Introductory American History | Page 7

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 temple was not left a glistening white, but parts of it were painted in blue, or red, or gilt, or orange.
[Illustration: THE TOP OF THE ACROPOLIS 2000 YEARS AGO The Parthenon is the large temple on the right]
OTHER GREEK TEMPLES. This beautiful temple is now partly ruined. Ruins of other temples are on the Acropolis, and one better preserved, called the Theseum, stands on a lower hill. There are also similar ruins in many places along the shores of the Mediterranean. The most interesting are at Paestum in Italy, and at Girgenti in Sicily. Long before these temples were ruined they had taught the Romans how to construct one of the most beautiful kinds of buildings, and this the Romans later taught the peoples of western