroes {Journ. Hell. Stud. iv. 73). 62 THE SURROUNDINGS OF GREEK LIFE onwards, the groin was protected by leather flaps, Trre/Dvyes, whicli hung down to the thigh, as in our example. Pausanias observes (x. 27, 6) that a true cuirass (yvaXov) gave sufficient protection even without a shield ; but it was heavy and cumbrous, and as Pausanias implies, it was to a great extent superseded ■ IB 1 I^H ■ ^^^^Hjl*^^^ T ^^^ I ^P^^s^' 7 ^ L ^'% i \ ^ 1 S ij i 1 1 ^^B.:-'; j^H y 1^1 F\Q. 13.— Grkek Warrior, from a Vase. in later times by lighter cuirasses composed of linen and leather. On Greek vases, where heroes of old time are commonly depicted, the metal cuirass is usual. Greaves on the lower legs, fastened by elastic metal bands, Avith sandals, completed the equipment The thighs had to be protected by the shield. THE DRESS OF MEN AND WOMEN 6t^ The student who endeavours to collect the details of Greek dress from the surviving monuments of art must be careful to observe that the Greek sculptors, in representing Orientals, Persians, or Phrygians, or the imaginary Amazons, endeavour to give their dress according to the national habit of each. Thus both Phrygians and Persians are made to wear chitons with long sleeves and breeches, dva^vpLSes, reaching down to the feet ; together with the Phrygian cap, which is the well-known cap of liberty. In vases and reliefs Paris, Anchises, even Pelops are often represented in this Oriental costume ; so the student must not rashly assume that because a representation is of a hero celebrated in Greek lore, therefore the details of his cos- tume are Greek. In the case of the Amazons the Greek artists allowed themselves much liberty, dressing them some- times as Orientals in long sleeves and drawers, sometimes merely in the short Doric chiton. If we may judge from the monuments, the clothes of Greek children did not differ except in size from those of adults. In sepulchral reliefs we see young girls clad in the Ionian or the Dorian chiton, just like their mothers, of whom they are miniature copies, even to the way of doing the hair. On vases we see young boys, if they have any clothes at all, wearing the chiton or wrapped in great liimatia. It would appear, however, from an already mentioned passage^ of Aristo- phanes that the earlier custom was for boys to wear the chiton only. Near home, in the streets and the agora, neither men nor women usually wore a hat. The women arranged the himation so as to cover the head and hide most of the face ; the men walked bare-headed. But in going on journeys, in riding abroad, in working in the fields, and even in the cities in bad weather, the men would carry a hat or cap. The hat, which was worn by the Ephebi, by those who rode on horseback and the upper classes generally, was, like the chlamys, introduced from northern Greece. It was called the Trerao-o?, and was in shape flat with broad rim. It is usually represented in statues of Hermes, who was the traveller ^;a?' excellence. The Kava-ia, worn by Macedonian husbandmen and cavalry, was little if at all different. But while the petasus formed an excellent pro- tection against the sun, it was not suitable for warding off wind and rain. So the classes most exposed to rough weather, such as labourers, smiths, and sailors, wore the pileus, ttiAos, which * Clouds, 964, 987. 64 THE SURROUNDINGS OF GREEK LIFE was a soft conical cap, without peak, fitting closely to tlie head. Already in Homer ^ we find Laertes, when working in the field, wearing an alyeir] Kvverj, a close-fitting cap of goat- skin ; but at a later time felt was substituted for skin. Even the citizens of Athens in rainy weather took a felt cap about with them to keep their ears and hair dry. At home the Greek citizen went bare-footed ; even when visiting a friend he would leave his shoes without, as is still the custom in the East. But boots of some sort, and stout ones, were necessary to any one who had to walk over the ill-paved and rough roads of ancient Greece. The simplest form of shoe- covering was the cravSaXiov or €/x^as, which consisted merely of a sole, V7r68i]ixa or Kacrcru/xa, fastened below the foot by thongs of leather passing between the toes, which were called (vyos. Such were the f^Xavrai put on by Socrates when he went out to dinner. 2 In the country it was usual until a late period to wear a stout sole fastened to the foot by means of interlaced thongs, which were secured round the ankle. For thongs of leather the poor substituted rude cords, cnrapTia. Hunters and those who had to make their way over rough ground required more protection for the lower part of the leg ; but even these did not usually wear close boots like ours. They merely extended the crossing thongs of leather from the ankle half-way up to the knee. These hunting-boots, evSpofxlSes or KoOopvol, may be studied in the representations of the huntress Artemis. The Greeks did not wear anything corresponding to our stockings. Thus in the case of most sculptures, we see the toes uncovered, and standing out from sandal or endromis. But this rule is by no means universal. Like the peoples of the East and of Italy, the Greeks sometimes wore close boots. Thus many of the riders of the Parthenon frieze wear covered boots coming half- way up the leg. These are also common in vase-pictures. So too the Persian slippers, the HepartKat of Aristophanes,^ which were worn by women, must have covered the whole foot. One reason for the remissness of the Greeks in the matter of head-covering was that nature had provided them with luxuriant hair. This from the time of Homer onwards the Ka/)7^Ko/xocL)VT€s 'A)(atofc cultivated into a long and bushy mane such as we see on the head of the statues of Zeus. The Spartans in particular were ver}'- proud of their long hair and tended it carefully, considering it the badge of a free man. And so it was, since, as Aristotle remarks, a man with long Solving ^ ITom. Od. xxiv. 231. ^ Plato, Symp. 174. ^ Clouds, 151. THE DKESS OF MEN AND WOMEN 65 hair could scarcely engage in one of those mean and servile handicrafts which the Greeks so despised. It will Im remem- bered how Xerxes found the Spartans at Thermopylae combing their long locks, and at a later period the long hair of Gylippus roused the ridicule of the people of Syracuse,^ Dorians though they were. We learn from Thucydides that not much before his time the Athenians wore long hair, which they wound into a knot or Kpo)/3vXos on the top of the head, fastened with golden grasshoppers, xpvcroyv Terrtycov kvkfxrii Kpw/SvXov dvaSovjxevoL tiov iv rrj K€(f)aXrj TpL)(ojv. This passage has caused much contro- versy. When we turn to the works of Archaic sculpture we find the hair of Apollo Dionysus and other male deities growing long but not hanging loose. It is commonly gathered in a knot at the back or the top of the head, or secured in plaits. The KpiofSvXos then might be this knot or bunch of hair, but no ancient monument represents it as secured with a grasshopper, or indeed with a fibula of any shape ; it is bound with a simple Tatvitt or cord.^ Professor Helbig has maintained that the TCTTiyes were not fibulae at all. He thinks that the early Greeks and Etruscans fixed their locks in position by means of golden spirals, crvptyyes, which are frequently found in Etruscan tombs, and that the name Terrt^, was given to the spirals so arranged because of their resemblance to the annulose body of the grasshopper. Homer's line may be compared, 7rXo)(^pol 6' OL )(^pv(TU) re kol dpyvpo) €(r4)Ti]K0}VTO.'^ But SO inconvenient a custom died in time ; when, we cannot be sure. The monuments seem to indicate the fifth century B.C. as the time when long hair became unfashionable ; pro- bably at Sparta it persisted until the time of the Achaean League. Thus at the date of the Peloponnesian war there was a contrast between Sparta and the rest of Greece in this matter. At Sparta the hair of the boys was cut short, but as soon as they came to man's estate they allowed it to grow long. Even at other cities Kopav was a sign of a Laconian partisan, as appears from Aristophanes.* But at Athens and the other cities of Greece, when a boy reached the age of an €(f>i]/3os, he dedicated his hair with various ceremonies in the temple of a deity, usually of a river-god.^ Thus the Ephebi of the reliefs of the Parthenon have all short hair. After long hair had ^ Thucyd. i. 6. 2 Archdol. Zcitung for 1S77, p. S9 ; Homer ische Epos. Sec. xxi. 2 11. xvii. 53. •* I\ni(/hts, 579 ; Clouds, 14. 5 ..'Eschyhit^, Choeph. 6. 66 THE SURROUNDINGS OF GREEK LlFE ceased to be fashionable and the mark of a gentleman, the custom completely changed, and very short hair was worn alike by athletes and by tliose who affected a reputation for austerity ; whence it happened that at a late time the Spartans and their imitators wore not longer but shorter hair than other people. The dimensions of the beard also decrease in the course of Greek history. In early times a long full beard was regarded as a sign of manliness, the Spartans in this matter also taking the lead of the rest. Shaving was introduced by the Mace- donian conquerors, who found the beards of their soldiers inconvenient in a campaign, partly as giving the enemy a handle to seize, partly in all probability from motives of cleanliness. From this time on, men of the governing classes and soldiers always completely shaved ; and the beard was left to those who affected ancient manners, and philosophers. It is, however, remarkable that on Athenian reliefs of the Macedonian period, the normal citizen is always represented as wearing a short beard, just as on the frieze of the Parthenon. The moustache without the beard marks the Gauls and other barbarians. To go into the details of the hair-dressing of women would demand a far greater space than we dispose of. The fashion was constantly changing. JSTow the hair was confined by a simple band, raii/ia, passed five or six times round ; now a pointed metal coronet, o-re^aj//;, was worn above the forehead, and the back hair confined by a net, K€Kpvc})aXos. Now the hair was almost concealed by a kind of nightcap, /xtV/oa or craKK-o?, either reticulated or not. More frequently still it was wound with a broadening band, called from its shape, which resembled that of a sling, (T(f)€v86vr). The 8Ld8y][xa, which was a simple fillet tied in a bow at the back of the head, was worn after the time of Alexander only by kings and queens. Frequently the hair was allowed to hang down the back in simple curl. HetaeraB frequently wore their hair short and hanging about their ears. The art of beautifying was carried on with the greatest vigour in antiquity. As women were so secluded and seldom seen from near, the falseness of their manufactured charms had the less chance of being detected. Athen^eus ^ quotes from Alexis, a contemporary of Alexander, a terrible list of the changes which courtesans brought about in themselves. The short woman put cork in her shoes, the tall wore the thinnest soles, the shape was dexterously moulded with cushions and pads, ^ Athen. xiii. p. 568. J THE DRESS OF MEN AND WOMEN 67 the complexion was brouglit to the desired colour by means of paint, and the hair was dyed according to fancy. Nor were these base arts confined to women of doubtful character. The young wife of Xenophon's Ischomachus/ who is represented as a pattern of propriety, used white and red paint until her husband persuaded her that he preferred nature to art. Only among the Dorian women, who far surpassed the others in health and strength, we hear of no painting and making-up. The Greek lady who went abroad would carry a sunshade, o-K'ia5etoi', in shape resembling ours, to keep off the sun. The same implement might have been used in rainy weather, but this does not seem to have been the case. Men, especially elderly men and men from the country, carried a stout stick, on which they leaned when standing, and which they used freely on the persons of those children and slaves whom they supposed to stand in need of correction. ^ Xenophon. (Econ. x. 8. BOOK II RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY CHAPTER I NATIOXAL ELEMENTS IN RELIGION The religion of the Hellenes, as it is presented to us in Greek literature and history, is undoubtedly a much -compounded thing. There are in it elements derived from a great variety of sources, sometimes completely fused together, and sometimes very imperfectly combined. It is also vague and fluctuating in a high degree. It is altogether erroneous to regard it as a fixed and organised whole. We moderns approach the study of it under great disadvantage, because our notions of religion are taken from the history of Christianity, which is in the main a religion of authority, originating in a single time and a definite place. Hellenic Paganism was not made, but grew during long ages amid varying circumstances, and subject to all kinds of influences. It may be compared not to a temple or palace designed by man, but to a tree, rooted in human nature and putting forth its shoots and blossoms in due season. In Greek religion, as it is known to us, there are various strands. Recent writers have been more and more disposed to trace the origin of a great part of it to that worship of ancestors which is so marked a feature in all tribes at a certain stage of civilisation. There may also exist in it vestiges of tribal worship, the veneration of some hereditary totem, out of which at a certain stage of decay there arises, by some obscure process, a deity or deities. And some part of the religion of the Hellenes, though not so large a part as people fancied a quarter of a century ago, must belong to the general traditions of the Aryan race, and have arisen from the wonder of our remote ancestors at the facts of storm and sunshine, day and night, summer and winter. Further, there can be no question NATIONAL ELEMENTS IN KELIGION 69 that both in pre-historic and historic times the Greeks were as ready to accept mytliology from the nations of the East with whom they traded and fought as they were to accept the re- h'gious images of Oriental fabric which are still abundantly found on many early Greek sites. We may attempt a division of these various elements of religion into two classes, which we may roughly term national and borrowed. In the national class we shall include ail that belongs to the Greek tribes as an ancestral inheritance, whether dating from the early age of barbarism or developed in the various lands in which they successively dwelt. In the borrowed class we shall place not only the local elements, which belonged rather to the various spots of Greece, than to the people who had come to dwell there, but also all that the Greeks adopted from the neighbouring nations. A clear and strong line of division between the two classes can indeed seldom be drawn. In the cultus of any given deity they are almost sure to be intermingled ; yet an attempt to sejiarate them may help to clear our minds, and to lay bare the rudi- ments of the subject before us. In the present chapter we will deal with the national ele- ments, in the next chapter with those which are partly or wholly adoptive. The national or native strands in Greek religion appear to be three, of \vhich we ^vill treat in succession : ( 1 ) Totemism ; (2) Ancestor-worship; (3) Naturalism. (i) It is a matter of comparatively recent discovery how large a part is furnished to primitive religions by the class of con- ceptions which is summed up in the word totemism. There is still much that is obscure in regard to those conceptions ; but writers like Andrew Lang^ have certainly succeeded in explaining by their means some points previously inexplicable in Greek myth and cult ; and that which has thus been rendered intelligible belongs to the earliest strata of Hellenic religion. If these writers have tried to carry their method of explanation into fields where it is not altogether at home, this is but a proceetling which we must expect in the case of all new theories of the kind. As a matter of fact, though apparent traces of totemism may be found in Greek mythology and M'orship, yet a veiy small and a very unimportant part of those highly civilised growths can be directly or completely explained by the notions of totemism. Totemism may lie at ^ Custom and Myth. i8Sy 70 RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY the foundation of much, but that foundation, as in the build- ings of competent architects, is usually buried out of sight. " A totem," writes Mr. Frazer,i " is a class of material objects which a savage regards with superstitious respect, believing that there exists between him and every member of the class an altogether special relation. The connection between a man and his totem is mutually beneficent : the totem protects the man, and the man shows his respect for the totem in various ways, by not killing it if it be an animal, and not cutting or gathering it if it be a plant. As distinguished from a fetish, a totem is never an isolated individual, but always a class of objects, generally a species of animals or of plants. The clan totem is reverenced by a body of men and women who call themselves by the name of the totem, believe themselves to be of one blood, descendants of a common ancestor, and are bound together by common obligations to each other and by a common faith in the totem. Totemism is thus both a religious and a social system." As to the reasons of the adoption of this extraordinary system by savages in all parts of the world, we are entirely ignorant. That it had ceased to have any intellectual recognition among the Greeks of the historic age is sufficiently clear. Yet the probability that the Hellenic race had at some time passed through this stage of culture helps us to understand some of their beliefs of the origin of which they themselves were wholly ignorant. When we find in the place of honour in the temple of Apollo at Delphi a conical stone called the 'O/x^aA.09, we do not hesitate to say that it must originally have been worshipped as a fetish-stone. The Greeks of Pindar's time had another explanation ^ of the sacred character of the stone ; but we set aside that explanation.^ In the same way we may explain by the ideas of totennsm the veneration of the Greeks for certain animals and plants, although they had abundant sacred legends to account in each case for their sentiment. There was a story that when the gods of Olympus were threatened by the terrible monster Typhoeus they fled, all save Zeus, into Egypt, and hid themselves in the forms of animals. ^ Totemism, pp. i, 2. 2 Cf. Pindar, Pyth. iv. 4. The Scholiast on this verse tells us that Zeus set forth two eagles from the two ends of the earth and they met at Delphi, whence the Omphalos at Delphi was regarded as the centre of the world. 3 To fetishism I will return in the next chapter : whereas totemism belongs to tribes, it belongs to localities, and so is usually a borrowed element in Greek religion. NATIONAL ELEMENTS IN RELIGION 7 I It was thus that later Greece accounted for the curious fact tliat with each of the deities was closely associated some sacred animal or animals — the swan, the wolf, the raven, the mouse ^vith Apollo in various sites of his cult, the stag and the bear with Artemis, the ram with Hermes, the dog with Hecate and so forth. In these cases the anthropological school accepts another explanation, that the deity was originally the god of a clan or tribe whose totem was this favourite animal. A couple of instances will suffice. At Athens, Athena was closely associated with the serpent. In her temple was preserved a great snake, fed at stated times, and supposed to be the embodiment of the Attic hero Erich- thonius. In the great Parthenos statue by Pheidias, a snake was represented as sheltering himself behind the shield of the goddess, and in one of the pediments of the Parthenon he appears at her side. The legendary King of Attica, Cecrops, is represented in art as a snake from the waist downwards. These facts may be reganled as proving that in Attica in primeval days there was a clan which accepted the snake as its totem, and that the snake as an object of cultus gave way in time to Athena. Again there were at Athens ceremonies in which certain Attic maidens imitated bears, and danced the bear dance in honour of the Brauronian Artemis. In Arcadia also the bear was connected with Artemis, and it was told how she had turned into a bear Callisto, a mythological rival, who was really only a duplicate of herself. This bear-godde?s Artemis may have at some time belonged to a clan whose sacred animal was the bear. An explanation of this kind will almost always be possible when the favourite of the deity is an animal or bird. When it is a plant, such as the sacred laurel of Apollo, or the sacred olive of Athena, a totemistic explanation may sometimes be the best. But sometimes we shall prefer to think that the deity has inherited the honours accorded to some fetish tree, and that the origin of the cult is local rather than tribal. It should, however, be observed that the worship of animals may be explained on quite other principles than those of totemism. As Mr. Frazer has pointed out in his Golden Boiujli, the reverence shown by hunting tribes towards the animals which they habitually kill is based on feelings the opposite to those of totemism. iNIr. Frazer also maintains that there are cases in which tree-spirits and corn-spirits are conceived in the form of animals. Totemism being quite as much a social as a religious system, and nothing of it being visible in the social 72 RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY organisation of Greece, it must be somewhat uncertain whether what looks like the result of totemism in Greek religion may not have some other explanation. '\Vhen we reach, in a future chapter, the subject of Greek practical cultus, we shall have again to deal with conceptions which may originate in conditions of tutemism. And in our classification of myths we shall have to point out a certain number which belong to the totemist range of conceptions. But as a root-principle of Greek religion, as Greek religion existed in historic days, totemism is not of very great import- ance. We must pass on to other elements of greater weight. The second great source of Greek religion which may be safely classified as of native origin is the worship of deceased ancestors. The worship of the dead can scarcely be said to lie on the surface of the great Attic literature.^ That literature, in fact, belongs rather to all time and to human nature than to a par- ticular age and country, and what is local and temporary in Greek thought and feeling has ever a tendency to fall into the background in it. It represents the Greek mind in the same way in which the Doryphorus of Polycleitus, and the Apoxyomenus of Lysippus represent the Greek body : they give us the better and nobler side, and put out of sight what is mean and unworthy. In the great age of Greece, and in the favoured city of the Athenians, religion meant the worship of the great deities of Olympus, the highest and noblest forms of the Greek religious consciousness. Primitive and patriarchal elements of religion still existed, but they were thrust into the background. Thus, as indeed a glance at Athenian sepul- chral monuments will assure us, the worship of the dead did not occupy among the elite of Greece the same s[iace in men's minds which at an earlier time it had held, and which it still held in the more conservative districts. !N'evertheless, a careful search will disclose many passages even in the Attic writers which illustrate this form of religion. The opening passage of the Choephori, for example, tells of cultus kept up at the tombs of deceased worthies. In the Alcestis, the heroine of the play is scarcely dead before she is invoked by the chorus as a spiritual power, able to give and to withhold favours : — vvv 8' €0"Tt fxaKaipa Sat/xwv, Xo.ip\ w TTOTVi', eu h\ 8oL-)-i<;. ^ The following paragraphs are taken from a papt r contributed by the writer to the Journal of Hellenic S'udies, vol. v. p. 125. NATIONAL ELEMENTS IN RELIGION 73 It is instructive to compare with such passages as these a class of vases peculiarly Athenian, the beautiful white X-)]KvdoL,^ which bear paintings in almost all cases illustrative of the offerings brought to the tombs of departed ancestors by sur- vivors. The abundance of these vases proves that the ideas which they illustrate were quite familiar to the Athenians. At a lower level than that of poetry, in the laws and the customs, more especially the burial-customs, of the Greeks, we find ample proof of the tenacity w4th which they clung to the belief that the dead desired offerings of food and incense, and were willing in return to furnish protection and aid. It is well known to be one of the most universal and deepest rooted convictions among barbarians, that the dead are not without feelings and perceptions, but remain keenly sensitive to the treatment they receive from their kindred, and require of them much assistance. The dead man, livhig in his tomb as he had lived in his house, requires frequent supplies of food and drink, rejoices in the presence of armour and ornaments, such as he loved in life, and is very sensitive to discourteous treatment. These ideas were part of the mental furniture of the whole Aryan race, before it separated into branches, and are found in all the countries over which it spread. In the earliest of Greek graves, such as the so-called Treasury of Atreus, at Mycenae, and the building at Orchomenus, Ave find an inner chamber perhaps for the dead, and an outer chamber to which those who came to pay their respects to the tenant of the tomb probably had access, and which may have been stored with articles of pomp and splendour, set aside for his enjoy- ment. It is well known with what care the early Greeks provided in the chamber in which they placed a corpse all that was necessary for its comfort, I had almost said its existence. Sometimes wine and food was there laid up in a little store, a lamp was provided full of oil, frequently even kept burning to relieve the darkness ; and around were strewn the clothes and the armour in which the dead hero had delighted ; sometimes even, by a refinement of realism, a whetstone to sharpen the edge of sword and spear in case they should grow blunt with use. The horse of a warrior was sometimes slain and buried with him that he might not in another world endure the in- dignity of having to walk. Even in Homeric days the custom survived of slaying at the tomb of a noted warrior some of a hostile race to be his slaves thereafter. After the fall of Troy ^ Cf. Puttier's useful Leci/lhes blafics Attiqws. 74 RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY the captives were distributed among the chiefs ; but it was not thought right to deprive the dead Achilles of his share, and Polyxena was offered up at his tomb. According to the inge- nious theory of a modern savant/ the terra-cottas so commonly found in tombs in some parts of Greece are the successors and substitutes of these living victims, placed like their bodies in the grave of one who would in his future life require servants and companions. Every one knows that the custom of sati, whereby a wife is burned on the same pyre with her dead husband, is barely extinct in India. And the care for the dead did not by any means cease at their burial. They had to be constantly tended thereafter, their bones preserved from violence, and their tombs from spoliation ; and at certain seasons food and drink had to be brought them and left by their tomb for their use. The belief in the continued need felt by the dead and to be supplied by the living was so deep that even Christianity has been unable wholly to abolish it, though in modern days roses take the place at tombs of the more substantial offerings of old times. A couple of passages from Lucian^ will serve to summarise the ancient feeling : TreTria-revKaa-L yovv ras xpv^as dva7re/x7ro/x€vas KarojOev SeLirveiv jxev cos otov re TreptTrero/xevas TTyv KVLcrav kol tov Kairvov, irLveiv 8e oltto fSoOpov to fxeXi- Kparov. TpecfiovraL rats Trap* rjfxujv x^^''^ '^^^ '^^^'^ Kadayi- ^OfxevoLS €7rt rwv rac^wv* cos el rw /xt) ei-q Karo-XeXeippevos virep yy^S (f)iXos i) (rvyy€vrj