We have already alluded to the practice of visiting the gymnasia, and the military duties of the citizens. There were also public houses and gaming houses, but these do not appear to have played a great part in the lives of the men. The drinking parties supplied sufficient opportunity for social meetings. Those who visited the public drinking bars usually did so for other purposes as well--to see pretty girls or to meet companions for dice, though both these purposes could be effected in special houses. It is natural, therefore, that it was not regarded as respectable to visit these wine taverns, and that grave men, as well as youths of good principle, avoided them. Still, even here the custom seems to have gradually relaxed, and though the Athenians were never as bad as the inhabitants of Byzantium, who were accused of spending the whole day at the bars, yet at the end of the fourth and in the third century B.C. it was very common for young men, or people of the lower classes, to dawdle about in the wine bars and gaming houses. Travelling played a far less important part in the life of the Greeks than it does at the present day. In ancient times almost the only inducement for travelling was business. The merchant plied his trade chiefly as a sailor, the small shopkeeper travelled about the country as a pedlar. In the heroic period we also find artisans and travelling singers on their wanderings, and in the first centuries of the development of art, and to some extent even afterwards, sculptors and architects were summoned from a distance to execute commissions under the orders of the State, or some special board of officials. But those who were neither merchants nor artisans had less inducement to travel; for military expeditions, which of course were numerous, can hardly be included among journeys. There were also official embassies and pilgrimages to celebrated shrines, or visits to the great national festivals. Again, Solon, Herodotus, and others travelled for political or scientific purposes, with a view to study history or ethnography, that they might learn to know foreign nations, their manners and customs, countries and buildings. In the Alexandrine period, journeys were also undertaken for purposes of natural science. Our modern custom of visiting foreign lands for the sake of their natural beauty was unknown in Greek antiquity, but we must not on that account suppose that the ancients had no feeling for natural beauty. The Odyssey gives a picture of travel in heroic times; the common man trudges along on foot, while the rich man goes in his carriage, drawn by horses or mules, and the fact that the latter was possible even in the mountainous Peloponnesus, proves that even at that period good roads must have existed there. The Greeks never attained as great perfection in road-making as the Romans; apparently those roads were kept in best condition which led to the national sanctuaries, and here regular tracks