THE MARKET PLACE. 71 



The Greek world was composed of municipal aristo- 

 cracies, societies of gentlemen living in towns, with 

 their farms in the neighbourhood, and having all 

 their work done for them by slaves. They themselves 

 had nothing to do but to cultivate their bodies by 

 exercise in the gymnasium, and their minds by conver- 

 sation in the market-place. They lived out of doors, 

 while their wives remained shut up at home. In 

 Greece, a lady could only enter society by adopting a 

 mode of life which in England usually facilitates her 

 exit. The Greeks spent little money on their wives, 

 their houses, or their food : the rich men were expected 

 to give dramatic entertainments, and to contribute a 

 company or a man-of-war for the protection of the 

 city. The market-place was the Greek club. There 

 the merchants talked their business : the labours of 

 the desk were then unknown. The philosopher in- 

 structed his pupils under the shade of a plane tree, or 

 strolling up and down a garden path. Mingling with 

 the song of the cicada from the boughs, might be 

 heard the chipping of the chisel from the workshop of 

 the sculptor, and the laughter and shouts from the 

 gymnasium. And sometimes the tinkle of a harp 

 would be heard ; a crowd would be collected ; and a 

 rhapsodist would recite a scene from the Iliad, every 

 word of which his audience knew by heart, as an 

 audience at Naples or Milan know every bar of the 

 opera which is about to be performed. Sometimes a 

 citizen would announce that his guest, who had just 

 arrived from the sea of Azov or the Pillars of Hercules, 

 would read a paper on the manners and customs of the 

 barbarians. It was in the city that the book was first 

 read and the statue exhibited — the rehearsal and the 

 private view ; it was in Olympia that they were pub- 



