Come to Athens
By. Peyton Dutka
Welcome to Athens
Education
Social Structure
Upper Class: In Athens, you need to be a man to be considered "Upper Class." You also need to have either a high rank in the military, or no job. It is extremely rare for a family to be considered "Upper Class."
Middle Class: In Athens, the "Middle Class" people are ones who are noncitizens who can't vote or own land, or metics. A metic is a foreigner living in an ancient Greek city who had some of the privileges of citizenship. Most of the people are traders and/or merchants who live in the community because of the guarantee of getting a job and economic strength.
Lower Class: In Athens, the people in the "Lower Class" are the men who were once slaves, or had very poor families.
Slaves: It is very common to be a slave in Athens. Most families can have anywhere from 2-50 slaves helping them out and working for them around their homes. The slaves are war prisoners who were stolen as a child from their enemies and traded by other countries.
Women: In Athens, unfortunately, women are considered to be outside of the social structure. Women can't vote or own land, and they are considered to be part of whatever group that their husband is a part of.
Homes
Transportation and Food
In Athens, the most efficient way to transport things from one place to another is by ship. But, just like all things, not everyone could afford them. Most people use chariots or they just walk places. The only people who really do have ships are the navy.
As far as food goes, we only eat things that are easily grown in our rocky environment, since we live in the mountains. We eat breakfast right after the sun rises, and we usually eat bread dipped into wine at that time. For lunch, we eat bread dipped in wine, along with figs, cheese, olives, and sometimes dried out fish. We eat dinner around sunset, and this is the most important meal of our day. At this time, we eat fruit, vegetables, fish and sometimes honey cakes. In Athens, honey is our natural sweetener.
Government
In Athens, we don't have one specific ruler, instead, we rule ourselves. Every 10 days, we all meet in the Pnyx, which is a hill, to vote on new laws. Now, you must be thinking that people can just commit crimes whenever and wherever they want to and get away with it. But this is where juries come in. We use juries to decide whether or not people are guilty. In court, to defend yourself, people speak on their own defense.
Athens does have generals, though. The 10 of them are called "Strategoi." Also, since we need a military, every man gets called up at least once in their lives, from the time they are 20-50 years old, for military service. Even though we aren't as violent as Sparta, we still do care about the military and the protection of our community. In Sparta, as you know, military is EVERYTHING, and I can imagine that all of the constant fighting and war would drive other citizens crazy after a while. Here in Athens, it's only a portion of our community, thoughts, and daily lives which makes for a much more peaceful and happier community.