Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/61

 THE ROMAN EMPIRE 25 to share their life and citizenship. Each city-state had its I own religion, its own legends and myths and gods and I heroes, its own festivals and forms of worship, in which all i the citizens participated and which were presided over by I the town magistrates. If one went to another city one found 1 gods with different names and functions, and strange cere- monies on the wrong days. There was, therefore, no distinc- city-state was both. One's duty to the gods and one's affec- I tion for one's own kindred could best find expression in serving the State. In Sparta the city took boys away from the home at seven years of age, and henceforth they lived J together in bands, training to be soldiers and statesmen. Each city naturally was a distinct economic unit, with an agora or market-place where the peasants and merchants I sold their produce and wares. There was trade between J different cities, but one also felt quite free to plunder the i ship of any one but a fellow-citizen, n , Even more than to-day the city was the center of art, literature, learning, and amusement, since there were no cheap ways of spreading these things to farm and home such as we possess in printing, photography, and phonographs. Partly for the same reason and partly because the climate ! encouraged meeting in the open air, the inhabitants — more especially the men — of the ancient city spent much of their time together out-of-doors, not merely engaging in athlet- ics, but listening to public speakers, poets, and philosophers, enjoying a dramatic performance, or admiring statues and other works of art, which were exposed to the air rather than enclosed in museums. Also the exterior rather than the interior of a temple was adorned with frieze and colonnade, for only the priests and individual petitioners entered the small cella where were the images of the gods. Festivals and other large religious gatherings, such as athletic games and tragedies or comedies, — all three of which were religious exercises, — were held in the stadium, open-air theater, or some other large open place. The streets of the town were, 1 however, apt to be narrow, because the towns were limited
 * tion between Church and State in Greece and Rome. The