A Day in Old Athens Part 19

Close by the field is the threshing floor. More laborers--not a few bustling country la.s.ses among them--are spreading out the sheaves with wooden forks, a little at a time, in thin layers over this circular s.p.a.ce, which is paved with little cobblestones. More oxen and a patient mule are being driven over it--around and around--until every kernel is trodden out by their hoofs. Later will come the tossing and the winnowing; and, when the grain has been thoroughly cleaned, it will be stored in great earthen jars for the purpose of sale or against the winter.

176. Grinding at the Mill.--Nearer the farmhouses there rises a dull grinding noise. It is the mill preparing the flour for the daily baking, for seldom--at least in the country--will a Greek grind flour long in advance of the time of use. There the round upper millstone is being revolved upon an iron pivot against its lower mate and turned by a long wooden handle. Two nearly naked slave boys are turning this wearily--far pleasanter they consider the work of the harvesters, and very likely this task is set them as a punishment. As the mill revolves a slave girl pours the grain into a hole in the center of the upper millstone. As the hot, slow work goes on, the two toilers chant together a s.n.a.t.c.h from an old mill song, and we catch the monotonous strain:--

Grind, mill, grind, For Pittacus did grind-- Who was king over great Mytilene.

It will be a long time before there is enough flour for the day.

The slaves can at least rejoice that they live on a large farm.

If Hybrias owned a smaller estate, they would probably be pounding up the grain with mortar and pestle--more weary yet.

177. The Olive Orchards.--We, at least, can leave them to their work, and escape to the shade of the orchards and the vineyards.

Like every Athenian farmer, Hybrias has an olive orchard. The olives are st.u.r.dy trees. They will grow in any tolerable soil and thrive upon the mountain slopes up to as far as 1800 feet above sea level. They are not large trees, and their trunks are often grotesquely gnarled, but there is always a certain fascination about the wonderful shimmer of their leaves, which flash from gray to silver-white in a sunny wind. Hybrias has wisely planted his olives at wide intervals, and in the s.p.a.ce between the ground has been plowed up for grain. Olives need little care. Their harvest comes late in the autumn, after all the other crops are out of the way. They are among the most profitable products of the farm, and the owner will not mind the poor wheat harvest "if only the olives do well."[*]

[*]The great drawback to olive culture was the great length of time required to mature the trees--sixteen years. The destruction of the trees, e.g. in war by a ravaging invader, was an infinitely greater calamity than the burning of the standing grain or even of the farmhouses. Probably it was the ruin of their olive trees which the Athenians mourned most during the ravaging of Attica in the Peloponnesian War.

178. The Vineyards.--The fig orchard forms another great part of the farm, but more interesting to strangers are the vineyards.

Some of the grapes are growing over pointed stakes set all along the upland terraces; a portion of the vineyards, however, is on level ground. Here a most picturesque method has been used for training the vines. Tall and graceful trees have been set out--elm, maple, oak, poplar. The lower limbs of the trees have been cut away and up their trunks and around their upper branches now swing the vines in magnificent festoons. The growing vines have sprung from tree to tree. The warm breeze has set the rich cl.u.s.ters--already turning purple or golden--swaying above our heads. The air is filled with brightness, greenery, and fragrance. The effect of this "vineyard grove" is magical.

179. Cattle, Sheep, and Goats.--There is also room in the orchards for apples, pears, and quinces, but there is nothing distinctive about their culture. If we are interested in cattle, however, we can spend a long time at the barns, or be guided out to the upland pasture where Hybrias's flocks and herds are grazing. Horses are a luxury. They are almost never used in farm work, and for riding and cavalry service it is best to import a good courser from Thessaly; no attempt, therefore, is made to breed them here. But despite the small demand for beef and b.u.t.ter a good many cattle are raised; for oxen are needed for the plowing and carting, oxhides have a steady sale, and there is a regular call for beehives for the hecatombs at the great public sacrifices. Sheep are in greater acceptance. Their wool is of large importance to a land which knows comparatively little of cotton. They can live on scanty pasturage where an ox would starve. Still more in favor are goats Their coa.r.s.e hair has a thousand uses. Their flesh and cheese are among the most staple articles in the Agora. Sure-footed and adventurous, they scale the side of the most unpromising crags in search of herbage and can sometimes be seen perching, almost like birds, in what seem utterly inaccessible eyries. Thanks to them the barren highlands of Attica are turned to good account,--and between goat raising and bee culture an income can sometimes be extracted from the very summits of the mountains. As for the numerous swine, it is enough to say that they range under Hybrias's oak forest and fatten on acorns, although their swineherd, wrapped in a filthy sheepskin, is a far more loutish and ign.o.ble fellow than the "divine Eumaeus" glorified in the "Odyssey."

180. The Gardens and the Shrine.--Did we wish to linger, we could be shown the barnyard with its noisy retinue of hens, pheasants, guinea fowl, and pigeons; and we would be asked to admire the geese, cooped up and being gorged for fattening, or the stately peac.o.c.ks preening their splendors. We would also hear sage disquisitions from the "oldest inhabitants" on the merits of fertilizers, especially on the uses of mixing seaweed with manure, also we would be told of the almost equally important process of burying a toad in a sealed jar in the midst of a field to save the corn from the crows and the field mice. Hybrias laughs at such superst.i.tions--"but what can you say to the rustics?" Hybrias himself will display with more refined pride the gardens used by his wife and children when they come out from Athens,--a fountain feeding a delightful rivulet; myrtles, roses, and pomegranate trees shedding their perfumes, which are mingled with the odors from the beds of hyacinths, violets, and asphodel. In the center of the gardens rises a chaste little shrine with a marble image and an altar, always covered with flowers or fruit by the mistress and her women. "To Artemis," reads the inscription, and one is sure that the virgin G.o.ddess takes more pleasure in this fragrant temple than in many loftier fanes.[*]

[*]For the description of a very beautiful and elaborate country estate, with a temple thereon to Artemis, see Xenophon's "Anabasis,"

bk. V. 3.

We are glad to add here our wreaths ere turning away from this wholesome, verdant country seat, and again taking our road to Athens.

Chapter XX. The Temples and G.o.ds of Athens.

181. Certain Factors in Athenian Religion.--We have seen the Athenians in their business and in their pleasure, at their courts, their a.s.semblies, their military musters, and on their peaceful farms; yet one great side of Athenian life has been almost ignored--the religious side. A "Day in Athens" spent without taking account of the G.o.ds of the city and their temples would be a day spent with almost half-closed eyes.[*]

[*]No attempt is made in this discussion to enumerate the various G.o.ds and demiG.o.ds of the conventional mythology, their regular attributes, etc. It is a.s.sumed the average history or manual of mythology gives sufficient information.

It is far easier to learn how the Athenians arrange their houses than how the average man among them adjusts his att.i.tude toward the G.o.ds. While any searching examination of the fundamentals of Greek cultus and religion is here impossible, two or three facts must, nevertheless, be kept in mind, if we are to understand even the OUTWARD side of this Greek religion which is everywhere in evidence about us.

First of all we observe that the Greek religion is a religion of purely natural growth. No prophet has initiated it, or claimed a new revelation to supplement the older views. It has come from primitive times without a visible break even down to the Athens of Plato. This explains at once why so many time-honored stories of the Olympic deities are very gross, and why the G.o.ds seem to give countenance to moral views which the best public opinion has long since called scandalous and criminal. The religion of Athens, in other words, may justly claim to be judged by its best, not by its worst; by the morality of Socrates, not of Homer.

Secondly, this religion is not a church, nor a belief, but is part of the government. Every Athenian is born into accepting the fact that Athena Polias is the divine warder of the city, as much as he is born into accepting the fact that it is his duty to obey the strategi in battle. To repudiate the G.o.ds of Athens, e.g. in favor of those of Egypt, is as much iniquity as to join forces against the Athenians if they are at war with Egypt;--the thing is sheer treason, and almost unthinkable. For countless generations the Athenians have worshipped the "Ancestral G.o.ds." They are proud of them, familiar with them; the G.o.ds have partic.i.p.ated in all the prosperity of the city. Athena is as much a part of Attica as gray Hymettus or white-crowned Pentelicus; and the very fact that comedians, like Aristophanes, make good-natured fun of the divinities indicates that "they are members of the family."

Thirdly, notice that this religion is one mainly of outward reverence and ceremony. There is no "Athenian church"; n.o.body has drawn up an "Attic creed"--"I believe in Athena, the City Warder, and in Demeter, the Earth Mother, and in Zeus, the King of Heaven, etc."

Give outward reverence, partic.i.p.ate in the great public sacrifices, be careful in all the minutiae of private worship, refrain from obvious blasphemies--you are then a sufficiently pious man. What you BELIEVE is of very little consequence. Even if you privately believe there are no G.o.ds at all, it harms no one, provided your outward conduct is pious and moral.

182. What const.i.tutes "Piety" in Athens.--Of course there have been some famous prosecutions for "impiety." Socrates was the most conspicuous victim; but Socrates was a notable worshipper of the G.o.ds, and certainly all the charges of his being an "atheist"

broke down. What he was actually attacked with was "corrupting the youth of Athens," i.e. giving the young men such warped ideas of their private and public duties that they ceased to be moral and useful citizens. But even Socrates was convicted only with difficulty[*]; a generation has pa.s.sed since his death. Were he on trial at present, a majority of the jury would probably be with him.

[*]It might be added that if Socrates had adopted a really worldly wise line of defense, he would probably have been acquitted, or subjected merely to a mild pecuniary penalty.

The religion of Athens is something very elastic, and really every man makes his own creed for himself, or--for paganism is almost never dogmatic--accepts the outward cultus with everybody else, and speculates at his leisure on the nature of the deity. The great bulk of the uneducated are naturally content to accept the old stories and superst.i.tions with unthinking credulity. It is enough to know that one must pray to Zeus for rain, and to Hermes for luck in a slippery business bargain. There are a few philosophers who, along with perfectly correct outward observance, teach privately that the old Olympian system is a snare and folly. They pa.s.s around the daring word which Xenophanes uttered as early as the sixth century B.C.:--

One G.o.d there is, greatest of G.o.ds and mortals, Not like to man is he in mind or in body.

All of him sees, all of him thinks, and all of him harkens.

This, of course, is obvious pantheism, but it is easy to cover up all kinds of pale monotheism or pantheism under vague reference to the omnipotence of "Zeus."

183. The Average Athenian's Idea of the G.o.ds.--The average intelligent citizen probably has views midway between the stupid rabble and the daring philosophers. To him the G.o.ds of Greece stand out in full divinity, honored and worshipped because they are protectors of the good, avengers of the evil, and guardians of the moral law. They punish crime and reward virtue, though the punishment may tarry long. They demand a pure heart and a holy mind of all that approach them, and woe to him who wantonly defies their eternal laws. This is the morality taught by the master tragedians, aeschylus and Sophocles, and accepted by the best public opinion at Athens; for the insidious doubts cast by Euripides upon the reality of any divine scheme of governance have never struck home. The scandalous stories about the domestic broils on Olympus, in which Homer indulges, only awaken good-natured banter. It is no longer proper--as in Homeric days--to pride oneself on one's cleverness in perjury and common falsehood. Athenians do not have twentieth century notions about the wickedness of lying, but certain it is the G.o.ds do not approve thereof. In short, most of the better cla.s.s of Athenians are genuinely "religious"; nevertheless they have too many things in this human world to interest them to spend overmuch time in adjusting their personal concepts of the deity to any system of theology.

184. Most Greeks without belief in Immortality.--Yet one thing we must add. This Greek religious morality is built up without any clear belief in a future life. Never has the average h.e.l.lene been able to form a satisfactory conception of the soul's existence, save dwelling within a mortal body and under the glorious light of beloved Helios. To Homer the after life in Hades was merely the perpetuation of the shadows of departed humanity, "strengthless shades" who live on the gloomy plains of asphodel, feeding upon dear memories, and incapable of keen emotions or any real mental or physical progress or action. Only a few great sinners like Tantalus, doomed to eternal torture, or favored being like Menelaus, predestined to the "Blessed Isles," are ordained to any real immortality. As the centuries advanced, and the possibilities of this terrestrial world grew ever keener, the hope of any future state became ever more vague. The fear of a gloomy shadow life in Hades for the most part disappeared, but that was only to confirm the belief that death ends all things.

Where'er his course man tends, Inevitable death impends, And for the worst and for the best, Is strewn the same dark couch of rest.[*]

[*]Milman, Translator.

So run the lines of a poet whose name is forgotten, but who spoke well the thought of his countrymen.

True there has been a contradiction of this gloomy theory. The "Orphic Mysteries," those secret religious rites which have gained such a hold in many parts of Greece, including Athens, probably hold out an earnest promise to the "initiates" of a blessed state for them hereafter. The doctrine of a real elysium for the good and a realm of torment for the evil has been expounded by many sages.

Pindar, the great bard of Thebes, has set forth the doctrine in a glowing ode.[*] Socrates, if we may trust the report Plato gives of him, has spent his last hours ere drinking the hemlock, in adducing cogent, philosophic reasons for the immortality of the soul. All this is true,--and it is also true that these ideas have made no impression upon the general Greek consciousness. They are accepted half-heartedly by a relatively few exceptional thinkers. Men go through life and face death with no real expectation of future reward or punishment, or of reunion with the dear departed. If the G.o.ds are angry, you escape them at the grave; if the G.o.ds are friendly, all they can give is wealth, health, honor, a hale old age, and prosperity for your children. The instant after death the righteous man and the robber are equal. This fundamental deduction from the Greek religion must usually, therefore, be made--it is a religion for THIS WORLD ONLY. Let us see what are its usual outward operations.

[*]Quoted in "Readings in Ancient History," vol. I, pp. 261-262, and in many works in Greek literature.

185. The Mult.i.tude of Images of the G.o.ds.--G.o.ds are everywhere in Athens. You cannot take the briefest walk without being reminded that the world is full of deities. There is a "Herm"[*] by the main door of every house, as well as a row of them across the Agora. At many of the street crossings there are little shrines to Hecate; or statues of Apollo Agyieus, the street guardian; or else a bay tree stands there, a graceful reminder of this same G.o.d, to which it is sacred. In every house there is the small alter whereon garlands and fruit offerings are daily laid to Zeus Herkeios, and another altar to Hestia. On one or both of these altars a little food and a little wine are cast at every meal. All public meetings or court sessions open with sacrifice; in short, to attempt any semi-important public or private act without inviting the friendly attention of the deity is unthinkable. To a well-bred Athenian this is second instinct; he considers it as inevitable as the common courtesies of speech among gentlemen. Plato sums up the current opinion well, "All men who have any decency, in the attempting of matters great or small, always invoke divine aid."[+]

[*]A stone post about shoulder high, surmounted by a bearded head.

Contrary to modern impression, the average Greek did not conceive of Hermes as a beautiful youth. He was a grave, bearded man. The youthful aspect came through the manipulation of the Hermes myths by the master sculptors--e.g. Praxiteles.

[+]Timaeus, p. 27 c.

186. Greek Superst.i.tion.--In many cases, naturally, piety runs off into cra.s.s superst.i.tion. The G.o.ds, everybody knows, frequently make known future events by various signs. He who can understand these signs will be able to adjust his life accordingly and enjoy great prosperity. Most educated men take a sensible view of "omens," and do not let them influence their conduct absurdly.