The _Axiochos_ also states that the ten Sophronistai, elected to guard

the morals of the epheboi, exercised control over lads also. These

officials probably took their rise in the days of Solon: the

regulation that they must be over forty harmonises with the other

enactments of those days; and, although they died out at the end of

the fourth century, they were revived under the Roman Empire. Now it

is most unlikely that the archaistic legislators of imperial times

would have revived an office which had only existed during the closing

decades of the fourth century. Solon is known to have appointed a

magistracy specially to deal with the children;[189] and, if these

magistrates were not the Sophronistai, all trace of his creation has

been lost, which is most unlikely to have happened. So the

Sophronistai probably date from early times. Their duty was a general

supervision of the morals of the young; their chief function would be

to prosecute, on behalf of the State, parents and schoolmasters who

infringed Solon’s moral regulations. But such prosecutions would

usually be undertaken by private individuals concerned in the case,

and so this magistracy tended to become a sinecure. It may even have

ceased to exist after the fall of the Areiopagos. But it seems to have

revived under the restored democracy for a while (if the _Axiochos_

belongs to Aischines the Sokratic), to sink again in the middle of the

century. At the close of the century it revives once more with the

changes in the ephebic system, and finally perishes when the epheboi

became too few to need ten officers to supervise their morals. An

account of the Sophronistai of this later period will be given in

connection with the epheboi.

[Illustration: PLATE II.

THE FLUTE LESSON――THE BOY’S TURN

_Wiener Vorlegeblätter_, Series C, Plate 4.

From a Kulix by Hieron, now at Vienna.]

The strategoi[190] exercised a superintendence over the epheboi during

their two years’ training as recruits, as would naturally be expected.

Late in the fourth century they appear also to have been connected

with the local schools in Attica; an inscription at Eleusis, which

Girard assigns to 320 B.C., thanks the strategos Derkulos for the

diligence which he had shown in supervising the education of the

children there.[191] Whether they exercised such functions in the days

when their military duties were more important, is more than doubtful.

But any Athenian magistrate could interest himself in the schools, no

doubt, and intervene to check abuses.[192]

* * * * *

In the period of juvenile emancipation and increasing luxury and

indulgence for children which marked the closing decades of the fifth

century, it became customary for conservative thinkers to look back

with longing, and no doubt idealising, eyes to the “good old times.”

The sixth and early fifth centuries came, probably unjustly, to be

regarded as the ideal age of education, when children learned

obedience and morality, and were not pampered and depraved; when they

were beautiful and healthy, not pale-faced, stunted, and

over-educated.

Listen to Aristophanes,[193] yearning for “the good old style of

education, in the days when Justice still prevailed over Rhetoric, and

good morals were still in fashion. Then children were seen and not

heard; then the boys of each hamlet and ward walked in orderly

procession along the roads on their way to the lyre-school,――no

overcoats, though it snowed cats and dogs. Then, while they stood up

square――no lounging――the master taught them a fine old patriotic song

like ‘Pallas, city-sacker dread,’[194] or ‘A cry that echoes

afar,’[195] set to a good old-fashioned tune. If any one tried any

vulgar trills and twiddles and odes where the metre varies, such as

Phrunis and Co. use nowadays, he got a tremendous thrashing for

disrespect to the Muses.” While being taught by the paidotribes, too,

they behaved modestly, and did not spend their time ogling their

admirers. “At meals children were not allowed to grab up the dainties

or giggle or cross their feet.” “This was the education which produced

the heroes of Marathon.… This taught the boys to avoid the Agora, keep

away from the Baths, be ashamed at what is disgraceful, be courteous

to elders, honour their parents, and be an impersonation of

Modesty――instead of running after ballet-girls. They passed their days

in the gymnasia, keeping their bodies in good condition, not mouthing

quibbles in the Agora. Each spent his time with some well-mannered lad

of his own age, running races in the Akademeia under the sacred

olives, amid a fragrance of smilax and leisure and white poplar,

rejoicing in the springtide when plane-tree and elm whisper together.”

All the voices of generations of boys, bound down to indoor studies

when wood and field and river are calling them, the complaint of ages

of fevered hurry and bustle, looking back with regret on the days of

“leisure” and “springtide,” seem to echo in Aristophanes’ lament for

the ways that were no more.

“This education,” he goes on, “produced a good chest, sound

complexion, broad shoulders, small tongue; the new style produces pale

faces, small shoulders, narrow chest, and long tongue, and makes the

boy confuse Honour with Dishonour: it fills the Baths, empties the

Palaistra.”

The next witness to be called is Isokrates. He is somewhat prejudiced

by his dream of restoring the Areiopagos to its old power, but he is

an educational expert and his evidence is supported by that of many

others. In the days when the Areiopagos had the superintendence of

morals, he says,[196] “the young did not spend their time in the

gambling dens, and with flute-girls and company of that sort, as they

do now, but they remained true to the manner of life which was laid

down for them.… They avoided the Agora so much, that, if ever they

were compelled to pass through it, they did so with obvious modesty

and self-control. To contradict or insult an elder was at that time

considered a worse offence than ill-treatment of parents is considered

now. To eat or drink in a tavern was a thing that not even a

self-respecting servant would think of doing then; for they practised

good manners, not vulgarity.”

Call Plato next.[197] “In a democratic state the schoolmaster is

afraid of his pupils and flatters them, and the pupils despise both

schoolmaster and paidagogos. The young expect the same treatment as

the old, and contradict them and quarrel with them. In fact, seniors

have to flatter their juniors, in order not to be thought morose old

dotards.”

The counts of the indictment are luxury, bad manners, contempt for

authority, disrespect to elders, and a love for chatter in place of

exercise. The old regime had strictly forbidden luxury. Warm baths had

been regarded as unmanly, and were even coupled with drunkenness by

Hermippos.[198] The boys had only worn a single garment, the

sleeveless chiton, a custom which survived till late times in Sparta

and Crete; but at Athens they began to wear the ἱμάτιον [himation] or

overcoat as well. Xenophon, blaming parents “in the rest of Hellas”

(_i.e._ elsewhere than in Sparta), says: “They make their boy’s feet

soft by giving him shoes, and pamper his body with changes of clothes;

they also allow him as much food as his stomach can contain.”[199]

Children began to be the tyrants, not the slaves, of their households.

They no longer rose from their seats when an elder entered the room;

they contradicted their parents, chattered before company, gobbled

up the dainties at table, and committed various offences against

Hellenic tastes, such as crossing their legs. They tyrannised over

the paidagogoi and schoolmasters. Alkibiades even smacked a

literature-master. A similar change came over the position of children

in England during the latter half of the nineteenth century. If Maria

Edgeworth could have met a modern child, she would have uttered quite

Aristophanic diatribes against the decay of good manners.

With this change went a more serious matter, a change of tone. Whether

the old days were as moral as the conservatives supposed, may be

doubted; but the atmosphere of Periclean and Socratic Athens, as

represented by all its literary lights, was certainly most unsuitable

for the young. Perhaps general morality was no worse, but the

immorality was no longer concealed from the children. The old laws

which had excluded unsuitable company from the schools and palaistrai

were neglected, and these educational buildings became the resort of

all the fashionable loungers of Athens.

The preference given to conversation over exercise was a feature of

the age. In part, it was a preference for intellectual as against

purely physical education. The free discussion with children of

ethical subjects probably ceased with the death of Sokrates; this can

hardly be regretted, if Plato’s evidence as to the nature of Socratic

dialogues is to be believed. From the importance which Plato gives to

gymnastics as a corrective to exclusive μουσική [mousikê] even in the

education of his highly intellectual Philosopher-Kings, we may suspect

that the revolt against excessive athletics at Athens, of which

Euripides had been the leader, had gone too far, and that a reaction

was needed. Certainly the Athenians do not distinguish themselves for

pluck or energy in the fourth century: in Platonic phrase, the temper

of their resolution had been melted away by their exclusive devotion

to intellectual and artistic pursuits.

Let me close this subject, however, with a more pleasing picture of

that αἰδώς [aidôs] or modesty at which the older education had aimed.

It is taken from the midst of that brilliant but corrupt Socratic

Athens.[200] Young Autolukos had won the boys’ contest for the

pankration at the great Panathenaic festival. As a treat, Kallias, a

friend of his father, had taken him to the horse-races, and afterwards

invited him out to dinner with his father Lukon: such a dignity was

rarely accorded to an Athenian boy.

The boy sits at table, while the grown men recline. Some one asked him

what he was most proud of――“Your victory, I suppose?” He blushed and

said, “No, I’m not.” Every one was delighted to hear his voice, for he

had not said a word so far. “Of what then?” some one asked. “Of my

father,” replied the boy, and cuddled up against him.

These shy, blushing boys were a feature of the age. The stricter

parents, knowing the dangers which surrounded their sons, tried to

keep them entirely from any knowledge or experience of the world.

* * * * *

As far as can be discovered from the somewhat fragmentary evidence,

the Athenian type of education was prevalent throughout the civilised

Hellenic world, with the exception of Crete and Lakedaimon, which had

systems of their own. Xenophon, in praising the Spartan system and

contrasting it with that which was prevalent in neighbouring

countries, ascribes to what he calls “the rest of Hellas” educational

customs and arrangements exactly similar to those which are found to

have existed at Athens. His statement is borne out by other evidence.

Chios certainly had a School of Letters before 494 B.C.; for a

building of this sort collapsed in that year, destroying all but one

of the 120 pupils.[201] Boiotia, byword for stupidity, had schools

even in the smaller towns. A small place like Mukalessos had more than

one; for a detachment of wild Thracian mercenaries in the pay of

Athens fell upon the town at daybreak one morning during the

Peloponnesian War, and entering “the largest school in the place,”

killed all the boys.[202] Arkadia had an equally bad reputation; yet,

according to Polubios,[203] in every Arcadian town the boys were

compelled by law to learn to sing. Troizen must have had schools in

480, when she provided them for her Athenian guests. Aelian vouches

for schools in Lesbos,[204] Pausanias[205] for a school of sixty boys

in Astupalaia in 496 B.C. The poet Sophocles dined with a master of

letters whose school was either in Eretria or Eruthrai.[206] The

inscriptions show that before the third century there were flourishing

schools in most of the islands.

Gymnastic education must have gone on in every Hellenic city, for the

athletic victors at the great games come from every part. Musical

training too was required for the dancing and singing which were

universal throughout Hellas; but how far the lyre was taught must

remain doubtful. In Boiotia the flute replaced the lyre in the

schools. But it may be taken for granted that letters, some sort of

music, and gymnastics were taught in every part of civilised Hellas,

with the possible exception that letters may not have been taught at

Sparta.

Secondary Education, as long as it was supplied by the Sophists,

reached every village in the Hellenic world; later, it had a tendency

to be confined to the large towns. The Tertiary system of military

training and special gymnastics for the epheboi would seem, from the

scanty evidence of the inscriptions, to have been well-nigh universal.

I will now proceed to give a more detailed account of the several

branches of this widespread educational system. As the evidence comes

almost entirely from Athens, my description will deal in the main with

Athenian education; but, as the same type prevailed throughout the

greater part of Hellas, the description may be taken as applying to

the other cities also.

[98] Herod. ii. 167. Corinth was an exception.

[99] Plato, _Laws_, 846 D.

[100] Arist. _Pol._ viii. 2. 4.

[101] Xen. _Econ._ iv. 3. Sitting was regarded as a slavish

attitude, since the free citizen mostly stood or lay down.

Xen. _Econ._ iv. 3.

[102] Plato, _Protag._ 328 A.

[103] Xen. _Revenues_, ii. 2.

[104] Plato, _Kleitophon_, 409 B.

[105] Plato, _Rep._ 421 E.

[106] Plato, _Gorg._ 514 B.

[107] Plato, _Rep._ 467 A.

[108] Aristoph. _Acharn._ 1032.

[109] The fifth-century comic poet.

[110] Plutarch, _Solon_, 22.

[111] Plato, _Laws_, 643 E.

[112] Except possibly in Chios and Lokris, and of course in

Sparta.

[113] Thuc. ii. 45. 4.

[114] Xen. _Econ._ vii. 5.

[115] Xen. _Mem._ ii. 7.

[116] Plato, _Rep._ 455 C.

[117] Plato, _Laws_, 805 E.

[118] As in Lusias, _ag. Diogeiton_, 32. 28.

[119] In the _Econ._ vii. 10.

[120] Thus the _Axiochos_ (366 D) puts seven years as the

age at which grammatistai and paidotribai began. Plato

(_Laws_, 794) says six; Aristotle (_Pol._ vii. 17) about

five; Xenophon (_Constit. of Lak._ ii.) “as soon as the

children begin to understand.”

[121] Aesop was popular then, as now. This is the μουσική

[mousikê] anterior to γυμναστική [gymnastikê], so keenly

criticised in the _Republic_.

[122] Plato, _Protag._ 325 C-E.

[123] Xen. _Mem._ ii. 2. 6.

[124] Plato, _Protag._ 326 C.

[125] Aristotle, _Pol._ vii. 17. 7.

[126] The three in this order in Plato, _Protag._ 312 B,

325-326; _Charmid_. 159 C; _Kleitoph_. 407 C; Xen. _Constit.

of Lak._ ii. 1; Isok. _Antid._ 267. The first two in this

order in _Charmid._ 160 A; _Lusis_, 209 B; inverted in

_Euthud._ 276 A. Aristot. (_Pol._ viii. 3) gives γράμματα,

γυμναστική, μουσική [grammata, gymnastikê, mousikê]. Plato

in the _Laws_ 810 A makes κιθαριστική [kitharistikê] follow

γραμματική [grammatikê]; Aristophanes mentions the

paidotribes just after the κιθαριστής [kitharistês].

[127] Aristot. _Pol._ viii. 3. 1.

[128] Xen. _Constit. of Lak._ ii.

[129] See Illustr. Plates I. A and I. B.

[130] Plato, _Laws_, 810 A.

[131] Vase B 192.

[132] Vases E 171, 172; see Plates III. and IV.

[133] Aristot. _Pol._ viii. 4. 9.

[134] _Ibid._ viii. 1. 2.

[135] [Plato] _Rivals_, 132 A.

[136] Plato, _Lusis_, 206 D.

[137] Plato, _Laches_, 179 A.

[138] Xen. _Constit. of Lak._ iii.

[139] Plato, _Lusis_, 214 B.

[140] Rhetoric is, of course, banished from a Platonic

state.

[141] [Plato] _Axiochos_, 366 E.

[142] See Petit, _Leges Atticae_, ii. 4, compiled with great

ingenuity out of many authors. Hence the proverbs ὁ μήτε

νεῖν μήτε γράμματα ἐπιστάμενος [ho mête nein mête grammata

epistamenos], of utter dunce, and πρῶτον κολυμβᾶν δεύτερον

δὲ γράμματα [prôton kolymban deuteron de grammata]. The

spelling-riddles of the tragedians imply a whole nation

interested in spelling.

[143] Plato, _Kriton_, 50 D.

[144] Aristophanes, _Knights_, 189.

[145] _Ibid._ 1235-1239.

[146] _Ibid._ 987-996.

[147] [Plato] _Theages_, 122 E.

[148] Plato, _Alkibiades_, i. 122 B. The Athenian State,

however, from the time of Solon onwards, supported and

educated at public expense the sons of those who fell in

battle. The endowed systems in Teos and at Delphoi belong to

the third century; it is impossible to say whether such

existed earlier.

[149] Xen. _Mem._ ii. 2. 6.

[150] [Xen.] _Constit. of Athens_, ii. 10.

[151] Plutarch, _Alkib._ 3; Plato, _Charmides_, 153 A.

[152] _C.I.A._ ii. 1. 444, 445, 446.

[153] See Excursus on γυμνιασιαρχοί [gymniasiarchoi].

[154] He could, and had to, use compulsion in collecting

boys. This suggests that a parent could always, if he

wished, get this free education for his son.

[155] This rule fell into abeyance.

[156] Dem. _against Boiot._ 1001.

[157] [Xen.] _Constit. of Athens_, i. 13.

[158] On the strength of the passages quoted from the law,

and from Demosthenes, and of Aristophanes, _Clouds_, 964,

some have maintained a theory that the Athenian tribes

provided free education in dancing, and perhaps in other

subjects, to all free boys, exclusive of competitions. But

the quotation in Aischines, except for the actual law, which

is a later interpolation, certainly refers only to the

choregoi, and the passage in Demosthenes is concerned only

with chorus-dancing for competitions. In Aristophanes the

boys of the same neighbourhood naturally attend the same

school, that is all.

[159] Plut. _Themist._ 10.

[160] Ael. _Var. Hist._ vii. 15.

[161] Diod. Sic. xii. 42.

[162] Probably lived _circa_ 500 B.C.

[163] Plato, _Tim._ 21 B.

[164] Böckh, 3088.

[165] _Ibid._ 2214. I have omitted patronymics.

[166] _C.I.G. Boeot._ 1760-1766.

[167] Böckh, 232, 245.

[168] Pind. _Nem._ vii.

[169] Bacchul. xiii., Pind. _Nem._ v.

[170] Wrestling, Pind. _Nem._ iv., vi.

[171] _Anthol._ ed. Jacobs, vi. 308.

[172] Sometimes earlier. Plato, _Protag._ 325 C.

[173] Elderly, as in the picture of Medeia and her children

given in Smith’s _Smaller Classical Dictionary_ under

“Medea,” and on Douris’ Kulix, Plates I. A and I. B (if

those are paidagogoi), and on other vases.

[174] So Fabius Cunctator was called Hannibal’s paidagogos,

because he followed him about everywhere.

[175] There is only one for Lusis and his brothers (Plato,

_Lus._ 223 A), for Medeia’s two children (Eur. _Med._), for

two boys in _Lusis_, 223 A, and for Themistocles’ children

(Herod. viii. 75).

[176] Plato, _Lus._ 208 C. He is referred to as ὅδε [hode],

showing that he is present.

[177] Illustr. Plates I. A and I. B. Perhaps only the

walking-stick carried by all Athenians.

[178] Plato, _Lus._ 223 A.

[179] Plut. _Education of Boys_.

[180] Xen. _Constit. of Lak._ ii. 2.

[181] Herod. viii. 75.

[182] Aischin. _ag. Timarch._ 35. 10.

[183] In the guardian’s accounts given by Lusias, _ag.

Diogeiton_, 32. 28, a paidagogos is paid for till the boy is

eighteen; but there was a younger brother, for whom he may

have been required, so the elder may have been free earlier.

In Plautus (_Bacch._ 138) we find a paidogogos in attendance

till his charge was twenty.

[184] Xen. _Constit. of Lak._ iii. 1.

[185] Plato, _Rep._ 406 A.

[186] Plato, _Protag._ 325 D.

[187] Aischin. _ag. Timarch._ 9.

[188] γυμνασιαρχής [gymnasiarchês]. See Excursus on

γυμνασιαρχοί [gymnasiarchoi]. This law was totally neglected

in Socratic Athens. See Plato’s _Lusis_.

[189] Aischin. _ag. Timarch._ 10. The word σωφρονιστής

[sôphronistês], in a general sense, occurs three times in

Thucydides.

[190] Deinarchos, _ag. Philokles_, 15.

[191] Girard, _L’Éducation Athénienne_, pp. 51, 52.

[192] The Archon Eponumos had the control of orphans and

probably intervened if their education was neglected.

[193] Aristoph. _Clouds_, 960 ff.

[194] By Lamprokles (476 B.C.).

[195] By Kudides (? = Kudias. Smyth, _Melic Poets_, p. 347).

[196] Isok. _Areiop._ 149 C, D.

[197] Plato, _Rep._ 563 A.

[198] _Floruit_ 432 B.C. (in Athen. 18 C).

[199] Xen. _Constit. of Lak._ ii. 1.

[200] Xen. _Banquet_, iii. 13.

[201] Herod. vi. 27.

[202] Thuc. vii. 29.

[203] Pol. iv. 20. 7.

[204] Ael. _Var. Hist._ 7. 15.

[205] Pausan. vi. 9. 6.

[206] Athen. 604 a-b.

CHAPTER III

ATHENS AND THE REST OF HELLAS: PRIMARY EDUCATION

We have seen that Primary Education in Hellas consisted of letters and

music, with a contemporary training in gymnastics; to which triple

course was added, late in the fourth century, drawing and painting.

How the day was divided between mental and physical training is

unknown――probably, like everything else, this varied with the taste of

the individual――but the following sketch from Lucian,[207] although it

belongs to a much later date, may perhaps give some idea of a

schoolboy’s day:――

“He gets up at dawn, washes the sleep from his eyes, and

puts on his cloak. Then he goes out from his father’s house,

with his eyes fixed upon the ground, not looking at any one

who meets him. Behind him follow attendants and paidagogoi,

bearing in their hands the implements of virtue,

writing-tablets or books containing the great deeds of old,

or, if he is going to a music-school, his well-tuned lyre.

“When he has laboured diligently at intellectual studies,

and his mind is sated with the benefits of the school

curriculum, he exercises his body in liberal pursuits,

riding or hurling the javelin or spear. Then the

wrestling-school with its sleek, oiled pupils, labours under

the mid-day sun, and sweats in the regular athletic

contests. Then a bath, not too prolonged; then a meal, not

too large, in view of afternoon school. For the

schoolmasters are waiting for him again, and the books which

openly or by allegory teach him who was a great hero, who

was a lover of justice and purity. With the contemplation of

such virtues he waters the garden of his young soul. When

evening sets a limit to his work, he pays the necessary

tribute to his stomach and retires to rest, to sleep sweetly

after his busy day.”

The school hours were naturally arranged to suit the times of Hellenic

meals, for which the boys returned home. The ordinary arrangement was

a light breakfast at daybreak, a solid meal at mid-day, and supper at

sunset. So the schools opened at sunrise.[208] Solon enacted that they

should not open earlier. They closed in time to allow the boys to

return home to lunch,[209] opened again in the afternoon, and closed

before sunset.[210] How many of the intermediate hours were spent in

work,[211] and what intervals there were, is unknown. There was, of

course, no weekly rest on Sundays; but festivals, which were whole

holidays, were numerous throughout Hellas, and, in Alexandria at any

rate, on the 7th and 20th of every month the schools were closed,

these days being sacred to Apollo.[212] There were also special school

festivals, such as that of the Muses, and holidays in commemoration of

benefactors; thus Anaxagoras left a bequest to Klazomenai, on

condition that the day of his death should be celebrated annually by a

holiday in the schools.[213] It must also be remembered that one of

the three branches of Primary Education in Hellas would be called play

in England: an afternoon spent in running races, jumping, wrestling,

or riding would not be regarded as work by an English schoolboy.

Music, too, is usually learned during play-hours in an English school.

Even Letters, when the elementary stage was past, meant reciting,

reading, or learning by heart the literature of the boy’s own

language, and most of it not stiff literature by any means, but such

fascinating fairy-tales as are found in Homer. There is little trace

of Hellenic boys creeping unwillingly to school: their lessons were

made eminently attractive.

Of the fees which were paid to schoolmasters little is known. An

amusing passage in Lucian,[214] dealing with the under-world,

describes those who had been kings or satraps upon earth as reduced in

the future state “to beggary, and compelled by poverty either to sell

kippers or to teach the elements of reading and writing.” From this it

may be inferred that elementary schoolmasters did not make much money

by their fees. This inference is supported by the fact that even the

poorest Athenians managed to send their sons to such schools. Plato in

the _Laws_ reserves the profession for foreigners, thus suggesting

that it was neither well paid nor highly esteemed. To call a man a

schoolmaster was almost an insult; Demosthenes, abusing Aischines,

says, “You taught letters, I went to school.”[215] The weakness of the

masters’ position may be seen too from the extreme contempt with which

their pupils seem to have treated them. The boys bring their

pets――cats and dogs and leopards――into school, and play with them

under the master’s chair. Theophrastos,[216] in describing the

characteristics of the mean man, says that “he does not send his

children to school all the month of Anthesterion” (that is, from the

middle of February to the middle of March) “on account of the number

of feasts.” The school-bills were paid by the month, and, since boys

did not go to school on the great festivals, and Anthesterion

contained many such days, the mean parent thought he would not get his

money’s worth for this particular month, and so withdrew his boys

while it lasted.

Mean parents also deducted from the fees in proportion, if their sons

were absent from school owing to ill-health for a day or two;[217] but

this was not usually done. The bills were paid on the 30th of each

month.[218] Schoolmasters apparently had some difficulty in getting

their bills paid at all; according to Demosthenes’ statement, his

bills were never paid, owing to the fraudulent behaviour of his

guardian Aphobos.[219]

No doubt the fees varied according to the merits of the school, for

the schools at Athens seem to have differed greatly. Demosthenes, when

boasting of his career, in his speech _On the Crown_, says that he

went as a boy to the _respectable_ schools;[220] the quality and

quantity of the teaching must have been varied to suit the parent’s

pocket. For the poor there would probably be schools where only the

elements of reading and writing were taught. In the higher class of

school these elements would be taught by under-masters, frequently

slaves; but free citizens might also be reduced by poverty to take

such a post. This may be seen from the case of the father of

Aischines, the orator.[221] Impoverished and exiled like many

democrats by the Thirty Tyrants, he returned with the Restoration a

ruined man. To earn his living, he became an usher at the school of

one Elpias, close to the Theseion, and taught letters: his son

Aischines seems to have begun his life by assisting his father in this

occupation. His opponent, Demosthenes, takes advantage of the contempt

with which these ushers were regarded to declare that the father was a

slave of Elpias,[222] “wearing big fetters and a collar,” and the son

was employed in “grinding the ink and sponging the forms and sweeping

out the schoolroom (παιδαγωγεῖον [paidagôgeion]), the work of a

servant, not of a free boy.”

No doubt letters and music were often taught at the same school, in

different rooms. Such an arrangement would be natural and convenient.

The vases suggest it, but their evidence is uncertain. The school

buildings seem often to have been surrounded by playgrounds. A passage

in Aelian[223] shows us the boys, just let out of school, playing at

tug-of-war. No doubt in these places they played with their hoops and

tops, and amused themselves with pick-a-back and the stone- and

dice-games which corresponded to our marbles. In villages these

playgrounds probably did duty as palaistrai.

The headmaster of the school sat on a chair with a high back;

under-masters and boys had stools without backs, but cushions were

provided. For lessons in class there were benches.[224] There

was a high reading-desk for recitations. Round the walls hung

writing-tablets, rulers, and baskets or cases containing manuscript

rolls labelled with the author’s name, composing the school library;

the rolls might also hang by themselves.[225] Masters were expected to

possess at any rate a copy of Homer――Alkibiades thrashed one who did

not. Sometimes they emended their edition themselves.[226] In the

music-schools hung lyres and flutes and flute-cases. The παιδαγωγειον

[paidagôgeion] mentioned by Demosthenes may have been an anteroom

where the paidagogoi sat, but more probably the word is only a

rhetorical variant for “schoolroom.” There were often busts of the

Muses round the walls,[227] which were also decorated with vases,

serving for domestic purposes, and, perhaps, illustrating with their

pictures the books which the boys were reading. At a later date, at

any rate, a series of cartoons, illustrating scenes in the _Iliad_ and

_Odyssey_, were sometimes hung upon the walls: the “Tabula Iliaca,”

now in the Capitoline Museum, has been recognised as a fragment of

such a series.

The first stage was to learn to read and write. Instead of a slate,

boys in Hellas had tablets of wax, usually made in two halves, so as

to fold on a hinge in the middle, the waxen surfaces coming inwards

and so being protected. Sometimes there were three pieces, forming a

triptych, or even more. For pencil, they had an instrument with a

sharp point at one end, suitable for making marks on the wax, and a

flat surface at the other, which was used to erase what had been

written, and so make the tablets ready for future use. These tablets

are shown in the school-scenes on the fifth-century vases.[228] At a

later period, when parchment and papyrus became more common, these

materials were used in the schools. Lines could be ruled with a lump

of lead, and writing done either with ink and a reed pen or with lead;

for erasures a sponge was employed.

The early stages of learning to write are described in the

_Protagoras_ of Plato.[229] “When a boy is not yet clever at writing,

the masters first draw lines, and then give him the tablet and make

him write as the lines direct.” The passage has been variously

interpreted. Some regard the master as merely writing a series of

letters which the boy is to copy underneath. The word used in Greek

for the master’s writing is ὑπογράψαντες [hypograpsantes], and it is

significant that the word for a “copy” in this sense is a derivative

of this word, ὑπογραμμός [hypogrammos]. Such a copy, corresponding to

the phrases like “England exports engines” or “Germany grows grapes,”

which are employed in English schools for this purpose, is

extant.[230] It is a nonsense sentence designed to contain all the

letters of the alphabet μάρπτε σφὶγξ κλὼψ ζβυχθηδόν [marpte sphinx

klôps zbychthêdon]. If this rendering is correct, the master wrote a

sentence of this sort on the tablets, and the boy copied it

underneath. Others interpret the lines which the master draws on the

tablet as parallel straight lines, within which the boy had to write.

Just such a device is often employed in English copy-books. The word

used for “lines,” γραμμαί [grammai], usually means “straight lines,”

which supports this interpretation. But ὑπογραφή [hypographê], on the

other hand, a derivative of ὑπογράφειν [hypographein], is used for

irregular traces, _e.g._ a footstep,[231] and ὑπογράφειν

[hypographein] itself is a technical term in Hellenic art for

“sketching in” what is afterwards to be finished in detail.

Consequently a third rendering of the passage makes the master draw a

faint, rough outline of the various letters, and the boy has to go

over them with his pen, marking the grooves in the wax deeper and

filling in the details. For example, in England, the master might draw

|·| and the boy go over the two vertical lines and draw in the other

two, M. Thus all three interpretations are sensible and rest on good

authority. But surely the master may be regarded as adopting all three

processes, according to the intelligence of the pupils. For the

beginner he would outline the whole letter, and leave him only the

task of going over it again. Then he would gradually give less and

less help, till the boy was capable of writing the letters with the

assistance of the parallel lines alone. Finally these would be

withdrawn, and the boy would be left to write his imitation of the

copy without assistance. The phrase in Plato is purposely vague, and

will include the whole of this process.

The letters were written in lines horizontal and vertical, so that

they fell beneath one another. No stops or accents were inserted, and

no spaces were left between words. The writing-master probably ruled

both the horizontal and the vertical lines on the tablet for his

pupil. On the Vase of Douris,[232] an under-master is represented as

writing with his pen on a wax tablet, while a boy stands in front of

him. He is probably meant either to be writing a copy or else

correcting his pupil’s exercise. Over his head hangs a ruler, for

marking out the guiding lines on the tablet. Behind the boy sits a

bearded man with a staff, who is probably the paidagogos. The boys in

the class are clearly coming up one by one to receive their copies or

have their exercises corrected, while the rest are doing their

writing. It will be noticed that there is no desk or table: the

Hellenes wrote with their tablets on their knees.

As soon as the boy had acquired a certain facility in writing, he

entered the dictation class. The master read out something, and the

boys wrote it down.[233] At first, of course, very simple words would

be dictated, and there would not be much to write. But, later on, the

boys would write at his dictation passages of the poets and other

authors. For this purpose, ink and parchment may sometimes have been

employed: Aischines seems to have “ground ink”[234] for a

writing-school. Various “elaborations in the way of speed and beauty”

of writing seem to have been customary in the case of more advanced

pupils.[235] Possibly they learnt to make flourishes and ornamental

letters. Speed would naturally be taught, for it was usual to take

notes at the lectures of Sophists and Philosophers, and speed is

required for this purpose. This must have involved the use of the

cursive letters, which otherwise were not needed, for the Hellene had

not very much writing to do, unless he became a clerk to a public

body.

Learning to read must have been a difficult business in Hellas, for

books were written in capitals at this time. There were no spaces

between the words, and no stops were inserted. Thus, the reader had to

exercise much ingenuity before he could arrive at the meaning of a

sentence. Still more difficult for the boys to grasp was the Attic

accent, upon which the masters set a great importance. So difficult

was it, that few foreigners ever acquired it, and a born Athenian, if

he went abroad for a few years, often lost the power of speaking with

the Attic intonation. The first step in learning to read is to acquire

the alphabet. The Hellenes, wishing, as usual, to make learning as

easy as possible, seem to have put the alphabet into verse. A metrical

alphabet, ascribed to Kallias, a contemporary of Perikles, is still

extant, but in a mutilated form, which has been restored in several

not very convincing ways. Probably it has been adapted to suit

different alphabets, for there were several current in different parts

of Hellas. The following is a conjectural restoration:――

ἔστ’ ἄλφα, βῆτα, γάμμα, δέλτα τ’, εἶ τε, καί

[est’ alpha, bêta, gamma, delta t’, ei te, kai]

ζῆτ’, ἦτα, θῆτ’, ἴωτα, κάππα, λάβδα, μῦ,

[zêt’, êta, thêt’, iôta, kappa, labda, mu,]

νῦ, ξεῖ, τὸ οὖ, πεῖ, ῥῶ, τὸ σίγμα, ταῦ, τὸ ὖ,

[nu, xei, to ou, pei, rhô, to sigma, tau, to u,]

πάροντα φεῖ τε χεῖ τε τῷ ψεῖ εἰς τὸ ὦ.

[paronta phei te chei te tô psei eis to ô.]

This complete alphabet of twenty-four letters, which appears in modern

Greek Grammars, was not adopted for official purposes at Athens till

403 B.C., “but it is clear that it was in ordinary use at Athens

considerably earlier.”[237]

This metrical alphabet formed the prologue to what may be called a

spelling-drama, in which the whole process of learning to spell was

expressed either in iambic lines or in choral songs. Since its author,

Kallias, is coupled with Strattis, the comic poet,[238] it may be

inferred that the play was a comedy, not a tragedy; the chorus would

then be twenty-four in number. Each member of the chorus represented

one of the twenty-four letters. In the first choric song the letters

were put together in pairs, in the fashion of a spelling class. The

first strophé runs as follows:――

Beta Alpha BA

Beta Ei BĔ

Beta Eta BĒ

Beta Iota BI

Beta Ou BŎ

Beta U BU

Beta O BŌ[239]

In the corresponding antistrophé Gamma was similarly coupled with the

seven vowels, and so on apparently through the alphabet. During the

song, which was set to excellent music, the members of the chorus,

dressed to represent the letters quite clearly, and no doubt posturing

in the right attitude, would form themselves into the required pairs.

Thus, during the first line Beta and Alpha would come together, during

the second Beta and Ei, and so on. After this song came a lecture on

the vowels, in iambic verse, the chorus being told to repeat them one

by one after the speaker. There seems to have been a plot of some sort

in this extraordinary drama, but the main interest was, no doubt, the

spelling. Opportunities were also taken for describing the shapes of

the letters, the audience having to guess what letter was intended.

This kind of alphabetical puzzle seems to have caught the popular

fancy at Athens, for Euripides, Agathon, and Theodektes all employed

it. In each case the concealed word was “Theseus.”

Euripides’ description, if it be his, may be rendered thus:――

First, such a circle as is measured out

By compasses, a clear mark in the midst.

The second letter is two upright lines,

Another joining them across their middles.

The third is like a curl of hair. The fourth,

One upright line and three crosswise infixed.

The fifth is hard to tell: from several points

Two lines run down to form one pedestal.

The last is with the third identical.

In the same spirit, Sophocles, in his satyric drama _Amphiaraos_,

introduced an actor who represented the shapes of the letters by his

dancing.[240] Periclean Athens seems to have taken a very keen

interest in matters of spelling: the audience must all have known

their letters, or such devices could never have become so popular.

Kallias’ play is the ancestor of such books as _Reading without

Tears_. His dramatic presentation of the process of spelling must have

caught the imagination and impressed the memory of many Athenian boys.

It may even be suspected that his method was adopted in enterprising

schools, and spelling lessons were conducted to a tune, perhaps even

accompanied by dancing.[241] The tunes of Kallias were highly praised,

and were, no doubt, very different from the monotonous drone which

announces to the outside world the presence of a Board School.

To return to more prosaic methods. Plato gives an interesting

sketch[242] of a reading class. “When boys have just learnt their

letters, they recognise any of them readily enough in the shortest and

easiest syllables, and are able to give a correct answer about them.

But in the longer and more difficult syllables they are not certain,

but form a wrong opinion and answer wrongly. Then the best way is to

take them back to the syllables in which they recognise the same

letters and then compare them with those in which they made mistakes,

and, putting them side by side, show that in both combinations the

same letters have the same meaning.”

Take an English example. The master writes SCRAPE on the blackboard

and asks the boys to tell him what letters it contains. The class fail

to recognise the letters: the word is too long and difficult. The

master then writes beside it consecutively APE, RAPE, CAPE, in all of

which the boys recognise the letters correctly. Then CRAPE and SCRAP.

From these he passes on to SCRAPE, which they now recognise by analogy

from the words which they know already. “Finally, they learn always to

give the same name to the same letter whenever it comes.”[243]

The methods by which boys learn to spell are the same in all ages.

“When boys come together to learn their letters, they are asked what

letters there are in some word or other.”[244] A certain amount of

mental arithmetic seems to have been included in this stage of

spelling: the pupils were asked _how many_ letters there were in a

word, as well as the order in which they were arranged.[245] But this

will be discussed later.

While the boys were still unable to read, and often afterwards owing

to the comparative scarcity of books, the master dictated to them the

poetry which he intended them to learn by heart, and they repeated it

after him.

The Kulix of Douris gives an interesting picture of either a reading

or a repetition lesson.[246] On a high-backed chair sits an elderly

master, holding a roll in his hand. On it is inscribed what is clearly

meant to be an hexameter line from some epic poet, but Douris was not

very well educated, and so the line is misspelt and will not scan. In

front of the master stands a boy, behind whom sits an elderly man who

is probably, as in the writing scene, a paidagogos. The master may be

dictating the poem while the boy learns it by heart after him, or he

may be hearing him say it. But very possibly the scene represents a

reading-lesson. The attitudes of boy and master are not very

convenient, if both are reading out of the same book; but this was

unavoidable, for, owing to the canons of vase-painting, the figures

could only be full-faced or in profile, and the front of the

manuscript had to be turned in such a way as to be legible.

On the walls of the school hang a manuscript rolled up and tied with a

string, and an ornamental basket. These baskets were used as

bookcases, to hold the manuscript rolls. They may sometimes be seen on

vases suspended over the heads of reading figures, as in the British

Museum vase,[247] which represents a woman reading a scroll. The

paidagogos, we may notice, is revealing his humble origin by crossing

his feet, a serious offence against good manners in Hellas.

“When the boys knew their letters and were beginning to understand

what was written, the masters put beside them on the benches the works

of good poets for them to read, and made them learn them by heart.

They chose for this purpose poets that contained many moral precepts,

and narratives and praises of the heroes of old, in order that the boy

might admire them and imitate them and desire to become such a man

himself.”[248] It is noteworthy that Hellenic boys began at once with

the very best literature to be found in their language: there was no

preliminary course of childish tales. Grammar, when invented, was

taught at a later stage: the boys plunged straight into literature.

The schoolmasters at Athens differed as to which was the best way of

introducing boys to their national literature. The great majority held

that a properly educated boy ought to be saturated in all poetry,

comic and serious, hearing much of it in the reading class, and

learning much of it――in fact, whole poets――by heart.[249] A minority

would pick out the leading passages,[250] the “purple patches,” and

certain whole speeches,[251] and put them together and have them

committed to memory. Plato argued in favour of expurgated editions of

passages carefully selected according to a very strict standard, since

much in literature was good and much bad.[252]

Homer, of course, played the largest part in these literary studies;

from early times “he was given an honourable place in the teaching of

the young.”[253] Vast quantities of the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ were

learnt by heart. Nikeratos, in Xenophon,[254] says: “My father,

wishing me to grow up into a good man, made me learn all the lines of

Homer; and now I can repeat the whole of the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_

from memory.” Such prodigious feats were, no doubt, assisted by the

rhapsodes, who could be heard at Athens declaiming Homer “nearly every

day.”[255] The Hellenes did not let their greatest poet lie neglected,

to be “revived” at long intervals. Homer was supposed to teach

everything, especially soldiering and good morals. “I suppose you

know,” continues Nikeratos,[256] “that Homer, the wisest of men, has

written about all human matters. So whoever of you wishes to excel as

a householder or public speaker or general, or desires to become like

Achilles or Aias or Nestor or Odusseus, let him come to me.” Then he

proceeds to show how, for example, the poet gives full directions

about the proper way to drive a chariot in a race. Aristophanes[257]

makes the shade of Aeschylus say, “Whence did divine Homer win his

honour and renown, save from this, that he taught drill, courage, the

arming of troops? Many a man of valour he trained, and our own dead

hero, Lamachos. I took my print from him, and represented many deeds

of valour done by a Patroklos or lion-hearted Teukros, to rouse my

countrymen to model themselves upon such men, when they heard the

trumpet sound.”

The great poet does not seem to have been taught pedantically; the

attention of the boys was not concentrated simply on the difficulties

of the Homeric vocabulary. In fact, probably they were little troubled

with such points; the sense, the rhythm, and the beauty of the

original do not depend upon an exact understanding of every word, as

many a modern reader has discovered. In a fragment of Aristophanes,[258]

a father asks his son the meaning of some hard words in Homer, such as

ἀμένηνα κάρηνα [amenêna karêna] and κόρυμβα [korymba]; the son is

quite unable to translate them, at any rate when separated from their

context, and can only retort by asking his father to interpret some

archaic phrases in Solon’s laws. A later comic poet[259] introduced a

cook who insisted on using Homeric language, just as a modern _chef_

writes his _menu_ in French; the man who has hired him is ludicrously

unable to understand his phrases, and has to go in search of a

commentary.

Explanations and interpretations of supposed moral allegories in

Homer, and lessons drawn from a close study of his characters, were

very popular in Hellas, and no doubt figured in the schools.

If Homer occupied the first place in literary education, other leading

authors were not neglected. All the great poets were made useful.

“Orpheus taught ceremonial rites and abstinence from bloodshed, and

Mousaios medicine and oracles, and Hesiod the tillage of land, the

seasons of fruits and ploughing.”[260] Hesiod probably served more as

a theological handbook than as a manual of agriculture; the moral

precepts to Perses in the _Works and Days_ probably also found favour

with schoolmasters. The fourth-century comic poet Alexis gives an

interesting catalogue of a school library.[261] Besides Orpheus,

Hesiod, and Homer, who have been mentioned already, there are

Epicharmos, Choirilos, the author of an epic poem on the Persian war,

and what is called vaguely “tragedy,” probably meaning a selection

from the great tragedians. We can see from Plato’s attacks that

Aeschylus and Euripides must have been important in the schools, and

we know that Athenian gentlemen were expected to be able to recite

them at dinner-parties, and must therefore have learnt them by heart.

The vague words “tragedy” and “comedy” are similarly used of the

recitations of the boys at Teos. Various editions of moral precepts

were also popular. Among these were _The Precepts of Cheiron_, or

Cheironeia, supposed to have been given by the wise Centaur to his

pupil Achilles and put into verse by Hesiod; on a vase at Berlin three

boys are seen reading this work with apparent interest. The extant

lines of Theognis are often supposed to represent a school edition of

the poet’s works, containing the more improving portions. The lyric

poets were taught at the lyre-school, and I shall discuss them later.

Alexis also mentions “all sorts of prose works” in the school library.

The only one of these to which he gives a more definite name is a

cookery-book by Simos. But that is only introduced for the sake of a

joke; such a work would not, of course, figure in an Athenian school.

Aesop may have been a prose work read in schools; it was considered

the sign of an ignoramus “not to have thumbed Aesop,” or to be able to

quote him.[262] Such moral works as Prodikos’ _Choice of Herakles_

were probably popular in schools. The case of Lusis in Plato suggests

that some of the old nature-philosophers may have been read. No doubt

the school library varied according to the taste of the master, and

his freedom of choice may have led to some curious selections. But on

the whole prose works very rarely figured in the elementary schools,

partly because they were usually too technical, still more because the

artistic and literary sense of the Hellenes regarded poetry, if only

because of its greater beauty and its imaginative value, as better for

educational purposes than prose.

It must be remembered that when boys recited Homer or Aeschylus or

Euripides, they acted them, delivering even the narrative with a great

deal of gesture, and dramatising the speeches as fully as they could.

The almost daily recitations of the rhapsodes, and the frequent

dramatic performances in the theatres, gave them plenty of examples of

the way to act. The Hellenes were extremely sensitive and sympathetic:

they were a nation of actors. The rhapsode Ion tells Plato that, when

he recited Homer, his eyes watered and his hair stood on end. This may

give the modern reader some idea of what his repetition-lesson meant

to a boy at Athens. More may be gathered from Plato’s vehement

denunciations of dramatisation in poetry intended for use in schools;

he believed that this continuous acting exerted an evil influence upon

character. But this question will be discussed elsewhere.

The schoolrooms were used as the scene of lectures, to which grown-up

men were invited; probably the lectures would be given to the boys at

a different time. The wandering teacher, Hippias of Elis, meeting

Sokrates one day, invited him to such a lecture, which, from its

subject, was clearly meant mainly for the young.[263] After the fall

of Troy, according to the story which Hippias invented for the

occasion, Neoptolemos asked the wise old Nestor what was good and

honourable conduct and what manner of life would cause a young man to

win renown. Given this convenient opening, Nestor replied by

suggesting many excellent rules of conduct. Hippias had delivered this

lecture at Sparta, where it had won great applause. He now proposes,

he says, “to deliver it the day after to-morrow in the schoolroom of

Pheidostratos, and to impart much other valuable information at the

same time, at the request of Eudikos son of Apemantos. Mind you come

and bring any friends who will be capable of appreciating what I say.”

No doubt it was a very excellent little sermon on the duties of life,

closely analogous to Prodikos’ famous _Choice of Herakles_, and most

improving for the pupils of Pheidostratos, if they were allowed to

attend.

One charming picture of two Athenian school friends,[264] in their

sleeveless tunics, is extant. “I saw you, Sokrates,” says a guest at a

dinner-party, “when you and Kritoboulos at the School of Letters were

both looking for something in the same book, putting your head against

his, and your bare shoulder against his shoulder.”

It is also recorded that the Athenians were great hands at

nicknames:[265] it may be inferred that this peculiarity extended also

to their schoolboys.

A vivid picture of school life has recently come to light in the third

Mime of Herondas. It belongs to the Alexandrian period in point of

date, but many of its details will, no doubt, suit the Athenian

schools just as well; it is, however, quite inconceivable that gags

and fetters were used as punishments at Athens in the schools.

A mother, Metrotimé, brings her truant boy, Kottalos, to his

schoolmaster Lampriskos to receive a flogging.

METROTIMÉ. Flog him, Lampriskos,[266]

Across the shoulders, till his wicked soul

Is all but out of him. He’s spent my all

In playing odd and even: knucklebones

Are nothing to him. Why, he hardly knows

The door o’ the Letter School. And yet the thirtieth

Comes round and I must pay――tears no excuse.

His writing-tablet, which I take the trouble

To wax anew each month, lies unregarded

I’ the corner. If by chance he deigns to touch it,

He scowls like Hades, then puts nothing right

But smears it out and out. He doesn’t know

A letter, till you scream it twenty times.

The other day his father made him spell

MARON; the rascal made it SIMON; dolt

I thought myself to send him to a school:

Ass-tending is his trade. Another time

We set him to recite some childish piece;

He sifts it out like water through a crack,

“Apollo,” pause, then “hunter.”

The poor mother goes on to say that it is useless to scold the boy;

for, if she does, he promptly runs away from home to sponge upon his

grandmother, or sits up on the roof out of the way, like an ape,

breaking the tiles, which is expensive for his parents.

Yet he knows

The seventh and the twentieth of the month,

Whole holidays, as if he read the stars.

He lies awake o’ nights adreaming of them.

But, so may yonder Muses prosper you,

Give him in stripes no less than――――

LAMPRISKOS. Right you are.

Here, Euthias, Kokkalos, and Phillos, hoist him

Upon your backs.[267] I like your goings on,

My boy. I’ll teach you manners. Where’s my strap,

The stinging cow’s-tail!

KOTTALOS. By the Muses, Sir,

Not with the stinger.

LAMP. Then you shouldn’t be

So naughty.

KOTT. O, how many will you give me?

LAMP. Your mother fixes that.

KOTT. How many, mother?

METR. As many as your wicked hide can bear.

KOTT. Stop, that’s enough, stop.

LAMP. You should stop your ways.

KOTT. I’ll never do it more, I promise you.

LAMP. Don’t talk so much, or else I’ll bring a gag.

KOTT. I won’t talk, only do not kill me, please.

LAMP. Let him down, boys.

METR. No, leather him till sunset.

LAMP. Why, he’s as mottled as a water-snake.

METR. Well, when he’s done his reading, good or bad,

Give him a trifle more, say twenty strokes.

KOTT. Yah!

METR. I’ll go home and get a pair of fetters.

Our Lady Muses, whom he scorned, shall see

Their scorner hobble here with shackled feet.

The exact age at which arithmetic was taught to boys at Athens

involves a somewhat complicated inquiry. The arrangements which Plato

makes in the _Republic_ and _Laws_ defer this subject till the age of

sixteen. In the _Laws_[268] he says: “It remains to discuss, first the

question of Letters, and secondly that of the Lyre and practical

arithmetic――by which I mean so much as is necessary for purposes of

war and household management and the work of government.” His citizens

will also require, he thinks, enough astronomy to make the calendar

intelligible to them. In this passage he distinctly couples practical

arithmetic with music; and when he proceeds to detail, he makes the

study of the lyre last from thirteen to sixteen, and then deals with

arithmetic, the weights and measures, and the astronomical calendar,

studies which terminate with the seventeenth year. This course is

designed for all the free boys in his State: it is to be noticed that

it is eminently practical, elementary, and concrete. In the _Republic_

he is educating a few picked boys: before they are eighteen they are

to have gone through a course of abstract and theoretical mathematics,

the Theory of Numbers, Plane and Solid Geometry, Kinetics and

Harmonics. Thus he mentions two sorts of mathematics, the one

practical and concrete, called by the Hellenes λογιστική

[logistikê],[269] whose object is mainly mercantile, and the other

theoretical and abstract, which they called ἀριθμητική [arithmêtikê].

Both sorts are to be learned in the period next before the eighteenth

year.

But it must not be assumed that this was the case at Athens. The

philosopher is dealing with an ideal State, where education can be

arranged in the theoretically best way, not with the real Athens,

where the boy might be called away to the counting-house or the farm

at any moment, and many did not stay at school after they had once

learned to read and write. Moreover Plato, as a good Pythagorean, saw

a peculiar appropriateness in making numbers follow music, and his

Dorian sympathies made him divide up education into clearly marked

periods, in each of which only one subject was taught. This

arrangement, I have already shown, did not find favour at Athens.

His system must, then, be received with caution. It is inherently far

more probable that the simpler, practical arithmetic would be taught

at the elementary schools of letters, which all citizens, including

future tradesmen and artisans, attended, not at some later date in a

separate school. But can any evidence be found for such an

arrangement? Yes, Plato himself in the _Laws_[270] declares that the

future builder ought to play with toy bricks and learn weights and

measurements when he is a child. His builder, at any rate, cannot wait

to learn arithmetic till he is sixteen. Then, in the same work, he

quotes the instance of Egypt, where “a very large number of children

learn practical arithmetic _simultaneously with their letters_,” and

he goes on to commend the methods by which it was taught. Now Egypt in

the _Laws_ is represented as the home of ideal education, a sort of

Utopia. Again, in Plato[271] Protagoras blames his brother Sophists

for “leading their pupils _back_, much against their wish, and casting

them _again_ into the sciences from which they have escaped, practical

arithmetic and astronomy and geometry and music.” How could the

Sophists[272] be described as “leading them back and casting them

again” into studies from which they had escaped? Where had they learnt

these subjects before they were fourteen? It could only have been at

school. But what the Sophists taught must have been new to the boys,

or they would not have paid to learn it. It was new, because the

Sophists taught the advanced and theoretical stages, which appear in

the _Republic_, and the elementary schoolmasters taught the simpler

and concrete elements of arithmetic, weights and measures, and the

calendar, described in the _Laws_, which were necessary to every

Athenian citizen. From all this it may be assumed that the Athenian

boys, like Plato’s Egyptian boys, learnt simple arithmetic, weights

and measures, and perhaps the calendar, “simultaneously with their

letters.”

Now there are two passages in Xenophon which seem to suit this view.

They are not conclusive in themselves, but they give a valuable hint.

In the first[273] it is stated that any one who knows his letters

could say _how many_ letters there are in “Sokrates,” and in what

order they occur. In the second,[274] in the course of an argument,

two illustrations are used, in close connection with one another. The

passage runs:――“Take the case of Letters. Suppose some one asks you

how many letters there are in ‘Sokrates,’ and which are they?… Or take

the case of Numbers. Suppose some one asks what is twice five?” These

two quotations certainly make simple counting a part of learning

letters, with which study the second passage also closely connects the

multiplication table. It would seem that it was part of a spelling

lesson to answer such questions as “How many letters in ‘Sokrates’?”

Answer, “Eight.” “Where does R come?” Answer, “Fourth.” It may be

noticed also that the symbols of the numerals in ancient Hellas were,

with one or two exceptions, identical with the current alphabet. The

games with cubic dice and knucklebones, to which the boys were much

addicted, must also have needed some arithmetical skill. The natural

conclusion is that simple arithmetic, with, probably, the weights and

measures, and the outlines of the calendar, were taught by the

letter-master: the practice of music by the music-master: while the

theory of numbers, of astronomy, and of music were taught by the

Sophists to μειράκια [meirakia].

Fives

-------------------------------

| | |

| | | Thousands

| O | |

-------------------------------

| | |

| | | Hundreds

| | O O O |

-------------------------------

| | |

| | | Tens

| O | O O|

-------------------------------

| | |

| | | Units

| O | O O O|

-------------------------------

Simple counting was done on the fingers. “Reckon on your fingers,”

says a character in Aristophanes,[275] “not with pebbles.” A common

word for counting was πεμπάζειν [pempazein], “to reckon on the five

fingers”; the division of the month into three periods of ten days can

be traced to the same custom. But by various devices it was possible

to count up to very large numbers on the fingers. Pebbles were also

employed to assist in arithmetic. In the case of complicated accounts

a reckoning board (ἄβακος [abakos] or ἄβαξ [abax]) was used, on which

the pebbles varied in value according to their position. Such boards

go back to early days at Athens, for Solon compared the life of a

courtier to a pebble upon them, since he was now worth much and now

little.[276] A character in a fourth-century comedy[277] sends for an

abacus and pebbles, in order that he may do his accounts. The pebbles

were arranged in grooves, being worth one or ten or a hundred and so

forth, according to the groove in which they were placed. If they were

put on the left-hand side of the board, their value was multiplied by

five.[278] The various games of πεσσοί [pessoi], which somewhat

resembled chess, were played on a somewhat similar board to this, and

these chess-boards were known as ἄβακες [abakes]. Now the art of

playing with πεσσοί [pessoi] is more than once coupled by Plato with

arithmetic or mathematics generally in such a way as to show that the

game must have involved mathematical skill.[279] As was usual in

Athens, instruction went hand in hand with amusement, and, in playing

games, the boys learned arithmetic willingly. A similar value seems to

have attached to the game of knucklebones, which the boys in the

_Lusis_ are found playing during their whole holiday. Each boy carried

a large basket of knucklebones, and the loser in each game paid so

many of them over to the winner. The art of playing this game is also

coupled with mathematics by Plato;[280] so it must at any rate have

encouraged the study of arithmetic, in his opinion. In the school

scene of the British Museum amphora, a little bag, usually supposed to

contain knucklebones, is figured: so they may even have been used in

schools for teaching arithmetic. In another school scene this bag is

present with a lyre and ruler; so it was evidently part of the school

furniture.

[Illustration: PLATE III.

MUSIC-SCHOOL SCENES

From a Hudria in the British Museum (E 171).]

After such revelations of Hellenic educational methods, it is natural

to suppose that the ingenious devices by which the “Egyptians,”[281]

according to Plato, “make simple arithmetic into a game” for their

children, were really used in Attica. One of these devices[282] was as

follows. The master took, say, sixty apples. First he divided them

among two boys, who were made to count their share, thirty each; then

among three boys, twenty each; then among four, fifteen each; then

among five, twelve each; and then among six, ten each. This would

teach the system of factors. Then, again, a real or imaginary

competition in boxing or wrestling[283] was arranged, say in a class

of nine. The boys would work out, by actual experiment, how many

fights would be necessary, if each boy had to fight all the others one

by one, and how many if a system of rounds and byes was introduced.

This might even teach Permutations and Combinations.

In another case a number of bowls, some containing mixed coins, gold,

silver, and bronze, some all of one sort, would be handed round the

class. The boys would have to count them, add and subtract them, and

so on. Thus they would learn addition and subtraction of money, and

would also gain a clear knowledge of the national coinage.

Plato was immensely impressed with the educational value of

Arithmetic. “Those who are born with a talent for it,” he says, “are

quick at all learning; while even those who are slow at it, have their

general intelligence much increased by studying it.”[284] “No branch

of education is so valuable a preparation for household management and

politics, and all arts and crafts, sciences and professions, as

arithmetic; best of all, by some divine art, it arouses the dull and

sleepy brain, and makes it studious, mindful, and sharp.”[285]

The question of the more advanced stages of Mathematics, which were

taught to older boys, may be left for the chapter on Secondary

Education.

* * * * *

The chief and often the sole instrument taught in the music school was

the seven-stringed lyre,[286] with a large sounding-board originally

made of a tortoise’s shell.[287] It might be played either with the

hand or else with the “plektron” or striker; the boy Lusis had learnt

to do either.[288] The boys were also taught how to tighten and relax

the strings by turning the pegs till the proper degree of tension was

obtained. They brought their own lyre with them from home, the

paidagogos carrying it behind his charge. This was a wise regulation

from the master’s point of view; for the boys seem to have usually

ruined these instruments by their early efforts.[289] Like the piano,

the lyre required great delicacy of touch and very agile fingers, and

these qualities could only be obtained by continual practice.[290]

As would naturally be expected, individual tuition was usual in the

lyre-school; instrumental music cannot be learnt in class. The vases

make this point quite clear. The master has a single boy seated in

front of him; both hold lyres in their hands, to which they are

singing, the words of the song being sometimes represented by a string

of little dots. In Plate IV., on the left of this group, a boy is

coming up to take his turn, lyre in hand, while behind him stands his

paidagogos, leaning on a reading-desk and following his charge with

his eyes. On the right is a boy just taking up his flute-case and

preparing to depart, while another sits in the corner, wrapped in his

cloak, waiting for his turn to take a lesson. In Plate III.,[291] the

master is playing a barbitos and apparently singing, while the pupil

plays the flute. On the left is a flute-master playing, and a pupil

just leaving him, flute in hand. Another pupil, with a lyre, is

waiting to take a lesson from the master in the centre, and is amusing

himself meanwhile by playing with an animal that is probably a

leopard,[291] like that which figures in Plate IV. Another pet, a dog,

is howling in disgust at the music. On the right, a pupil with a flute

is advancing to take a lesson from the flute-master in front of him.

Behind him follows a young man, who may be an elder brother replacing

the customary paidagogos for the nonce, or an admirer. In the

background sits a small child, sucking his thumb, probably the younger

brother of one of the pupils, who has come, in accordance with

Aristotle’s advice, to look on, although still too young to learn.

[Illustration: PLATE IV.

IN A LYRE-SCHOOL

From a Hudria in the British Museum (E 172).]

As soon as his pupils knew how to play, the master taught them the

works of the great lyric poets,[292] which were not taught in the

school of letters. These were set to music, and the boys sang them and

played the accompaniment. Every gentleman at Athens was expected to be

able to sing and play in this manner when he went out to a

dinner-party. The custom, however, began to become unfashionable

during the Peloponnesian War. When old Strepsiades, in the

_Clouds_,[293] asked Pheidippides to take the lyre and sing a song of

Simonides, his new-fashioned son replies that playing the lyre was

quite out of date, and singing over the wine was only fit for a

slave-woman at the grindstone. Whether this state of feeling continued

and whether it had a prejudicial effect on the music-schools cannot be

decided. Sometimes the guests brought their boys to sing to the

company: in the _Peace_ the son of the hero Lamachos is going to sing

Homer, while the coward Kleonumos’ boy has a song of Archilochos

ready. Alkaios and Anakreon were also favourites;[294] the lyric

portions of Kratinos’ comedies, too, are mentioned as sung at

banquets:[295] no doubt, the same was true of the other great

comedians. As the iambic parts of Aeschylus and Euripides were recited

at the dinner-table, it is natural to suppose that their songs were

also sung. The aged Dikasts in the _Wasps_ sing the choruses from

Phrunichos’ _Sidonians_. Old songs like Lamprokles’ “Pallas, dread

sacker of cities” and Kudides’ “A cry that echoes afar” were popular

in earlier times. No doubt there was plenty of variety in accordance

with the master’s taste. At the music school, too, may have been

taught the metrical version, set to music, of the Athenian laws, which

was ascribed to Solon,[296] and that of the legislation of Charondas,

which Athenian gentlemen sang over their wine.[297] Athenian boys were

expected to know the laws by the time that they were epheboi, and may

well have been taught them in this convenient and attractive way at

the lyre-master’s. To know how to play the lyre became the mark of a

liberal education, since every one learned letters, but the poorest

did not enter the music-school. “He doesn’t know the way to play the

lyre,” became a proverb for an uneducated person, who had not had so

many opportunities in life as his wealthier fellow-citizens. So, as a

plea for a defendant we find――

He may have stolen. But acquit him, for

He doesn’t know the way to play the lyre.[298]

To this the Dikast retorts that he has not learnt the lyre either, so

he must be forgiven if he is so stupid as to condemn the accused.[299]

At the beginning of the fifth century the Hellenes were stimulated,

according to Aristotle,[300] by their growing wealth and importance to

make many educational experiments, especially in music. All manner of

musical instruments were tried in the music-schools, but were rejected

on trial, when the moral effects could be better appreciated. Among

the instruments thus found wanting was the flute. At one time the

flute became so popular at Athens that the majority of the free

citizens could play it. But its moral effect proved to be

unsatisfactory; it was the instrument which belonged to wild religious

orgies, and it aroused that hysterical and almost lunatic

excitement[301] which the Hellenes regarded as a useful medicine, when

taken at long intervals of time, for giving an outlet to such feelings

and working them off the system, in order that a long period of calm

might follow. But such a medicine was most unsuitable to be the daily

food of boys. The flute had two other disadvantages. It distorted the

face sufficiently to horrify a sensitive Hellene.[302] It also

prevented the use of the voice: the boys could not sing to it, as they

sang to the lyre. So Athena, in the old legend, had been quite right

in throwing the instrument away in disgust: it was only suitable for a

Phrygian Satyr, for it made no appeal to the intellect, but only to

the passions.[303]

This is Aristotle’s account. It may be objected that the vases which

represent scenes in the music-schools show the flute and the lyre

being taught side by side, and apparently equally popular. But these

vases can mostly be traced more or less certainly to the first half of

the fifth century, and so they bear out Aristotle’s statement.

Moreover, the flute did not, of course, die out in Hellas by any

means; it only became an extra, instead of the regular instrument in

schools. The most notable Athenians, Kallias and Kritias and

Alkibiades, are said to have played it.[304] It always remained

popular at Thebes. But at Athens, in the banquets, while the guests

usually played the lyre themselves, the flute was as a rule only

played by professional flute-girls,[305] although on the vases the

guests are sometimes found performing on this instrument also.[306]

Probably the Athenian attitude may be summed up in the “ancient

proverb”:[307]

A flutist’s brains can never stay:

He puffs his flute, they’re puffed away.

It was usual to play on two flutes at the same time. Such a pair has

been found,[308] together with a lyre, in a tomb at Athens. The flutes

are somewhat over a foot in length, and have five holes on the upper

and one on the lower side. Each has a separate mouthpiece. Besides

this, flute-players sometimes wore a sort of leathern muzzle[309] over

their mouths; but this does not appear in the schools. The pair of

flutes were carried in a double case, made of some spotted skin; it

had a pocket on one side, to hold the mouthpieces,[310] and a cord

attached by which it could be hung up when not in use. The two flutes

seem to have corresponded to treble and bass, “male” and “female” as

Herodotos calls them. The treble was on the right, the bass on the

left.[311] Flutes could be set to different harmonies, apparently by

some rearrangement of stops. In the case of the flute, as in the case

of the lyre, individual tuition was the rule. First the master played

an air, and then the boy had to repeat it, while the master

criticised.[312] Or the master played the air on a barbitos and sang

to it, while the pupil accompanied him on the flute. This method had

two advantages. The master was able to play at the same time as the

boy, and give him instruction while playing, which the flute prevented

him from doing. The song, too, which he was enabled to sing obviated

one of the chief disadvantages of the flute: for the Hellenes objected

to instrumental music as meaningless, unless it was accompanied by

words.

There seem to have been music-schools scattered throughout Attica,

besides those established in the capital: the description of the

village boys marching off to the lyre-master’s in a snow-storm without

overcoats has already been quoted. The names of a few masters are

extant. Lampros taught Sophocles the poet.[313] Sokrates[314]

recommends Nikias to send his son to the famous Damon, who “is not

merely a first-class musician, but also just the man to be with boys

like this.” But whether these musicians kept regular schools cannot be

ascertained. Sokrates himself in his later years attended the

music-school of Konnos, and learned among the boys. “I am disgracing

Konnos the music-master,” he says, “who is still teaching me to play

the lyre. The boys who are my schoolfellows laugh at me and call

Konnos the ‘Greybeard teacher.’”[315] The same Konnos adopted the

common but iniquitous custom of bestowing his chief attention on his

more promising pupils, while neglecting the backward.[316]

Aristophanes caricatures Kleon’s school-days as follows: “The boys who

went to school with Kleon say he would often set his lyre to the

Dorian (= Gift-ian) harmony alone. Finally, the lyre-master lost his

temper and told the paidagogos to take him away, saying, “This boy

can’t learn anything but the Briberian (Dorodokisti) mode.”[317]

The attitude of the philosophers towards music will be discussed

elsewhere. Plato’s view may be summed up in the words which he puts in

the mouth of Protagoras the Sophist.[318] “The music-master makes

rhythm and harmony familiar to the souls of the boys, and they become

gentler and more refined, and having more rhythm and harmony in them,

they become more efficient in speech and in action. The whole life of

Man stands in need of good harmony and good rhythm.” Aristotle’s

attitude is briefly this. “Music is neither a necessary nor a useful

accomplishment in the sense in which Letters are useful, but it

provides a noble and worthy means of occupying leisure-time.”[319]

* * * * *

Aristotle mentions that in his day some added drawing and painting to

the three parts of the course.[320] It was not universal, like these,

and it does not seem to have started till the fourth century. In the

_Republic_ and _Laws_ Plato does not attack and criticise it among the

other educational subjects; but it plays so prominent a part in the

_Republic_ that it is obvious that the philosopher regarded it as a

dangerous enemy to the views which he wished to spread. It is

noticeable that the discussion of Art comes in as an after-thought, in

Book X. May it not be inferred that when Plato wrote the earlier

books, drawing and painting were not yet in vogue in the schools, but

they became popular before he had finished his great work?

In Periclean Athens the possibilities of artistic training had

certainly existed. In the _Protagoras_,[321] as an instance in some

argument, it is suggested that the lad Hippokrates might “go to this

young fellow who has been in Athens of late, Zeuxippos of Heraklea.

Every day that he was with him he would improve as an artist.” Earlier

in the same dialogue Sokrates remarks that his friend might go to

Polukleitos or Pheidias, and pay to be taught sculpture.[322] The

large numbers of boys who became apprentices to the potters at Athens

must have learned line-drawing and designing and painting from the

earliest times. But art probably did not become a usual part of a

liberal, as distinct from a technical, education till the middle of

the fourth century.

This date is fixed by a passage in Pliny.[323] According to him, its

introduction was due to Pamphilos the Macedonian. At his instance,

first at Sikuon, where he lived, and afterwards in the rest of Hellas,

free boys were taught before everything painting on boxwood, and this

art was included in the first rank of the liberal arts. Now Pamphilos’

picture of the Herakleidai is mentioned in the _Ploutos_ of

Aristophanes, which appeared in 388 B.C. Apelles, his pupil, began to

come into prominence about 350: Pamphilos himself seems to have lived

on till the close of the century. The introduction of painting into

the schools at Sikuon may therefore be dated, roughly, about 360 B.C.,

and from there the custom spread over Hellas. By 300 B.C. no doubt art

had become a regular part of the educational curriculum; for the

philosopher Teles,[324] who probably lived about that time, mentions

the gymnastic trainer, the letter-master, the musician, and the

painter as the four chief burdens of boys. A trace of the new

art-schools, with their technical vocabulary, is found in the _Laws_,

the work of Plato’s old age:[325] “paint in or shade off,” he says,

“or whatever the artists’ boys call it.”

Of the methods used in drawing and painting in Hellas little trace is

left. Polugnotos and his contemporaries had produced idealised

pictures, taking points from many beautiful men and women and uniting

them to make one perfect man or woman. When Idealism gave way to

Realism in Hellas, the change affected painting also. The artists

tried to create a real illusion in their works, taking subjects like

chairs or tables and making the spectator believe them to be

real. They were helped by the developments of perspective and

foreshortening, which were discovered at this time. It is against this

exaggerated realism and the choice of homely subjects that Plato’s

attack is directed: he hates such illusions as shams.[326] In the

diatribes of the _Republic_ the possibility of idealised painting

seems to be forgotten. Whether the boys in the art-schools also

suffered by this change and were condemned to draw chairs and tables

only cannot be decided.

The pupils, of course, did not have paper to draw and paint upon, nor

was canvas employed. Ordinarily they used white wood, boxwood for

preference, owing to its smoothness. Lead or charcoal would serve for

drawing; for erasures, instead of india-rubber a sponge was used.[327]

They may, perhaps, have practised on their wax tablets. One process

was σκιαγραφία [skiagraphia] “shadow-drawing,” which produced rough

sketches in light and shade: these seem to have been only intelligible

when considered from a distance. Plato regarded them with distrust, as

a sort of conjuring.[328]

In ordinary painting, which might be either watercolour or

encaustic,[329] the first thing was to sketch in the outline

(ὑπογράφειν, περιγραφή [hypographein, perigraphê]); the artist then

filled in (ἀπεργάζεσθαι [apergazesthai]) the picture with his colours,

with perpetual glances, now to the original, now to the copy, mixing

his paints the while. Beginners would, no doubt, rub out (ἐξαλείφειν

[exaleiphein]) frequently, and paint in again.

Aristotle,[330] in discussing artistic education, notices that it gave

boys a good eye for appreciating art, and enabled them to exercise

good taste in buying furniture, pottery, and other household

requisites, which, to judge from the scanty relics, must have been

masterpieces of beauty in the house of a cultivated Athenian. But

still more important, it gave them “an eye for bodily beauty”:[331]

which suggests that the human form, especially its proportions, formed

the chief study of the art-schools. Proportion was the essence of

Hellenic art; the great sculptors, as is well known, spent much time

in drawing up a canon of perfect proportions for the human body. The

boys may well have used their companions in the palaistrai for models,

and the canons of physical proportion which they were taught by the

art-master would serve to stimulate them with a desire to attain to

such a perfection of body by their own athletic exercises.

[207] Lucian, _Loves_, 44-45.

[208] Aischin. _ag. Timarch._ 12; Thuc. vii. 29; Plato,

_Laws_.

[209] Lucian, _Parasite_, 61.

[210] Aischin. _ag. Timarch._ 12.

[211] _Anthol. Palat._ x. 43 has been quoted as evidence

that six hours’ work a day was a maximum. The epigram runs:

“Six hours suffice for work; rest of the day, expressed in

numerals, says ζῆθι [zêthi], ‘enjoy life.’” But the point is

the joke that the numerals for 7, 8, 9, 10, the later hours

of the day, are ζʹ [z´], ηʹ [ê´], θʹ [th´], ιʹ [i´], which

spells ζῆθι [zêthi]. The epigram does not mean to state a

fact; the joke is its only _raison d’être_. In any case

schools are not mentioned.

[212] Herondas, _Schoolmaster_ (iii.) 53.

[213] Mahaffy, _Greek Education_, p. 54.

[214] Lucian, _Nekuom._ 17.

[215] Dem. _de Cor._ 315.

[216] Theoph. _Char._ 30.

[217] _Ibid._ 30.

[218] Herondas, iii. 3.

[219] Demos. _ag. Aphobos_, i. 828.

[220] Demos. _Crown_, 312.

[221] Demos. _Crown_, 270. This is the most probable

restoration of the facts from the statements of the opposing

orators.

[222] _Ibid._ 313.

[223] Aelian, _Var. Hist._ xii. 9 (at Klazomenai).

[224] Benches do not appear on vases, because a row of boys

involves elaborate perspective; the artist preferred to take

single boys on stools, as a sort of section of a class, just

as he gave the stools only two legs. Xen. _Banquet_, 4. 27,

shows two boys sitting side by side. It is not necessary to

reject benches, with Girard.

[225] Alexis, _Linos_ (in Athen. 164 B.C.). See Illustr.

Plates I. A and I. B.

[226] Plut. _Alkib._ 7.

[227] Herondas, iii. 83. 96.

[228] See Illustr. Plate No. I. A.

[229] Plato, _Protag._ 326 D.

[230] In Clement of Alexandria, who gives two others.

_Strom._ v. 8 (p. 675, Potter). A writing copy set by a

master, though not of the alphabetical kind described by

Clement, is actually extant on a wax tablet in the British

Museum (Add. MS. 34,186). It consists of two lines of verse

written out by the master and copied twice by a pupil.

[231] Aeschylus, _Choeph._ 209.

[232] Illustr. Plate I. A.

[233] Xen. _Econ._ xv. 5.

[234] Demosth. _de Cor._ 313.

[235] Plato, _Laws_, 810 A (cp. the prizes for calligraphy

in Teos).

[236] Athen. 453 d.

[237] Giles’ _Manual of Comparative Philology_, § 604.

[238] Athen. 453 c, d.

[239] A fragment of terra-cotta has been found at Athens,

containing on it:

αρ βαρ γαρ δαρ [ar bar gar dar]

ερ βερ γερ δερ [er ber ger der]

which must have belonged to some spelling-book――perhaps the

brick formed part of the wall of a schoolroom.――Quoted by

Girard, p. 131.

[240] Athen. 454 f.

[241] This is by no means inconceivable, when it is

remembered that the Hellenes often set even the laws to

music, in order to make them easier to learn and remember.

[242] Plato, _Polit._ 278 A, B.

[243] _Ibid._

[244] _Ibid._ 285 C.

[245] Xen. _Econ._ viii. 14.

[246] See Illustr. Plate I. A.

[247] Case E 190.

[248] Plato, _Protag._ 325 E.

[249] Plato, _Laws_, 811.

[250] τὰ κεφάλαια [ta kephalaia]――a phrase used in later

times for “commonplaces,” “topics,” which suggests that

these selections were of that sort.

[251] As the great speeches are picked out from Shakespeare

for “repetition” nowadays.

[252] Plato, _Laws_, 802, 811.

[253] Isokrates (_Paneg._ 74 A). He says the object was to

make the boys hate the barbarians; as, _e.g._, English boys

might learn _Henry V._ in order to dislike the French!

[254] Xen. _Banquet_, iii. 5.

[255] _Ibid_.

[256] _Ibid_. iv. 6.

[257] Aristoph. _Frogs_, 1035.

[258] From the _Banqueters_.

[259] Straton (in Athen. 382, 383).

[260] Aristoph. _Frogs_, 1032.

[261] Athen. 164.

[262] Aristoph. _Birds_, 471; _Wasps_, 1446. 1401.

[263] Plato, _Hipp. Maj._ 286 B.

[264] Xen. _Banquet_, iv. 27. School friendships are also

mentioned in Aristot. _Eth._ viii. 12; Aristoph. _Clouds_,

1006.

[265] Athen. 242 d.

[266] The translation is free, and I omit a good deal that

is less relevant.

[267] For a picture of such a flogging see p. 599 of Bury’s

_Roman Empire_.

[268] Plato, _Laws_, 809 C.

[269] The distinction between λογιστική [logistikê],

reckoning up and comparing numbers, chiefly in bills and the

like, practical arithmetic, and ἀριθμητική [arithmêtikê],

theory of numbers, is noted in Plato, _Gorg._ 451 B.

[270] Plato, _Laws_, 643 B.C.

[271] Plato, _Protag._ 318 D.

[272] So Theodoros in the _Theaitetos_.

[273] Xen. _Econ._ viii. 14.

[274] Xen. _Mem._ iv. 4. 7.

[275] Aristoph. _Wasps_, 656.

[276] In Diogenes Laertius, i. 2. 10.

[277] Alexis (in Athen. 117 e).

[278] An abacus of a very similar sort is still in use in

China and Japan, even in banks. The “pebbles” are pushed to

and fro, not in grooves, but on wires passing through the

middle of them. Calculations can be made by this means with

marvellous rapidity.]

[279] e.g. _Polit._ 299 D. πεττείαν ἢ ξύμπασαν ἀριθμητικήν

[petteian ê xympasan arithmêtikên].

[280] Plato, _Phaid._ 274.

[281] Plato, _Laws_, 819 B.

[282] The restoration of this process rests on Athen. 671;

the other two are purely conjectural.

[283] Suggests at once Hellenic, not Egyptian customs.

[284] Plato, _Rep._ 526 B.

[285] Plato, _Laws_, 747.

[286] Technically speaking, this was λύρα [lyra], the κιθάρα

[kithara] being a professional instrument which was not

taught at school.

[287] Illustr. Plate I. B.

[288] Plato, _Lusis_, 209 B. On Inscriptions there are

separate prizes for the two methods.

[289] Xen. _Econ._ ii. 13.

[290] _Ibid._ xvii. 7.

[291] Cp. British Museum Vase E 57, on which a man is

leading a leopard by a string.

[292] Plato, _Protag._ 326 B.

[293] Aristoph. _Clouds_, 1356.

[294] Aristoph. fragment of _Banqueters_.

[295] Aristoph. _Knights_, 526.

[296] Plut. _Solon_, iii.

[297] Hermippos (in Athen. 619 b).

[298] Aristoph. _Wasps_, 959.

[299] _Ibid._ 989.

[300] Aristot. _Pol._ viii. 6. 11.

[301] For this reason it was opposed to _Dorian_ influences

by Pratinas. It was excluded from the Pythian games (Pausan.

10. vii. 5). Pratinas bids it be content to “lead drunk

young men in their carousals and brawls.”

[302] Telestes, in his defence of the flute, could only

retort that Athena, being condemned to eternal spinsterhood,

ought not to be particular about her looks (Athen. 617).

[303] Aristot. _Pol._ viii. 6. 11.

[304] Athen. 184 d. Plutarch, however, says that when

Alkibiades’ masters tried to make him learn the flute, he

refused, declaring that it was unfit for gentlemen (_Alk._

ii. 5).

[305] Not a respected profession at Athens.

[306] Brit. Mus. E 495, 64, 71.

[307] Athen. 337 f.

[308] Smith’s _Dictionary of Antiquities_.

[309] φορβεία [phorbeia]. It belonged to professionals.

[310] γλωσσοκομεῖον [glôssokomeion].

[311] See the “Inscription” of the _Andria_ and other plays

of Terence.

[312] See Illustr. Plate II.

[313] Athen. 20 f.

[314] Plato, _Laches_, 180 D.

[315] Plato, _Euthud._ 272 C.

[316] _Ibid._ 295 D.

[317] Aristoph. _Knights_, 987-996.

[318] Plato, _Protag._ 326 B.

[319] Aristot. _Pol._ viii. 3. 7.

[320] _Ibid._ viii. 3. 1.

[321] Plato, _Protag._ 318 B.

[322] _Ibid._ 311 C.

[323] Plin. _Hist. Nat._ 35.

[324] Stob. _Floril._ 98, p. 535.

[325] Plato, _Laws_, 769 B.

[326] See _Rep._ X. 596 E, 605 A, etc. In the _Sophist_, 235

D, 266 D, etc., Plato reserves his denunciation for

φανταστική [phantastikê] which creates illusions; he almost

approves of εἰκαστική [eikastikê]. Idealised painting is

hinted at in _Rep._ 472 D, 484 C.

[327] Aeschylus, _Agamemnon_, 1329.

[328] Plato, _Theait._ 208 E.

[329] The modern oil process was not employed till late on

in the Renaissance. Fresco was common.

[330] Aristot. _Pol._ viii. 3. 12.

[331] θεωρητικὸν τοῦ περὶ τὰ σώματα κάλλους [theôrêtikon tou

peri ta sômata kallous].

CHAPTER IV

ATHENS AND THE REST OF HELLAS: PHYSICAL EDUCATION

It is well known that the Hellenes attached an enormous importance to

physical exercise. This was partly, no doubt, due to their intense

appreciation of bodily beauty, which it was the endeavour of their

gymnastic training to produce. But it must be remembered that to be in

“good condition” was essential to them. Any morning an Hellenic

citizen might find himself called upon to take the field against an

invader, or might be despatched to ravage an enemy’s territory. Only

the most cogent excuses were accepted. Plato[332] has left a vivid

picture of a rich man, who has lived in idleness and luxury, suddenly

called out to serve his country. Unhappy Dives marches along panting

and perspiring, he is ill on board ship, and in battle when he has to

charge or fight vigorously, he has no wind and is in a state of

hopeless misery; while his poorer or wiser companions, who are “lean

and wiry, and have lived in the open air,” mock at him and despise

him. Sokrates points out to young Epigenes,[333] who has neglected his

physical condition, what risks he runs. In battle, when a retreat is

sounded, he will be left behind by his companions, and be either

killed or taken prisoner by the foe; and the lot of the captive was

frequently slavery for life, unless his friends ransomed him. But

there were also intellectual and moral risks. “Bodily debility,” says

Sokrates, “frequently causes a loss of memory, and low spirits, and a

peevish temper, and even madness, to invade a man, so as to make even

intellectual pursuits impossible.” To be a good citizen and to be a

good thinker a man must always be in good physical condition. It

became a duty to oneself and to the State “to live in the open air and

accustom oneself to manly toils and sweat, avoiding the shade and

unmanly ways of life.”[334] By divine ordinance, “Sweat was the

doorstep of manly virtue,” as old Hesiod had sung.[335]

This addiction to gymnastic exercises of all kinds was characteristic

of the Hellenic peoples from the days of Homer. The original object

had been symmetrical development of the body, health, speed, strength,

and agility. But, as the Egyptian sage remarked, the Hellenes were a

nation of children――it is just that which gives to them their charm

and interest――and children usually and naturally care most for the

body. Consequently athletics were carried too far: they became an end

in themselves, instead of being merely a means of attaining physical

activity and health. The professional athlete became a sort of spoilt

child, fed at public expense,[336] courted by crowds of admirers, and

all the time he was quite useless for everything except his own

particular sort of contest, boxing or wrestling or the like. The

tendency was ruinous: the Hellenes preferred to be good gymnasts

rather than good soldiers.[337] The competitor, boy or man, who

entered for one of the great prizes had to live in complete idleness

from other pursuits.[338] Such professionals “slept all the day long,

and if they departed from their prescribed system of training in the

very slightest degree, they were seized with serious diseases.”[339]

Consequently they were useless as soldiers, since in war it is

necessary to be wide awake, not torpid, and to be able to stand

vicissitudes of heat and cold, and not to be made ill by changes of

diet. Specialisation even led to deformity. The long-distance runner

developed thick legs and narrow shoulders, the boxer broad shoulders

and thin legs.[340] It is to this specialisation that Galen[341]

attributes the decline in utility of Hellenic athletics. Philostratos

even notes that only in the good old days was the health of athletes

not actually impaired by their exercises. In those times, he says,

they grew old late, and took part in eight or nine Olympic

contests――retained, that is, their efficiency for thirty years or

more; moreover, they were as good soldiers as they were athletes.

Later, these habits changed, and athletes became averse to war,

torpid, effeminate, luxurious in their diet. The medical profession

took upon itself to advise them――a good thing in its way, but

unsuitable for athletes; for it told them to sit still after meals

before taking exercise, and introduced them to elaborate cookery.

Bribery also came into vogue among the professionals; usurers began to

enter the training schools on purpose to lend them money for bribing

their opponents.[342] The first recorded instance of this was early in

the fourth century.[343]

[Illustration: PLATE V. A.

SCENES IN A PALAISTRA

_Archaeologische Zeitung_, 1878, Plate 11. From a Kulix at Munich,

attributed to Euphronios.]

[Illustration: PLATE V. B.

SCENE IN A PALAISTRA――A BOY WITH HALTERES, A BOY WITH JAVELIN, AND

TWO PAIDOTRIBAI

_Archaeologische Zeitung_, 1878, Plate II. From a Kulix at Munich,

attributed to Euphronios.]

Critics of this exaggerated athleticism were not wanting, even in the

earliest times. The attack begins with Xenophanes of Kolophon. In an

elegiac poem he writes: “If a man wins a victory at Olympia … either

by speed of foot or in the pentathlon, or by wrestling, or competing

in painful boxing, or in the dread contest called the pankration, his

countrymen will look upon him with admiration, and he will receive a

front seat in the games, and eat his dinners at the public cost, and

be presented with some gift that he will treasure. All this he will

get, even if he only win a horse race. Yet he is not as worthy as I;

for my wisdom is better than the strength of men and steeds. Nay, this

custom is foolish, and it is not right to honour strength more than

the excellence of wisdom. Not by good boxing, not by the pentathlon,

nor by wrestling, nor yet by speed of foot, which is the most honoured

in the contests of all the feats of human strength――not so would a

city be well governed. Small joy would it get from a victory at

Olympia: such things do not fatten the dark corners of a city.”

Pass straight from this to the works of Pindar, in order to see

whether Xenophanes’ attack was justified. To Pindar the world holds

nothing better than an Olympian victory. Be the descendant of athletes

and be an athlete yourself――that is the summit of human attainment and

bliss. His gods are either athletes themselves or founders of athletic

contests. A man’s true desires may usually be best traced in the

conception which he forms of the future state: Pindar’s portrait of

Elysium is characteristic. First the scenery, a magnificent

description in his best manner:

In that Underworld the sun shines in his might

Through our night.

Round that city through the dewy meadow-ways

Roses blaze.

Through the fragrant shadows, bright with golden gleams,

Fruitage teems.…

Every flower of joyance blooms nor withers there.[344]

And in this Paradise how are the shades of the departed occupying

themselves? “Some take their joy in horses, some in gymnasia, some in

draughts.”[345] That is the highest bliss conceivable, in Pindar’s

opinion.

But Euripides did not agree with him. He denounces the athletic life

with much vigour.[346] “Of countless ills in Hellas, the race of

athletes is quite the worst.… They are slaves of their jaw and

worshippers of their belly.… In youth they go about in splendour, the

admiration of their city, but when bitter old age comes upon them,

they are cast aside like worn-out coats. I blame the custom of the

Hellenes, who gather together to watch these men, honouring a useless

pleasure.[347] Who ever helped his fatherland by winning a crown for

wrestling, or speed of foot, or flinging the quoit, or giving a good

blow on the jaw? Will they fight the foe with quoits, or smite their

fists through shields? Garlands should be kept for the wise and good,

and for him who best rules the city by his temperance and justice, or

by his words drives away evil deeds, preventing strife and sedition.”

In return for this, the athlete-loving populace, finding their voice

in the popular poet Aristophanes, denounced Euripides and his Sophist

friends for emptying the gymnasia and making the boys desire only a

good tongue, instead of a sound body, turning them into pale-faced,

indoor pedants, fit for nothing but jabbering nonsense. The attitude

of the poet in the _Clouds_ and _Frogs_ is just that of an average

schoolboy discussing a student.

Plato has already been quoted as an authority against the athlete of

his day. In the _Laws_ he rejects every kind of gymnastics which is

not strictly conducive to military efficiency, and, like the Spartans,

condemns the pankration and boxing. Races in the ideal State are to be

run in full armour, and the javelin and spear are to replace the

quoit. It is exactly the position of some moderns, who would

substitute shooting and field-days for cricket and football. The case

against the athletes may be closed with Aristotle’s testimony: he also

condemns the specialisation of the trained professional.[348]

But these denunciations of athletes do not apply so much to Athens as

to the other States of Hellas. The Athenian Agora was full of the

statues of generals and patriots, not, as was the usual custom, of

athletes.[349] The author of the treatise on the Athenian

constitution,[350] writing in the early days of the Peloponnesian War,

notices that the democracy had driven gymnastics out of fashion.[351]

He writes as one of the aristocrats who, like Pindar and his princely

friends, cared mainly for the body and the outward beauties of life:

the democracy was vulgar, for it could not spend all its time in

bodily exercises and musical banquets. No doubt at that period in

Athens, as can be seen in Aristophanes, there was a reaction in favour

of intellectual pursuits against the exclusive athleticism of the

preceding age: the time of the citizens in a great democracy was also

largely monopolised by State duties, whether in the Assembly or in the

Law Courts or in fighting by sea or land. But athletics still remained

quite sufficiently popular even at Athens, and athletic “shop”

remained one of the chief topics of conversation at a dinner-party.[352]

* * * * *

Gymnastic exercises centred round two sorts of buildings which are

often confused, the “gymnasium” and the “palaistra.” The former may be

said to correspond to the whole series of fields and buildings

intended for games, which surround a modern public school, including

football and cricket grounds, running track and jumping pit, fives

courts, and so forth. The “palaistra” often resembled little more than

the playground of a village school: it only demanded a sandy floor,

and sufficient privacy to protect the exercises from intrusion: such

buildings could be run up at private expense in the smallest villages,

and were often attached to private houses. A “gymnasium,” on the other

hand, must have cost a vast sum to erect: even a great capital like

Athens only possessed three in the fourth century; small towns must

have been unable to afford them at all. But the gymnasia were public

buildings, open to all; they were always full of citizens of all ages,

practising or watching others practise; they were a fashionable place

of resort, where Sophists lectured in the big halls, and philosophers

taught in the shady gardens. For the trainer who wished to instruct

his class of boys they were wholly unsuitable; besides, any casual

stranger could stand by and get a lesson for nothing. Consequently,

even at Athens, the boys were taught in palaistrai which could be

closed to the public:[353] in the towns and villages there was no

other place.

It is quite true that boys went to the gymnasia. Aristophanes[354]

talks of “a nice little boy on his way home from the gymnasium.” In

Antiphon,[355] some older boys are practising the javelin in a

gymnasium; a younger boy, who had been standing among the spectators,

being called by his paidotribes, runs across the course and is killed.

If the reading “paidotribes,” for which K. F. Hermann would substitute

“paidagogos,” is correct, we find a paidotribes and his class of

younger boys present in a gymnasium, probably to practise

javelin-throwing, which must have demanded a larger space than the

palaistra often afforded. The elder boys are probably not under his

tuition, for they are using real javelins, not the unpointed shafts

which were employed at school. Paidotribai with small palaistrai may

often have taken their classes to the free public gymnasia to practise

the diskos, the javelin, and running, which required a large space.

But none the less the palaistra was the usual scene of the teaching of

boys.[356] It must not, however, be supposed that a palaistra was

always reserved for boys. The “many palaistrai,” which the democracy

built for itself,[357] were doubtless as much public buildings, open

to all ages, as the Akademeia or Lukeion. The palaistrai owned or

hired by private teachers must have been open to adults when the boys

were not present; that which is the scene of the _Lusis_ was

apparently attended by two classes, one of boys and the other of

youths, who only met there on festival days. In the palaistra of

Taureas, however, mentioned in the _Charmides_, the different classes

seem all to meet in the undressing-room; but on that occasion the

building may have been open for general practice, not for teaching.

Some such arrangement into classes must have taken place in the

village palaistrai.[358] The master who taught the boys in the

palaistra was called the paidotribes, “boy-rubber”: he must have owed

his name to the great part which rubbing, whether with oil or with

various sorts of dust, played in athletics.[359] He was expected to be

scientific. He had to know what exercises would suit what

constitutions:[360] he is often coupled with the doctor.[361] His

object was to prevent, the doctor’s to cure, diseases. He even

prescribed diet. Besides health, he was expected to aim at beauty and

strength.[362] His training, in Plato’s opinion, also served to

produce firmness of character and strength of will: he must therefore

know how much training to administer to each boy, for too much would

cause excess of these qualities and lead to savage brutality, and too

little would result in effeminacy.[363]

Since so much science was demanded of the paidotribes, parents

exercised much forethought in choosing a gymnastic school for their

boys:[364] they would “call upon their friends and relations to give

advice, and deliberate for many days,” in order to find a trainer

whose instructions would “make their son’s body a useful servant to

his mind, not likely by its bad condition to compel him to shirk his

duty in war or elsewhere.”[365] This at Athens, no doubt: in the

smaller towns and villages there could have been little choice:

parents must have taken what they could get.