A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

—
204 The Age of Pericles
wealth we must perforce be slaves to our slaves, in order
that we may get in our slave-rents, and let the real slave
Naval supremacy
brings refinements
and breadth
of life.
The plain
citizens have
a full share
in the festivals.
go free. . . .
And if one may descend to more trifling particulars, it
is to the same lordship of the sea that the Athenians owe
the discovery, in the first place, of many of the luxuries of
life through intercourse with other countries. So that the
choice things of Sicily and Italy, of Cyprus and Egypt and
Lydia, of Pontus or Peloponnese, or wheresoever it be, are
all swept, as it were, into one centre, and all owing, as I
say, to their maritime empire. And again, in process of
listening to every form of speech, they have selected this
from one place and that from another—for themselves.
So much so that while the rest of the Hellenes employ
each pretty much their own peculiar mode of speech,
habit of life, and style of dress, the Athenians have
adopted a composite type, to which all sections of Hellas,
and the foreigner alike, have contributed.
As regards sacrifices and temples and festivals and
sacred enclosures, the People see that it is not possible
for every poor citizen to do sacrifice and hold festival, or
to set up temples and to inhabit a large and beautiful city.
But they have hit upon a means of meeting the diflSculty.
They sacrifice—that is, the whole state sacrifices
at the public cost, a large number of victims; but it is the
People that keep holiday and distribute the victims by
lot among its members. Rich men have in some cases
private gymnasia and baths with dressing-rooms, but the
People take care to have built at the public cost a number
of palaestras,
dressing-rooms, and bathing establishments
for their own special use, and the mob gets the benefit of
the majority of these, rather than the select few or the
well-to-do.