A Study On Athens' Private Housing In Classical

With the two important changes in western history in the middle and late 20 th Century, the history of daily life and the study of ordinary people gradually emerge on the surface, which improve the classical studying in realm and methods. Thus houses which hold the majority of activities in private space also drew attention from scholars. Considering the fact that the west has made a lot of achievements in this field while the domestic is still on the way of beginning, this thesis will take the Classical private houses of Athens as its object and do a study on the basis of the theory and methods of history, referring to the related fruits from archaeology, architecture and sociology. The whole thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter one tries to demonstrate that the inheritance of the old traditions and the impact of the social changes are the basic premises for the lasting and developing housing culture in Classical period by tracing back to the housing traditions before the Classical period, especially focusing on the archaic period. Chapter two centers the city plans of Athens in Classical period, analyzing the relationship between the public buildings and houses according to the evolution of the polis. Chapter three investigates the social culture in and out of the houses from three perspectives: status and wealth, gender space, and the “public and private” spaces in the houses. Chapter four attaches great importance to the impact of the social changes in late Classical Athens on the trend of the housing development including the modifications in scale and decorations and the new division of the spaces in private houses. Reconstructing the daily life of ancient Greeks through the physical and ideological ways, making the private houses as the object and trying to study the different people from the angle of space which connects the people, space and activities together will be helpful to have a better understanding of the social life of ancient Greece, expand our mind and make the ever-reconstructing daily life of ancient Greeks more comprehensive and vivid.