Drawing together information from a wide range of sources: - from court cases to after-dinner stories, tragedy to comedy, painted pottery to gravestones - this book brings the ordinary Athenian to life. Taking the framework of a typical day in the life of the city and its people, it looks at the minutiae of everyday living. Much is known about the great achievements of Athens, but information about the ordinary round of life - about food, furniture, and fashion, about make-up and laundry, children's games and the whole industry based on the favoured masculine pastime of the dinner party - is hard to find. To give an idea of what it was actually like to live in Ancient Athens, the book reveals Plato's favourite food; the Ancient Greek cure for a hangover; what to use for baby food and the Greek version of aromatherapy. Linda Hennessy's illustrations, drawn from original source material, help the reader to enter the window of the unfamiliar but fascinating ancient Athens.