this makes retail trade in the Agora an excellent school for public
affairs or litigation.


18. The Leisured Class in Athens.--Evidently Athens, more than
many later-day cities, draws clear lines between the workers and the
"gentlemen of leisure." There is no distinction of dress between
the numerous slaves and the humbler free workers and traders; but
there is obvious distinction between the artisan of bent shoulders
who shambles out of yonder pungent tannery, with his scant garments
girded around him, and the graceful gentleman of easy gestures
and flowing drapery who moves towards the Tholos. There is great
POLITICAL democracy in Athens, but not so much SOCIAL democracy.
"Leisure," i.e. exemption from every kind of sordid, money-getting,
hard work, is counted the true essential for a respectable existence,
and to live on the effort of others and to devote oneself to public
service or to letters and philosophy is the open satisfaction or
the private longing of every Athenian.

A great proportion of these, therefore, who frequent the Agora are
not here on practical business, unless they have official duties
at the government offices.[*] But in no city of any age has the
gracious art of doing nothing been brought to such perfection.
The Athenians are an intensely gregarious people. Everybody knows
everybody else. Says an orator, "It is impossible for a man to
be either a rascal or an honest man in this city without your all
knowing it." Few men walk long alone; if they do keep their own
company, they are frowned on as "misanthropes." The morning visit
to the Agora "to tell or to hear some new thing"[+] will be followed
by equally delightful idling and conversation later in the day at