The Historians' History of the World 03

No distinct notice occurs of the existence, during the Attic period, either at Athens or elsewhere, of a public library, in the familiar sense of a miscellaneous collection of books for the use of the citizens; although, as in the time of Pisistratus, standard editions of the popular works recited at public solemnities, and more especially of the dramas of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, were preserved at Athens under the charge of the city clerk. Private libraries had, however, already become sufficiently voluminous or curious to merit being specially recorded. Such were those of Euripides, the poet, and of Plato, part of whose collection was purchased at Tarentum, in Italy, from the heirs of its former proprietor, Philolaus, and another part at Syracuse; those of Euthydemus mentioned by Xenophon, of Aristotle, of Nicocrates of Cyprus, and of the Athenian archon, Euclides. The varied character of the works stored in the library of a literary professor, towards the close of this period, is illustrated by a scene in a comedy of Alexis, the humour of which turns on the gluttony of Hercules, a hero habitually burlesqued for that failing in Greek satirical literature. The youthful demigod, when directed by his master, the poet Linus, to select the book he preferred from his preceptor’s collection,—described as containing the poems of Homer, Orpheus, Hesiod, Chœrilus, Epicharmus, the tragedians, and the popular prose classics,—makes choice of a cookery book.

That books of all kinds, then commonly in use, abounded during the greater part of the Attic period appears, not only from the general familiarity which the educated ranks possessed with the text of the national classics, but still more from the absence of any allusion to a scarcity of copies as interposing a serious obstacle to the attainment of such knowledge. The book trade, as a distinct branch of commerce, seems indeed to have been still limited, as in truth it was, comparatively, in every age prior to the invention of printing; and remained, probably in a great measure, in the hands of professional copyists.

Booksellers, however, and a book mart at Athens, are mentioned by authors flourishing during the Peloponnesian War; and occasional notices occur of book scribes or copyists, and of bookbinding. A trade in books or paper is also mentioned by Xenophon as having been carried on about the same date, between Greece and the coasts of the Euxine Sea. A considerable time, however, seems to have been required to bring the works, even of the most popular authors, into general circulation; and the disciples of distinguished philosophers, Hermodorus for example, a scholar of Plato, appear to have made profit by being the first to transport copies of their masters’ lectures into distant localities.c

THE POSITION OF A WIFE IN ATHENS

It was generally the father who chose a wife for his son, looking less to her person than to her family and dowry. This is one of the respects in which the historic position of women differed from the heroic. No longer does the man with splendid gifts win a wife from many suitors; the father must dower his daughter appropriately in order to place her with a husband, and so the daughter often appeared as a burden to the family; so, also, the foundations of petticoat government in marriage were often laid, since the man was only the usufructuary, not the owner of the dowry. How much equality of fortune was considered, and how much a poor family, unable to offer a dowry itself, shrank from the proposals of a rich man, one may gather from the Trinummus of Plautus, in which the whole action turns upon this point. Lesbonicus, who is unable to dower his sister, says to the suitor in the play: “I will not have you think how you can help my poverty; think, rather, that I, though poor, am not dishonourable, so people shall not say that I have let you have my own sister for a mistress, without any dowry like this, rather than for a wife.”

Very often young men were obliged by their fathers to marry, that they might at last be reclaimed from a disorderly life, and thereby, also, discharging their duty to the state. This is what happens, for instance, to the libertine Lesbonicus in the same play by Plautus. Resignedly he receives the news that he is betrothed: “I will have her, this one or that one, any one you like”; whereon the father-in-law comments, “A hundred wives would not be punishment enough for his sins!” The ancients themselves felt the unkindness that lay in this treatment of girls. The feeling is most strongly expressed in a fragment of Sophocles, where young maidens complain:

“But when, light of heart, we reach the time of maidenhood, we are cast from the house and sold, far from the home-gods and mother and father; and yet, when the wedding is over, we must sing praises and believe that it is right as it is.”