TEE OLD GREEK VOLUNTEER 489 



Athens, was exceedingly numerous and their care no light task in a 

 small nation, she took part in their nurture with a striking delicacy of 

 treatment, " desiring, as far as it was possible," as Plato has said in 

 the Menexenus, "that their orphanhood might not be felt by them," 

 and, in addition to support and education during her youth, the laws 

 bestowed on the veteran's daughter, on her marriage day, a marriage 

 portion or dower which was not only a substantial symbol of parental 

 love and protection, but the very badge of legitimacy in the ancient 

 society. 



The sons of veterans were not treated as mere dependent charges of 

 the government but, besides receiving their support from the nation, 

 were taught a trade or trained in business to equip them for the battle 

 of life, and were honored with signal marks of public favor in the gym- 

 nasia and especially in the sacred choruses of the great national festi- 

 vals, in which the proud sons of the most prominent families of the 

 Athenian republic felt it a distinction to appear and participate. And 

 finally, when the veterans' sons, who had been wards of the nation, 

 reached manhood, they were released from state control to take their 

 places as ordinary citizens among their fellow countrymen, but amid 

 scenes and ceremonies which were the most dramatic and inspiring on 

 the religious and patriotic calendar. 



No more conspicuous place and surely no more auspicious time 

 could have been selected for this glorification day of the soldier's boy; 

 for he was emancipated from his happy tutelage at the March season 

 of the presentations in the great stone theater of Dionysus, which 

 seated thirty thousand people, when filled, as it was sure to be at this 

 time, when, in addition to the large attendance from the Athenian city 

 and nation, many thousands were drawn from all parts of the Greek- 

 speaking world. Here, at this time, the great tragedies of iEschylus, 

 Sophocles and Euripides, the epoch-making comedies of Aristophanes, 

 and the plays of the other noted dramatists were brought out, just 

 across the way from the temple of the wine-god, with whom the cere- 

 monies always began, and in whose honor and worship drama originated 

 and developed. 



Amid such surroundings and in the midst of such a multitude, on 

 the gala day of the year, these orphans were presented, clad in full 

 armor, as a symbol and memento of their fathers' valor and as an ex- 

 hortation to follow their fathers' example. Just before the tragedy 

 proper began, and after the sacrifice, the bestowing of civic and mili- 

 tary crowns on the nation's greatest and bravest, and the sacred deposit 

 of the tribute from the " Athenian Empire " — the safety- fund from 

 the protective league against the Persian King — these youths were in- 

 troduced to the assembled audience by the herald, who proclaimed with 

 loud voice, what the orator iEschines — Demosthenes's great rival — 



