=The Demagogues.=—­Since all important affairs whether in the assembly or in the courts were decided by discussion and discourse, the influential men were those who knew how to speak best.  The people accustomed themselves to listen to the orators, to follow their counsels, to charge them with embassies, and even to appoint them generals.  These men were called Demagogues (leaders of the people).  The party of the rich scoffed at them:  in a comedy Aristophanes represents the people (Demos) under the form of an old man who has lost his wits:  “You are foolishly credulous, you let flatterers and intriguers pull you around by the nose and you are enraptured when they harangue you.”  And the chorus, addressing a charlatan, says to him, “You are rude, vicious; you have a strong voice, an impudent eloquence, and violent gestures; believe me, you have all that is necessary to govern Athens.”

PRIVATE LIFE

The Athenians created so many political functions that a part of the citizens was engaged in fulfilling them.  The citizen of Athens, like the functionary or soldier of our days, was absorbed in public affairs.  Warring and governing were the whole of his life.  He spent his days in the assembly, in the courts, in the army, at the gymnasium, or at the market.  Almost always he had a wife and children, for his religion commanded this, but he did not live at home.

=The Children.=—­When a child came into the world, the father had the right to reject it.  In this case it was laid outside the house where it died from neglect, unless a passer-by took it and brought it up as a slave.  In this custom Athens followed all the Greeks.  It was especially the girls that were exposed to death.  “A son,” says a writer of comedy, “is always raised even if the parents are in the last stage of misery; a daughter is exposed even though the parents are rich.”

If the father accepted the child, the latter entered the family.  He was left at first in the women’s apartments with the mother.  The girls remained there until the day of their marriage; the boys came out when they were seven years old.  The boy was then entrusted to a preceptor (pedagogue), whose business it was to teach him to conduct himself well and to obey.  The pedagogue was often a slave, but the father gave him the right to beat his son.  This was the general usage in antiquity.

Later the boy went to school, where he learned to read, write, cipher, recite poetry, and to sing in the chorus or to the sound of the flute.  At last came gymnastics.  This was the whole of the instruction; it made men sound in body and calm in spirit—­what the Greeks called “good and beautiful.”