No Greek race despised handicrafts when pursued for the sake of money as much as the Dorians; no Spartan would pursue a craft or trade. Still the life of the Laconian must not be imagined as one of pure idleness; there were sufficient opportunities for other occupations. In the first place there were the gymnastic and military exercises, which occupied a great part of the day, then there was the study of music, which was continued even after their education had ended; hunting, too, was a very favourite occupation among the Dorians, and was valued on account of its tendency to harden the body. Some time, too, was occupied by State matters, and also by the exercise of religious duties, such as sacrifices, choruses, etc. Moreover, there was a great deal of social life among the men. In most Dorian cities there were special meeting-halls, or club-rooms ([Greek: leschai]), which existed at Athens also and other places. The older citizens used to assemble there and discuss various matters of interest.
We must now turn to Athens, where, in consequence of the more numerous literary authorities, we can form a clearer idea of the conditions, and attempt also to form a picture of the town itself, such as it appeared in its most flourishing period under Pericles, and after his time. It would be a great mistake to form an idea of the appearance of the whole city from the splendid buildings on the Acropolis, the temples which are partly standing at the present day, and the other public buildings which were constructed and decorated without regard to expense. Most private houses were quite plain outside; the ground-floor generally had no windows; there were no splendid porticoes, or elaborate façades, and they were low, seldom having more than two storeys. There was no regular arrangement of streets in the older period, any more than there was in our cities in the middle ages; and even after the burning of the city by the Persians, when dwellings had to be constructed for the returning population, the town was quickly rebuilt without any regular plan. It was not till later that streets were methodically laid out, and this was largely due to the influence of Hippodamus of Miletus, who flourished about the middle of the fifth century, and reformed the ancient style of building cities. Athens itself could not profit by his system, which adopted a uniform artistic plan for the construction of a whole town; but he was able to carry out his scheme in the building of the lower city, near the Peiraeus, which took place under Pericles. Here Hippodamus constructed a network of straight broad streets, cutting each other at right angles, and in the middle he placed a large market, evidently in the form of a square, called the "Market of Hippodamus." The land belonging to this suburb had probably been very little built on; we do not know whether the State had any right of ownership over these new buildings. The flourishing suburbs, the numerous public squares planted with trees and laid out in the manner of parks, did much to improve the appearance of the city, but a great deal must still have been wanting to make it appear really comfortable to us moderns, or even to the Romans of the Empire. In the first place, the streets were unpaved, and there were no sidewalks; these improvements were not introduced until the Roman period, and Greek antiquity was content with ordinary high roads; it is natural, therefore, that in dry weather the dust, and in rainy weather the mud, should have been disagreeable. Very little attention was paid to the cleanliness of public roads; all kitchen refuse, bath water, etc., was simply poured out of doors; at night it was even thrown straight from the windows on to the street, and though it was usual to call, "Out of the way," yet careless people might sometimes be besprinkled on their way home at night. There was no public cleansing of the streets; it was left to beneficent rains to wash away all uncleanness, although the street and market police ([Greek: astunomoi] and [Greek:agoranomoi]), whose duty it was to maintain order in the streets and market places, were supposed to see that they were kept in proper condition, and could compel proprietors who threw out ashes or other refuse to clear this away; yet they probably confined themselves to keeping the streets in fairly good building condition, and seeing that all was in order when processions had to pass along certain roads. Generally speaking, Nissen[D] is probably right when he maintains that, to form an idea of the life at Athens by any modern counterpart, we must not think of Florence or Munich, but rather of Cairo or Tunis.