GREECE 



Greece. Map of the ancient divisions and cities of Hellas, 

 with the classical names of the surrounding seas 



it has a population of 175,000, many 

 fine public and private buildings, 

 broad boulevards, and the famous 

 Constitution Square, which is the 

 heart of the city to and from which 

 flow all the currents of its life- 

 blood. It is a mixture of old and 

 new. The roads are mostly exe- 

 crable and very dusty; goats are 

 driven through the streets and 

 milked at the house-doors; the 

 bazaars resemble those of Cairo 

 and Constantinople. Occasional 

 tall figures in costume belonging to 

 the past mingle with the throng in 

 European clothes to remind one 

 that in far-away districts little has 

 been changed. 



Street Life in Athens 

 The Athenians live much in the 

 open air. They sit outside their 

 numberless cafe's and talk politics 

 interminably over cups of Turkish 

 coffee, with glasses of water, or ices, 

 or mugs of Bavarian beer. The 

 cries of newspaper-sellers are heard 

 without ceasing, for everyone 

 wants to know " the latest," just 

 as did the ancient Athenians. The 

 Greeks are, as a nation, anxious 

 to learn, hungry for education, 

 which can be had free from the 

 elementary school right up to the 

 university. The teaching given, is 

 inclined to be too purely literary, 

 which creates too large a number 

 of young men desirous of becoming 

 lawyers, newspaper writers, and offi- 

 cials, instead of taking to industry 

 or commerce. Attempts have been 

 made to check thia tendency by 

 founding technical and commercial 

 schools. Venizelos took up in 1920 

 a plan for establishing a public 



school on the 

 English model on 

 one ot the Greek 

 islands. 



Among most of 

 the more highly 

 educated religion 

 is either nog- 

 lectedor kept up 

 merely as a form. 

 But among the 

 peasantry attach- 

 ment to the Greek 

 Churchisasstrong 

 as ever. During 

 the struggle for 

 independence, the 

 heads of the 

 Chr.rch were the 

 leaders of the 

 nation, and thi? 

 tie has not been 

 dissolved, though 

 the Church has 

 no real political 

 importance. The 

 state keeps up a 

 connexion with it 

 by paying the 

 bishops; they re- 

 ceive the same salary as members 

 of Parliament (160 a year) ; arch- 

 bishops get 200. The Moslem 

 religious leaders are also paid by 

 the State to avoid injustice to the 

 Mahomed an population. 



In the monasteries strangers are 

 welcomed and hospitably enter- 

 tained ; the monks are usually 

 more intelligent than the priests. 

 Not only they, but all the country 

 people scrupulously keep the many 

 fasts which the Church ordains, 

 and live for numbers of week? to- 

 gether in Advent, in Lent, and at 

 other seasons, on bread, vegetables, 

 olives, fruit, and fish. There are 

 small communities of Roman 

 Catholics as well as Moslems scat- 

 tered here and there. 



Birthdays and Weddings 

 In many of their social habits 

 the Greeks retain a religious flavour 

 even if they are not strictly Ortho- 

 dox in their opinions and prac- 

 tice. For instance, they make 

 much more of the name-day (the 

 day of the saint after whom one is 

 called) than of the birthday ; and 

 New Year's Day, which is a v Church 

 festival, is observed by all as an 

 occasion for making visits and 

 giving presents. Weddings, on the 

 other hand, are rather social than 

 religious in their character ; they 

 are celebrated as a rule in private 

 houses. In the country there are 

 still kept up picturesque and in- 

 teresting marriage customs, such 

 as that in Euboea, where brides 

 smear honey on the doors of their 

 new homes and throw pome- 

 granates at it ; if seeds stick 

 in the honey, happiness may be 



GREECE 



expected; if not, heads are shaken. 

 Both in the villages and the 

 towns, and also among the Greeks 

 who live abroad, there is a strong 

 love of country, so perfervid as 

 to be quickly stirred up to aggres- 

 siveness. Compulsory service is 

 not felt as a hardship, though from 

 his twentieth year until he has 

 passed fifty the Greek man is at 

 the beck and call of the military 

 authorities. 



Industrially the country is not 

 likely to make rapid progress. It 

 has some 2,000 factories, but they 

 are mostly quite small ; cotton is 

 the only manufacture on a large 

 scale ; agriculturally it can never 

 be rich. Its recent acquisitions are 

 certainly valuable, but heavy tax- 

 ation would soon provoke discon- 

 tent. What wiser and cooler- 

 headed Greeks see is that their 

 country needs a long period of 

 quiet and hard, steady work, dur- 

 ing which it can consolidate its 

 conquests, and make those ad- 

 vances in civilization which will 

 put the Greeks among the pro- 

 gressive nations of the world. 



Hamilton Pyfe 



ANCIENT GREECE. The history of 

 ancient Greece may be more cor- 

 rectly called the history of the 

 Hellenes. It is the story, not of 

 that part of Europe now called 

 Greece, nor of a nation, but of 

 a people never united as a 

 homogeneous political body, yet 

 always conscious of a spiritual 

 unity, full of diversities, yet shar- 

 ing common characteristics which 

 distinguished them all and set 

 them apart from all other races. 



All that was most characteristic 

 of the race was indeed concentrated 

 and consummated in one little state, 

 hardly bigger than the county of 

 Kent, upon the Greek peninsula ; 

 but Hellas, the Hellenic area, 

 covered not only the modern king- 

 dom of Greece, but all the islands 

 of the Aegean Sea and the western 

 coast of Asia Minor ; while the Hel- 

 lenic expansion dominated Sicily, 

 occupied the ports of southern 

 Italy, and planted colonies on the 

 African coast, and as far W. as 

 Massilia, the modern Marseilles. 

 We shall use the term Greece for 

 the Greek peninsula, Hellas for the 

 Hellenic area, and Greater Greece 

 for the area of expansion. 

 Minoan Civilization 



Recent investigations and ex- 

 cavations lead to the conclusion 

 that before the Hellenes appeared 

 on the scene at all, an earlier race 

 of uncertain origin, having the 

 island of Crete as its centre, had 

 attained a high degree of civilization 

 which is given the name of Minoan. 

 About the 15th century B.C. the 

 Hellenes were pushing down into 



