t serve the state gratuitously; and so a salary was
instituted: every citizen who sat in the assembly or in the courts
received for every day of session three obols (about eight cents of
our money), a sum just sufficient to maintain life at that time. From
this day the poor administered the government.

=The Demagogues.=--Since all important affairs whether in the assembly
or in the courts were decided by discussion and discourse, the
influential men were those who knew how to speak best. The people
accustomed themselves to listen to the orators, to follow their
counsels, to charge them with embassies, and even to appoint them
generals. These men were called Demagogues (leaders of the people).
The party of the rich scoffed at them: in a comedy Aristophanes
represents the people (Demos) under the form of an old man who has
lost his wits: "You are foolishly credulous, you let flatterers and
intriguers pull you around by the nose and you are enraptured when
they harangue you." And the chorus, addressing a charlatan, says to
him, "You are rude, vicious; you have a strong voice, an impudent
eloquence, and violent gestures; believe me, you have all that is
necessary to govern Athens."

PRIVATE LIFE

The Athenians created so many political functions that a part of the
citizens was engaged in fulfilling them. The citizen of Athens, like
the functionary or soldier of our days, was absorbed in public
affairs. Warring and governing were the whole of his life. He spent
his days in the assembly, in the courts, in the army, at the
gymnasium, or at the market. Almost always he had a wife and children,
for his religion commanded this, but he did not live at home.

=The Children.=--When a child came into the world, the father had the
right to reject it. In this case it was laid outside the house where
it died from neglect, unless a passer-by took it and brought it up as
a slave. In this custom Athens followed all the Greeks. It was
especially the girls that were exposed to death. "A son," says a
writer of comedy, "is always raised even if the parents are in the
last stage of misery; a daughter is exposed even though the parents
are rich."

If the father accepted the child, the latter entered the family. He
was left at first in the women's apartments with the mother. The girls
remained there until the day of their marriage; the boys came out when
they were seven years old. The boy was then entrusted to a preceptor
(pedagogue), w