Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

40 Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks
method of waste disposal. Traces of a drain that began beside the
Acropolis and descended into the Agora have been found dating
from the seventh century b.c.e. , and in the fifth century a more
extensive drainage system was constructed. However, it was never
remotely comparable in scale to the Cloaca Maxima or Great Drain
that ran through Rome and there must have been many occasions
when it overflowed. Individual households would therefore have
been responsible for the disposal of their own waste. Perhaps there
were designated dumps where garbage was deposited before being
removed from the city.
It was the duty of municipal law enforcement officers known
as astynomoi to determine that certain minimum standards of
hygiene and safety were upheld. Their tasks included ensuring that
dung collectors did not deposit dung within a radius of 10 stades
(approximately half a mile) of the circuit wall; that buildings did
not encroach upon the streets; and that the bodies of those who
expired upon the public highways were collected for burial. The
checking of such abuses, particularly the proper disposal of dung,
must have been an uphill battle. Disease was an ever-present hazard,
especially during the summer months.
What was true of Athens would have been true of most Greek
cities, though some of the great Hellenistic foundations, such as
Alexandria in Egypt, Antioch (modern Antakya) on the banks of
the Orontes River, and Apamea, also on the Orontes, which were
laid out according to a grid, are likely to have had better municipal
facilities. Incidentally, these were all cities with estimated populations
of 200,000 or more.
City Limits
From 479 b.c.e. onward, and possibly earlier, the limits of Athens’s
growth were defined by a circuit wall built on top of a stone
socle with mud brick in its upper courses. This wall, hurriedly constructed
after the defeat of the Persians, was pierced by at least seventeen
gates. Through these gates passed roads connecting the city
with the outlying districts of Attica—Acharnai to the north, Eleusis
to the west, Piraeus to the south. The most famous of these gates
was the Dipylon, or Double Gate, on the western side of the city. It
was so named because it consisted of an entrance at each end of a
long corridor that was designed to entrap the invader. Outside the
Dipylon lay the Kerameikos or Potters’ Quarter, where the most
impressive grave monuments have been discovered. Reconstructed