Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

98 Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks
if they were wings. After this I was picked up naked by some passers-by,
for my assailants had carried off my cloak. (54.8–9)
Ariston warns the jury that the kind of defense that they are likely to
hear from Konon is that there are many young men in Athens from
good backgrounds who become infatuated with prostitutes and
then come to blows over them with other young men. The father
will argue, in other words, that such behavior should be treated
with indulgence. Ariston, however, maintains that rivalry over
prostitutes had nothing to do with the attack and that his assailants
held a personal grievance against him. He claims that there was
a history of bad blood between Konon’s son Ktesias and himself.
When they were serving as ephebes (or cadets, see p. 247) on the borders
of Attica, Ktesias and his brother amused themselves by emptying
the contents of their chamber pots over the heads of the slaves
of their fellow soldiers! We do not have the speech for the defense,
so it is impossible to determine what part Ariston himself might
have played in stirring things up. What is likely, however, is that
rivalry among gangs of privileged youths featured prominently in
a society that encouraged a high degree of competitiveness among
all social groups.
However, there is no evidence to suggest that Greek society produced
a disaffected youth culture that set its face against the values
of society as a whole. We hear of only one isolated instance of
violence against property. This was perpetrated in Athens in 415
b.c.e. by the so-called Hermokopidai, or “herm mutilators.” Herms
were stone pillars surmounted by a carved head. The rest of the
pillar was in block form except for a carved phallus. They stood
at street corners and served as boundary markers. The Hermokopidai
disfigured their faces and struck off their phalluses. The crime,
however, was not a mindless prank. On the contrary, it had a political
objective, being intended to prevent the sailing of the Athenian
expedition to Sicily. Because Hermes was the god of travelers, the
destruction of his image was interpreted as an extremely bad omen,
as the vandals no doubt intended. The identity of the perpetrators
remains unknown, however, so we do not know for certain whether
they were youths.
THE ELDERLY
Life Expectancy
Although estimates vary considerably, it is generally claimed on
the basis of comparative data that life expectancy was little more