CHAPTER V: IONIAN OR ATHENIAN EDUCATIONLet me now give an account of the Old Education, when I, uttering words of justice, was in my prime, and self-control was held in respect. In the first place, a child was not allowed to be heard uttering a grumble. Then all the boys of the quarter were obliged to march in a body, in an orderly way and with the scantest of clothing, along the streets to the music master's, and this they did even if it snowed like barley-groats. Then they were set to rehearse a song, without compressing their thighs,—either "Pallas, mighty city-stormer," or "A shout sounding far," putting energy into the melody which their fathers handed down. And, if any one attempted any fooling, or any of those trills like the difficult inflexions à la Phrynis now in vogue, he received a good threshing for his pains, as having insulted the Muses. Again, at the physical trainer's, the boys, while sitting, were obliged to keep their legs in front of them.... And at dinner they were not allowed to pick out the best radish-head, or to snatch away anise or celery from their elders, or to gourmandize on fish and field-fares, or to sit with their legs crossed.... Take courage, young man, and choose me, the Better Reason, and you shall know how to hate the public square, to avoid the bath-houses, to be ashamed of what is shameful, to show temper when any one addresses you in ribald language, to rise from your seat when your elders approach, and not to be a lubber to your own parents, or to do any other unseemly thing to mar the image of Modesty, or to rush to the house of the dancing-girl, and, while you are gaping at her performances, get struck with an apple by a wench and fall from your fair fame, or to talk back to your father, or, addressing him as Japhet, to revile the old age which made the nest for you.... Then, fresh and blooming, you will spend your time in the gymnasia, and not go about the public square, mouthing monstrous jokes, like the young men of to-day, or getting dragged into slippery, gumshon-bamboozling disputes, but, going down to the Academy, with some worthy companion of[61] your own age, you will start a running-match, crowned with white reed, smelling of smilax, leisure and deciduous white poplar, rejoicing in the spring, when the plane-tree whispers to the maple. If you do the things which I enjoin, and give your mind to them, you will always have a well-developed chest, a clear complexion, broad shoulders, and a short tongue.
—Aristophanes, Clouds (Speech of Right Reason).
In their systems of education, some states strive to impart a courageous habit to their people from their very childhood by a painful and laborious training, whereas we, though living in a free and natural way, are ready to meet them in a fair field with no favor.
—Pericles' Funeral Oration (Thucydides).
I will never disgrace these sacred arms, nor desert my companion in the ranks. I will fight for temples and public property, both alone and with many. I will transmit my fatherland, not only not less, but greater and better, than it was transmitted to me. I will obey the magistrates who may at any time be in power. I will observe both the existing laws and those which the people may unanimously hereafter make, and, if any person seek to annul the laws or to set them at nought, I will do my best to prevent him, and will defend them both alone and with many (all?). I will honor the religion of my fathers. And I call to witness Aglauros, Enyalios, Ares, Zeus, Thallo, Auxo, and Hegemone.
—Oath of the Athenian Epheboi.
Consider, Men of Athens, what careful provision was made by Solon, the ancient lawgiver, by Draco, and other lawgivers of that period, for the cultivation of good morals. In the first place, they made laws to secure a moral education for our children, and laid down, in plain terms, just what the free-born boy should study and how he should be nurtured; secondly, they made regulations regarding young men; and, thirdly, with regard to the other periods of life in their order, including both private persons and public speakers; and, having recorded these laws, they left them in your keeping, appointing you their guardians.
—Æschines (against Timarchus).
If systems of education are to be classified according to their results—and these are perhaps the fairest test—then the "Old Education" of Athens must be assigned a very high place. The character which she[62] displayed, and the exploits which she performed, in the early decades of the fifth century b.c., bear unequivocal testimony to the value of the training to which her citizens had previously been subjected. This training could perhaps hardly be better characterized than by the word "puritanical." The men who fought at Marathon, Salamis, and Platææ were puritans, trained, in a hard school, to fear the gods, to respect the laws, their neighbors, and themselves, to reverence the wisdom of experience, to despise comfort and vice, and to do honest work. They were not enfeebled by æsthetic culture, paralyzed by abstract thinking, or hardened by professional training. They were educated to be men, friends, and citizens, not to be mere thinkers, critics, soldiers, or money-makers. It was against a small band of such men that the hosts of Persia fought in vain.
It is natural that this "Old Education" of Athens should have a special interest for us, inasmuch as it seems, in great measure, to have solved the problem that must be uppermost with every true educator and friend of education, viz. How can strong, wise, and good men be produced? For this reason, as also because we are the better informed regarding the educational system of Athens than that of any other Greek state, it seems proper to devote special attention to it, treating it as preëminently Greek education. Indeed, whatever is permanently valuable in Greek education is to be found in that of Athens, other systems having mainly but an historical interest for us.
In comparing the education of Athens with that of Sparta, we are at once struck with two great distinc[63]tions: (1) While Spartan education is public, Athenian education is mainly private; (2) While Sparta educates for war, Athens educates for peace. As to the former of these, it is not a little remarkable that, while many of the first thinkers of Greece, including Plato and Aristotle, advocated an entirely public education, Athens never adopted it, or even took any steps in that direction. It seems as if the Athenians felt instinctively that socialistic education, by relieving parents of the responsibility of providing for the education of their own children, was removing a strong moral influence, undermining the family, and jeopardizing liberty. Perhaps the example of Sparta was not without its influence. No liberty-loving people, such as the Athenians were, would consent to merge the family in the State, or to sacrifice private life to public order. As to the second distinction, which was all-pervasive, it divides the two peoples by an impassable gulf and assigns them to two different grades of civilization. And it was one of which both peoples were entirely conscious. While Sparta represented her ideal by a chained Ares, Athens found hers in a Wingless Victory, a form of Athena, the divinity of political and industrial wisdom. As the aim of Sparta was strength, so that of Athens was Wisdom—the wise man in the wise state. By the "wise man," was meant he whose entire faculties of body, soul, and mind were proportionately and coördinately developed; by the "wise state," that in which each class of the population performed its proper function, and occupied its proper relation toward the rest, and this without any excessive exercise of author[64]ity. If the Spartan, like the artificially tamed barbarian, submitted to living by rule and command, the Athenian, like the naturally civilized man, delighted to live in a free and natural way (ἀνειμένως διαιτᾶσθαι) governed from within, and not from without. To make possible such life was the aim of Athenian education, which, instead of seeking to merge the man in the State, or to rend the two asunder, treated them as necessary correlates and strove to balance their claims.
The endeavor on the part of Athens to steer a middle course between socialism and individualism, is manifest in the fact that, though she had no public system of education, she took great care to see that her citizens were thoroughly educated in the spirit of her institutions, and, indeed, made such education a condition of citizenship, which was thus an academic degree, conferred only after careful examination. By a law of Solon's, parents who had failed to give their sons a proper education lost all claim upon them for support in their old age. Furthermore, Athens subjected all her male citizens to a systematic preparation for civil and military functions, before she allowed them to exercise these.
Athenian education comprised four grades corresponding to four institutions, (1) the family, (2) the school, (3) the gymnasium or college, (4) the State. We may consider these in their order.
(1) Family Education.The birth of a child was regarded by the Athenians as a joyful event, as something calling for gratitude[65] to the gods. This expressed itself in a family festival, called the Amphidromia, celebrated usually on the seventh day after the birth. On this occasion, the child was carried rapidly round the family altar and received its name. A sacrifice was then offered to the gods, the mother was purified, and christening presents were displayed. The child was now a member of the family and under the protection of its gods. For the next seven years, it was wholly in the hands of parents and nurses, the latter being usually slaves. During this time its body was the chief object of care, and everything seems to have been done to render it healthy and hardy. Cradles do not seem to have been in use, and the child was sung to sleep on the nurse's knee. While it was being weaned, it was fed on milk and soft food sweetened with honey. As soon as it was able to move about and direct attention to external objects, it received playthings, such as rattles, dolls of clay or wax, hobby-horses, etc., and was allowed to roll and dig in the sand. Such were the simple gymnastics of this early period. As to the other branch of education, it consisted mostly in being sung to and in listening to stories about gods and heroes, monsters and robbers, of which Greek mythology was full. By means of these the child's imagination was roused and developed, and certain æsthetic, ethical, and national prepossessions awakened. Though children were often frightened from certain acts and habits by threats of bogles coming to carry them off, yet the chief ethical agency employed was evidently strict discipline. To secure good behavior in his children was the first care of the Athenian parent.[66] Though disinclined to harshness, he never doubted that "he who spareth the rod hateth the child." Children were never placed upon exhibition or applauded for their precocious or irreverent sayings. They were kept as much as possible out of the way of older people, and, when necessity brought them into the presence of these, they were taught to behave themselves quietly and modestly. No Greek author has preserved for us a collection of the smart sayings or roguish doings of Athenian children.
Though the Kindergarten did not exist in those old days, yet its place was, in great measure, filled by the numerous games in which the children engaged, in part at least under their nurses' superintendence. Games played so important a part in the whole life of the Greek people, and especially of the Athenians, that their importance in the education of children was fully recognized and much attention devoted to them. During play, character both displays itself more fully, and is more easily and deeply affected, than at any other time; and, since the whole of the waking life of the child in its earliest years is devoted to play, this is the time when character is formed, and therefore the time which calls for most sedulous care. In playing games, children not only exercise their bodies and their wits; they also learn to act with fairness, and come to feel something of the joy that arises from companionship and friendly rivalry in a common occupation. Moreover, as games have no end beyond themselves, they are admirable exercises in free, disinterested activity and a protection against selfish and sordid habits. Of all this the Athenians were fully aware.
[67]There are probably few games played by children in our day that were not known in ancient Athens. It seems, however, that games were there conducted with more system, and a deeper sense of their pedagogical value, than they are with us. We hear of running, leaping, hopping, catching, hitting, and throwing games, gymnastic games, and games of chance. The ball, the top, the hoop, the swing, the see-saw, the skipping rope, the knuckle-bones were as much in use in ancient, as in modern, times. Cards, of course, there were not; and, indeed, games of chance, though well known, seem rarely to have been indulged in by children. It hardly seems necessary to remark that there were some games peculiar to boys and others to girls, and that the latter were less rude than the former. Doubtless, too, the games played in the city, where the children would have few chances of going beyond their homes, were different from those played in the country, where almost complete freedom to roam in the open air was enjoyed. We must always bear in mind that well-to-do Athenian families spent the greater part of the year at their country-houses, which, with few exceptions, were so near the city that they could be reached even on foot in a single day. This country life had a marked effect upon the education of Athenian children.
(2) School Education.About the age of seven, the Athenian boy, after being entered on the roll of prospective citizens in the temple of Apollo Patroös, and made a member of a[68] phratria, went to school, or, rather, he went to two schools, that of the music-master, and that of the physical trainer. He was always accompanied thither and back by a pedagogue, who was usually a slave, who carried his writing-materials, his lyre, etc. (there being no school-books to carry), and whom he was expected implicitly to obey. The boys of each quarter of the city collected every morning at some appointed place and walked to school, like little soldiers, in rank and file. They wore next to no clothing, even in the coldest weather, and were obliged to conduct themselves very demurely in the streets. The school hours were very long, beginning early in the morning and continuing till late in the evening. Solon found it necessary to introduce a law forbidding schoolmasters to have their schools open before sunrise or after sunset. It thus appears that boys, after the age of seven, spent their whole day at school, and were thus early withdrawn from the influence of their mothers and sisters, a fact which was not without its bearing upon morals.
There are several interesting points in connection with Athenian school life about which our information is so scanty that we are left in some doubt respecting them. For example, though it is quite plain that Athens had no system of public instruction, it is not so clear that she did not own the school buildings. Again, it is not certain whether music (including letters) and gymnastics were, or were not, taught in the same locality. Thirdly, there is some doubt about the number and order of the hours devoted to each of the two branches of study. In regard[69] to these points I can state only what seems to me most probable.
As to school buildings, we are expressly told by the author of the fragmentary tract on The Athenian State, currently attributed to Xenophon, but probably written as early as b.c. 424, that "the people (δῆμος) builds itself many palæstras, dressing-rooms, baths, and the masses have more enjoyment of these than the few that are well-to-do." If we assume that some of these palæstras were for boys, as we apparently have a right to do, we must conclude that some, at least, if not all, of the schools for bodily training were public edifices, let out by the State to teachers. Like all the great gymnasia, some, and possibly all, of them were situated outside the city walls and had gardens attached to them. Whether the music-schools were so likewise, is doubtful, and this brings us to our second question—whether the two branches of education were taught in the same place. That they were not taught in the same room, or by the same person, is clear enough; but it does not follow from this that they were not taught in the same building, or at any rate in the same enclosed space. Though there seems to be no explicit statement in any ancient author on this point, I think there are sufficient reasons for concluding that, generally at least, they were so taught. If we find that Antisthenes, Plato, and Aristotle, who may be said to have introduced a systematic "higher education" into Athens, opened their schools in the great public gymnasia, frequented by youths and men, we may surely conclude that the lower mental education was[70] not separated from the physical. In the Lysis of Plato, we find some young men coming out of a palæstra outside the city walls, and inviting Socrates to enter, telling him that their occupation (διατριβή) consists mostly in discussions (τὰ πολλὰ ἐν λόγοις), and that their teacher is a certain Miccus, an admirer of his. Socrates recognizes the man as a capable "sophist," a term never used of physical trainers. On entering, Socrates finds a number of boys and youths (νεανίσκοι) playing together, the former having just finished a sacrifice. It seems to follow directly from this that intellectual education was imparted in the palæstras. If this be true, we may, I think, conclude that in Athens the schools generally were outside the city walls, though the case was certainly different in some other cities.
In regard to our third question, it is clear that, if boys spent their whole day in one place, it would be more easy to divide it profitably between musical instruction and gymnastics than if they spent one part of it in one place, and another in another. Just how it was divided, we do not know, and I have little doubt that much depended upon the notions of parents and the tendencies of different periods. It is quite clear, from certain complaints of Aristotle's, that in Athens parents enjoyed great liberty in this matter. In any case, since, as we know, the institutions of education were open all day, it seems more than probable that one class of boys took their gymnastic lesson at one hour, another at another, and so with other branches of study. It cannot be that the physical training-schools were deserted when the music-schools[71] were in session. I think there is sufficient reason for believing that, generally, the younger boys took their physical exercises in the morning, and their intellectual instruction in the afternoon, the order being reversed in the case of the older boys. How much of the time spent at school was given up to lessons and how much to play, is not at all clear; but I am inclined to think that the playtime was at least as long as the worktime. The schools were for boys what the agora and the gymnasium were for grown men—the place where their lives were spent.
Before we consider separately the two divisions of Athenian education, a few facts common to them may be mentioned. In the first place, they had a common end, which was, to produce men independent but respectful, freedom-loving but law-abiding, healthy in mind and body, clear in thought, ready in action, and devoted to their families, their fatherland, and their gods. Contrary to the practice of the Romans, the Athenians sought to prepare their sons for independent citizenship at as early an age as possible. In the second place, the motives employed in both divisions were the same, viz. fear of punishment and hope of reward. As we have seen, the Athenian boy, if he behaved badly, was not spared the rod. As an offset against this, when he did well, he received unstinted praise, not to speak of more substantial things. Education, like everything else in Greece, took the form of competition. The Homeric line (Il., vi, 208; xi, 784),
"See that thou ever be best, and above all others distinguished,"
was the motto of the Athenian in everything. In the third place, in both divisions the chief aim was the realization of capacity, not the furthering of acquisition. Mere learning and execution were almost universally despised in the old time, while intelligence and capacity were universally admired. In the fourth place, in both divisions the utmost care was directed to the conduct of the pupils, so that it might be gentle, dignified, and rational. In the fifth place, education in both its branches was intended to enable men to occupy worthily and sociably their leisure time, quite as much as to prepare them for what might be called their practical duties in family, society, and State. The fine arts, according to the Greeks, furnished the proper amusements for educated men (πεπαιδευμένοι).
(α) Musical (and Literary) Instruction.Though the Greek word music (μουσική) came in later times to have an extended meaning, in the epoch of which we are treating, it included only music in our sense, and poetry, two things which were not then separated. Aristophanes, as late as b.c. 422, can still count upon an audience ready to laugh at the idea of giving instruction in astronomy and geometry, as things too remote from human interests (Clouds, vv 220 sqq.). The poetry consisted chiefly of the epics of Homer and Hesiod, the elegiacs of Tyrtæus, Solon, Theognis, etc., the iambics of Archilochus, Simonides, etc., and the songs of the numerous lyrists, Terpander, Arion, Alcæus, Alcman, Sappho, [73]Simonides, etc. The music was simple, meant to "sweeten" (ἡδύνειν) the words and bring out their meaning. In fact, the music and the poetry were always composed together, so that the poet was necessarily also a musician. What we call "harmony" was unknown in Greek music at all times, and instrumental music was almost entirely confined to solo-playing.
In treating of Athenian, and, indeed, of all Greek, education, it is of the utmost importance to realize that the intellectual and moral part of it has music and poetry for its starting-point. This is the core round which everything else gathers; this is what determines its character, influence, and ideal. Culture, as distinguished from nature, is the material of Athenian intellectual and moral education; and by this is meant, not the history or theory of culture, as it might be set forth in prose, but culture itself, as embodied in the ideals and forms of music-wedded poetry, appealing to the emotions that stir the will, as well as to the intelligence that guides it.
By making the works of the great poets of the Greek people the material of their education, the Athenians attained a variety of objects difficult of attainment by any other one means. The fact is, the ancient poetry of Greece, with its finished form, its heroic tales and characters, its accounts of peoples far removed in time and space, its manliness and pathos, its directness and simplicity, its piety and wisdom, its respect for law and order, combined with its admiration for personal initiative and worth, furnished, in the hands of a careful and genial teacher, a material for a complete education such as could not well be[74] matched even in our own day. What instruction in ethics, politics, social life, and manly bearing could not find a fitting vehicle in the Homeric poems, not to speak of the geography, the grammar, the literary criticism, and the history which the comprehension of them involved? Into what a wholesome, unsentimental, free world did these poems introduce the imaginative Greek boy! What splendid ideals of manhood and womanhood did they hold up for his admiration and imitation! From Hesiod he would learn all that he needed to know about his gods and their relation to him and his people. From the elegiac poets he would derive a fund of political and social wisdom, and an impetus to patriotism, which would go far to make him a good man and a good citizen. From the iambic poets he would learn to express with energy his indignation at meanness, feebleness, wrong, and tyranny, while from the lyric poets he would learn the language suitable to every genial feeling and impulse of the human heart. And in reciting or singing all these, how would his power of terse, idiomatic expression, his sense of poetic beauty and his ear for rhythm and music be developed! With what a treasure of examples of every virtue and vice, and with what a fund of epigrammatic expression would his memory be furnished! How familiar he would be with the character and ideals of his nation, how deeply in sympathy with them! And all this was possible even before the introduction of letters. With this event a new era in education begins. The boy now not only learns and declaims his Homer, and sings his Simonides or Sappho, he learns also to write down[75] their verses from dictation, and so at once to read and to write. This, indeed, was the way in which these two (to us) fundamental arts were acquired. As soon as the boy could trace with his finger in sand, or scratch with a stylus on wax, the forms of the letters, and combine them into syllables and words, he began to write poetry from his master's dictation. The writing-lesson of to-day was the reading, recitation, or singing-lesson of to-morrow. Every boy made his own reading-book, and, if he found it illegible, and stumbled in reading, he had only himself to blame. The Greeks, and especially the Athenians, laid the greatest stress upon reading well, reciting well, and singing well, and the youth who could not do all the three was looked upon as uncultured. Nor could he hide his want of culture, since young men were continually called upon, both at home and at more or less public gatherings, to perform their part in the social entertainment.
The strictly musical instruction of this period was almost entirely confined to simple, strong Doric airs, sung to an accompaniment which was played on an instrument closely resembling the modern guitar (λύρα, κίθαρις). Complicated and wind instruments were unpopular, and the softer or more thrilling kinds of music, Lydian, Phrygian, etc., had not yet been introduced, at least into schools. Anything like the skill and execution demanded of professional players, who were usually slaves or foreigners, was considered altogether unworthy of a free man and a citizen, and was therefore not aimed at. Fond as the Athenians were of the fine arts, they always held professional[76] skill in any of them, except poetry and musical composition, to be incompatible with that dignity and virtue which they demanded of the free citizen. A respectable Athenian would no more have allowed his son to be a professional musician than he would have allowed him to be a professional acrobat.
It is difficult for us to understand the way in which the Greeks regarded music. Inferior as their music was to ours in all technical ways, it exerted an influence upon their lives of which we can form but a faint conception. To them it was a dæmonic power, capable of rousing or assuaging the passions, and hence of being used for infinite good or evil. No wonder, then, that in their education they sought to employ those kinds which tended to "purgation" (κάθαρσις), and to avoid those that were exciting, sentimental, or effeminate! No wonder that they disapproved of divorcing music from the intellectual element contained in the words, and allowing it to degenerate into a mere emotional or sensual luxury! Music the Greeks regarded, not indeed as a moral force (a phrase that to them, who regarded morality as a matter of the will, would have conveyed no meaning), but as a force whose office it was, by purging and harmonizing the human being, to make him a fit subject for moral instruction. Music, they held, brought harmony, first into the human being himself, by putting an end to the conflict between his passions and his intelligent will, and then, as a consequence, into his relations with his fellows. Harmony within was held to be the condition of harmony without.
In the period of which I am speaking, no distinc[77]tion was yet made between music and literature (γράμματα), both being taught by the citharist (κιθαριστής). Indeed, the term for teacher of literature (γραμματιστής) was not then invented. But the citharist not only taught literature: he also taught the elements of arithmetic, a matter of no small difficulty, considering the clumsy notation then in use. This was done by means of pebbles, a box of sand, or an abacus similar in principle to that now used by billiard players to keep count of their strokes.
As to the schoolrooms in ancient Athens, they were apparently simple in the extreme; indeed, rather porches open to sun and wind than rooms in the modern sense. They contained little or no furniture. The boys sat upon the ground or upon low benches, like steps (βάθρα), while the teacher occupied a high chair (θρόνος). The benches were washed, apparently every day, with sponges. The only decorations permitted in the schoolrooms, it seems, were statues or statuettes of the Muses and Apollo, and the school festivals or exhibitions were regarded as festivals in honor of these. Indeed, in Greece every sort of festival was regarded as an act of worship to some divinity. The chief school festival seems to have been the Musēa (μουσεῖα), at which the boys recited and sang.
(β) Gymnastics or Bodily Training.Under the term Gymnastics (γυμναστική), the Greeks generally included everything relating to the culture of the body. The ends which the Athenians sought to reach through this branch of education were health,[78] strength, adroitness, ease, self-possession, and firm, dignified bearing. A certain number of boys, intending to take part in the Olympic and other great games, were allowed to train as athletes under a gymnast (γυμναστής, ἀλείπτης) in the public gymnasia, and under the direction of the State; but these were exceptions. The athlete was not an ideal person at Athens, as he was at Thebes and Sparta.
Gymnastic exercises were conducted partly in the palæstras, or wrestling schools, partly on the race-courses, both of which were under the direction of professional trainers (παιδοτρίβαι). In early times, the palæstra and race-course were simply an open space covered with sand and probably connected with the school (διδασκαλεῖον), thus corresponding to our playground. Later, this space was partly covered over and furnished with dressing-rooms, a bath, seats for spectators, an altar for sacrifices, statues, etc. Of the five gymnastic exercises in which boys were trained, all except wrestling seem to have been conducted on the race-course, so that the palæstra was reserved for what its name implied. It is by no means certain that every palæstra had a race-course connected with it, at least in the time of which we are speaking, and possibly in many cases the boys took part of their exercises in the public race-course running from the agora to beyond the walls. Just as the schoolroom was decorated with images of Apollo and the Muses, so the palæstra was decorated with images of Hermes, Heracles, and Eros, symbolizing, respectively, adroitness, human strength, and youthful friendship. The special patron of the palæstra[79] was Hermes, and the gymnastic exhibition took the form of a festival to him, the Hermæa, at which a sacrifice was offered and the boys were allowed the use of the building to play games in, the victors wearing crowns.
It would be impossible, in a work of this compass, to enter into a minute description of all the exercises of the Athenian palæstra. We must be content with a general statement, which may be prefaced with the remark that these exercises were at first light, increasing gradually in rigor and difficulty as the strength and skill of the growing child permitted.
The chief gymnastic exercises were five, named in this order in a famous line of Simonides: (1) leaping, (2) running, (3) discus-throwing, (4) javelin-casting, (5) wrestling (πάλη), which last gave the name to the palæstra. We shall not strictly follow this order, but begin with
(1) Running.—This was the simplest, lightest, most natural, and, therefore, the most easily taught of exercises. It was probably also the oldest. We find even Homer making his ideal Phæacians begin their games with it, and this practice seems to have been general throughout antiquity. In taking this exercise, the boys divested themselves of all clothing and had their bodies rubbed with oil. The running appears to have been of the simplest kind. Hurdle-races, sack-races, etc., were apparently excluded from education. At the same time, the running was rendered difficult by the soft sand with which the course was covered to the depth of several inches. The races were distinguished according to their length in fur[80]longs or stadia: (1) the furlong-race, (2) the double-furlong race, (3) the horse (four-furlong) race, (4) the long race, whose length seems to have been twenty-four furlongs, or about three miles. The stadion was = 202¼ yards English. The shorter races called for brief concentration of energy, the longer for persistence and endurance; all were exercises in agility; all tended to develop lung-power.
(2) Leaping or Jumping.—This exercise seems, in the main, to have confined itself to the long leap. Though the high leap and the pole-jump can hardly have been unknown, we have no evidence that they were ever employed in the gymnastic training of boys. There may have been hygienic reasons which forbade their use. On the other hand, boys were taught to lengthen their leap by means of weights, somewhat similar to our dumb-bells, carried in their hands, and swung forward in the act of leaping. Such leaping would be an exercise for the arms, as well as for the legs and the rest of the body. But, just as there were two exercises intended chiefly for the legs, so there were two intended chiefly for the arms—discus-throwing and javelin-casting.
(3) Discus-throwing.—The modern world has been rendered very familiar with the method of this exercise by the copies of the discobolus of Myron, preserved in Rome and extensively engraved and photographed, and that of the discobolus of Alcamenes which now stands in the Vatican (see Overbeck, Griech. Plastik vol. i, p. 276). The discus was generally a flat, round piece of stone or metal, a sort of large quoit with no hole in the middle, which the user sought to[81] throw as far as he could. The discobolus of Alcamenes shows us a youth balancing the discus in his left hand, and taking the measure of his throw with his eye; that of Myron shows us another in the act of throwing. He swings the discus backward in his right hand, and bends his body forward to balance it. His right foot, the toes contracted with effort, rests firmly on the ground; the left is slightly lifted; the whole body is like a bent bow. In the next instant the left foot will advance, the left hand, now resting on the right knee, will swing backwards, the body will resume its erect position, and the discus will be shot forward from the right hand like an arrow. Nothing could show more clearly than does this statue the perfect organization, symmetry, and balance which were the aim of Greek gymnastics. Not one limb could be moved without affecting all the rest,—which shows that the exercise extended to the whole body.
(4) Javelin-casting.—The aim of this exercise was to develop skill and precision of eye and hand, rather than strength of muscle. The instrument employed was a short dagger or lance, which was aimed at a mark. He who could hit the mark from the greatest distance was the most proficient scholar. The spear, before being thrown, was balanced in the right hand at the height of the ear.
(5) Wrestling.—This very complicated exercise was evidently the principal one in the gymnastic course, the one to which the others were merely preparatory. It was the only one which a boy could not practice by himself. It exercised not only the whole body, but the patience and temper as well. The aim of the[82] wrestler was to throw (καταβλλειν) his antagonist. Those who took part in this exercise had their bodies rubbed with oil and strewn with fine sand. It seems that the wrestler was allowed to do anything he chose to his antagonist except to bite, strike, or kick him. Before he could claim the victory he had to throw him three times. After the contest the wrestlers scraped from their bodies, with a strigil, the oil and dust,[2] bathed, were again rubbed with oil, exposed their bodies to the sun, in order to dry and tan them, and dressed. The bathing was done in cold water, and both the bathing and the sunning were in part intended to inure the body to sudden cold and heat, which inurement was considered a very essential part of physical training.
Such were the chief exercises employed in the gymnastic training of the Athenians. Thus far, we have considered the two branches of education as conducted separately, and as not coming at any point in contact with each other. But it would have been very unlike the Greek, and especially the Athenian, to leave the two divisions of education unrelated and unharmonized. And, indeed, he did not so leave them, but brought them together in the most admirable way in what he called orchesis, a word for which we have no better equivalent than
(γ) Dancing (ὄρχησις, χορός)."Dancers," says Aristotle, "by means of plastic rhythms (rhythms reproduced in plastic forms) imi[83]tate characters, feelings, and actions." Xenophon, in his Anabasis, describing a banquet that took place in the wilds of Paphlagonia, says: "After the treaty was ratified and the pæan sung, there first rose up two Thracians and danced in armor to the flute, leaping high and lightly, and using their swords. Finally one of them struck the other, so that everybody thought he had wounded him; but he fell in an artificial way. Then the Paphlagonians raised a shout; but the assailant, having despoiled the fallen man of his armor, went out singing the Sitalcas. Then others of the Thracians carried out the other as if he had been dead; but he was none the worse. Next, some Ænianes and Magnesians stood up and danced the so-called Carpæa in armor. The manner of the dance was this: one man, putting his arms within reach, sows and drives a team, frequently turning round as if afraid. Then a robber makes his appearance. As soon as the other espies him, he seizes his arms, advances to him, and fights in front of the team. And the two did this keeping time to the flute. Finally the robber, having bound the other, carries off both him and the team; sometimes, on the contrary, the ploughman binds the robber, in which case he yokes him, with his hands bound behind his back, to his oxen and drives off." Several other dances, performed by persons of different nationalities, follow; but enough has been quoted to show that the Greek ὄρχησις was something very different from our dancing. It was, indeed, a pantomimic ballet, interspersed with tableaux vivans.
In the dances here mentioned, the flute is the instrument employed, and this the player could not[84] accompany with his voice. But in the Athenian schools, in the old time, the flute, and all music without words, were tabooed. There can be no doubt, therefore, that in these the orchestic performances were accompanied by the lyre, the player on which sang in words what the dancers danced. It is obvious that in such performances the musical (literary) and gymnastic branches of education came in for about equal shares. Dancing exercised the whole human being, body and soul, and exercised them in a completely harmonious way. It is this harmony, this rhythmic movement of the body in consonance with the emotions of the soul and the purposes of the intelligence, that is grace (χάρις). Hence, while the Greeks relied upon gymnastics to impart strength and firmness to the body, they looked to dancing for courtliness and grace. Plato places the two on the same footing, as parts of a single discipline.
The fact that the two divisions of education met in dancing seems to prove what I surmised above, viz. that they were conducted within the same precincts; in which case we may suppose that, while the dancing exercises took place in the palæstra, the music was supplied by the music master. We know that the chorus-leader was a public officer, appointed by the demos, and had to be over forty years old. In any case, it is curious enough to think that Athenian, and, generally, Greek, education culminated in dancing. But this was a perfectly logical result; for the chorus is the type of Greek social life, as we see most clearly in the Republic of Plato. It hardly needs to be pointed out that the supreme form of Greek art, the drama,[85] was but a development of the Bacchic or Dionysiac chorus. This development consisted in the separation of the music from the pantomime, and the assignment of the former to the chorus, which no longer danced, but walked, and of the latter to the actors, who added the dialogue to it. Greek life was divided into three parts—civil, military, religious. Music and letters were a preparation for the first, gymnastics for the second, and dancing for the third. Dancing formed a prominent part in Greek worship, and it may be doubted whether free Athenians ever danced except "before the gods "—ἐν ταῖς πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς προσόδοις, as Xenophon says.
Two things still remain to be considered with regard to Athenian schools, (1) grading, (2) holidays. With respect to the former, the practice probably differed at different times; but we seem to be justified in assuming that, at the time of which I am speaking, there were but two grades, boys (παῖδες) and youths (νεανίσκοι). These are mentioned by Plato, in the Lysis, as celebrating the Hermæa together in a palæstra. The first grade would include the boys from seven to eleven years of age; the second, those from eleven to fifteen. As to holidays, they seem to have been simply the feast-days of the greater gods, when business of every sort was suspended. Such days amounted to about ninety annually.
(3) College Education.About the time when he was blossoming into manhood, that is, some time between his fourteenth and his sixteenth year, the Athenian boy of the olden time[86] was transferred from the private school and palæstra, which belonged to the family side of life, to the gymnasium, which belonged to the State, and in which he received the education calculated to fit him for the duties of a citizen. Having, in the family and the school, been trained to be a gentleman (καλοκἀγαθός), he must now be trained to be a citizen, capable of exercising legislative, judicial, and military functions. The State saw to it that he received this training, if his parents chose and could afford it.
In the time of Solon, about b.c. 590, two great gymnasia, the Academy and Cynosarges, were erected in the midst of extensive groves outside the city walls. These groves were afterwards surrounded with high walls, furnished with seats and other conveniences, and turned into city parks. The Academy, which lay to the northwest of the city, in the valley of the Cephisus, and was under the patronage of Athena, was the resort of the full-blooded citizens, while Cynosarges, situated to the east of the city, near the foot of Lycabettus, was assigned to those who had foreign blood in their veins, that is, who had only one parent of pure Athenian stock. This gymnasium was under the patronage of Heracles, whose worship always implies the presence of a foreign and vanquished element. These were the only two gymnasia belonging to Athens before the time of Pericles. They were, probably, destroyed by the Persians in 480, and had afterwards to be rebuilt, and the groves replanted.
While the children of nearly all the free citizens of Athens attended the school and the palæstra, it is[87] clear that only the youth of the wealthier classes attended the gymnasium. One result of this was that the government and offices of the State fell exclusively into the hands of those classes; and it was perhaps just in order to make this division, without introducing any class-law, that the shrewd Solon established the gymnasia, which thus became a bulwark against democracy.
As soon as the Athenian youth was transferred to the gymnasium, he passed from under the charge of the pedagogue, who represented the family, and came under the direct surveillance of the State. He was now free to go where he would, to frequent the agora and the street, to attend the theatre, in which he had his appointed place, and to make himself directly acquainted with all the details of public life. In the gymnasium he passed into the hands of a gymnast or scientific trainer, and for the next two or three years was subjected to the severer exercises, wrestling, boxing, etc. No special provision, beyond the fact that he had to learn the laws, was made for his intellectual and moral instruction. He was expected to acquire this from contact with the older citizens whom he met in the agora, the street, or the public park. Thus, at what is justly regarded as the most critical age, he was almost compelled to live a free, breezy, outdoor life, full of activity and stirring incident, his thoughts and feelings directed outwards into acts of will, and not turned back upon himself or his own states. At the same time he was acquiring just that practical knowledge of ethical laws and of real life which could best fit him for active citizenship. He now learnt to[88] ride, to drive, to row, to swim, to attend banquets, to sustain a conversation, to discuss the weightiest questions of statesmanship, to sing and dance in public choruses, and to ride or walk in public processions. If he abused his liberty and behaved in a lawless or unseemly way, he was called to account by the severe Court of the Areopagus, which attended to public morals. He saw little of girls of his own age, except his sisters, unless it was at public festivals, when there was little opportunity of becoming acquainted with them. His affectionate nature therefore expressed itself mostly in the form of devoted friendships to other youths of his own, or nearly his own, age, a fact which enables us to understand why friendship fills so large a space, not only in the life, but also in the ethical treatises of the Greeks,—Plato, Aristotle, etc.,—and why love, in the modern sense, plays so insignificant a part. The truth is that, even in Athens, the State encroached upon the family. Plato's Republic was only the logical carrying out of principles that were latent long before in the social life of the Athenian people.
It would be impossible to treat in detail the exercises to which the Athenian youth was subjected during the years in which he attended the public gymnasium as a pupil. The old exercises of the palæstra were continued, running and wrestling especially; but the former was now done in armor, and the latter became more violent, and was supplemented by boxing. In fact, the physical exercises were now systematized into the pentathlon—running, leaping, discus-throwing, wrestling, boxing—which formed[89] the programme of nearly all gymnastic exhibitions. During these years, the youth was still regarded as a minor, and his father or guardian was responsible for his good behavior. But when he reached the age of eighteen, a change took place, and he passed under the direct control of the State. His father now brought him before the reeve of his demos (ward or village), as a candidate for independent citizenship. If he proved to be the lawful child of free citizens, and came up to the moral and physical requirements of the law, his name was entered upon the register of the demos, and he became a member of it. He was now prepared to be presented to the whole people, and to pass the State examination. He shore his long hair for the first time, and donned the black garment of the citizen. In this guise he presented himself to the king-archon of the State, who, at a public assembly, introduced him, along with others, to the whole people. He was then and there armed with spear and shield (supplied by the State if his father had fallen in war), and thence proceeded to the shrine of Aglauros, where, looking down on the agora, the city, and the Attic plain, he took the Solonian oath of citizenship (see p. 61). He was now technically an ephēbos, cadet, or citizen-novice, ready to undergo those two years of severe discipline which at once formed his introduction to practical affairs, and constituted the State examination. During the first year he remained in the neighborhood of Athens, drilling in arms, and acquiring a knowledge of military tactics. His life was now the hard life of a soldier. He slept in the open air, or in the guard-houses[90] (φρούρια) that surrounded the city, and was liable to be called upon at any time by the government to give aid in an emergency. He also took part in the public festivals. At the end of the year, all the ephēboi of one year's standing passed an examination in military drill before the assembled people (ἀπεδείξαντο τῷ δήμῳ περὶ τὰς τάξεις[3]), after which they were employed as militia to man the frontier guard-houses, and as rural gendarmerie (περίπολοι), scouring the country in all directions. They now lived like soldiers in war-time, and learnt two important things, (1) the topography of Attica, its roads, passes, brooks, springs, etc., (2) the art of enforcing law and order. Their life, indeed, closely resembled that of the Alpine corps (Alpini) of the Italian army at the present day. These spend the summer in making themselves acquainted with every height, valley, pass, stream, and covert in the Italian Alps, often bivouacking for days together at great heights. That during this time the ephēboi should have taken any part in the legislative or judicial duties of citizens, seems in the highest degree improbable. At the end of their second year, however, they passed a second examination, called the citizenship or manhood examination (δοκιμασία εἰς ἄνδρας), after which they were full members of the State.
(4) University Education.The Greek university was the State, and the Greek State was a university—a Cultur-Staat, as the Ger[91]mans say. That the State is a school of virtue, was a view generally entertained in the ancient world, which, until it began to decay, completely identified the man with the citizen. The influence of this view upon the attitude of the individual to the State, and of the State to the individual, can hardly be overestimated. The State claimed, and the individual accorded to it, a disciplinary right which extended to every sphere and action of life. Thus the sphere of morality coincided exactly with the sphere of legality, or, to put it the other way, the sphere of legality extended to the whole sphere of morality, and this was considered true, whatever form the State or government might assume—monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, etc.
To give a full account of the university education of old Athens would be to write her social and political history up to the time of the Persian Wars. This is, of course, out of the question. All I can do is to point out those elements in the State which enabled it to produce that splendid array of noble men, and accomplish those great deeds and works, which make her brief career seem the brightest spot in the world's history.
The chief of these elements, and the one which included all the rest, was the Greek ideal of harmony. Athens was great as a State and as a school so long as she embodied that ideal, so long as she distributed power and honor in accordance with worth (ἀρετή) intellectual, moral, practical; in a word, so long as the State was governed by the best citizens (ἄριστοι), and the rest acknowledged their right to do so. Not[92]withstanding the contention of Grote and others, it is strictly true that Athens was great because, and so long as, she was aristocratic (in the ancient sense), and perished when she abandoned her fundamental ideal by becoming democratic. This assertion must not be construed as any slur upon democracy as such, or as denying that Athens in perishing paved the way for a higher ideal than her own. It simply states a fact, which may be easily generalized without losing its truth: An institution perishes when it abandons the principle on which it was founded and built up. Unless we bear this in mind, we shall utterly fail to understand the lesson of Athenian history. If it be maintained that some of Athens' noblest work was done under the democracy, the sufficient answer is, that it was nearly all done by men who retained the spirit of the old aristocracy, and bitterly opposed the democracy. We need name only Æschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes.
