have pronounced our boasted "civilization" hopelessly artificial,
and our life so dependent on outward material props and factors
as to be scarcely worth the living. He would declare himself well
able to live happily under conditions where the average American
or Englishman would be cold, semi-starved, and miserable. He would
declare that HIS woe or happiness was retained far more under his own
control than we retain ours, and that we are worthy of contemptuous
pity rather than of admiration, because we have refined our
civilization to such a point that the least accident, e.g. the
suspension of rail traffic for a few days, can reduce a modern city
to acute wretchedness.

Probably neither the twentieth century in its pride, nor the fourth
century B.C. in its contempt, would have all the truth upon its
side.[*] The difference in viewpoint, however, must still stand.
Preeminently Athens may be called the "City of the Simple Life."
Bearing this fact in mind, we may follow the multitude and enter
the Marketplace; or, to use the name that stamps it as a peculiarly
Greek institution,--the Agora.

[*]The mere matter of CLIMATE would of course have to come in as
a serious factor. The Athenian would have found his life becoming
infinitely more complex along the material side when he tried
to live like a "kalos-k'agathos"--i.e. a "noble and good man," or
a "gentleman,"--in a land where the thermometer might sink to 15 degrees
below zero Fahrenheit (or even lower) from time to time during the
winter.