Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

xii Preface to the Second Edition
The readers of the Greenwood Daily Life series are built of sterner
stuff than their forebears and need no such sugaring of the pill.
The daily life of ancient Greece was one where parents routinely
buried children, where famine and disease made common cause,
where life expectancy was little more than half of what it is today,
where there was no antidote to physical pain, where terror and
anxiety stalked the mental horizons of even the most enlightened,
and where, despite all the forces that sought to repress it, culture
remained politically vital. It was a routine that has much to tell
us about the plight of millions today. Not the least of the benefits
of studying the Greeks from this angle is that it helps us put the
glittering accomplishments of their civilization into their proper,
somewhat somber and sobering context. We know both them and
ourselves better as a result.
Hamilton, New York
June 2008