The little girls played with their dolls, making houses for them, setting out dishes before them, hauling them in carts, and swinging them and themselves in swings. In some of their plays they were joined by the little boys and they all played in the sand and made mud-pies and had see-saws and swings and they hitched up one another and dogs and goats to carts. The children carried one another pick-a-pack and they rode stick-horses and hobby-horses and they played bob-cherry and hide-the-rope and many other such games.
They rolled hoops, walked on stilts, played running and catching games, such as hide-and-seek; they played leapfrog, hopped and jumped, flew kites; they played games of forfeit, odd or even, how many fingers are held up; the older boys had the tug of war and tossed one another in blankets. In one game the boy had to hop with one foot on a skin-bottle filled with water and greased; they spun coins on the edges; they shot beans from the fingers as the modern boys do marbles; they threw up five small stones and caught them on the back of the hand, as boys do jack-stones now; they played with dice.
There was a game in which a stone was to be so thrown into a circle as to knock out the stones thrown into it by the other boys and itself remain in the circle. They would sharpen one end of a heavy peg of wood and then throw it into a softened place in the earth so that it would stand upright and also knock out another's peg. They would blacken or moisten one side of an oyster-shell and would call one side day and the other side night; then the boys would divide into two sides with these names and would take turns in tossing the shell up into the air and then note which side was up when it fell to the ground; the winning side would then pursue the others and take prisoners.
The boys, then as now, found great sport with tops, playing in the house as well as in the street. They had different kinds of tops, among them being a humming-top. The Greek boy would tie a long string to the leg of a beetle and then let it loose and guide its flying by holding to the string; sometimes the boys would fix a wax splinter to the beetle's tail and then light it before letting him loose.
The children played blind man's buff. They would bandage a boy's eyes, who would then go about calling out, "I am hunting a brazen fly." This would be answered by the others with, "You will hunt, but you won't catch it." They would then run about and strike him with whips till he caught one, who would then be blindfolded.
The Greeks were very fond of the ball and ball-playing. The balls were of all sizes and colors. Some were stuffed with feathers and wool and others were empty. They were made of leather and of such a size as was suited to the kind of game to be played with them. There was tossing and throwing and juggling with balls and also there were regular games. Mahaffy thinks that he has discovered from the descriptions given that they played games similar to the present foot-ball, hand-ball, and lacrosse. He believes foot-ball is shown in this description: "The first is played by two even sides, who draw a line in the center, on which they place the ball. They draw two other lines behind each side, and those who first reach the ball throw it over the opponents, whose duty it is to catch it and return it, until one side drives the other back over their goal line." In the following he can see hand-ball: "It consists of making a ball bound off the ground, and sending it against a wall, counting the number of the hops according as it was returned." From another writer he finds lacrosse: "Certain youths, divided equally, leave in a level place, which they have before prepared and measured, a ball made of leather, about the size of an apple, and rush at it, as if it were a prize lying in the middle, from their fixed starting-point (a goal). Each of them has in his right hand a racket of suitable length ending in a sort of flat bend, the middle of which is occupied by gut strings, dried by seasoning, and plaited together in net fashion. Each strives to be the first to bring it to the opposite end of the ground from that allotted to them. Whenever the ball is driven by the rackets to the end of the ground, it counts a victory."171
The most common forms of gymnastic exercises were running, jumping, throwing the discus, hurling the javelin, and wrestling, and they formed what was known as the pentathlon. They were engaged in at the gymnasium and at the four great national festivals. Beside these there were boxing, the pancration, which consisted of boxing and wrestling, horse racing, and chariot racing.
The gymnasium was originally an athletic ground where all kinds of sports were carried on and it contained the palæstra, which was essentially a building for the purposes of wrestling, although both palæstra and gymnasium came later to stand for other things beside.
There were four great national festivals, known as the Olympian, the Pythian, the Nemean, and the Isthmian. In these festivals contests in races and athletic exercises were held and also sometimes in music, poetry, rhetoric, and the like. The Olympic festival was held at Olympia every four years, in the summer, and lasted for five days; the Pythian festival was also held every four years, near Delphi, in the winter, in the third year of every Olympiad; the Nemean festival was held at Nemea in the second and fourth year of every Olympiad, alternating in winter and in summer; and the Isthmian festival was held at Corinth, in the first and third years of each Olympiad, alternating between spring and summer. These times were thus arranged so that these national festivals did not conflict with one another.
The Olympic festival was the most noted. It was so important that in case of war a truce was entered into among the Grecian states, which lasted probably for three months during the year of the festival. During this time all people journeying to and from the festival were granted protection, and no one was allowed to carry arms within the sacred territory. The official prize was but a crown of wild olive, not valuable in itself, but it was perhaps the most coveted honor in all Greece. Only Greeks were eligible to compete and the winner received the highest honor from his fellow-townspeople. Poets of high renown composed odes in his honor, bronze statues were made of him, he rode home in a triumphal chariot and sometimes a part of the wall of his town was torn down for his entry, he was generally supported for the remainder of his life at public expense, and his honor extended to his parents and to his children, and even to the city of his birth.
Women were not allowed to be present at the Olympian games. The only exception was in permitting the priestesses of Demeter to be present, who remained in a temple built for them near the Stadium. All other women were excluded from the territory for a certain number of days. The penalty of trespassing on the part of a woman was death, the transgressor being thrown from the Typæan rock. "Only one instance is recorded of this rule being broken. Pherenice, a member of the famous family of the Diagoridæ, in her anxiety to see her son Peisirodus compete in the boys' boxing, accompanied him to Olympia disguised as a trainer. In her delight at his victory she leapt over the barrier and so disclosed her sex. The Hellanodicæ, however, pardoned her in consideration for her father and brothers and son, all of them Olympic victors, but they passed a decree that henceforth all trainers should appear naked."172 But women were permitted to enter their horses for the chariot-race, which they did, and won some races, too. The women had their own festival at Olympia, the Heræa, occurring every four years, at which there were races for maidens of various years, the course being one-sixth less than that for men.
Every Greek boy received a thorough physical training. To keep up the spirit for such training, local festivals were held in which was given opportunity for the boys' testing their strength and skill. In the 37th Olympiad were first introduced contests for boys, the names of the victors being inscribed on the records of the events before the names of the adult victors. At first there were only two classes of competition, for boys and for men, later a third class being added, for the beardless or those between boys and men. It would appear as if the ages for boys was between twelve and sixteen and for the beardless between sixteen and twenty. The length of the race-course for boys was but half that for adults and for the beardless it was two-thirds the full length. In the races at the Olympic Heræa the girls were likewise divided into the three ages. In the second century before Christ was introduced the pancration for boys, which shows that the games were becoming more cruel and degraded.
The entertainments in the home were sometimes simply an informal affair, while again they were quite formal. A man wishing to give an entertainment would go out to the market-place or the gymnasium and invite his friends or he might send the invitations by a slave. After entrance into the home and the exchange of greetings, the meal was partaken of and the drinking was entered upon. Toasts were drank to one another and to absent ones, the young men taking the occasion to drink to their loved ones and to sing love-songs. Conversation would be entered upon and jokes and puns made, professional jesters being quite often hired for the evening. There would be games and conundrums and riddles and enigmas. A favorite game for such an evening was called kottabos, in which the player would throw the last drops of wine in his cup on to the head of a small brazen figure, which produced a clanging sound and a bobbing of the head; the louder the clang and the more violent the bobbing with the smaller the amount of the wine thrown, the greater the success of the player. There were dancing-girls and flute players and jugglers and contortionists. Recitations of passages from the poets were given and there were pantomimic and dramatic scenes acted. There might have been little of the kind of entertaining as noted above and the evening spent in deep conversation upon the important topics of the day and by the great philosophers and poets and dramatists and the other great men gathered on the occasion.
One of the very greatest amusements of the Greeks was that of the theater. These were usually built along a hillside, the seats being cut into the solid rock. The performances were held in connection with two of the leading religious festivals, the one in the midwinter and the other in the spring. The theaters were public and open to all the citizens and free of expense, the expenses being borne by the state or by wealthy citizens. There were no playbills nor similar kind of announcements of the plays, usually the audience not knowing what was to come till the play opened.
Dancing and music were among the pleasures of the young people. Of these were mimetic dances, representing mythological scenes. There were also warlike and choral dances performed at the feasts of the gods. There were professional dancers and singers and flute-players. There were a number of kinds of musical instruments. The types of the stringed instruments were represented by the lyre, the kithara, and the harp; the wind-instruments were the pipes, clarionets, and trumpets; and the clanging instruments were the castanets, cymbal, and tambourine.
The young men indulged in horse-racing; they frequented gambling places where dice was used; and they placed metal spurs on cocks, pheasants, and quails and fought them thus armed. Hunting was a favorite sport. It was quite fashionable for rich young men to have fine horses and, although they did ride some, yet they preferred to drive their horses to chariots.
The jugglers and acrobats were quite skilful and they were of both sexes. Outside the help of present day science, they seemed to have performed as remarkable feats as at the present time. They gave sword dances; they tossed hoops and balls; they did rope-walking and dancing; they extracted things from their eyes and ears and noses and mouths. They would stand on their hands and head and perform feats with their toes, as filling vessels with water and shooting bows and arrows. In one feat a woman acrobat would bend back her head till it met her heels, then she would clasp her feet with her hands and roll off like a hoop. In one exhibit there was a contrivance, known as the potter's wheel, in which a young woman would be whirled round rapidly and yet she managed to read and write while being so twirled.
Although the Greeks enjoyed an exceptionally fine climate and gave especial care to the body, yet they were subject to diseases as other people. Their houses were not in sanitary conditions, the streets were not in proper order, and the water was not always pure. There were physicians who had quite good skill in the treatment of diseases and both medicine and surgery were in a fair condition, although superstition and folk-lore too often ruled. Athens and other cities employed physicians at public cost to care for the poor free of charge.
Burial of the dead was a very important function and one demanded by both custom and religion. Without this final honor, it was thought the spirit would wander restlessly on forever. So when a man died his family was bound to give him proper burial. This was considered so important that when a man died in a foreign land his body was brought home, or, if that was impossible, then a tomb was erected to him and the burial rites enacted. It was even considered disgraceful not to let enemies in war bury their dead and after battles a truce was entered upon that the dead might be buried.
When dead the body was washed and anointed and clothed in white and placed on a couch. A wreath was placed on the head and garlands about the body, which were given by friends. On the floor about the couch were set pitchers that were to be put into the grave or on the funeral pile. The burial took place early in the morning, at Athens, at least, before sunrise. In the earlier times the dead were buried in the houses, but later they were placed outside the cities, usually along a road, but in Sparta they were kept in the city, while in the country they were buried in the fields. The bodies either were buried or cremated, but as the latter was quite expensive it was used usually by the wealthy only.
In the funeral procession the body was carried in a vehicle or on the shoulders of friends or slaves. The male mourners marched in front of the corpse and the female mourners behind it, all dressed in black with the hair cut short. In the Homeric times there were violent outbursts of grief and abuse of person by the mourners, but in later times laws were passed to prevent such. At the grave if the body was to be burnt it was placed upon the pile and precious ointments and perfumes were poured over it while burning and the ashes were collected and placed in an urn. If it was to be interred, the body was placed in a wooden, earthenware, or metallic coffin and put into the grave, which was usually in the rock. The mourners then returned to the house and partook of the funeral meal. On the third and tenth days sacrifices were offered at the tomb and again on the thirtieth day, which concluded the mourning period. The graves were well cared for and decorated with flowers and plants. "To neglect the tomb of your ancestors was so far a crime that no man could become a chief officer of the state who could be proved to have failed in this respect."173
The child was introduced into the religious life in the home, as each house had its own altar and its special household deities, to whom prayers were offered and sacrifices made, and on occasions of marriage, birth, death, and the like, special ceremonies occurred. He learned about both the good and the bad, as amulets were hung about his neck to ward off harm and he saw sacrifices made to appease the wrath of the evil ones. In public there were sacrifices and celebrations to the gods, in some of which the child took part.
Old Greek religion was a worship of the beautiful—the ideal in nature and human life, and the gods were ideal expressions of human thought, portraying the divine in man. Religion influenced the old Greek in every way and on every side he was reminded of the gods by temples, altars, statues, sacred trees, etc. But with all his religion, strange to say, the Greek did not connect it closely with his moral life, for his religion was expressed in his attitude toward the gods, while his morality was determined by the laws of the land and the customs of society. This is well shown in his prayers, for these were not offered for inward betterment, but for some definite outward help.
Sparta represented a phase of education in Greece. Surrounded as it was by people who were hostile to its ways and customs, it was necessary that the young should be trained to be patriotic to the state and skilled in war. To this end education began before birth, for means were used for having strong children born and those not strong at birth were cast aside from the state. If the child at birth was decided by the council to be fit to grow up to be a Spartan, then he was given to his mother and remained with her till his seventh year, when he was taken from her and put under the care and training of state officials.
When at seven years of age the boy was taken over by the state, he was placed in the care of an officer called the paedonomus. This officer had supreme power over all the boys and youth and superintended their moral training and gymnastic exercises and their punishments, having men to assist in the work.
All the education was at public cost and all the young were placed in public buildings, eating and sleeping in common, all being placed together in common, even the younger members of the royal family, the heir-apparent to the throne being alone exempt. Here they were divided into three companies according to age—from the seventh to the twelfth year, from the twelfth to the fifteenth, from the fifteenth to the eighteenth. The elder and stronger boys were placed over them as, captains and had them in charge.
When the boy first entered with the others his hair was cut short. The life was one of continued severe discipline and hardship. In summer and winter they went without shoes and with but little clothing, after the twelfth year with only one garment. They slept on pallets of straw without covering and after fifteen their beds consisted of rushes collected by themselves without the use of a knife. They were given but little food. They had permission to steal other food, but if caught stealing they were considered disgraced and received a severe flogging.
The training of the boys consisted in gymnastic exercises, being carefully organized and graded. The younger boys were drilled in running and leaping and ball-playing. The older boys engaged in wrestling, boxing, throwing the discus, and hurling the javelin. Sometimes the pancratium was used, consisting of boxing and wrestling and also most anything to win, as biting, kicking, scratching, gouging. The contestants generally were naked. Dancing supplemented the gymnastics, which for the most part were war-dances and also some choral dancing was given to be used in religious festivals. This was all done to prepare the young for warfare.
When a boy reached eighteen years of age, he then left the buildings for boys and entered upon a more distinctive study of warfare. He was permitted to let his hair and beard grow and was known as a melleiren, "budding youth." These youths were drilled in the use of arms and in skirmishing. They were given frequent strict examinations. To test their courage and endurance, there was a custom of each year of whipping a certain number of youth. They were placed at the altar of Artemis Orthia and so severely whipped as to cause the blood to stream from them, their fathers and mothers standing by and urging them to endure it without flinching or murmuring. Sometimes they endured till they died under the severity of the whipping. Also there was another test in the way of a battle of the melleirenes, held each year on a small island near Sparta. These youths were divided into two companies, sacrifices to the gods were made, they were lined up against one another, and then commanded to fight. They fought without weapons, but fists and teeth and body and limbs were most fiercely used, and many were the wounds received.
At twenty years of age, the budding youth became known as an eiren, "a youth." These remained youths for the next ten years and they lived in barracks to themselves. They took a public oath of loyalty to Sparta and entered the army, thus going into real military life. They entered upon the life of a soldier, lived upon the coarsest fare, were drilled in the usages of warfare, and were sent out to guard and care for some armed camps or fortresses on the border. Each year there were festivals in which was displayed by all the youth their skill in military drill and gymnastic exercises and in music and dancing, such exhibits being before the king and the officers and the public.
At thirty years of age, the Spartan was recognized as being a full-grown man and became a member of the public assembly and was required to marry. But even then he had to remain with the youths and boys and eat at the common table with them, so that he had no home and had to visit his wife secretly in her home. He also continued in military service. It was the custom for each man to select a boy or a youth as a companion and to look after his care and training. These men were expected to be examples to the boys and youths and to correct them in their faults, the men being punished upon failure to do these things.
The girls of Sparta received a public training similar to that of the boys. It was the aim to train them so as to become strong, healthy women, such as could bear robust sons to the state. They were given gymnastic exercises such as were given to the boys, but not in company with the boys, and also the girls were permitted to remain at home. They were exercised in running, wrestling, leaping, throwing the discus, hurling the javelin, and in dancing and music. On some occasions the young men and young women danced and sang together in public in festivals to the gods. This training did produce strong women and who were as patriotic as the men and who as mothers could give thanks to the gods in the temples when they learned that husbands and sons had died fighting for their country.
It may be seen that Spartan education was public and free and open equally to all free-born children. The Spartan youth received very little intellectual training. No doubt some acquired reading and writing, as such was not forbidden, although not encouraged. They obtained ethical and intellectual training from listening to their elders at meals and on the street. They gained from criticism of their conduct, which criticism was severe at all times. Thus they learned reverence for elders, honesty, and self-respect. All the sufferings and hardships placed upon the youth were that they might receive training to make them good soldiers to go out to battle for their native land. Although Spartan education did produce warriors and patriots, yet it did not bring out individuality, that which makes most for true progress and right living. "The state regulated the individual life, and, by so doing, crushed out individuality, personal initiation, literary and scientific activity, and ethical freedom."175
Athens represented another phase in Greek education. A new conception of human life developed here and hence there came forth new ideas in regard to the meaning and end of education. The idea of the significance of the individual took prominence and, although interests centered upon the state, yet the state was considered as being composed, of individuals, each of whose free development made the voluntary giving of his life to the state all the stronger and better state. The citizens of Athens were educated for peace as well as for war, so that the aim of education was to produce all-round men who by being trained to be individuals would thus make the best citizens.
At birth the child at Athens was judged by the father and upon his decision it remained in the family or it was taken from the mother and exposed. If it was returned to the mother, whether a boy or a girl, it remained in the home till marriage, when the man or woman went to his or her own home. For the first seven years of the child's life, both boy and girl, he was under the care and training of the mother and the other women of the household. The Athenian boy was well cared for and given plenty to eat and to wear and toys and playthings, so that at least the early years of his life were easy and pleasant. By hearing the nursery-rhymes and the stories from folk-lore, and by having related to him the doings of the gods and god-like men as given in the writings of the times, his emotional nature was stimulated and he became imbued with the poetic feeling and dramatic spirit which invaded Athens and with which later he was to come in close contact through his school training and in his social and political life.
When the boy became seven years of age, he was sent to school. He was then placed under the charge of a male slave, known as a pedagogue, whose duty it was to go back and forth to school with the boy and carry his things and to have care of the boy's manners and morals, having the power of discipline, but he did not impart instruction, that being given by the grammatist (elementary teacher) and the pedotribe (gymnastic teacher). The state did not provide elementary schools, although they were under its supervision. The schools were not only private, but the father had the right to decide what work should be given to his boy, and yet the law did prescribe instruction in gymnastics and music. If the father did not give due education to his sons, in his old age he could not claim support from them. The length of stay in the school and the amount of education obtained depended upon the will and condition of the father, but all the boys did receive elementary instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic. The physical training consisted in ball-playing, running, leaping, throwing the discus, hurling the javelin, and wrestling, the course being graded to the age and size of the boys. They were also taught dancing and music. Their education was to train the boy to be able to use his body with ease and grace and to increase his intelligence rather than to train him solely to become a soldier.
At fifteen years of age the boy passed out of the elementary training and from the control of the pedagogue, and if of the higher classes he entered upon higher training. He now left the private school and entered the public school, the gymnasium, which was not more than an exercising ground located in a grove just outside Athens. At this time the youth was given much more liberty than when a boy, as now he was allowed to go wherever he wished, that he might become acquainted with what was going on in the city to prepare him for the duties of public life. He was still under the care of his father or guardian and through him he had opportunity for meeting men and hearing the conversations and discussions and thus learn of the political life of the state and the moral obligations of a citizen. At this time the youth began to learn to play a musical instrument and he read and recited poetry and studied drawing and geometry and grammar. The gymnastic training received much more attention at this period than the literary, as beauty of person and health was the great aim. The exercises were about the same as in the previous period but of a more strenuous nature. Boxing was introduced now and sometimes the pancratium was used. Hunting and swimming became a part of the life of the youth.
At eighteen the young man completed the second period of public training and became known as an ephebus, "youth," His father or guardian presented him for citizenship, and if he showed proper credentials of legitimate birth, of Athenian parentage, up to standard in body, mind, and morals, he was registered. He also took an oath of fidelity to the state. He then entered into military service and continued for two years. He was thoroughly drilled and then sent to the frontier. At the close of this second year, when he was twenty years of age, he was called to Athens and examined for citizenship, and if he made a proper showing he was then made a full citizen, with all the privileges and duties pertaining to that office.
The pedagogue was not held in high esteem, as he was usually a slave that was unable to work, being too old or crippled. The elementary teacher, too, did not take a high, position, as there were no special qualifications, so that any one could fill the position and usually only those entered into this work who were unfitted or unprepared for other occupations, and too often as the last resort. The elementary schools were sometimes carried on in a portico or the sheltered corner of a street, but again there were good buildings and well-equipped for the times. The furniture of these buildings usually consisted of stools for the children and a seat with a back for the teacher. The Athenian boy left home at daybreak for school and he did not get back home till sunset, but this was somewhat offset by the frequent closing of the school for holidays and festivals. The discipline was quite severe, the stick and the strap being much in evidence, and yet the teachers of ancient Greece do not appear to have been more cruel than those of Europe and of the earlier days in America.
In reading, the child was first taught his letters and their sounds, next came the learning of syllables, and this was followed by the learning of words, and the learning of the sentence came at the last. After he had learned to read, the boy was given Homer and other Greek writers. The teacher would recite the selection and the pupil would then repeat it. The poems were carefully explained to the children and questions asked them after such explanation.
Paper made from the bark of the papyrus-plant and parchment were used for writing on. To write on the paper and parchment reeds, split and pointed-like pens were used. Both black and red ink were used in the writing. Such were not used by the school-boy, as he had wax tablets, which were made by covering a small, thin board with a layer of wax. The boy used an ivory or metal pencil for writing on the tablet. One end of the pencil was made pointed for this purpose and the other end was flattened so that the pupil could smooth over the wax when the tablet was to be used again. The teacher would write letters and words, which the boys copied. At times he would guide the hand of a beginner. Also sometimes the copies were made deep in the wax and the children would trace them.
There was no such thing as school education of girls and young women in Athens, no public training whatever. The Athenians held that woman's place was in the home and that she should not take part in public life. Hence, according to their ideas, the girl needed no education beyond what would be required for the life within doors, such as would fit her to perform what they considered the simple duties that would come to her as wife and mother. The education of the girl, therefore, fell solely to the mother, aided by the other women of the household. The girl was taught to sew, spin, knit, weave, etc., and sometimes she learned to read and to write and to play on the lyre and sing. It is true there were women at Athens who were educated, and some of them were most highly learned, but they were not citizens of Athens, being foreigners and known as the hetairai. These women were discussed in a previous section of this chapter, so there is no need of further statements here.
Education in Sparta and in Athens comprehended in a general way much the same, as gymnastic and music were the two basic elements. The gymnastic education consisted not only in the exercising of the muscles, but also in the training for endurance to fit the young men for the fatiguing duties of the life of a soldier. Also music was broadened to include literary and moral training as well as music in its narrower sense. If the Spartan education did crush out much of individuality with the men, yet it did allow advantages to its women as no other education, in that the public training of the girls and the taking part in public affairs by the women gave to them great opportunities for growth. If the Athenian education did allow individual expression to the men, yet in confining the women to the narrow place of the home at Athens and in not allowing them to have any part in public education and public life, it narrowed the life of the woman in Athens more than was narrowed the life of the man in Sparta. There are things to praise and things to condemn in the education of Athens as well as that of Sparta.
"Rome was one continual city of noise and bustle. Horace had complained of the turmoil going on night and day, the scurry and crowding of the streets from whose 'torrents and tempests' he hastened to escape into the chaste solitude of the Sabine hills. But during the first century population and activity increased apace, reaching its zenith, perhaps, in the days of Martial and Juvenal. Before daybreak the bakers would be hawking their loaves, and the shepherds, coming into the town from the surrounding districts, their milk: then the infant schools would begin intoning the alphabet, and with hammer and saw the rasping workshops were set going. Creaking wagons would haul huge blocks of stone and trunks of trees, with the weight of which the ground would quake, heavily laden beasts of burden jostled the foot-passenger; on all sides jolting and knocks and trampling, a fine confusion in which pickpockets reap their advantage. Here, says Martial (100 A. D.), the money-changer clatters Nero's bad coin down on his dirty table, and there a workman is hammering Spanish gold on an anvil. A procession of raving priests of Bellona is shrieking uninterruptedly; a shipwrecked sailor, with a fragment of the wreck wrapped up in his hand, is begging alms; a Jewish lad, sent out by his mother to beg; the call of a blear-eyed peddler from the other side of the Tiber, offering sulphur matches for broken glass. Jugglers, some with trained animals (Juvenal speaks of a monkey riding a goat and swinging a spear), Marsian snake-eaters and snake-charmers are calling for spectators for their craft. Peddlers, peddling old clothes, linen and what-not, carriers of pea-flour and smoking sausages, butchers with a reeking quarter of beef, and the foot, the guts and the blood-red lung,—each, to his own screeching tune, proclaiming his own wares."176
The slaves came from the children of slaves, from persons becoming slaves under the law of debt, from importations from other slave-holding countries, from kidnappers who snatched up people from other countries and even from the coasts of Italy, but the great source of all was from captives in the numerous wars waged by Rome upon other peoples. It is claimed that in one campaign there were 150,000 people sold into slavery at its close. Slave-dealers followed the armies and there were slave-markets at Rome and other cities. Slaves were sold in open market just as animals and at high-tide prices were very low. There were all kinds of slaves, as they came from many parts of Africa, Asia, and Europe. The greatest number were used in agriculture and in domestic service. There were all kinds of mechanics among the slaves and some most highly skilled. There were educated slaves coming from Greece and other countries of the East, so that they were used for the training of the young and for the carrying on of business for their masters. There even were physicians and surgeons among the slaves, many households having one to look after the needs of the free and the slave. There also were slaves whose duty it was to give amusement and entertainment, such as musicians, dancers, acrobats, jugglers, rope-walkers, and the like. Too, there were poor dwarfs and simple-minded among the slaves, who were used to amuse master and mistress and guests as did the jesters of the courts in Europe later.
In the early times when each family had but few slaves, they were well treated and well cared for, being considered as members of the household. But later, and especially when slaves became so numerous and cheap, they were often treated very badly and neglected. The slaves were the absolute property of the masters and unprotected by the law, but later laws were made for their protection. The punishments were often extremely severe. They were brutally beaten, legs fettered, heavy iron collars put around their necks, thrown into dungeons, put at hard labor till worn out. Their capital punishment was crucifixion, being thrown to the animals of the vivarium, or set to fight the fierce beasts in the amphitheater. They were not always treated badly and even some became greatly esteemed by master and mistress and sometimes master and slave became friends, as some slaves were highly educated and accomplished men. Such slaves were usually set free and thus became freemen.
It is not necessary to discuss here the effect of slavery upon the citizen or the nation, for the world has fully decided that slavery is not good for the slave nor for the master nor for the state.