Where shall we go next? I wonder if you would not like to see where the laws of Athens are made. Come, then, let us see which way to go. We can always find the Acropolis, so let us start from there. We go about a quarter of a mile west, when we come to a large platform which has been built in an open square. It is called the Pnyx. Here all the citizens of Athens who are over eighteen years of age meet and pass laws for the city; for Athens is a democracy now, in Pericles' time, and all the people help to rule the little state. There is a meeting of the Assembly, as it is called, about forty times a year, or oftener, if it is needed. On Assembly days the citizens meet by daybreak, for the Athenians believe in getting up early. Sacrifices are offered to the gods first, then the omens are taken, and then business begins. Some man is leader, and he rules the meeting for that day. Socrates was often leader of the Assembly and often kept the people from doing hasty and wrong things. Any one has a right to talk in this meeting, only he must come out in front and stand on a large block of stone while he talks. This is called the "bema stone." Some one proposes something which he wants the people to do. they are to decide whether or not they shall pay the citizens who come to the Assembly to vote. Some are against it, saying that those who love their country should serve it without pay; others are for it, saying that only the rich people can afford to give their time. So the discussion goes on, each one as he speaks coming forward and mounting the bema stone. Finally Pericles comes forward to speak, and all are eager to hear. He speaks in favor of paying the citizens, not only for attending the Assembly, but also favors giving tickets to the theater to those who could not afford to buy them; for the theater to the Greek was a great source of education, and Pericles wished everybody to have an equal chance for education; so finally the vote is taken, and they decide to pay the citizens for serving on juries, attending the Assembly and the like, and also to give the people tickets to the theater. A government in which all the people come together like this and discuss matters and decide them is called a pure democracy. You notice they vote by holding up their hands,—that is one reason they never hold meetings after dark. They have no good way of lighting as we have. Did you know that the man who proposed the law they were discussing was not just an ordinary member of the Assembly? He is what is called a Councilor. The Council is made up of five hundred men from the different tribes. These men meet every day and talk over laws, and the Assembly can vote only on the questions which the Council has already talked over. The man who ruled the Assembly was also appointed by the Council.

I told you the Council met every day. That is not quite right. Twice a year they have no meetings; those are the feast times of the year. One thing about these feast times you must see before you leave Athens.

We will go to the Acropolis again and pass around to the southwest side, and look at the great Greek theater. Does it not remind you of the way the amphitheater at the fair is built? But there is much difference; here the seats are steps cut in the rocky hillside, and are made of marble. They are arranged in a half-circle, and down on the level ground is what we would call the stage, where the singing and acting took place.

The Greeks did not go to the theater just to have a pleasant time, as we do. It was like going to church to them. They did it in honor of their gods. This one where we now are is built in honor of Dionysius, one of their gods. Men who write plays have them acted at these feast times, and there are judges to see which one is the best. Before daylight on feast days people begin coming to the theater to get good seats. The great people and officers and judges, have special seats. The people bring fruit and cakes along for lunch, for they expect to stay all day. The play begins, and everybody listens very closely. The actors do not have a very easy time unless they are very good, for if they so much as pronounce a word wrong, the people hiss at them and pelt them with figs and raisins. But if they are pleased, they show it just as plainly. After one part of a play is finished, the people rest a little, then another one begins, and so on all day long. Nearly every one in Athens is there: think what a large place this theater is! It would hold thirty thousand people. It is not easy for the actors to speak so as to be heard by so many people in the open air, and they use a kind of speaking trumpet to speak through; then they wear what they call masks, which are like false faces and cover their heads entirely. With these masks they can make themselves look like any one they choose. They are so far away from many of the people that they look very small, so they wear shoes with very thick soles and use a great many ways of making themselves look large. Some of the greatest Greek poets wrote plays to be acted in this theater; and we read and study the very plays these Greeks are going to see.

There are many more things it would delight us to see in Athens, but there is one thing you must yet see in Greece before we leave it.

In the southwestern part of Greece, near the shore of the sea, in a little river valley, is a place called Olympia, in the country of Elis, which every Greek knew about. Every fourth year, from all over Greece, people went to Olympia for the games. They came in the very hottest part of summer, in what we would call July or August, though the Greeks did not have those names for months. During the time of these games no Greek state could be at war with another, and Elis was to be protected by all. The roads that led to Olympia were repaired and made safe for travelers. You remember, at the time of the battles of Marathon and Thermopylæ, the Spartans would hardly send help because they were then holding their games. Like the plays at the theater, these games were in honor of a god. Those at Olympia were in honor of Zeus, the king of gods. There was no real town at Olympia, with hotels or places for the people to stay in, so the crowds lived in tents during the games. They came to Olympia from all over Greece, the islands of the Ægean, Asia Minor, Italy, everywhere that Greeks were to be found. They brought animals with them to sacrifice to the gods. Now we will imagine we have gone to the games. We are not the first ones there, for people whose friends are going to take part have been here a month or so already, and the people who are to be in the games have been here ten months already, practicing in the gymnasium at Olympia. On the eleventh day of the month the games begin. We must be on hand early if we get a place. It will be a long day, the sun is hot, and it is dusty. We must not wear hats, because it is not thought respectful to the gods to wear hats at these games. This first day sacrifices of oxen and sheep and goats are to be offered to the gods, and the people who are to take part are to draw lots, and thus decide when their time comes. Very little else will be done on this day. The second day the boys have their games, and run and wrestle and box and do many of the things they have been taught in the gymnasiums at home. But the third day is the great day, for then the men have their contests. They do about the same things that the boys did, only ever so much better. Thus the games continue for another day; then on the fifth day there will be many processions and feasts for the victors. Those who win are shown the highest possible honor, for to win in the Olympian games is thought to be the greatest thing a Greek can do. The winners are crowned with branches of olive, cut with a golden knife by a lad from the sacred wild-olive tree of Olympia, and palm branches are placed within their hands. They are then shown to the people while their names are proclaimed aloud by a herald, and their fathers' names also, and the country from which they come. When they go home, they are treated with the highest honor. A piece of the city wall is torn down, so they need not come in like common people, and to show that if all the citizens were as strong as the victor, the city would not need walls; their statues will be put up in the market place, and all the rest of their lives they will be treated with the greatest respect.

Do the Athenians ever work, you ask, or do they spend all their time in the gymnasiums, theater, and games? Well, the real Athenian does not do much work, for the work on the farms and in the city is done mostly by slaves. Greece did not have so many slaves at first in the time of Homer, or even when she was fighting her brave battles with Persia, and what slaves she did have had a pretty easy time; but in the time of Pericles there are perhaps ten slaves to every freeman, and the story of how they lived would be very sad indeed. The Athenian thinks it is his chief work to make the laws, write poems, carve statues, build temples, attend games and fight the battles of Athens, not to plow her fields or row her triremes.

Now our short visit to Athens is over, but we shall yet study about some of the great men of Greece in Pericles' time. We have seen her at the time when she was most beautiful, for before Pericles died a dreadful war broke out between Athens and Sparta, which lasted thirty years; and at the end of that time Athens was forced to tear down her walls, give up her ships, and was never again the ruler of Greece. But we have seen in this little visit many of the beautiful things which Athens made; and though Athens is soon overcome by other rulers, the sculpture and architecture and poetry and philosophy which she worked out so carefully and so wisely was not lost but spread out all over the Eastern world by Alexander. This we will presently study about; and finally in the when we study the we shall see how all this beauty was carried westward into Europe. And we shall further see in the how we, in America, when we build a beautiful building, or place a statue in our homes, or in a public library, or museum, or schoolroom, or when we paint a beautiful picture, or write a fine poem, or make our own bodies straight and strong, and fit places for the growth of fine minds, that we have learned how to do very much of all this from these happy, free, art-loving Greeks. The little country of Greece did not teach as great a lesson of religion as the Jews taught, or trade over so much of the world as little Phoenicia, but they taught lessons of how to think and speak clearly, and how to carve, build and write so beautifully that the whole world still turns to Greece as its greatest teacher in these things.