We know more about Athens than any other Greek city-state. In the 5th Century BC (400s), Athens had 40,000 citizens (adult males) and 300,000 people counting everybody. The government was democracy on paper. Voting took place on a hill outside of town. It started out in the town square but there were too many people so they moved it to the hill. Everybody met in town to have a beer or two before voting. It was hard to get people from the bars to the hill to vote. The police had to herd people to the hill which they did by closing off all the roads except the one to the hill. They dipped a rope in red paint and herded the people in front of it to the hill. Everybody scrambled to get out of the way cuz it was bad news to get paint on your clothes (no dry cleaning). Speaking of the police: they were Scythian slaves who were owned by the state. There was about 1,000 of them. They were strange cuz they did things like wear pants (how gauche! Greeks wore togas) and they ate weird stuff like butter (ugh) and talked funny languages.

Let's talk about marriage and love (which do not, necessarily, belong together). Men rarely married before 30 year of age and never before 18. The only reason for marrying is to have legitimate kids and occasionally to cement treaties or obtain a good piece of land. Prostitutes were very common in Greece and not looked down on by society so sex wasn't a reason for marriage. You need kids cuz sons carry on the family name and kids will support you in your old age (your social security) and so your children will carry on death rites for you to ease your way into the afterlife.

Homosexuality was big in the upper class males mostly. It may have been caused cuz of the rigid segregation by gender as soon as possible in childhood. The upper class lived in a divided house with women staying out of the way. Lower class people couldn't afford that big of a house and all lived together and little boys knew what a girl was. Virtue and beauty was described in terms of males. In school, an older boy (16) usually had a younger boy (10) for a lover. The older boys were substitute father types. Homosexuality was the price Greeks paid for their rotten treatment of women.

Women married at 16. They were not educated and usually married 30-year-old males. That's quite an age span, especially since women knew next to nothing. They might know how to read a little if they had a slave in the house who knew how and would teach them. All the other knowledge they had was domestic–how to run the house. The fathers of the 2 families arranged the marriages. On the eve of the wedding, the bride was supposed to burn all her toys as a symbol. That could have been very traumatic since she was probably very childlike. She'd never been out of the house and knew little about males or the world. Her toys may have been very important. The bride wasn't at the wedding cuz she was not needed. The wedding actually took place between the husband and the father of the girl. You did, however, get to go to the reception and meet your husband, possibly for the first time. While you were in the bridal suite for the first night, your husband's old war buddies were standing guard outside your chamber singing hymns to ward off evil spirits (how romantic!). People pelted you with nuts and dried fruit as a symbol to be fruitful and multiply (we throw rice for the same reason. Stockmyer thinks maybe we ought to switch and throw birth control pills today!). The wife runs the slaves at home. She rarely leaves the house. The only women seen on the streets were prostitutes, slaves, and lower class women who had no one else to do the marketing for them. Women got out for religious occasions and to go to Greek plays. She also got out to get new shoes measured.

There was no law against incest (which was considered sex between a parent and his/her child). The gods were opposed to it, though. Half-brothers and half-sisters could marry if they had a different mom. There were lots of uncle/niece marriages to keep family property intact. Men could divorce with no reason but if they did they had to give back the dowry. They usually divorced for sterility (of the wife, of course). Women could divorce for absolute brutality, but they could never again marry cuz no one wanted them and they had to move back home (which was worse?). There was almost no divorce in Greece. That doesn't mean there were happy marriages. The only thing you expect form marriage is kids. After the kids were born, the house was divided and the husbands didn't even have to see the wife. You could move your mistress right into the house cuz the wife had no say. The Greeks were cynical about love. Prostitutes were cheap and provided sex and, even neater, conversation. Prostitutes could pick up new ideas by hanging around philosophers and pass them on to their clients. Greek men had beards cuz the electric razor wasn't around yet.

Let's talk about food!! Greeks ate lots of veggies: onions, olives, etc. They ate lots of fish. There was hardly any beef cuz the land wouldn't support it. There was dried fruit and nuts for dessert. Food was piled on a piece of dough which was eaten after the meal was done. Eat with your fingers. Cooks were slaves. There was no sugar (sweeten with honey), no chocolate, coffee, tea, no whiskey (no distillery). Parties were all male except for the entertaining girls. As you entered the house, you got your feet washed. You lie on couches to eat. Greek wine had dregs in the bottom of the jugs which they began to play target games with.

Greek children wanted to grow up fast cuz Greeks didn't like kids. Get to adulthood as fast as possible. Kids had toys of go-carts, yo-yos, pets (dogs), balls. Ball games were kind of tough cuz rubber hadn't been invented yet. For balls, they used inflated animal bladders or balls stuffed with feathers to make them bounce. They had games like hopscotch, swings, see-saws, marbles. Only male children attended schools. Rich people sent a rich tutor with the kid to school who was supposed to sit in the back and pickup on the lesson so they could drill the kid later. A sound mind and body was the Greek ideal. They wrote on wax tablets. Memorizing stuff was good for you.

Pottery is something we find lots of cuz it doesn't disintegrate–just breaks and now super glue can fix it. Early pots are black on red. They were painted with black paint and the shade of red depended on the location the pot was from. Later on somebody decided to paint the background and those pots are red on black. Greeks painted on their statues. The statues were made of marble and painted to look like real people. But when we dug up the statues, they were back to white marble. The paint didn't last cuz it had a wax base and amoeba types ate it off over the centuries. Greeks also put signs on the buildings but the weather ate off the paint. So they engraved the letters in the signs to keep the paint from the weather. Nowadays, we have signs on our buildings which are engraved on but we can't read them cuz nobody painted the letters.

Greeks did lots of fishing cuz they needed the food. They didn't enjoy it though, cuz it wasn't for fun, it was for work and food. They fished with hooks, lines, flies, bobbers, nets, tridents (3-prong hooks), traps, any way they could.

In summary: The treatment of the Greeks has been overdone. Only the upper class was super neat. The regular people were mean, violent, hard cuz of the life they had to lead. Greek country was hard and that makes hard people. The Greeks knew life was hard. One poet said, "to have never been born is best . . . " and Herodotus (famous Greek historian) said, "Those whom the gods love best, diet young."