Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

128 Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks
Perikles in the Funeral Speech spoke proudly of the elegant private
dwellings inhabited by Athenians, we would have found the majority
of them to be sparsely furnished, simply decorated, and entirely
lacking in the amenities of life.
The cost of purchasing a house varied enormously. In Xenophon’s
treatise Household Management, Sokrates says to his wealthy friend
Kritoboulos, “I expect that if I found a good buyer, everything
including the house would fetch 5 minai, whereas your house, I bet,
would sell for more than a hundred times that amount” (2.3).
One of the most serious defects in our knowledge of daily life is
that there are so few remains of houses from anywhere in the Greek
world dating to any period. Often all that survives of a house is
discoloration in the earth with some accompanying debris. The one
exception is the settlement of Akrotiri on the island of Santorini
(ancient Thera) in the Cyclades, where in 1967 several well-preserved
houses of Bronze Age date that were buried in a volcanic
eruption came to light, complete with a stunning series of wall
paintings. The best-preserved Athenian house was found in the
Attic countryside near the modern town of Vari, a few miles to the
southeast of Athens. Although it is a farmhouse, its plan is probably
similar to that of many prosperous houses in Athens: a central
courtyard with rooms leading off on all four sides. There was only
one entrance to the house from the road. A south-facing verandah
provided a place to work and relax, shaded from the summer heat
or winter rain. Judging from the thinness of its walls, it is unlikely
that the Vari house had a second story. In the southwest corner,
however, the foundations are considerably thicker, suggesting
that a tower of two or more stories once existed. It probably served
as either a workroom or storeroom. Traces of other houses have
been discovered in Athens, to the south of the Agora in the valley
between the Pnyx and the Areopagos, including traces of semidetached
houses. Like the Vari house, Athenian houses were built
around a central courtyard and had an upper floor. Private houses
are believed to have been very similar throughout the Greek world
in terms of style and arrangements, whether they were built in
the city or in the countryside, though very few have been uncovered.
Towers, such as the one attached to the Vari house, also have
been detected in connection with urban dwellings, though they
were probably more common in the countryside. They could be
used to store foodstuffs as well as to safeguard property and persons.
Storerooms are already mentioned in The Odyssey as a feature
of a well-appointed oikos. The one in Odysseus’s palace was