Greek Daily Living

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the women and children only used stools. The dining room included large, comfortable couches and small, nearby tables for eating. Other common household furniture included beds, chests, storage boxes, and large baskets for storage and shopping (Poulton 54). Olive oil lamps of either pottery for poorer families or bronze and silver for richer families provided lighting in the home (Poulton 54).
Water was scarce in ancient Greece and had to be piped in from springs in the surrounding hills. Few homes had wells, but most families sent their slaves to public cisterns or bought water from the water carriers. The Greeks often bathed in large, shallow bowls and used clay pots called chamber pots as toilets (Poulton 54).
Nardo described the Greek family or oikos as consisting of parents, children, grandparents, servants, and slaves (Nardo 12). Poulton declared the Greek man's main purpose as producing children, preferably boys. Since there was no social security or respect given to ...

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school from age seven to age fifteen, and the rich employed slaves as private tutors. The Greeks taught the Illiad and the Oddysey to the children along with reading, writing, music, and physical education (Poulton 58). Anne Pearson, author of the book Ancient Greece, explained that the Greek referred to the teacher of reading, writing, and arithmetic as grammatistes and the music teacher as kitharistes (33). Students wrote with pointed sticks on wooden tablets covered with soft wax (Schofield 26). Poulton points out that because there were no public universities, the rural Greeks had to follow the trade of their father. In the cities where public life was emphasized, rich families ...

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