古希腊生活

古希腊人的生活HOW THE GREEKS LIVED古希腊人是如何生活的BUT how, you will ask, did the ancient Greeks have time to look after their families and their business if they were forever running to the market-place to discuss affairs of state? In this chapter I shall tell you.也许你会问，古希腊人如果一听到召唤就赶去集市讨论国家大事，那他们怎会有时间来照顾家庭打理生意呢？在这一章，我会给你们解释这个问题。

In all matters of government, the Greek democracy recognised only one class of citizens--the freemen. Every Greek city was composed of a small number of free born citizens, a large number of slaves and a sprinkling of foreigners.在所有政府事务中，希腊的民主政治只承认自由民这个阶层的公民。

每一个希腊城市都是由少数自由民、绝大多数奴隶和为数不多的外国人组成的。

At rare intervals (usually during a war, when men were needed for the army) the Greeks showed themselves willing to confer the rights of citizenship upon the “barbarians” as they called the foreigners. But this was an exception. Citizenship was a matter of birth. You were an Athenian because your father and your grandfather had been Athenians before you. But however great your merits as a trader or a soldier, if you were born of non-Athenian parents, you remained a “foreigner” until the end of time.只在少数时候（通常是战争期间，需要征召兵员时），希腊人才愿意给予他们所谓的“野蛮人”即外国人以公民权，但这种情形只是例外。

公民的身份是一个出身问题。

你是一个雅典人，那是因为你的父亲和祖父在你之前就是雅典人。

然而，无论你是一个多么出色的士兵或商人，只要你的父母不是雅典人，那你永远是一名“外国人”。

The Greek city, therefore, whenever it was not ruled by a king or a tyrant, was run by and for the freemen, and this would not have been possible without a large army of slaves who outnumbered the free citizens at the rate of six or five to one and who performed those tasks to which we modern people must devote most of ourtime and energy if we wish to provide for our families and pay the rent of our apartments.因此，希腊城市，不管统治者是国王还是暴君，管理者总是自由民，并为其利益服务。

这种体制，如果没有由奴隶组成的庞大军队，也是不可以实现的。

军队中奴隶的数量远远超过了自由民，大概是五比一或者六比一。

他们养家糊口等种种繁重的劳动就由奴隶来承担。

The slaves did all the cooking and baking and candlestick making of the entire city. They were the tailors and the carpenters and the jewelers and the school-teachers and the bookkeepers and they tended the store and looked after the factory while the master went to the public meeting to discuss questions of war and peace or visited the theatre to see the latest play of AEschylus or hear a discussion of the revolutionary ideas of Euripides, who had dared to express certain doubts upon the omnipotence of the great god Zeus.奴隶们把整个城市的烹饪、烤面包、制作蜡烛等工作全部包揽下来。

他们中有裁缝、木匠、珠宝商、小学教师和记账员。

他们负责管理工厂和商店。

因为主人们要么参加公共会议，讨论战争或和平问题；要么前往剧院，观赏埃斯库罗斯的最新演出；要么去听有关欧里庇得斯的革命性观念的激烈讨论。

因为这位剧作家竟敢对伟大的、万能的神——宙斯的威严表示质疑。

Indeed, ancient Athens resembled a modem club. All the freeborn citizens were hereditary members and all the slaves were hereditary servants, and waited upon the needs of their masters, and it was very pleasant to be a member of the organisation.事实上，古代的雅典就像是一个现代俱乐部。

所有的自由民都是世袭的会员，而所有的奴隶也都是世袭的仆人，随时得听候主人的使唤。

当然，能成为这个组织的会员也是件很快乐的事情。

But when we talk about slaves.we do not mean the sort of people about whom you have read in the pages of “Uncle Tom's Cabin.” It is true that the position of those slaves who tilled the fields was a very unpleasant one, but the average freeman who had come down in the world and who had been obliged to hire himself out as a farm hand led just as miserable a life. In the cities, furthermore, many of theslaves were more prosperous than the poorer classes of the freemen. For the Greeks, who loved moderation in all things, did not like to treat their slaves after the fashion which afterward was so common in Rome, where a slave had as few rights as an engine in a modern factory and could be thrown to the wild animals upon the smallest pretext.不过，我们提到的“奴隶”，并不是你在《汤姆叔叔的小屋》里读到过的那种人。

当然，每天替人耕田种地的日子确实很悲惨，但是那些家道中落的自由民们也好不到哪里去。

他们在富人的农庄作帮工，他们的生活其实跟奴隶一样悲惨。

在城市里，许多奴隶甚至比下层自由民还富有。

对“万事追求适度”的古希腊人来说，他们宁愿以温和的方式对待奴隶。

在古罗马，奴隶就像是现代工厂里的机器，没有丝毫的权利，还常常因微小的过失，就会被扔给野兽。

The Greeks accepted slavery as a necessary institution, without which no city could possibly become the home of a truly civilised people.古希腊人视奴隶制为一种必要的制度。

他们认为，如果没有奴隶，任何城市都无法成为一个真正的、文明的家园。

The slaves also took care of those tasks which nowadays are performed by the business men and the professional men. As for those household duties which take up so much of the time of your mother and which worry your father when he comes home from his office, the Greeks, who understood the value of leisure, had reduced such duties to the smallest possible minimum by living amidst surroundings of extreme simplicity.庙宇奴隶们也从事像今天由商人和专业人员从事的工作。

至于那些占据了你妈妈的大部分时间，并让你爸爸下班回来就头疼的家务劳动，闲逸的希腊人会尽可能把它减少到最低限度。