Princess Cynisca [Lassie ] was very kindly received by the King Diagoras Rhodes,who looked a lot like an older version of Prince Leonidas. She retired after the audience with the King for a bath in preparation for the night's wedding feast.
Lassie missed the centaurs , tears flowed from her eyes thinking about Yonder her friend and guide . Her heart will always belong to him .Lassie loved Yonder strange but true that she loved a centaur . This marriage was to save her centaur family from the wrath of the Greeks.
The Ancient Greek legislators considered marriage to be a matter of public interest. This was particularly the case at Sparta, where the subordination of private interests and personal happiness to the good of the public was strongly encouraged by the laws of the city. The legal importance of marriage can be found in the Spartan governing laws, the laws of Lycurgus of Sparta, which required that criminal proceedings be taken against those who married too late as well as against confirmed bachelors,[against those who did not marry at all These regulations were founded on the generally recognised principle that it was the duty of every citizen to raise up a strong and healthy progeny of legitimate children to the state.Spartans thought all men should marry and have children. Any adult men not yet married had to walk naked through town once a year.
In Sparta, women had a great deal more freedom. They did not need their husband's permission to leave the house. They could run a business. They were trained warriors and had attended military school outside the home.
Spartan women were allowed to divorce their husbands without fear of losing their personal wealth. As equal citizens of the community, women could divorce and were not required to or discouraged from remarrying. The unique family unit of Sparta also did not force the woman to relinquish her children, as biological paternity was not important in raising the children.
The Spartans considered teknopoioia (childbearing) as the main object of marriage. This resulted in the suggestion that whenever a woman had no children by her own husband, the state ought to provide that she be allowed by law to cohabit with another man.
Many Greek parents wanted boy children. A son would look after his parents in old age. A daughter went away when she married, and had to take a wedding gift or dowry. This could be expensive, if a family had lots of daughters.
A father could decide whether or not the family kept a new baby. Unwanted or weak babies were sometimes left to die outdoors. Anyone finding an abandoned baby could adopt it and take it home, perhaps to raise it as a slave. If a couple were rich, they might hire a poor neighbour or a slave to nurse a new baby.
Children played with small pottery figures, and dolls made of rags, wood, wax or clay - some dolls had moveable arms and legs. Other toys were rattles, hoops, hoops, yo-yos, and hobby horses (a "pretend horse" made from a stick).
Children played with balls made from tied-up rags or a blown-up pig's bladder. The ankle-bones of sheep or goats made 'knucklebones' or five-stones.
At 3, children were given small jugs - a sign that babyhood was over. Boys went to school at age 7. Girls were taught at home by their mothers. A few girls learned to read and write, but many did not. School-teachers needed payment, so poor boys did not get much education. A wealthy family sent a slave to walk to school with the boys. The slave stayed at school to keep an eye on them during lessons. Most Greeks schools had fewer than 20 boys, and classes were often held outdoors. Girls learned housework, cooking and skills such as weaving at home. Boys at school learned reading, writing, arithmetic, music and poetry. They wrote on wooden tablets covered with soft wax, using a pointed stick called a stylus. They used an abacus, with beads strung on wires or wooden rods, to help with maths.
Part of their lessons included learning stories and poems by heart.
Boys did athletics, to keep fit and prepare them for war as soldiers. They ran, jumped, wrestled and practised throwing a spear and a discus. They trained on a sports ground called a gymnasium.
Although every Spartan man had a farm, he spent a lot of his time preparing for war. He became a soldier when he was 20. However, a boy's training began much earlier, when he left his family home at the age of 7, and went to live in an army school. Discipline was tough. He was allowed only one tunic, and had to walk barefoot even in cold weather. He was taught how to live rough and steal food. He was warned it was foolish to get drunk, like some other Greeks did. Men lived in army camps even after they got married.
Spartans were not interested in business or getting rich, just in being tough and fit.Spartans wore red cloaks, so bloodstains from wounds would not show. The Spartans were proud of their long hair. They combed it before going into battle.The Spartans were proud of their long hair. They combed it before going into battle.
Most girls were only 13-16 years old when they married. Often their fathers chose husbands for them. A girl's husband was often older, in his 30s. The day before she married, a girl sacrificed her toys to the goddess Artemis, to show she was grown-up.
Most boys had to work hard. They worked as farmers, sailors, fishermen and craftworkers - such as potters, builders, metalworkers and stone-carvers. Some clever boys went on studying. Teachers gave classes to older students. Aristotle, who became a great scientist and thinker, went to Athens when he was 17 to study at the Academy, run by a famous teacher named Plato.
Greek food was delicious Breakfast was bread dipped in wine (made from grapes), with fruit. Lunch bread and cheese. and dinner, people ate porridge made from barley, with cheese, fish, vegetables, eggs and fruit. For pudding nuts, figs and cakes sweetened with honey. rich people ate much meat, including hares, deer and wild boar killed by hunters. Octopus was a favourite seafood. Rich people always ate at home; only slaves and poor people ate in public.
The olive was the most valuable tree in Greece. People ate the fruit, but also crushed olives to make olive oil. They used the oil for cooking, in oil lamps, and cosmetics.
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The bride’s ritual bath took place on the morning of the wedding ceremony itself.The bathing ritual was a pivotal coming-of-age rite for the young bride. Indeed,if a girl died before being married, she would undergo this ritual of bathing after her
death. The loutrophoros was used in this ritual ceremony to carry water. the groom's bath was less important than the
bride’s. Water from a specific source had to be used for this particular bathing ceremony,perhaps because the ritual baths were meant to enhance the fertility of the couple. It is also likely that the bath was meant to protect the bride as she underwent the transformation from parthenos to nymphe.
There was a procession fetching the water for the bridal bath. The scene but the most prominent characters were the young girl servant Eros carrying the loutrophoros filled with bathwater and the bride following behind her. The bride Lassie was identified because of her modestly bowed face, the presence of Eros, and the ritual wreath.The bathing bride and her ever-present assistant, Eros, helped in the ritual bath , the rest of the time was concerned with the various preparations for the adornment of the bride.After the ritual bathing, the bride would be dressed in the most expensive clothing possible.
All the bridal ornaments had been bought for the maiden: she had a necklace of various precious stones and a dress of which the whole ground was purple; where,braidings of gold’The bride would wear a crown, called a stephane made of asparagus and myrtle, poppy, thyme, and flowers
Perhaps the most significant component of the bridal attire was the wedding veil.to be lifted at the appropriate time. This wedding veil was dyed with saffron likely because of the association with the menstrual cycle, as saffron was used to cure “menstrual ills.The bride also wore the zone, the girdle a very potent symbol of femininity and that the consummation of the marriage
Dressed in saffron-dyed veil and purpledyed gown (both exceedingly expensive dyes), crowned with a diadem fashioned like a chaplet of leaves, and adorned with earrings, necklace, and bracelets, Lassie was commodified as an object of desire, as a pleasing gift, part of the dowry that the Centaur King gave to promote his own prestige and to bestow prestige on her husband white color for the groom’s garment, if only because it carried connotations of happiness and joy.While he would not wear a stephane, his head would be covered with a garland of sesame signifying fertility
In most of the Greek city-states, people were married after dark. The ceremony started with a veiled bride traveling from her home to her future husband's home. Lassie had to stand in a slow moving chariot or cart or some wheeled vehicle all the way. The family and friends walked behind the chariot. Some carried gifts. Some carried torches to light the way. Some played music to scare away evil spirits.
When the wedding party arrived at the groom's home, the groom would gave his bride an apple. The bride ate a bite of the apple to show her basic needs would now come from her husband. There was more to the ceremony, but that was the main activity that needed to be done to seal the deal.
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