by a small agricultural area about the size of Warwickshire, which furnished such portion of its food supply as was not purchased from abroad. Beyond the borders of Attica, both north and south, were other cities of a similar kind-Thebes, Corinth, Argos, Sparta. All these owned a common nationality as the city-homes of Hellenes. Otherwise they formed independent communities, each with its own form of government, its own separate interests, and its own foreign policy.

While the bounds of these city-states were thus narrower than anything with which we are acquainted, within these bounds the life of the citizens was much simpler and more homogeneous than in any modern community even of the same size. In the aforementioned population there were probably not more than thirty thousand who possessed the rights and owed to one another the obligations of free and equal citizens. Below these and the class of free-born women and children belonging to them, stood the larger portion of the inhabitants, consisting of traders, artisans, and agricultural labourers, who, for the most part, were either slaves or aliens. Within the narrow class of fully privileged citizens, moreover, there were few, if any, of the divisions which separate one portion of a modern community from another, and tend to obscure the common duty which the members owe to the state or municipality. There were as yet no deep religious differences, no Catholics and Protestants, no Church and Dissent, no strongly marked division between labour and. capital, rich and poor, town and country. It is

true that most cities were divided into two great political parties-the oligarchical and the democratic -one or other of which was always ready to call in foreign aid. But, as has been well observed, the very intensity of this political rivalry bore witness to the vividness with which the members of all parties realized their interest in the prize of victory.

2. It was a public life, or, at any rate, a life in public. It follows from what has just been said that the chief influences which moulded the character of the citizens were different from those which operate on the members of a modern community. Professor Marshall has suggested that the factor which in modern life is of most importance in the formation of character is the business by which a man earns his livelihood. But in the ancient world of the Greek republics the typical citizen had no business in the modern sense of the word. He was not engaged to any extent in earning his livelihood by trade. or profession. It is true that he spent part of his time in the management of his own private affairs. But this consisted to a large extent in the administration of property which he had for the most part inherited, and was always subordinated to his public and especially to his military duties. These latter came nearer than anything else to what we might call his "profession." Every citizen was also a soldier. At no period-we might say on no day-of his life was he free from the liability to be called upon to take the field in defence of his country and hearth, * With the exception of his religion.

or in support of a foreign ally. We naturally think of the military side of Greek life as developed chiefly in the Doric states, and notably in Sparta, where mothers bade their sons return "with their shields or upon them." But it was equally the first duty of the citizens elsewhere to bear arms when occasion required it. At Athens all alike on coming of age had to take a solemn oath that they would neither disgrace their shield nor desert a fellow-soldier; and we know that Socrates, who in this as in other things may be taken as representative, served on at least three separate occasions in the Athenian army.

*

An illustration of the way in which the Athenian gentleman of the 4th century B.C. combined private business with military training, has come down to us in the vivid picture which Xenophon draws in his Oeconomicus. Socrates there asks Ischomachus how he manages it, to which he replies, "I have been in the habit, Socrates, of rising at an hour when if I should wish to see anybody I am likely to find him at home. If I have any business to do in town, I make this serve as a walk. But if I do not require to go into town, my servant leads my horse into the country, and I take my walk in the same direction and with more profit than if I paced up and down the arcade. When I get out into the country, if I find any of my workmen planting trees, or digging,

The form of oath is preserved in slightly different forms in Stobæus, Flor. xliii. 48, and Pollux, viii. 105. An additional clause is mentioned by Plutarch, Alcib. 15, and Cicero, de Repub. iii. 9.

† xi. § 13.

or sowing, or harvesting, I examine the methods they are employing, and make any suggestion I may have for improving them. I then mount my horse and take a ride, as nearly as possible resembling the kind we have to be prepared for in actual war, avoiding neither slant nor steep, ditch nor canal, only taking care as far as possible not to lame my horse over it. After this my servant lets him have a roll, and then leads him off, taking with him anything we may require in town, while I make my way home-sometimes at a walk, sometimes running. After that I have a rub down. Then I lunch, taking just enough to get through the day without feeling empty and at the same time without overloading my stomach."

He would

"The day," so far as it was devoted to business, was occupied with his public duties, strictly so called. They consisted of attendance on the various meetings and committees by which the government was carried on. He might be a member of the Senate, in which case he might have to consider the kind of question which we associate with a cabinet council-the preparation of bills for presentation to the popular assembly or the superintendence of administration. certainly be a member of the legislative Assembly, and his vote might be called for in an election of public officers or an important debate on foreign policy. As a member of the executive he might have to preside at such a meeting. Or, again, as a member of one of the permanent bands of jurymen he might have to spend his day in judicial administration. The above account

3. It was rounded by leisure.

of the occupations which filled up the time of the ordinary Greek citizen in the century preceding that in which Plato and Aristotle wrote, would be incomplete if no mention were made of another feature of Greek life-the leisure which it left and was designed to leave. The Greek citizen did not live for arms or

for politics any more than for bread alone. He was a creature of large discourse, and had an outlook on a larger world than that of his soldiership, his private business, or even his public duties. This world was represented by the buildings and statues that were daily before his eyes; by the great religious festivals that divided the year, culminating in dramatic representations, where questions of fate, free-will, and the government of the world were worked out before his eyes; by the gymnasia or social clubs where friends met for free discussion of current topics; and last, but not least, by the schools of the philosophers, which, as politics declined, became more and more the meeting-ground of the abler and more ardent spirits.

From all this it is easy to understand that his citizenship or his fellowship with citizens was the prominent fact in the life of the Greek of the 5th and 4th centuries before Christ. It was impossible to miss this feature or to describe the full and satisfying life without a reference to it. To be a good citizen and to be recognized and appreciated by fellow-citizens was to be a happy man, and to be a good citizen in the full sense meant not only to be a brave soldier, an economical and liberal manager of property, but