A Day In The Life Of An Ancient Athenian

jenn neff
A day in the life of an ancient Athenian
Welcome to Athens, the marvel of Greece! The city which is the fountainhead
of beauty, wisdom and knowledge. Even as your ship approaches the Athenian
harbor Piraeus, you can see the marble monuments of the Acropolis and the
shining golden edge of the spear, which belongs to the gigantic statue of
the goddess Pallas Athene. This is one of the greatest works of the sculptor
Phidias, and symbolizes both the power and justice of the “violet city” as
it was called by his contemporaries.

Athenian women had virtually no political rights of any kind and were
controlled by men at nearly every stage of their lives. The most important
duties for a city dwelling woman were to bear children preferably male and
to run the household. Duties of a rural woman included some of the
agricultural work: the harvesting of olives and fruit was their
responsibility.

Since men spent most of their time away from their houses, women dominated
Athenian home life. The wife was in charge of raising the children,
spinning, weaving and sewing the family’s clothes. She supervised the daily
running of the household. In a totally slave based economy, plentiful
numbers of female slaves were available to cook, clean, and carry water from
the fountain. Only in the poorest homes was the wife expected to carry out
all these duties by herself. A male slave?s responsibilities were for the
most part limited to being doorkeeper and tutor to the male children.
Athenian women had very limited freedom outside the home. They could
attend weddings, funerals, some religious festivals, and could visit female
neighbors for brief periods of time. In their home, Athenian women were in
charge! Their job was to run the house and to bear children. Most Athenian
women did not do housework themselves. Most Athenian households had slaves.
Female slaves cooked, cleaned, and worked in the fields. Male slaves watched
the door, to make sure no one came in when the man of the house was away,
except for female neighbors, and acted as tutors to the young male children.

Wives and daughters were not allowed to watch the Olympic Games as the
participants in the games did not wear clothes. Chariot racing was the only
game women could win, and only then if they owned the horse. If that horse
won, they received the prize. . Women spent much of their time in the
courtyard of the house, the one place where they could regularly enjoy fresh
air. Athenian cooking equipment was small and light and could easily be set
up there. In sunny weather, women sat in the roofed over areas of the
courtyard, for the ideal in female beauty was a pale complexion.

Women?s clothes underwent relatively few changes in style. Greek clothing
was very simple. Men and women wore linen in the summer and wool in the
winter. The ancient Greeks could buy cloth and clothes in the agora, the
marketplace, but that was expensive. Most families made their own clothes,
which were simple tunics and warm cloaks, made of linen or wool, dyed a
bright color, or bleached white. Clothes were made by the mother, her
daughters, and female slaves. They were often decorated to represent the
city-state in which they lived.

The two most commonly worn garments were the chiton or tunic and the
himation or cloak. The chiton came in two styles. Its earlier Doric version,
preferred by Athenian women until the end of the 6th century BC, was called
the peplos and was made of wool. Cut into a simple rectangle measuring half
again the height of the person wearing it, it was folded over, wrapped
around the body, and pinned at the shoulders and side. It was sleeveless,
with large arm openings. Expensive versions were decorated with elaborate
woven figures or designs. The Ionian chiton was made of linen that fell into
more elaborate vertical folds than its heavier wool counterpart. The sides
were sewn up to create a long cylinder, which was then caught, by a girdle
or cord at the waist. Short sleeves were added to the sides.

Athenian houses, in the 6th and