24. Modifications in the Typical Plan.—These are the essential features of an Athenian house. If the establishment is a very pretentious one, there may be a small garden in the rear carefully hedged against intruders by a lofty wall.[*] More probably the small size of the house lot would force simplifications in the scheme already stated. In a house one degree less costly, the Gynæconitis would be reduced to a mere series of rooms shut off in the rear. In more simple houses still there would be no interior section of the house at all. The women of the family would be provided for by a staircase rising from the main hall to a second story, and here a number of upper chambers would give the needful seclusion.[+] Of course as one goes down the social scale, the houses grow simpler and simpler. Small shops are set into the street wall at either side of the entrance door, and on entering one finds himself in a very limited and utterly dingy court with a few dirty compartments opening thence, which it would be absurd to dignify by the name of “rooms.” Again one ceases to wonder that the male Athenians are not “home folk” and are glad to leave their houses to the less fortunate women! [*] Such a luxury would not be common in city houses; land would be too valuable. [+] Houses of more than two stories seem to have been unknown in Athens. The city lacked the towering rookeries of tenements (_insulæ_) which were characteristic of Rome; sometimes, however, a house seems to have been shared between several families. 25. Rents and House Values.—Most native Athenians own their houses. Houses indeed can be rented, usually by the foreign traders and visitors who swam into the city; and at certain busy seasons one can hire “lodgings” for a brief sojourn. Rents are not unreasonable, 8% or 8 1/3% of the value of the house being counted a fair annual return. But the average citizen is also a householder, because forsooth houses are very cheap. The main cost is probably for the land. The chief material used in building, sun-dried brick, is very unsubstantial,[*] and needs frequent repairs, but is not expensive. Demosthenes the Orator speaks of a “little house” (doubtless of the kind last described) worth only seven minæ [about $126.00 (1914) or $2,242.80 (2000)], and this is not the absolute minimum. A very rich banker has had one worth 100 minæ [about $1,800.00 (1914) or $32,040.00 (2000)], and probably this is close to the maximum. The rent question is not therefore one of the pressing problems at Athens. [*] This material was so friable and poor that the Greek burglar was known as a “Wall-digger.” It did not pay him to pick a lock; it was simpler for him to quarry his way through the wall with a pickax.