One day from the life of ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a male society. If the family was born in the family, the Greeks hung on the door of the house laurel wreath (victory symbol), if a girl is a woolen thread (which probably symbolized the important purpose of the future woman – weave; give birth to children and keep a house – by default).

Morning

Your day starts with a dawn. Breakfast is modest (a hunk of a simple barley bread, impregnated with wine) and passes alone (the wife lives on their half, and you are extremely small). After breakfast, it’s time to go on business. Opening the door, you almost wicked with her passelary (so close and curves of the streets of ancient Eldla). Ahead of the day, filled with concerns: Ellina was very hardworking, and even if the family had slaves who worked from dawn to dawn, it was still very early to get up – otherwise it was possible not to catch the right person at home.

Your life passes in the closed space of Gynecius *. The female part of the house where there is no access to men; rooms were so taboo that Demosthenes described the case where the gynoecium robbed by thieves, but none of the neighbors males did not dare go in there to help, although all heard the screams and saw how things are carried out of the house. Breathe the air, you are allowed in the enclosed space of the courtyard. However, your sons and seven years of age can enter the gynoecium completely free (and live with you) – they are not yet considered to be real men.

* If you belong to a wealthy family, then your house is two-storey, made of bricks, roof covered with tile floors and the ground floor covered with mosaics. If by means of tight, home of much more modest: here the main materials – pressed earth and tree. In any case, the windows are small and almost under the roof. The house is surrounded by impenetrable fence.

Day

Those who have already turned seven, spend time in the school (palaestra), where learning reading, music, writing and counting. At each school, a playground where the boys involved in the fight (this is an important lesson, because many of these young men become warriors in the future). Girls are taught at home under the supervision of nurses and mamok. All they need to know reading and writing, as well as know how to sew and weave (cloth manufacture but could not all, if a woman is able – it was considered advantageous bride).

Pleasant exception was Sparta. Spartan girls were taught almost all subjects as boys, including martial arts. It is known that treatment of women in Sparta was much more respectful compared with the same Athens.

With 16 years of boys from rich families fell into the gymnasium, where he studied a cycle of different sciences, from astronomy to philosophy and rhetoric. The word "gymnasium" is derived from two Greek: "naked" and "exercise". Among other things, a lot of attention is paid to the physical training of youth. All exercises were performed outdoors and always in the nude form. This was achieved by raising the "Greek spirit", which was based on a strong male friendship.

One of the main classes of adult male population (not counting warriors) was breeding livestock. It is the size of the herd testified to the welfare of the owner. Cows, sheep and goats were a valuable source of meat, milk, skins and wool. Bulls were used and in Pakhto – agriculture was also very honorable and important occupation of Ellin (Greeks sowed bread, grapes and olives were bred).

They loved men to hunt, so they kept dogs at home (they were also needed for the protection of herd), cared for them and considered valuable property. Interestingly, there were very little horses – only a very rich man could afford to buy a horse (their content was not cheap). Beautiful animals served donkeys and mules. Pigs also bred – for food.

All this, of course, refers to more or less successful citizens. The poor lived very modestly, they did not have livestock, they were fed on hunting and fishing. Sometimes it was also at home – the poor just hired in the bareakki noble people who lived.

Related ladies enjoy freedom a little more than usual: they go to the city for shopping. In wealthy families for these purposes were slaves. Exception of Rules: Religious Festivals. At this time, the Greek was called guests girlfriends, satisfied the peers and even went to theaters (although there were not all performances).

Despite the fact that you are on the farm from the morning to the evening on a house with slaves (even if the family was a wealthy – a woman was prescribed to wash, cook and clean with servants), eternal dirt reigns in your house. Mainly, soot from the hearth, fat, flows from fried meat, smoking a resinous tree, which is used for lighting (even Homer in his poems, then complains that the soot spoils the weapon walked on the walls). All this reliably covers the walls of the house, and it is simply impossible to clean them. For the cleanliness of the floor, you do not follow at all (on the floor – bones and even whole skins of eaten animals). Why? New meal and new smoke. The same can be said about the yard.

Evening

Greek may well visit theater. This woman, however, is also not reborn, but you will only be allowed on tragedies that, according to the ancients, will bring in you the right moral qualities. But comedies, ridiculeting human defects, are watching only men, because sensitive can embarrass the "weak" female nature. Unthinky in the evening and without a bath that the Greeks visited regularly, unlike representatives of Central Europe of later centuries – "Dirty Story" as it is.

So, comedy or evening in the company of girlfriends. But only on holidays. But a variety of games, oddly enough, are accessible to all, even children, and are generally very common in ancient Greece. Historian Andrei Savelyev in his book "life and everyday life of the Ellinov" describes an uncomfortable game of pebbles: the participants threw up five pebbles and tried to catch them all on the back side of the palm. Who caught more – won. Popular games in Zhmurki and Ball, and more gambling. Especially loved in Eldead the game in the bone (analogue of modern), and so that the government had to ban it (but who could stop – as today, in ancient Greece there were underground gambling houses). But most of all men adored cock bats. And then the laws were exclusively "for", prescribing young people at least once a year at the cock battles – so that they saw an example of which pressure should be combed.

Night

Jacques Louis David. Farewell to Telemach and Euarch

Men and wives Eldlas sleep. Everyone in his bed. Their marriages are not in heaven, but by calculation. Father and future groom made a deal (money, livestock or precious metals; depending on the appearance and performance of the girl – for her, for example, could give from 1 to 20 cows). The girl who, by the way, could be no more than 12 years old (the groom older for 12-15 years), did not take part in this participation. Therefore, marriage for a woman – practically slavery. It was believed that women were incredibly lustful, so they should always be kept in the ultrasound, "using" only in order to continue the kind, for which the husband encourages his spouse to his bedroom (refuse, of course, it is impossible to beat).

Love and sincere friendship between a man and a woman in Eldead was just the exception. With the true tenderness, adult men belonged only to the young men (her husbandhood was not officially prohibited by law, but, however, it was not encouraged; a typical couple: an old man’s experience and a wonderful inexperienced young man), and more. to the educated heterares with which men felt relaxed. It was the priestess of love, according to historians, could contribute to the gradual liberation of a woman and improving the attitude towards her in society.