Introductory American History | Page 7

the Greeks as our first teachers we feel as
proud of their victories as if they were our own victories.
THE WARS OF THE GREEK CITIES. The Athenians had done the
most in winning the victory over the Persians, and therefore Athens
was for many years the most powerful city in Greece. The Spartans
were always jealous of the Athenians, and in less than a century after
the victory of Marathon they conquered and humbled Athens. The
worst faults of the Greeks were such jealousies and the desire to lord it
over one another. Greek history is full of wars of city against city,
Sparta against Athens, Corinth against Athens, and Thebes against
Sparta. In these wars many heroic deeds were done, of which we like to
read, but it is more important for us to understand how the Greeks
lived.

QUESTIONS
1. What ancient cities still exist? Find them on the map. (For each
difficult name find the pronunciation in the index.)
2. What things do we find in the ruins of ancient cities which tell us
how the people lived?
3. From what country did most of our words come in the beginning?
Why are they now called English? What peoples used the word
geography before we did? About how many words do we get from the
Greeks, and how many from the Romans?
4. Which people became famous earlier, the Greeks or the Romans?
Point out on the map the peninsula where each lived.
5. Why do we like to remember the brave deeds of the Greeks?
6. Find the city of Athens on the map. Find Sparta. Where was
Marathon? What city won glory at Marathon?
7. What were the worst faults of the Greeks?
EXERCISES
1. Collect pictures of ruined cities in Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor,
from illustrated papers, magazines, or advertising folders. Collect
postal cards giving such pictures.
2. Choose the best one of the Greek stories mentioned in Chapter II,
and tell it.
3. Find out how differently soldiers now are clothed and armed from
the way the Greek soldiers were.
4. Find out why a long distance run is now called a "Marathon."
CHAPTER III

HOW THE GREEKS LIVED
THE GREEK CITIES. The Greeks lived in cities so much of the time
that we do not often think of them as ever living in the country. The
reason for this was that their government and everything else important
was carried on in the city. The cities were usually surrounded by high,
thick stone walls, which made them safe from sudden attack. Within or
beside the city there was often a lofty hill, which we should call a fort
or citadel, but which they called the upper city or acropolis. There the
people lived at first when they were few in number, and thither they
fled if the walls of their city were broken down by enemies.
In Athens such a hill rose two hundred feet above the plain. Its top was
a thousand feet long, and all the sides except one were steep cliffs. On
it the Athenians built their most beautiful temples.
PRIVATE HOUSES. Unlike people nowadays the Greeks did not
spend much money on their dwelling-houses. To us these houses would
seem small, badly ventilated, and very uncomfortable. But what their
houses lacked was more than made up by the beauty and splendor of
the public buildings, halls, theaters, porticoes, and especially the
temples.
TEMPLES. The temples were not intended to hold hundreds of
worshipers like the large churches of Europe and America to-day.
Religious ceremonies were most often carried on in the open air. The
Parthenon, the most famous temple of Ancient Times, was small. Its
principal room measured less than one hundred feet in length. Part of
this room was used for an altar and for the ivory and gold statue of the
goddess Athena.
[Illustration: THE ACROPOLIS AT ATHENS AS IT IS TO-DAY]
THE PARTHENON. In a picture of the Parthenon, or of a similar
temple, we notice the columns in front and along the sides. The
Parthenon had eight at each end and seventeen on each side. They were
thirty-four feet high. A few feet within the columns on the sides was
the wall of the temple. Before the vestibule and entrances at the front

and at the rear stood six more columns. The beauty of the marble from
which stones and columns were cut might have seemed enough, but the
builders carved groups of figures in the three-cornered space (called the
pediment) in front between the roof and the stones resting upon the
columns. The upper rows of stones beneath the roof and above the
columns were also carved, and continuous carvings (called a frieze) ran
around the top of the temple wall on the outside. The