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Domestic Everyday Life, Manners, and Customs in the Ancient World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

George Harris
Affiliation:
Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and late Vice-President of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.

Extract

In the survey of the domestic every-day life, and manners and customs of the ancients, already published (“Transactions,” vol. ii., pp. 393–438), we obtained a view of the earliest mode of living adopted by the inhabitants of this planet. We beheld the people at first rudely dressed in wild skins, or covered with garments made of leaves, but gradually obtaining a more refined character, as the progress of civilization which is marked by nothing more clearly than by that of costume, advanced among them; until, influenced and moulded by the classical taste of the people of Greece and Rome, it eventually assumed that form and appearance which are so striking and so beautiful, far exceeding anything which even the science and civilization of modern times have succeeded in producing. We also peeped into the dwellings of the people by whom the earth was originally inhabited, — our primeval ancestors. We first of all found them in rude caves, habitations formed and provided for them by Nature herself. Sometimes they lived in groves. Afterwards they built for themselves tents and huts, which in form imitated their original dwellings. As the tide of civilization rolled on they by degrees effected improvements in their mode and style of living, until at length, among certain nations where civilization had attained a high rank, more especially in Egypt, in Greece, and in Rome, stately cities and superb dwellings were raised, in which the humble and scanty fare provided by Nature was exchanged for luxurious feasts. i now propose to inquire into certain peculiar habits connected with the ordinary occupations and manner of daily life of the people of the ancient world, affording also some account of those amusements by which mainly they were diverted.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1874

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References

page 2 note * “Euterpe,” ii., 35.

page 2 note † Ibid.

page 3 note * “Euterpe,” ii., 36.

page 3 note ‡ The gipsies, who are supposed to have originally come from Egypt, and who pretend skill in the art of predicting events, probably derived their knowledge from the early exercise of the craft here described.

page 3 note § “Euterpe,” 82.

page 3 note † Ibid., 80.

page 3 note ∥ Ibid.

page 4 note * “Thalia,” iii., 12.

page 4 note † Cap. 5.

page 4 note ‡ “Euterpe,” ii., 70.

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page 5 note § “Arts of Greece and Rome,” vol. i., pp. 163, 164.

page 6 note * “Arts of Greece and Rome,” pp. 192, 193.

page 6 note † The Romans allowed their ladies considerably more liberty than did the Greeks, and one distinguished writer of that period asks, with becoming indignity, “Which of the Romans was ever ashamed to bring his wife to an entertainment? And what mistress of a family can be shown who does not inhabit the chief and most frequented part of the house, whereas in Greece, she never appears at any entertainments besides those to which none but relations are invited, and constantly lives in the innermost part of the house, which is called the women's apartment, into which no man except a near relation has admission. – Cornelius Nepos, præfat, in vitas Itnperatorum.

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page 20 note * “Melpomene,” iv., 183.

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page 22 note ¶ Ibid., c. 18.

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page 22 note ‡ Ibid., 71.

page 22 note ** Ibid., c. 47.

page 22 note § “Thalia,” iii., 113.

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page 43 note ‡ “Iliad,” lib. 7.

page 43 note § Ibid., lib. 6.

page 43 note ∥ Ibid., lib. ix., c. 7.

page 44 note * “Jewish Antiquities,” b. x.

page 44 note ‡ Ibid., xxvii., 42.

page 44 note † Gen. xx. 16.

page 44 note § Ibid., iv. 22.

page 45 note * “Diet. Gr. and Rom. Ant,” art. “As.”

page 45 note † Ibid.

page 45 note ‡ Ibid.

page 46 note * “Diet. Gr. and Rom. Ant.,” art. “As.”

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page 54 note ‡ “Arts of Greeks and Romans,” vol. ii., p. 270.

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page 55 note ‡ Xenophon's ”Memorâbilia.” B. iv, c. ii., s.I. and note.

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page 64 note * “Liber” I, Epistle 13.

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page 64 note § Note to Rawlinson's “Herodotus,” chap. 2.

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page 67 note ‡ Book I., c. 194.

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page 72 note † “Commentaries,” b. vii., c. 4.

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page 73 note ∥ “Commentaries,” c. viii.

page 73 note § “Annals,” b. vi., c. 37.

page 73 note ¶ Ibid., c. xvii.

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