A Day In Old Athens | Page 9

notions of religion; to the Romans we
owe traditions and examples in law, administration, and the general
management of human affairs which still keep their influence and value;
and finally, to the Greeks we owe nearly all our ideas as to the
fundamentals of art, literature, and philosophy, in fact, of almost the
whole of our intellectual life. These Greeks, however, our histories
promptly teach us, did not form a single unified nation. They lived in
many "city-states" of more or less importance, and some of the largest
of these contributed very little directly to our civilization. Sparta, for
example, has left us some noble lessons in simple living and devoted
patriotism, but hardly a single great poet, and certainly never a
philosopher or sculptor. When we examine closely, we see that the
civilized life of Greece, during the centuries when she was
accomplishing the most, was peculiarly centered at Athens. Without
Athens, Greek history would lose three quarters of its significance, and
modern life and thought would become infinitely the poorer.
2. Why the Social Life of Athens is so Significant.--Because, then, the
contributions of Athens to our own life are so important, because they

touch (as a Greek would say) upon almost every side of "the true, the
beautiful, and the good," it is obvious that the outward conditions under
which this Athenian genius developed deserve our respectful attention.
For assuredly such personages as Sophocles, Plato, and Phidias were
not isolated creatures, who developed their genius apart from, or in
spite of, the life about them, but rather were the ripe products of a
society, which in its excellences and weaknesses presents some of the
most interesting pictures and examples in the world. To understand the
Athenian civilization and genius it is not enough to know the outward
history of the times, the wars, the laws, and the lawmakers. We must
see Athens as the average man saw it and lived in it from day to day,
and THEN perhaps we can partially understand how it was that during
the brief but wonderful era of Athenian freedom and prosperity[*],
Athens was able to produce so many men of commanding genius as to
win for her a place in the history of civilization which she can never
lose.
[*]That era may be assumed to begin with the battle of Marathon (490
B.C.), and it certainly ended in 322 B.C., when Athens passed
decisively under the power of Macedonia; although since the battle of
Chæroneia (338 B.C.) she had done little more than keep her liberty on
sufferance.
3. The Small Size and Sterility of Attica.--Attica was a very small
country according to modern notions, and Athens the only large city
therein. The land barely covered some 700 square miles, with 40 square
miles more, if one includes the dependent island of Salamis. It was thus
far smaller than the smallest of our American "states" (Rhode Island =
1250 square miles), and was not so large as many American counties. It
was really a triangle of rocky, hill-scarred land thrust out into the
Ægean Sea, as if it were a sort of continuation of the more level district
of Bœotia. Yet small as it was, the hills inclosing it to the west, the seas
pressing it form the northeast and south, gave it a unity and isolation all
its own. Attica was not an island; but it could be invaded only by sea,
or by forcing the resistance which could be offered at the steep
mountain passes towards Bœotia or Megara. Attica was thus distinctly
separated from the rest of Greece. Legends told how, when the
half-savage Dorians had forced themselves southward over the
mainland, they had never penetrated into Attica; and the Athenians later

prided themselves upon being no colonists from afar, but upon being
"earth-sprung,"--natives of the soil which they and their twenty-times
grandfathers had held before them.
This triangle of Attica had its peculiar shortcomings and virtues. It was
for the most part stony and unfertile. Only a shallow layer of good soil
covered a part of its hard foundation rock, which often in turn lay bare
on the surface. The Athenian farmer had a sturdy struggle to win a
scanty crop, and about the only products he could ever raise in
abundance for export were olives (which seemed to thrive on scanty
soil and scanty rainfall) and honey, the work of the mountain bees.
4. The Physical Beauty of Attica.--Yet Attica had advantages which
more than counterbalanced this grudging of fertility. All Greece, to be
sure, was favored by the natural beauty of its atmosphere, seas, and
mountains, but Attica was perhaps the most favored portion of all,
Around her coasts, rocky often and broken by pebbly beaches and little
craggy peninsulas, surged the deep blue Ægean, the