Cleaning Floor and Wall Tiles
Dissolve 1/2 cup (115 grams) shredded coarse soap and 1/2 cup (115 grams) washing soda in 1 gallon (4 liters) hot water. Using a stiff brush, scrub the tiles with the mixture, then rinse and dry. To remove cement from floor tiles, rub well with a little linseed oil on a cloth. Rub glazed tiles with a cut lemon and leave for fifteen minutes, then polish with a soft cloth. To clean discolored tiles, wash with hot water and a little kerosene. Rub the tiles with tailor’s chalk and a damp cloth to remove brown stains. Mix equal parts of linseed oil and turpentine to polish the tiles. This will prevent the glaze from cracking and will also produce a good sheen.

Cleaning Linoleum Flooring
To clean linoleum, wipe it with a clean cloth wrung out in lukewarm water, and dry well. Then rub with a cloth dipped in a little warmed linseed oil to produce a good sheen. To freshen old linoleum, mix 1 qt. (1 liter) fresh milk with 1 qt. (1 liter) turpentine. Rub the mixture onto the floor and polish with a warmed soft cloth. *Never use soap, ammonia or soap powders on linoleum as they cause the surface to crack and the color to fade!

Polish for Parquet Floors
Dissolve 1/4 cup (60 grams) beeswax in 1 cup (1/4 liter) turpentine in a double pan, to make an oily mixture. Coat the floor with linseed oil, then rub on the mixture. Leave for twenty-four hours, then polish hard.

Scrubbing Mixture for Floorboards and Kitchen Tables
Mix together 1 lb. (450 grams) soft soap, 1 lb. (450 grams) fuller’s earth, 1 lb. (450 grams) washing soda, and 2 qts. (2 liters) water in a large pan. Bring to a boil and simmer until there is only half the quantity left. Then cool and store in jars. Apply the mixture to the boards and scrub with a stiff brush and hot water. Always scrub in the direction of the grain of the wood. Then rinse and dry.

Cleaning Stone Floors and Steps
To clean weather stains off stone steps, scour with a stiff brush dipped in hot soapy water mixed with 1 tablespoon kerosene. To remove grease stains, pour a strong solution of washing soda and boiling water onto the steps. Then cover the stains with a paste made of the fuller’s earth and hot water. Leave overnight and rinse. Repeat if necessary. To prevent steps from freezing up in winter, add an aspirin and 1 tablespoon denatured alcohol to the final rinsing water.

Cleaning Books
To remove greasy finger marks from cloth book covers, rub with stale bread and a soft India eraser. To remove greasy marks from printed music sheets and paper, make a thick paste of fuller’s earth and a little water. Spread the mixture thickly over the stain with a knife blade and leave for several hours to dry thoroughly, then brush the powder off. To remove ink stains, gently damper with warm water using a soft-haired paintbrush. Blot up excess inky water. Then wet the stain again with a 5% solution of oxalic acid. Paint with warm water and dry with white blotting paper, then air well and press gently. If in doubt, seek expert advice.

Cleaning Leather Book Bindings
To restore leather bound books, use Goddard’s Saddler’s Wax with cheese cloth.

Cleaning Parchment and Vellum
Sponge the surface very gently with lighter fluid to remove grease marks and spots. This will not harm the material, but if in doubt test on an unimportant area or seek expert advice.

Cleaning Photographs
To clean old photographs, rub gently with stale bread.

Cleaning Playing Cards
Rub the surface with a soft cloth dipped in a weak solution of camphor oil and warm water.

Cleaning Wallpaper
To remove grease spots on wallpaper, place a piece of clean blotting paper over the mark and press with a warm iron. Repeat until the spot has gone. To strip wallpaper, wet the paper with warm water mixed with a little liquid detergent and let the solution soak in, then gently peel the paper off the wall. This works as well as a store-bought stripper.

Annealing Glass
Immerse the glass in a pan of cold water, then slowly heat until it is boiling. Remove the pan from the heat and leave to cool. This will protect the glass from cracking in very hot water, but if the glass is to be exposed to higher temperatures, boil in oil instead of water.

Cleaning Glass Bottles
To clean oily bottles, fill them with fine ashes and place in a pan of cold water. Gradually heat the water till it boils, then simmer for thirty minutes. When cool, wash out the ashes with cold running water, wash in hot soapy water, then rinse and dry.

Cleaning Crystal
Crystal should only be washed by hand. Use warm sudsy water with a little added vinegar to prevent clouding. Rinse and dry with a lint-free cloth. Cover the shelves used for storing crystal with felt or thick paper to prevent the glass from chipping or cracking.

Cleaning Decanters
To clean decanters, fill with warm water and add 1 tablespoon of baking powder and some crushed eggshells. Leave for twelve hours, stirring occasionally. Then rinse with warm water and a little ammonia. To remove wine stains from decanters, pour about two inches white vinegar into the decanter with fairly hot water. Shake it vigorously and leave to soak overnight, then shake again, rinse well and wash in hot soapy water. Rinse again and dry.

Cleaning Glassware
When washing valuable pieces of glass, place a think towel in the bottom of the washing bowl. When the cut glass clouds and ordinary washing does not clean it, cover the glass with wet potato peelings and leave for twenty-four hours. Then rinse in cold water and dry.

Cleaning Mirrors, Windows and Picture Glass
To clean the glass, rub gently with a soft rag dipped in turpentine, denatured alcohol or kerosene. Then polish with crumpled newspaper to give a brilliant sheen. To prevent the glass from steaming up, wipe with a soft cloth and a little glycerine after cleaning and drying. To make windows opaque temporarily, dissolve 2 tablespoons Epsom salts in 2 cups (1/2 liter) water and apply the mixture evenly with a sponge. To remove fly stains from glass, wipe with a woolen cloth dipped in denatured alcohol. To remove dried paint from windows, rub the paint with the edge of a coin. When all the paint  has been scraped away, wipe the window with a damp cloth and polish with a chamois cloth. To remove paint spots from glass, rub vigorously with any of the following: linseed oil, hot white vinegar, turpentine or a strong solution of washing soda.

Cleaning Thermos Bottles
Fill the thermos three-quarters full with warm water and add 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda. Replace the stopper and shake vigorously, then rinse well and dry. This will remove the musty smell.

I. Athens

1. The political form of government in Athens was democracy and Athens was an open society. But political rights were restricted to adult male citizens. In Pericles’s Athens, any citizen could hold any office, and offices were filled by lottery.  Almost all offices were held for a year, and they were filled by committees.  The 10 Generals (military men) were one of the few elected offices (annually), and this office was without term limits.
2. Population (350,000–400,000 people)
a. Citizens number 160,000 men, women, and children. 120,000 were women and children, while there were 40,000 adult males with political rights.
b. Resident aliens: (100,000) resident aliens: non-Athenian Greeks, Jews and Phoenicians. Some were wealthy but none had political rights.
c. slaves or “helots” (100,000). They were denied political rights and Aristotle saw them as inferior human beings and “slaves by nature.” They were domestic servants, or served in businesses, crafts, and workshops.
3. The ruling body of Athens was the Assembly. A quorum of 6,000 was needed to conduct business. Although any citizen could address the assembly and propose policy, most of the agenda and business was conducted by the boule, a group of 500 men chosen by ballot, or an “inner council” (an executive committee of 50 men). Legislation, justice, and administration were conducted by the Assembly. The Athenian court systems consisted of juries, of anywhere from 101 to 1,001 men, and were run by ordinary citizens.
4. The plague described by Thucydides in your IH reader breaks out in 430 BCE and kills up to 25% of the population of Athens by 429 BCE, including Pericles himself
5. A paid army and navy of 6,000 men.
6. The contributions of Athens to Western culture in art, history, philosophy, politics, drama and architecture, and science reflect one of the most creative civilizations in world history.

II. Sparta
1. The government of Sparta was an oligarchy (rule by a few), and politics were dominated by the military.  The Spartan constitution subordinated individual and family needs to the state.
2. The population of Sparta was roughly the same size as Athens.
3. Sparta was also known at Laconia on the Peloponnesian peninsula.
4. The helots famrmed the land, and the perioikoi, manufactored and traded for what the Spartans needed, leaving Spartan citizens without the need to work.  They devoted themselves full time to strict discipline, military training, and barracks living until age 60.  The Spartan male became a full citizen at age 30, an “equal.”  Men were allowed to marry, but only visited their wives by stealth.  They were among the best soldiers in the world, but were reluctant to leave Sparta, as they were fearful of helot revolts.
5.  Sparta was a closed society.  There was little education and no notable poets.  Its manners were austere, and the Spartan fashion was long, unkempt hair coupled with a suspicion of bathing.  Philosophy was hated, so in spite of Socrates’ admiration of the law and order of Sparta (and Crete), he hardly would have been welcome there. Sparta was John Calvin’s favorite city—he modeled Geneva, Switzerland after Sparta.

Socrates, the starting point of the succession of four great men, each of whom is the teacher of the next (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander the Great) had a wife, Xanthippe, and three sons. Some sources report that Socrates, like his father, was trained as a stonecutter and that in his later years, he lived off of a modest inheritance from his father. Xenophon (after Plato, the other major source on Socrates) remarks on Socrates poverty, that everything that he owned, including his house was only worth 5 minae.  However, despite his poverty, there have been persistent hints that he was related to Athenian aristocracy, which may have contributed to the general climate at his execution.

Socrates served as a hoplite, a heavily armed foot soldier, in battles that included Potidaea (432), Delium (424), and Amphibolis (422) and saved the life of Alcibiades (the ward of Pericles) near Spartolus in 430. His bravery and endurance in battle were conspicuous and his active military career seems to be over at age 47.

Socrates steered clear of political leadership, as he believed that it sullied the soul. There were, however, a few political episodes that were etched in the Athenian mind in the years before his trial. First, Socrates served on the council for his tribe Antiochis after the battle of Arginusae (406) and served as president for the trial of 6 of the 10 generals charged with not picking up the wounded or the dead along the way home after battle. Socrates encountered resistance when he opposed the trial of the generals en masse, and unsuccessfully pressed for individual trials.  The generals were found guilty en masse and executed.  Second, he was a member of the Three Thousand citizens who had been created by the oligarchs known as the Thirty (404-403), or Thirty Tyrants.  He was a close friend and teacher of Critias, Plato’s second cousin and leader of the Thirty, as well as Plato’s uncle, Charmides, another member of the Thirty.  However, he refused to arrest Leon of Salamis when ordered to do so by the Thirty during their reign of terror.

Socrates was regarded by the Athenians as one of the sophists (though he denied it), a group of philosophers, often itinerant, who became prominent in the mid-5th century and later.  Aristophanes depicts Socrates in his Clouds (424) as a plausible caricature of a natural scientist and sophist who introduces new gods. Socrates becomes a symbol of the free-thinking that caused a crisis on all levels, in religion, morality, and politics.  His rationalism was seen as undermining the traditional religion of the Greeks of his day.  However, even beyond his intellectual teachings, his trial was probably motivated by his political teachings and political actions. Socrates was opposed to rule by lot, taught mainly aristocratic students, and throughout the 4th century, it was generally held that he was executed for being the teacher of Critias (an enemy of democracy) and Alcibiades (a traitor to Athens). By 399, the unstable political situation in Sparta enabled the Athenians to maintain their tenuous freedom and democracy. Ostracism is no longer practiced, and the general amnesty of (events that occurred before) 403 is being observed, so Anytus searches for fresh charges, and comes up with the vague indictment of impiety and immorality (corruption of the youth). Both Plato and Xenophon portray Socrates as being a man of deep piety who customarily observed the rites and sacrifices of the gods. Yet, Socrates was found guilty by the jury, sentenced to death, and refused help from friends offering to help him escape.  He dies a martyr’s death for Western philosophy.