Most Greeks ate simply. Meat was usually eaten only at festivals, after a sacrifice. Bread was the main part of every meal. In general, there were two types of bread available at the market: maza was made from roasted barley meal kneaded with honey and water or oil and cooked over heat; artos was a round wheat loaf baked in an oven. Maza was less expensive and so was more common among poorer residents. Everything else accompanying the bread was referred to as opson, whether vegetables, olives, eggs, or meat. Vegetables were more expensive than lentils, so lentils were another staple for the poor. Lentil soup made an inexpensive but filling meal.
A typical Athenian breakfast (one of perhaps two daily meals) was maza or artos soaked in diluted wine with a few olives or figs. (Wine diluted with water was a regular part of the Athenian diet.) People in the country had more meat in their diet, while city dwellers ate more fish, imported from the Black Sea. A favorite dish among the Spartans was a broth that included wine, animal blood, and vinegar. There were jokes about the big appetites of Boeotians, who lived in a land of agricultural plenty.
Women (or their servants) wove the cloth for the family’s clothing, which for women consisted of a long dress called a chiton made from a
A Shine for Shoes
A third century b. c.e. short play by writer Herodas (dates unknown) features two women at a shoe shop arguing with the cobbler over the price of his shoes. He rattles off his fine selection: "es-padrilles, mules, slippers, Ionian bootees, party overshoes, high button-boots. . . Argos sandals, scarlet pumps...." (quoted in Robert Flace-liere's Daily Life in Greece at the Time of Pericles).
World History
