On arriving at the chosen palaistra with his paidagogos the boy would

find a class assembling. He would first go into the undressing-room[366]

and strip. For all the exercises were performed naked. This no doubt

gave the trainer a good opportunity of watching which muscles most

required development, and what constitutional weaknesses, if any, must

be treated circumspectly. Passing into the palaistra proper, the boy

would find an enclosure surrounded, in the case of the more expensive

schools, with pillars. There would be no roof. Hellenic custom

maintained that it was healthy to expose the naked body to the open

air and the mid-day sun: a white skin was regarded as a sign of

effeminacy.[367] If the sun became dangerously hot, little caps were

worn, which at other times hung on the walls of the palaistra. The

floor was sand. Before wrestling or practising the pankration or

jumping, the boys had to break up the soil with pickaxes[368] in order

to make it soft: these pickaxes were also suspended on the walls.

Beside them would be also _kôrukoi_ or punch-balls, _haltêres_ (a sort

of dumb-bell, used for jumping and other exercises), the scrapers with

which the dirt and sweat were removed, bags to hold the cords which

were used as boxing-gloves, and spare javelins. Grown-up men were not

allowed to enter during the lessons, but could apparently, if they

wished, watch “from outside,” that is, probably, from the

dressing-room, where we often find Sokrates conversing with the

pupils, boys and lads: he could not, probably, penetrate further.

The symbol of office which marked the paidotribes was a long forked

stick depicted in the vases.[369] This was probably derived from the

branch which the umpires at the games held in their hands. The two

symbols are so much alike when represented on the vases[370] that it

is often hard to distinguish them. There were generally several

under-masters in the palaistra. The more proficient boys also were

employed in teaching backward schoolfellows; these “pupil-teachers”

appear on vases,[371] holding the stick of office like the grown-up

masters. No doubt, poor boys managed to get instruction in this manner

from their richer friends in the public gymnasia and palaistrai,

without attending a school at all.

The staff of a palaistra also included professional flute-players, for

most of the exercises[372] were performed to the sound of a flute, in

order that good time might be preserved in the various movements. The

player in these cases wore the φορβεία [phorbeia] or mouth-band.[373]

As I have pointed out in Chapter II., although the literary

authorities make gymnastic training of a sort begin with the seventh

year, it is not at all probable that the more recognised exercises,

such as boxing and wrestling, began till a good many years later. The

vases suggest that these subjects were taught some years after letters

and music had begun, for they represent only older boys as learning

them. Aristotle seems to vouch for a graduated course of gymnastic

exercises during boyhood.[374]

[Illustration: PLATE VI. A.

IN THE PALAISTRA: WRESTLERS, PAIDOTRIBES, BOY PREPARING GROUND

Gerhard’s _Auserlesene Vasenbilder_, cclxxi. Fig. 2.]

[Illustration: PLATE VI. B.

IN THE PALAISTRA: BOY PUTTING ON BOXING-THONG, A PANKRATION LESSON,

AND A PAIDOTRIBES

Gerhard’s _Auserlesene Vasenbilder_, cclxxi. Fig. 1.]

What did the boys learn at the palaistra in the meantime? Deportment

and easy exercises. A passage in Aristophanes informs us that they

were taught the most graceful way to sit down and get up.[375] Vases

represent boys learning how to stand straight. There were also all

sorts of exercises in which the unpointed javelin played the part of a

training-rod and the halteres the part of dumb-bells. The paidotribes

might also try to strengthen particular muscles in particular boys. In

an epigram,[376] a trainer is exercising a boy’s middle by bending him

over his knee, and then, while holding his feet fast, swinging him

over backwards.

No doubt what was known as “gesticulation” (to cheironomein)

[τὸ χειρονομεῖν] played a large part in this earlier training.

“Gesticulation” meant a scientific series of gestures and movements of

all the limbs, somewhat like the modern systems of physical education

taught by Sandow and others. It was chiefly an exercise for the arms,

as the name implies, but on a celebrated occasion Hippokleides the

Athenian stood on his head on a table and “gesticulated” with his

feet.[377] The particular movements were very carefully designed, and

were all intended to be beautiful and gentlemanly.[378] Gesticulation

served as a preparation for various dancing-systems, but was distinct

from dancing, for Charmides was able to gesticulate but unable to

dance.[379] It was also preparatory to gymnastics, for it resembled

the movements of a boxer sparring at the air for lack of an

opponent.[380] The halteres were possibly often employed, for they

played a part in many gymnastic exercises.[381] This “gesticulation,”

then, being a preliminary to gymnastics and dancing, would be the

natural thing for the small boys to learn in the palaistra. Other

early exercises were rope-climbing[382] and a sort of leap-frog.[383]

The various kinds of ball-game,[384] mostly designed to exercise the

body scientifically, may also have been employed. Of the regular

exercises of the palaistra, which I am about to discuss, running and

jumping would suit quite small boys; the diskos and javelin could also

be begun at an early age, for smaller sizes were made for children.

* * * * *

The age at which the recognised exercises were first taught no doubt

varied with individual taste and physical capacity: no strict line can

be drawn. These exercises were wrestling, boxing, the pankration,

jumping, running, throwing the diskos and the javelin.

_Wrestling_ (πάλη [palê]) was probably regarded as the most important

of these subjects, for it gave its name to the Palaistra. For this

exercise the soil was broken up with the pickaxe and watered: the

bodies of the combatants were oiled beforehand. By these means the

Hellenes prevented their boys from disfiguring their bodies with bumps

and bruises, and the slipperiness of the ground and of the

antagonist’s body made the exercise more difficult and therefore more

valuable. Three throws were necessary for victory. There were two

sorts of wrestling. In one the victor had to throw his antagonist

without coming to the ground himself; this was a matter of ingenious

twists and turns somewhat like the Japanese jiu-jitsu. In the other

both combatants rolled over and over on the ground: this was less

scientific. The leading paidotribai had their own favourite systems of

wrestling, with various openings, as in chess, and various ways of

meeting them. “What style of wrestling did you learn at the

Palaistra?” Kleon asks the sausage-seller.[385] When two boys were set

to wrestle in school, they were not allowed to contend as they pleased

with a view to victory, but had to carry out the directions of the

paidotribes.[386] A fragment of a system of wrestling has been

unearthed at Oxurhunchos.[387]

Suppose there are two boys, Charmides and Glaukon. The paidotribes

sets them to wrestle, while the rest of the class watch. He holds a

long forked stick in his hand. Pointing with it to Charmides, he says,

“You put your right hand between his legs and grip him.” Then to

Glaukon, “Close your legs on it, and thrust your left side against his

side.” To Charmides, “Throw him off with your left hand.” To Glaukon,

“Shift your ground, and engage.” Each group of directions, or figure

σχῆμα [schêma], as it was called, closes with the word “Engage” πλέξον

[plexon]. At this point, probably, the two boys were allowed to

wrestle at will, the result, however, being foreseen and inevitable

owing to the previous moves.

An epigram in the _Anthology_ represents instruction of this sort

being given: the boy retorts in the middle, “I can’t possibly do it,

Diophantos; that’s not the way boys wrestle.”[388]

But, to use a parallel given by Isokrates, a pupil is not yet a

complete orator, when he knows how to create pathos, irony, and so

forth, and has been taught the parts of a speech: he has still to

learn when and where and in what order to employ these several

artifices. So with wrestling. A boy who knows his “figures” is not yet

a wrestler: he has got to learn when is the right moment to employ

each of them in an actual contest with a real antagonist. “When the

paidotribes has taught his pupils the ‘figures’ invented for bodily

training and practised them and made them perfect in these, he makes

the boys go through their exercises again and accustoms them to

physical toil, and compels them to string together one by one the

figures which they have learnt, that they may have a firmer grasp of

them and get a clearer comprehension of the right occasions for using

them: for it is impossible to comprehend these in an exact

science.”[389] The boys have to judge for themselves, in the heat of

the contest, which figure it will be expedient to use: the trainer

cannot fix that beforehand. But they will best be able to judge, if by

long practice they have discovered which figures suit them best and

which prove fatal to a particular type of opponent.

_Boxing_ was similarly taught by a series of “figures.” The boys used

the light gloves, consisting of strings wound round the hands, not the

heavy, metal-weighted gloves which professional athletes wore. The

_pankration_[390] was a mixture of boxing and wrestling: the boys

usually wore similar gloves for this but left the fingers unfastened,

only the wrists and knuckles being protected: sometimes they fought

with bare hands. For both these exercises it was usual to wear dogskin

caps, in order to protect the ears from injury. The pankration seems

to have been regarded as an unsatisfactory game for boys: so it was

excluded from both Olympian and Pythian games till a comparatively

late date. For one thing, it was dangerous, and the exercise was very

severe. But in the palaistra, carefully regulated by the paidotribes

and stopped when the fighting became dangerous, no doubt it was

harmless enough. Alkibiades, however, once succeeded in biting an

opponent who was pressing him hard, being ready to do anything rather

than be beaten. “You bite like a girl, Alkibiades!” exclaimed the

indignant boy. “No, like a lion,” answered Alkibiades.[400]

[Illustration: PLATE VII.

_Photo by Mr. R. Coupland._

STADION AT DELPHI FROM THE FORTIFICATIONS OF PHILOMELOS.

Length about 220 yards.

_Photo by Mr. R. Coupland._

STADION AT DELPHI FROM THE FORTIFICATIONS OF PHILOMELOS.

A nearer view.]

_Running_ needs no comment: the methods are much the same in all ages.

The chief distances for races in Hellas were the Stadion or 200

yards,[401] the Diaulos or quarter-mile, and the Long-distance race,

which varied from three-quarter mile to about three miles. The race in

armour was not taught to boys. Races were often run over soft sand,

where the runners sank in, just as long-distance races in England

often include a ploughed field or two. The sand made running both a

more severe exercise (so that a shorter distance sufficed) and also a

better training for war.

For the _long jump_ the Hellenes used the “halteres” or light

dumb-bells, to assist their momentum.[402] Even in competitions, a

flute-player stood by, to give the competitors the assistance of his

music: no doubt it helped them to manage their steps so as to “take

off” on the right spot. They alighted into a large sandy pit, dug up

by the ever-present pickaxe: the jump was only measured if they came

down on to this evenly, leaving a clear trace of their foot.

The _diskos_ was a flat circle of polished bronze or other metal.[403]

The specimen in the British Museum is between 8 and 9 inches in

diameter, and is inscribed with athletic pictures on either side. It

was flung with either hand. A great many attitudes were necessary

before the diskos was launched, and every muscle of the body must have

been well exercised in the process. The time was given, in the

palaistra, by a flute-player. In competitions both the distance and

the direction of the throw were taken into consideration.

Boys learnt to throw the _javelin and spear_ by practising with long

unpointed rods, which were also used for a variety of physical

exercises. The mark seems to have been a sort of croquet-hoop or pair

of compasses, fixed into the ground: other targets were also

employed.[404] The vases which represent this pursuit often show the

paidotribes carrying this hoop or fixing it into the ground. It was

planted at a fixed distance which was stepped out.

It may be mentioned, before we leave the “paidotribes,” that his fee

for his whole course seems to have been a μνᾶ [mna], about £4:[405]

this enabled the pupil to attend his lectures “for ever,” that is,

perhaps till the course was finished. Or perhaps this sum made a pupil

a life-member of a particular private palaistra.

Let us now look into one of the gymnasia at Athens, the Akademeia or

Lukeion. We will suppose that it is late in the afternoon, for this

was a favourite time for taking exercise: the Athenians liked to get a

good appetite for their evening meal. Outside, a troop of young men

who intend to be enrolled in the State-cavalry are practising their

evolutions, mounting, in the absence of stirrups, by a leaping-pole,

and charging in squadrons. On another side a body of heavy infantry

with spear and shield are assembling for a night march into the

Megarid;[406] they are packing their supplies, onions and dried fish,

perhaps, into their knapsacks as they fall in, and are grumbling at

having to leave Athens just when a festival is coming; a burly

countryman is complaining to his general that it is not his turn to

serve, as he took part in the raid into Boiotia last week, and his

general is threatening him with a prosecution for insubordination if

he becomes abusive. After paying our respects to the patron deities,

Herakles and Hermes and Eros,[407] and having muttered a curse on all

tyrants suggested by the statue of Eros which Charmos the

father-in-law of Hippias the Peisistratid set up,[408] we enter the

gymnasium.

The first room which we come to is the undressing-room.[409] On the

benches round the walls a row of men are sitting discussing the exact

nature of Self-control: an extremely ugly person, to whom they all pay

great respect, is stating that it is an exact science, and, if only

they can discover this science, the whole world will become virtuous.

Lads and men are stripping all about the room, and passing off to take

their exercises elsewhere; others keep coming in and dressing and

listening to the discussion for a minute or two. A handsome young

fellow comes in: the ugly man makes room for him with great energy,

and his friends who are sitting at the end of the bench are pushed off

suddenly on to the floor. A shout of laughter, mingled with some

strong Attic abuse, arises. Not wishing to be involved as witnesses in

an interminable lawsuit, we hurry out through the further door into a

great cloister.[410] In the centre of this is a large open space, with

no roof. Here we meet a well-known mathematician from Kurene,[411] who

is walking round the cloister with a crowd of pupils: he is explaining

to them that famous theorem about right-angled triangles, whose proof

is so neat that Pythagoras the vegetarian sacrificed a hundred oxen

when he discovered it. At intervals the mathematician stops and draws

a diagram in the dust with his stick. As we follow him, we can look

into the rooms which surround the cloister. In one, a crowd of men are

anointing themselves with oil.[412] The rubbing, which is so good for

all bodily ills, and the oil, even if not followed by any further

exercise, are regarded as an excellent thing. An Athenian gentleman is

expected to carry about a certain fragrance of this oil,[413] and his

skin must always be sleek with it; but as a rule the anointing is a

prelude to exercise, and is meant to make the joints supple and the

body slippery enough to elude a wrestler’s grip.[414] A slave or an

attendant stands by many of the men, holding one of those dainty

oil-flasks which make so great a feature in modern Museums of

Archæology. Through the next door we see the “dusting-room.” Various

sorts of dust were used for rubbing the body. They served to clean it

of sweat after exercise, to open the pores, to warm it when cold, and

to soften the skin. A yellow dust was particularly popular; for it

made the body glisten so as to be pleasant to look at, as a good body

in good condition ought to be.[415] Next perhaps will be the

bathing-room――a popular place in the evening, for it was usual to take

a bath before dinner.[416] The bathers either splash themselves out of

great bowls which stand upon pedestals, or receive a shower bath by

getting a companion or an attendant to pour a pitcher of water over

them. Tanks capable of receiving the whole body at once were not

usual, though known to Homer.[417] Then we see the room of the

_korukos_, or punch-ball, which will present a very curious

appearance.[418] The _korukos_ is a large sack hanging from the

ceiling by a rope. The lighter _korukoi_ are filled with fig seeds or

meal, the heavier with sand. They hang at about the height of a man’s

waist. You push one of them gently at first, and more and more

violently as you gain experience; having pushed it, you plant yourself

in the way of the rebound, and try to stop the sack with your hands or

your chest or your back or your head. If you are not strong enough,

you will be knocked over, and the room will laugh. This will practise

you in standing steady, and make all parts of your body firm and

muscular. The _korukos_ can also be used as a punch-ball, to

strengthen the boxer’s arms and shoulders. This exercise is especially

recommended for boxers and pankratiasts: the latter ought to use the

heavier variety. Perhaps there will also be some lay-figures hanging

up round the walls, for these also were used for practising. Here,

too, some unlucky individuals who, from unpopularity or other causes,

are unable to find an antagonist, will be exercising their fists on

thin air. But both these expedients were regarded as ridiculous.[419]

There were a large number of other rooms round the cloister, some

intended for exercises in wet weather, for, if possible, exercise was

always taken out of doors; for it was regarded as a great object to

make the skin brown and hard by exposure to the sun. So King Agesilaos

put his Asiatic captives up for sale in his camp naked, in order that

his Hellenic soldiers, seeing their pale, soft flesh, unused to

exposure, might despise their enemy. But as most of these rooms were

furnished with seats, they were largely used as lecture-halls by

wandering Sophists,[420] who gave free lectures in them to any

passer-by who might care to listen, in order to attract regular,

paying pupils. So we can take our pick and hear lectures on poetry or

metaphysics, music or rhetoric, geography or history, at our pleasure.

After this, we can turn our attention to the great central

courtyard,[421] which is surrounded by the cloister, or to the

racecourse and open spaces which lie beyond it. In one part will be

the wrestling arena.[422] Pairs of oiled, naked combatants will be

struggling together, amid a crowd of cheering spectators, and perhaps

the trainer will be standing by, giving them directions. One group

attracts especial attention: for the pair are going to represent

Athens at Olympia next year. Elsewhere the pankratiasts are

contending, some sparring at arm’s length, others joined in a deadly

grapple, rolling over and over on the ground and pummelling one

another’s heads with their gloved knuckles. They are covered with

clotted dust and oil and will need much scraping. Then there are the

boxers, bearing either the light gloves, or, if they intend to take

part in a big competition, the heavy iron balls padded over with

leather which were used in the great Games.[423] There are races too

in progress, lap by lap round the great Stadion. Some of the runners

are naked, others are wearing helmet and shield, since they are

practising for the Race in Armour. Friends run beside them for a

little way, pacing them and encouraging them. Others are jumping, with

the halteres in their hands, into the pit, while their friends mark

the point where their heels have left a mark in the sand. A

professional flute-player, with his mouth-band on, sets the time. Each

is, no doubt, hoping to beat Phaüllos’ great jump of 55 feet――the

world’s record. Everywhere are crowds of spectators,[424] and

everywhere eager trainers giving advice, hoping, if their pupil gains

a prize at some great Games, to make a name for themselves, and

attract a crowd of lads to their paid lessons: perhaps they will even

be immortalised by some contemporary Pindar in a song in honour of

their pupil’s victory.

In another corner, it may be, there will be teams practising together.

A regiment of epheboi may be undergoing their gymnastic training

before service on the frontier:[425] or a team of them may be

training, watched by the rich “gumnasiarchos,” for the torch-race at

the festival of Hephaistos, or for the race from the Temple of

Dionusos to that of Athena of the Sunshades, where the winner will

receive a large bowl containing wine and honey and cheese and meat and

olive oil――not all mixed together, let us hope.[426] There may also be

teams practising wrestling and other bodily exercises together. Their

trainer, “thinking it impossible to lay down separate regulations for

each individual, orders roughly what suits the majority. So every one

of the team takes an equal amount of exercise, and they all start and

all stop running, or wrestling, or whatever it may be, at the same

moment.”[427]

In the larger open spaces we shall find Athenians throwing the diskos,

like Muron’s celebrated figure, or practising archery, or flinging the

spear or javelin. In watching these care must be exercised: unwary

spectators may be killed or injured. Mythology is full of unfortunates

killed in this way. Was not the fair Huakinthos slain by Apollo’s

quoit? Antiphon, too, in his new book on speech-writing, takes as one

of his themes a boy killed by a comrade’s javelin accidentally. We can

also take a lesson in the use of spear and shield from the teacher of

arms: a pair of Sophists, who specialise in this subject, have just

come to Athens, and will doubtless be exhibiting their skill here. We

remember, though, that the warlike Spartans ridicule these professors,

and General Laches regards them as quite useless for military

purposes, as we heard him telling Sokrates the other day.[428] So we

will pass on.

The vast majority of people in the gymnasium confine themselves to

walking about. The colonnades and the gardens are convenient and

attractive, and there is plenty to watch everywhere. The “xustos,” or

covered cloister,[429] where athletes exercise in bad weather, is

particularly popular among the walkers. And while they walk, they

talk. There is a group of philosophical students arguing about the

Supreme Good or constructing an ideal State. There is a party of

inquirers who are discussing the nature of plants, or the varieties of

crustaceans. Yonder, a half-naked, unkempt enthusiast is declaiming

against luxury. “Man,” he cries, “is independent of circumstances.”

Everywhere, walkers and spectators and talkers, but walkers above all.

For the average Athenian spent all his time upon his legs: to sit down

was the mark of a slave.[430] He walked nearly all day: the distance

which he covered in five or six days would easily stretch from Athens

to Olympia. He took a walk before breakfast, another before lunch,

another before dinner, and another between dinner and bed.[431]

Games of ball are going on in the ball-court yonder.[432] We may

remember that the poet Sophocles was a famous player.[433] But the

shadow on the great sun-dial has nearly reached the ten-foot mark

which announces dinner-time to the Athenian world. The crowds who have

been exercising themselves are scraping off the sweat and dirt with

the στλεγγίς [stlengis] or scraper,[434] or else hurrying to the

bath-rooms. After the bath comes another anointing, with oil and water

this time.[435] Then away through the nearest gate into the city,

while the great buildings on the Akropolis grow misty in the twilight

and Athena’s guardian Spear catches the last rays of the setting sun.

All this was open to the poorest Athenian: there was no fee for

entrance. The only expenses were those incurred in buying an oil-flask

and scraper, which the State did not as a rule provide, and any fees

that might be paid to a trainer for special “coaching.” The poor could

learn as much as they required from watching those who were

proficient. It was usual to tip the man in the public baths who poured

cold water over the bathers and assisted them generally: but this

probably did not apply to the bath-rooms in the gymnasia. The State

certainly made it easy for every citizen to take as much exercise as

he pleased.

Women were wholly excluded from athletics at Athens. In Sparta girls

exercised themselves as much as the boys. In other Dorian States

feminine athletics were encouraged to a less degree. At Argos there

were foot-races for girls. In Chios they could be seen wrestling in

the gymnasia.[436]

* * * * *

But the gymnasia and palaistrai, though they provided so many

different kinds of exercises, did not supply the Hellenes with their

sole opportunities for keeping the body in good condition. Hunting was

a popular employment at Sparta and no doubt elsewhere: Xenophon, who

was devoted to it, would have liked to make it more popular in

Attica,[437] where it languished, perhaps from lack of game. Swimming

and rowing were usual accomplishments. Riding was compulsory for rich

citizens at Athens, for they had to serve in the cavalry; it was also

popular in Thessaly, the land of horses. Military service provided

both an incentive to physical exercise and a frequent means of

obtaining it. Dancing was universal throughout the Hellenic world and

played a larger part in Hellenic education than is usually recognised.

At Sparta it was of paramount importance. At Athens it was taught free

to large numbers of boys under the system of leitourgiai. Plato

divides physical education into dancing and wrestling.[438]

Aristophanes[439] brackets dancing between the palaistra and music,

when he wishes to give the three elements of a gentleman’s education.

Choral dancing to a Hellene was at once the ritual of religion, the

ordinary accompaniment of a festival or public holiday, the highest

form of music, and the most perfect system of physical exercise then

discovered.

The modern reader finds it very hard to realise why Hellenic

philosophers attach so much educational importance to the various

kinds of dance. This is because modern dancing differs from its

ancient prototype in two very important particulars: it is not

connected with religion and it is not dramatic. In the East dancing

was, and is, the language of religion. David, to show his fervour,

danced before the Ark with all his might. In Hellas, dancing

accompanied every rite and every mystery.[440] The choral dance

afforded the outlet to religious enthusiasm which elsewhere is

provided by services: any change in its characteristics was a change

in ritual and in the inexpressible sentiments and moral attitudes

which become so closely bound up with habitual religious observances.

And, since it was the usual ritual of worship, dancing became

all-important in education, as providing the forms through which the

highest aspirations of the children were accustomed to find

expression.

The boy who danced in honour of Dionusos was trying to assimilate

himself to the god, whose history and personality would be brought

home to him vividly by the vineyards around him: they would serve him

for a parable. The vine that came so mysteriously out of the earth,

lived its short life in the rain and sunshine, and was crushed and

killed at the harvest, to rise again in the strange juice which

thrilled him with such wondrous power――there was plenty of parable for

him there. And while he felt the god’s history so vividly, he was

acting it, for acting was the very essence of Hellenic dancing. He

would act the sorrows of Dionusos, his persecution from city to city,

and his final conquest; he would match each incident in the story with

suitable inward feelings and outward gestures of sorrow and triumph.

Thus his dancing came to be a keenly religious observance, accompanied

by more vivid acting than is possible on a modern stage; such dancing,

it must be remembered, was the parent of Attic Drama. The dramatic

power of such acting became enormous; one dancer, it is said, could

make the whole philosophic system of Pythagoras intelligible without

speaking a word, simply by his gestures and attitudes.[441]

In such dramatic dancing the subject or plot was important. Here the

weakness of the old Hellenic mythology became fatal. For it was the

old myths that supplied the motives of religious dances as well as of

the drama, and many of them were morally unsatisfactory. When a chorus

of boys danced the _Birth-pangs of Semelé_, the most famous dithyramb

of Timotheos, not unnaturally objections were raised. The new school

of musicians and poets, which arose towards the end of the fifth

century, tried to represent everything and anything in the most

realistic way possible: their dancers had to imitate with voice and

gesture “blacksmiths at the forge, craftsmen at work, sailors rowing

and boatswains giving them orders, horses neighing, bulls

bellowing,”[442] and so forth. They chose the commonest and coarsest

scenes, just like Dutch painters. In their hands, dancing became

something vulgar, as well as morally risky, though still under a

semi-religious sanction. It is this charge which justified Plato’s

denunciations of the dramatic element in poetry and music. It must be

remembered that the choregos at Athens, who collected the boys from

his tribe to dance these dithyrambs, could use compulsion if fathers

refused to allow their sons to join his chorus.[443] Yet the

advantages of learning to dance were great, quite apart from the

religious aspects. Dancing was a scientifically designed system of

physical training, which exercised every part of the body

symmetrically.[444] The different masters invented systems of their

own, just as the paidotribai invented systems of wrestling; in both

cases the teaching began with a series of figures, which were

afterwards fitted together. Different localities also had their own

particular figures.[445]

The solo dance was used for private exercise. It also made its way

into the drama. Sometimes, too, in the choral performances one or two

of the best dancers were singled out to perform more elaborate

evolutions expressing the dramatic course of the subject. But the

choral dance was universal throughout Hellas. Its motives ranged from

the solemn religious questionings of Aeschylus to the drunken

buffoonery of the vine-festivals. The dance might be the act of

worship of a whole people, as in the great festivals at Delos. It

might, like the Gumnopaidia at Sparta, be designed to exhibit the

physical perfection and practise the military evolutions of a nation

in arms. It might celebrate the triumphant return of an Olympian

victor to his native city, as did many of the dances which accompanied

the extant odes of Pindar. The chorus-songs of Tragedy and Comedy were

set to dances of a sort; but from these last boys seem to have been

excluded.

For educational purposes, besides the dithuramboi already mentioned,

the two most important classes were the War-dance and the Naked-dance

(γυμνοπαιδία [gymnopaidia]).[446] In the War-dance the performers,

clad in arms, imitated all the ways in which blows and spears might be

avoided, now bending to one side, now drawing back, now leaping in the

air, now crouching down: then, again, they acted as though they were

hurling javelins and spears and dealing all manner of blows at close

quarters.[447] The Kuretic dance in Crete was very similar; the

dancers “in full armour beat their swords against their shields and

leaped in an inspired and warlike manner.”[448] The field-days, when

teams of boys and “packs” of epheboi fought one another to the sound

of music, were only a more warlike sort of dance. In fact, war and the

war-dance were as closely connected in Hellas as war and drill in

Modern Europe. The Thessalians called their heroes “dancers”; Lucian

quotes an inscription that “the people set up this statue to Eilation,

who danced the battle well”: “chief dancer” (προορχηστήρ

[proorchêstêr])[449] was a dignified title. The same author observes

that in warlike Sparta the young men learn to dance as much as to

fight, and that their military and gymnastic exercises alike were

inextricably mixed up with dancing.[449]

The “Naked-dance” was to gymnastics what the war-dance was to

war.[450] It represented the movements of the palaistra set to music,

accompanied by some singing.[451] The style was solemn, like that of

the ἐμμέλεια [emmeleia], or dance of Tragedy. It was performed in the

main by boys, as the name γυμνοπαιδία [gymnopaidia] implies; but grown

men also took part, as at Sparta, where practically the whole male

population danced it at once. Plato seems to mean a similar type by

his “peace-dance” (in the _Laws_), which is to be a thanksgiving for

past mercies or a prayer for continued prosperity.

In the regular system of education at Athens, it is true, the boys

learned only to sing and play, not to dance. But owing to the

perpetual demand for boys from each of the ten tribes to compete at

the great festivals in war-dances and dithyrambs, dancing must have

been a common accomplishment. These competitors also attracted and

encouraged a large number of dancing-masters. Any boy who showed

promise as a dancer, or perhaps even as a singer only, would be

singled out by the agents who collected choroi for the choregoi.

Some rich man, let us call him Tisias,[452] has just been appointed

choregos of the Erechtheid tribe for the war-dance of boys at the

Panathenaic festival, or a boy-chorus in dithyrambs at the Thargelia.

After drawing lots with the choregoi of other tribes, he gets

Pantakles assigned to him as his poet and music-master, to teach the

boys: he might, if he wished, hire at his own expense extra dancing-

and music-masters.[453] Tisias then sends for Amunias, whom the

Erechtheid tribe have chosen to collect their choroi and keep an eye

on them while they are being trained. If Tisias bears a bad name or is

unpopular with his tribe, he and his agent will have trouble in

collecting the boys; for the fathers will refuse to give them up, and

there will be fines imposed and securities taken, before the chorus

assembles. But as a rule the parents will accept gladly; it is a

chance of a free education for a month or so, for Tisias will pay all

expenses, even of meals, and the State supplies the teacher; it is a

chance, too, for the boy to distinguish himself.

Meanwhile, Tisias will have provided a suitable schoolroom, in his own

house, if possible; rich men, to whom the post of choregos was a

frequent burden, would keep an apartment for the purpose. If he

himself is busy, he will depute friends, who can be trusted to swear

in his favour before the Courts, to watch the teaching; the agent will

also be present.[454] For sometimes accidents occurred. Once a boy was

given a dose to drink, to improve his voice, and it killed him.[455]

When the day of the competition came, the chorus would be suitably

dressed at Tisias’ expense; he might perhaps allow them gold

crowns.[456] There might be nine other choroi entering for the prize,

but in the time of Demosthenes this was not common. The whole Athenian

people and many foreigners would be present at the contest, and it

would be an anxious day for choregos, boys, and parents. The State

gave the prizes,[457] usually a tripod, which went to the winning

choregos, who would set it up in some public place with an appropriate

inscription, such as――

The Oeneid tribe was victorious; a choros of boys.

Eureimenes, son of Meleteon, was choregos. Nikostratos

taught.[458]

Or――

Lusikrates, son of Lusitheides of Kikunna, was choregos. The

boys of the Acamantid tribe won. Theon played the flute.

Lusiades taught. Euainetos led.[459]

* * * * *

We pass to the position which riding held in Athenian education. The

two richest classes in the State were liable to service in the

cavalry. They had to supply their own horses, which were examined and,

if unfit, rejected; but the State paid them a sum of £8 annually for

maintenance and arms in time of peace. As, however, the number of the

citizen cavalry never rose above 1000, the whole of these two classes

can never have been so employed at once: the remainder served in the

heavy infantry. The two Hipparchoi elected for the year, and their

subordinates, the ten Phularchoi, who each commanded a tribal

contingent, on coming into their office, would note how many of the

thousand who had served in the former year were no longer liable to

service owing to age, and would fill up the vacancies; they would also

make good those gaps which occurred from time to time during their

term of office owing to wounds or death or sudden poverty. To secure a

recruit, they had only to go to some rich and active young man who was

not already serving; if he refused to be enrolled, they could

prosecute him. The training often began before eighteen, for Xenophon

speaks of persuading the recruit’s guardians,[460] from whom he would

be free at that age. So Teles mentions the horse-breaker as among the

teachers of the lad in the secondary stage of education. No doubt it

took some training to make an efficient cavalryman, and the Hipparchoi

liked to take the recruits young; but to keep a stud was the favourite

amusement of a rich young Athenian, and many would learn to ride

without any view to military efficiency. As the Hellenes rode without

stirrups, mounting was one of the great difficulties of the young

rider, and figures chiefly on the vases. Often they used the long

cavalry-spear as a vaulting-pole.[461] Otherwise a groom or the master

gave the pupil a leg up: on a vase[462] in the British Museum the

master is seen simply pushing the boy into his seat. A comic

poet,[463] who has left us a picture of the young recruits learning to

ride under the eye of their Phularchoi, speaks only of mounting and

dismounting.[464] “Go to the Agora,” says the speaker to his slave,

“to the Hermai, where the phularchoi keep coming, and to the pretty

disciples whom Pheidon is teaching to mount their steeds and to get

down again.” Xenophon, among much sound advice to the young rider

about buying, training, and keeping his horse, gives the Hipparchos

the following suggestions:――

“Persuade the younger men to vault on to their horses. It

will be best if you supply the teacher for this. The older

men may be put up by some one else in the Persian way. To

practise the men in keeping their seats over difficult

country, frequent riding expeditions are a good thing, but

will be unpopular. So tell your men to practise by

themselves whenever they are in the open country. But take

them out yourself occasionally and test them over all sorts

of ground. Give them sham fights in different kinds of

country. In order to make them keen about throwing the

javelin from horseback,[465] stir up rivalry between the

different squadrons and give prizes for this and for good

riding and the like. Above all make yourself and your

attendant gallopers as smart as possible.”[466]

There were frequent reviews under the eyes of the Boule. In the

race-course at the Lukeion there was a sham fight, each hipparchos

commanding five squadrons which pursued one another, and then charged

front to front, passing through the gaps in one another’s lines.

They had, also, to wheel in line. The review was followed by

javelin-throwing.[467] Another review was held at the Akademeia, on a

course with a hard soil (ὁ ἐπίκροτος [ho epikrotos])――good practice

for cavalry intending to fight in rocky Attica. Here they had, among

other manœuvres, to charge at full gallop and suddenly come to a

halt.[468]

One of the attractions of the cavalry service was the great

Panathenaic procession, where the horsemen played a leading part: an

idealised picture of them may be seen on the frieze of the Parthenon.

Xenophon gives a series of directions how to make the horses prance

and hold their heads up on this great occasion, and suggests devices

in gait which will attract popular notice. This and kindred

processions must have made recruiting for the cavalry easy.

* * * * *

_Swimming_ seems to have been, as would naturally be expected, an

exceedingly common accomplishment in the maritime states of Hellas;

even at inland Sparta the boys must have learnt it for their daily

plunge in the Eurotas. According to tradition,[469] there was a law at

Athens that every boy should be taught reading, writing, and swimming:

the proverb for an utter dunce was “he knows neither his letters nor

how to swim.”[470] Herodotos distinctly implies that all Hellenes knew

how to swim. “The Hellenic loss at Salamis,” he says, “was small. For,

as they knew how to swim (as opposed to the barbarians who did not),

when their ships were destroyed, they swam over to the island.”[471]

He takes it as a matter of course that every sailor could swim. The

whole crew of a captured trireme during the Peloponnesian War as often

as not jumped overboard and escaped by swimming.[472] In a story in

Athenaeus the boys of Lasos, on coming out of the wrestling-school, go

off together for a bathe and begin to dive. A friend of Aristippos

used to boast to him of his diving.[473] During the blockade of

Sphakteria by the Athenian fleet, numbers of Helots swam over from the

mainland to the island under water.[474] Scanty and scrappy as they

are, these details show that swimming must have been taught to most

boys, at any rate if they were ever likely to serve in a fleet. Plato

twice[475] uses a metaphor drawn from a man swimming on his back,

showing that this method was known. When a young disputant is being

severely handled in a discussion, Sokrates intervenes, “wishing to

give the boy a rest, since he saw that he was getting a severe ducking

and he feared that he might lose heart.”[476] The phrase suggests that

the sight of boys learning to swim was familiar. They could learn

either in the innumerable creeks and bays of the sea, or in the lakes

and rivers, or in diving-pools.[477] There were also various

“gymnastic games” which young people played in the water

together;[478] but of their nature nothing is known.

It cannot reasonably be doubted that in the maritime states a large

proportion of the boys, at any rate of the lower classes, were taught

to _row_, since each trireme required a crew of 200, nearly all of

whom had to use the oar. In the good old days, according to

the _Wasps_, the main object was to be a good oar,[479] and

rowing-blisters were a sign of patriotism.[480] In an emergency, the

Athenians could make the whole citizen force under a certain age

embark on the fleet and could win a victory with these rowers; this

would have been impossible if the average citizen had been ignorant of

rowing.[481] On such occasions many even of the Hippeis embarked:

Aristophanes jestingly asserts that in an expedition to Korinth the

horses tried also, shouting, “Gee-ho, put your backs into it. Do more

work, Dobbin.”[482] Before the close of the war,[483] Charon, the

ferryman of Styx, assuming that every Hellene knows the way to row,

makes the souls of the departed row themselves across. Boat-races were

certainly known at this period. A client of Lusias asserts that he has

won a race with a trireme off Cape Sounion.[484] Probably the

trierarchoi, the rich men appointed to fit out the State navy, either

voluntarily or by regular custom, made the ships race one another.

Thus the races would be as much inter-tribal contests as the

dithyrambs or torch-races. Two crews of the epheboi of a later date

used to race in the two sacred triremes. The vessels sailing out for

the Sicilian expedition raced as far as Aigina.[485] A fragment of

Plato the comic poet[486] refers to similar contests:

Thy high-heaped tomb on this fair promontory

Shall take the greetings of our far-flung fleets,

And watch the merchants sailing out and in,

And be spectator when the galleons race.

EXCURSUS I

The “gumnasiarchoi” have created some confusion among those who have

discussed Attic ways. Some authorities would make them rich men

performing a “leitourgia” and holding a similar position to the

trierarchoi and choregoi: others make them officials appointed to

superintend the gymnasia.

The gumnasiarchia is certainly reckoned among leitourgiai as a general

rule. A speaker in Lusias,[487] giving a list of these duties which he

had performed, says: “I supplied a chorus of men at the Thargelia, a

chorus of war-dancers at the Panathenaia, a cyclic chorus at the

little Panathenaia, I was Gumnasiarchos for the Prometheia and was

victorious, then choregos with a chorus of boys, then with beardless

war-dancers at the little Panathenaia.” In Andokides[488] a

gumnasiarchos at the Hephaisteia is mentioned. The author of the

treatise on the Athenian constitution says:[489] “In the case of the

choregiai, gumnasiarchiai, and trierarchiai, the Athenians realise

that the rich fill the offices and the populace serve under them and

get the benefit. So the populace claims to be paid for singing and

running and dancing and sailing in the ships.” Now “singing and

dancing” belong to the choregiai, and “sailing in the ships” to the

trierarchiai. So “running” is left for the gumnasiarchiai. The main

feature of the yearly festivals of Hephaistos and Prometheus, which

the two earlier passages gave as the scene of the duties of the

gumnasiarchos, was a torch-race. It may thus be inferred that the duty

of the gumnasiarchos was to collect, and train, a team of his own

tribe for the torch-race at these festivals.[490] In connection with

this duty, they could prosecute members of their team, or any one who

interfered with them, for impiety before the Archon Basileus,[491]

since the race was a religious function. They were thus in the

sacrosanct position which Demosthenes as choregos claims for himself

in his speech against Meidias.

So far the gumnasiarchos is an ordinary performer of a leitourgia, and

his duties are confined to providing a tribal team for the torch-races

at the Prometheia and Hephaisteia. His team, usually at any rate,

consisted of epheboi, as we learn from an inscription describing the

victory of Eutuchides with his epheboi.[492]

* * * * *

There is also the law quoted as Solon’s in Aischines’ speech against

Timarchos.[493] “The gumnasiarch_ai_ (note that it is a different

word) “are not to allow any one over age to keep company with the boys

at the festival of Hermes in any way whatsoever: if he does not keep

all such persons out of the gymnasia, the gumnasiarch_es_ shall be

liable to the law that prescribes penalties for those who corrupt free

boys.” But the orator himself only mentions paidotribai, and special

enactments dealing with the Hermaia; there is no mention of a

gumnasiarches. The law itself is an addition made in a later period

when there was a special officer to control the gymnasia. But there is

no evidence for such an official in the days of the independence of

Hellas.

One interesting passage remains. “I was gumnasiarchos in my deme,” or

country district, says a speaker in Isaios.[494] There must therefore

have been local torch-races, for which rich men were called upon to

pay and train teams, just as there were certainly local theatrical

performances. The passage opens up a prospect of vigorous athletic

life throughout the country districts and villages of Attica.

[332] Plato, _Rep._ 556 B-D.

[333] Xen. _Mem._ iii. 12. 1.

[334] Plato, _Phaidr._ 239 c.

[335] Hesiod, _Works and Days_, 289.

[336] Solon reduced this endowment to 500 drachmai for an

Olympian victor, 100 for an Isthmian (Plut. _Solon_, 23).

[337] Plut. _Quaest. Rom._ 40.

[338] Plato, _Laws_, 807 c.

[339] For this their vast appetites were partly responsible.

Milo and Theagenes each ate a whole ox in a single day

(Athen. 412 f). Astuanax the pankratiast ate what was meant

for nine guests (_ibid._ 413 b).

[340] Xen. _Banquet_, ii. 17.

[341] Galen, _On Medic. and Gym._ § 33 (ed. Kühn. v. 870).

[342] Philos. _On Gymnastics_, 54.

[343] Pausan. v. 21. 10.

[344] Pind. _Olymp._

[345] Pindar, frag.

[346] Fragment of _Autolukos_.

[347] A very bold attack on the Olympian games, which must

have caused a sensation in the theatre.

[348] Aristot. _Pol._ vii. 16. 13.

[349] Lukourg. _ag. Leok._ 51.

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

[351] κατέλυσε [katelyse] must mean this, as in [Andok.]

_ag. Alkibiades_, where that gentleman is said to be

καταλύων τὰ γυμνάσια [katalyôn ta gymnasia] by his bad

example.

[352] See end of Aristoph. _Wasps_.

[353] As shown by the beginning of Plato, _Lusis_, 203 B.

[354] Aristoph. _Birds_, 141.

[355] Antiphon, _Second Tetralogy_.

[356] The law quoted in Aischines _ag._ _Timarchos_ is

spurious, being a later interpolation; it cannot therefore

be used as evidence.

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

[358] The division of the boys into classes by age in the

contests points to such a usage. Cp. the ἡλικίαι [hêlikiai]

at Teos.

[359] Later, this was done by a special official, the

ἀλειπτής [aleiptês].

[360] Aristot. _Pol._ iv. 1. 1.

[361] _e.g._ Plato, _Gorg._ 504 A; _Protag._ 313 D; Aristot.

_Pol._ iii. 16. 8.

[362] Plato, _Gorg._ 452 B.

[363] The paidotribes is distinguished from the gumnastes as

the schoolmaster from the crammer. The gumnastes coached

pupils chiefly for the great games, while the paidotribes

presided over physical training generally, especially of

boys, but sometimes of epheboi. See the elaborate discussion

in Grasberger, i. 263-268.

[364] Plato, _Protag._ 313 A.

[365] _Ibid._ 326 C.

[366] ἀποδυτήριον [apodytêrion].

[367] See Thompson, Plato, _Phaedr._ 239 C., and Eur.

_Bacch._ 456.

[368] Illustr. Plate VI. A.

[369] Illustr. Plates VI. A and VI. B.

[370] See especially the Panathenaic vases in the British

Museum.

[371] _e.g._ Brit. Mus. E 288.

[372] Brit Mus. B 361, E 427, E 288.

[373] Illustr. Plate VIII.

[374] Aristot. _Pol._ viii. 4.

[375] Aristoph. _Clouds_, 973.

[376] _Anthol. Palat._ xiii. 222.

[377] Herod, vi. 127-129.

[378] Athen. 629 B.

[379] Xen. _Banquet_, ii. 19.

[380] Plato, _Laws_, 830 C.

[381] Philostratus, _On Gymnastics_, 55.

[382] Galen, _De sanit. tuend._ ii. 8.

[383] Grasberger, i. 154.

[384] Described at length, Grasberger, i. 84-98.

[385] Aristoph. _Knights_, 1238.

[386] See Illustr. Plate VI. A for a wrestling lesson.

Lucian, _Ass._ 8-11.

[387] Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Grenfell and Hunt, Part III. No.

466 (1903). The papyrus is of the second century.

[388] _Anthol. Palat._ xii. 206.

[389] Isok. _Antid._ 184.

[390] See Illustr. Plate VI. B for a pankration lesson.

[400] Plut. _Alkib._ ii. 3.

[401] See Illustr. Plate VII.

[402] See Illustr. Plate V. B.

[403] Illustr. Plate V. A.

[404] Illustr. Plate V. B.

[405] Athen. 584 C, referring to about 320 B.C.

[406] Aristoph. _Peace_, 357.

[407] Zeno in Athen. 561 C.

[408] Athen. 609 D.

[409] ἀποδυτήριον [apodytêrion]. See Plato, _Charmides_, 153

ff.

[410] κατάστεγος δρόμος [katastegos dromos]. Plato,

_Euthud._ 273 A.

[411] Theodoros (Plato, _Theait._).

[412] This was often done outside (Plato, _Theait._ 144 C).

The oil-room (ἐλαιοθέσιον [elaiothesion]) of Vitruvius may

be a later invention. This preliminary anointing was called

ξηραλοιφεῖν [xêraloiphein]. After the baths they rubbed

themselves with a mixture of oil and water; this was

χυτλοῦσθαι [chytlousthai].

[413] See Xen. _Banquet_, 1. 7.

[414] Aristoph. _Knights_, 492.

[415] Philostratus, _On Gymnastics_, 56. It was usual to be

dusted before wrestling.

[416] Xen. _Banquet_.

[417] For a good bathing scene, see Brit. Mus. Vase E 83.

Also E 32.

[418] Philostratus, _On Gymnastics_, 57.

[419] Plato, _Laws_, 830 C.

[420] Particular Sophists attached themselves to particular

gymnasia and palaistrai which they came to regard as their

schools. Mikkos has already occupied the newly-built

palaistra in the _Lusis_, 204 A. Cp. Plato’s position at the

Akademeia and Aristotle’s at the Lukeion.

[421] αὐλή [aulê] (Plato, _Lusis_, 206 E).

[422] κονίστρα [konistra].

[423] Plato, _Laws_, 830 B.

[424] For the excitement of the spectators and their shouts

of encouragement see Isok. _Euag._ 32.

[425] Some gymnasia provided a large “Room of the Epheboi.”

So in Vitruvius’ model.

[426] Athen. 495-6.

[427] Plato, _Polit._ 294 D, E.

[428] But by the end of the fourth century the teacher of

arms becomes an important individual in the training of the

epheboi.

[429] Plato, _Euthud._ 273 A.

[430] Xen. _Econ._ iii. 13.

[431] Xen. _Econ._ xi. 18; _Banquet_, i. 7, ix. 1.

[432] σφαιριστήριον [sphairistêrion].

[433] Athen. 20 f.

[434] Brit. Mus. E 83, for a picture of this in use.

[435] χυτλοῦσθαι [chytlousthai].

[436] Athen. 566 e.

[437] _Hunting with Hounds_, passim. So Plato in the _Laws_,

with reservations.

[438] Plato, _Laws_, 795 E.

[439] Aristoph. _Frogs_, 729.

[440] Lucian, _On Dancing_, 15.

[441] Athen. 20 d.

[442] Plato, _Rep._ 396 A, B.

[443] Antiphon, _The Choreutes_, 11.

[444] Xen. _Banquet_, ii. 17.

[445] Lakonian and Attic (Herod. vi. 129); Persian (Xen.

_Anab._ vi. 1. 10); Troizenìan Epizephurian Lokrian, Cretan,

Ionian, Mantinean in Lucian, _On Dancing_, 22.

[446] Not necessarily nude, for γυμνός [gymnos] only

represents the absence of the armour used in the War-dance.

[447] Plato, _Laws_, 815 A.

[448] Lucian, _On Dancing_, 8.

[449] Lucian, _On Dancing_, 8.

[450] The dance known as γυμνοπαιδική [gymnopaidikê] is

described in Athen. 631 b, as including representations of

wrestling. In 678 b, c, the festival of the Γυμνοπαιδίαι

[Gymnopaidiai], and the dances in it are referred to, but no

mention is there made of wrestling.

[451] Athen. 630 d.

[452] This sketch is drawn chiefly from Antiphon, _The

Choreutes_.

[453] Demos. _ag. Midias_, 533.

[454] Rivals sometimes tried to interrupt the lessons or

bribe the teacher (Demos. _Mid._ 535).

[455] The situation of Antiphon’s speech.

[456] Demos. _Mid._ 520.

[457] Xen. _Hiero_, ix. 4.

[458] Böckh, 212.

[459] _Ibid._ 221.

[460] Xen. _Hipparch._ i. 11.

[461] Illustr. Plate IX.

[462] Brit. Mus. E 485.

[463] Mnesimachos, _Hippotrophos_ (Athen. 402 f).

[464] See Illustr. Plates X. A, X. B and the Frontispiece

for scenes in a riding-school.

[465] The mark was a suspended shield, Brit. Mus.

Prize-Amphora 7, Room IV.

[466] A rough summary of Xen. _Hipparch._ i. 15-26.

[467] Xen. _Hipparch._ iii. 6.

[468] Xen. _Hipparch._ iii. 14.

[469] Petit, _Leg. Att._ ii. 4.

[470] Plato, _Laws_, 689 D.

[471] Herod. viii. 89.

[472] _e.g._ Thuc. iv. 25.

[473] Diogenes Laert. ii. 8. 73.

[474] Thuc. iv. 26.

[475] Plato, _Rep._ 529 C; _Phaidr._ 264 A.

[476] Plato, _Euthud._ 277 D.

[477] Plato, _Rep._ 453 D.

[478] Galen, _de loc. aff._ iv. 8. See Grasberger, i. 151.

[479] Aristoph. _Wasps_, 1095.

[480] _Ibid._ 1119.

[481] Xen. _Hellen._ i. 6. 24.

[482] Aristoph. _Knights_, 600.

[483] Aristoph. _Frogs_, 200-271, describes a rowing lesson.

[484] _Lus._ 21. 5.

[485] Thuc. vi. 32.

[486] Plut. _Themist._ 32.

[487] Lusias, speech 21. 1-2.

[488] Andok. 17. 20.

[489] [Xen.] _Constit. of Athen._ i. 13.

[490] So

lampadi γυμνασιαρχεῖν λαμπάδι [gymnasiarchein].――Isaios,

_Philoktemon_, 62. 60.

γυμνασιαρχεῖσθαι εὐ ταῖς λαμπάσιν [gymnasiarcheisthai eu

tais lampasin].――Xen. _Revenues_, 4. 52.

λάμπάδι νικήσας γυμνασιαρχῶν [lampadi nikêsas

gymnasiarchôn].――Böckh, 257.

[491] Dem. _ag. Lakritos_, 940; Aristot. Ἀθ. Πολ. [Ath.

Pol.] 57.

[492] Böckh, 243.

[493] Aesch. _Tim._ 12.

[494] Isaios, _Menekles_, § 42. See Wyse’s edition on the

passage.

CHAPTER V

SECONDARY EDUCATION: I. THE SOPHISTS

At fourteen or soon after, it was usual for the ordinary course of

letters and lyre-playing to terminate: the gymnastic lessons might be

carried on till old age interrupted them. During the first

three-quarters of the fifth century, the lad, on leaving school, was

left to live more or less as he pleased, if he was rich enough not to

have to work for his living: the sons of poorer citizens at this age,

if not before, settled down to learn a trade or engaged in

merchandise. Rich boys, no doubt, spent most of their time in athletic

pursuits; riding and chariot-driving were favourite amusements. But

with the Periclean age arose a violent desire for a further course of

intellectual study, and a system of secondary education arose, to

occupy the four years which elapsed between the time when the lad

finished his primary education and the time when the State summoned

him to undergo his two years of military training.

Many of the primary schools of the better sort started courses of

study for lads, providing, no doubt, separate class-rooms, or else the

younger boys attended at different hours from those at which the elder

pupils assembled. Probably some such provision had been made much

earlier for those who wished to obtain a more advanced knowledge of

literature and music than was offered by the primary schools. But in

the time of Sokrates many masters seemed to have held classes for lads

as well as for boys. On entering the schools of Dionusios,[495] the

master of letters, Sokrates finds a class of lads assembled here.[496]

They all belong to noble families: the poor were no doubt unable to

afford education of this sort. Two of the lads were busy discussing a

point of astronomy, and were quoting the authority of Oinopides[497]

and Anaxagoras, for Sokrates catches these two names as he enters the

room. They were drawing circles on the ground and imitating the

inclination of some orbit or other with their hands. This scene shows

a much more advanced sort of study than was usual at the primary

school of letters. The Sophists seem to have often lectured in

class-rooms.

More often secondary education was imparted, not in the regular

schools by regular, established masters, but by the wandering savants,

who taught every conceivable subject, and were all grouped together

under the general name of Sophists.[498] From this category the

mathematicians and astronomers, who in all respects occupied the same

position, are often excluded. This is due to the authority of Plato,

who, while detesting the other subjects taught as secondary education,

had a great affection for mathematics and astronomy, the only subjects

which he prescribes for lads in the _Republic_ and _Laws_. But

Aristophanes, taking a more logical position, includes geometry and

astronomy among the subjects taught by the burlesque Sophists of the

_Clouds_. In point of fact, secondary education included any subject

that the lad or his parents desired; and the wandering professors who

imparted it, and even established teachers like Isokrates, who kept

permanent secondary schools at Athens, were all alike, in the popular

view, Sophists.

But the more important subjects do naturally fall into two great

groups, Mathematics and Rhetoric. Mathematics, as may be seen from the

_Republic_, meant, as a part of secondary education, the Science of

Numbers, Geometry, and Astronomy, with a certain amount of the theory

of Music, which, owing partly to Pythagorean traditions, was classed

with mathematics. We have already seen a class learning Astronomy.

Plato, in the _Theaitetos_,[499] supplies a sketch of a lesson in more

advanced arithmetic, which, by Hellenic custom, was usually expressed

in geometrical terms in order to obtain the assistance of a diagram.

The lad Theaitetos says to Sokrates that Theodorus of Kurene, the

great contemporary mathematician, had been teaching him. “He was

giving us a lesson in Roots, with diagrams, showing us that the root

of 3 and the root of 5 did not admit of linear measurement by the foot

(that is, were not rational). He took each root separately up to 17.

There, as it happened, he stopped. So the other pupil and I

determined, since the roots were apparently infinite in number, to try

to find a single name which would embrace all these roots.

“We divided all number into two parts. The number which has a square

root we likened to the geometrical square, and called ‘square and

equilateral’ (_e.g._ 4, 9, 16). The intermediate numbers, such as 3

and 5 and the rest which have no square root, but are made up of

unequal factors, we likened to the rectangle with unequal sides, and

called rectangular numbers.” And so on. As the pupils apply the same

principle to cubes and cube roots, Theodorus must have initiated them

into the mysteries of solid geometry also.

Here we find a professor lecturing to a select class, in this case of

only two lads, and his pupils, as in the class-room of Dionusios,

discussing and elaborating among themselves afterwards the

subject-matter of the lecture. Theodoros is mentioned as teaching

Geometry, Astronomy, and the theory of Music, as well as the Science

of Numbers. Geometry by this time included a good number of the easier

propositions which were afterwards incorporated in the works of

Euclid; the school of Pythagoras, and, later, that of Plato, did much

to develop it. The problem of squaring the circle was already

occupying attention.[500] Compasses and the rule were the ordinary

geometrical implements: diagrams were drawn on the ground, on dust or

sand. In Arithmetic surds[501] were a popular subject: but

arithmetical problems, being usually expressed in terms of geometry

plane or solid, become as a rule a part of the latter science.

To Plato these mathematical studies are alone suitable for secondary

education: the philosopher Teles,[502] carrying on the same tradition,

makes arithmetic and geometry the special plagues of the lad.[503] But

then the philosophers despised Rhetoric.

Rhetoric, from the time of Gorgias onwards, formed a very large part

of secondary education Isokrates was its greatest professor. He

provided in his school a course of three or four years for lads, to

occupy their time till they were epheboi. But the methods, the aims,

and the personality of this interesting professor will be discussed

later.

* * * * *

Besides mathematics and rhetoric, there were literary studies. The

_Axiochos_ gives κριτικοί [kritikoi] among the teachers of a lad.

These are the lecturers on literary subjects, who concerned themselves

with interpretations, often far-fetched, of the poets; a summary of

the literary discussion in the _Protagoras_ may give some idea of such

a lesson.

“PROTAGORAS. I consider that it is a most important part of a man’s

education to be skilled in poetry; to understand, that is, what is

rightly said, and what is not, by the poets. Simonides says to Skopas,

son of Kreon the Thessalian, ‘To become indeed a good man is hard, a

man foursquare, wrought without blame in hands and feet and mind.’ You

know the poem? Do you know then that farther on in the same poem he

says, ‘But the saying of Pittakos, wise though he was, seems to me not

said aright: he said, “’Tis hard to be noble.”’ Don’t you see that the

poet has contradicted himself?”

Sokrates replies by distinguishing “being” from “becoming,” and

suggests that χαλεπός [chalepos] (hard) may mean not “difficult” but

“bad.” He then gives a lecture in his turn. He picks out a μέν [men]

in the first line and puts it into a most unwarrantable position in

his translation, and makes “indeed” go with “hard.” To become good is

difficult but possible, to be and remain good quite impossible. Hence

Simonides goes on to say that he is quite satisfied with those who do

no positive harm. Sokrates also notes a philological point, that

ἐπαίνημι [epainêmi] in the poem is a Lesbian Aeolic form, justified

because the poem is addressed to a citizen of Mitulene. It may be

remarked that Hippias also possessed a lecture on the subject. A

lecture on Homer by a Sophist is mentioned by Isokrates: such lectures

were frequently given by the rhapsodes.

Grammar was also taught, and the right use of words. Less usual

subjects were geography,[504] art, and metre. Logic was in its

infancy, but the growing lad could practise himself in argument by

listening to the disputes of the dialecticians. Current conversation

was full of ethical and political discussions: in the fourth century

there were the philosophical schools of Plato and, later, of

Aristotle, and the lectures of Antisthenes the cynic in Kunosarges;

and Isokrates taught political science. Lads seem to have been

expected to learn something, at any rate, of the laws of their

country: no doubt they were taken up to the Akropolis to read Solon’s

code: occasionally they may have been present as spectators in the

law-courts, in order that they might gain an idea of legal procedure.

Those who intended to become speech-writers for the courts would

doubtless learn more: they would also attend some well-known writer

like Lusias or Isaios, and learn the art of forensic rhetoric.

It must be clearly understood that the whole of this secondary

education was purely voluntary. The parent need not send his lad to

hear any teaching of the sort: the poorer classes certainly would not.

The richer parents could choose what subjects they or their sons

preferred: rhetoric or literature, geography or mathematics――it was

all one to the State. Teachers came and went: few stayed in Athens

long. Their pupils had either to follow them abroad, as Isokrates went

to Gorgias in Thessaly, or wait for their next visit. It was only the

schools of Isokrates, of the great philosophers, and of a few

speech-writers like Lusias and Isaios, that had any permanence in

Athens. Isokrates himself had taught in Chios for a time: Plato was

more than once in Sicily, and his school had to do without him in his

absence. There is a peculiar fluidity about secondary education in

Hellas: the teachers are always on the move. Endowed buildings for

them there were none: they taught in their own houses and gardens, or

in those of rich hosts, or in school-rooms borrowed for the occasion,

or in public resorts like the gymnasia, or even in the streets.

Consistent or continuous instruction was the exception: the Sophists

proper gave it only to a few. The average lad at this time naturally

acquired a wide and superficial knowledge of a great number of

subjects, just the amount of knowledge which is such a dangerous

thing. The lads became Jacks-of-all-trades: Plato, struck with the

educational error of wide superficiality, wrote the _Republic_ as a

counterblast, preaching “One man, one trade.” This protest is largely

directed against the specious superficiality of the Sophists’

teaching.

Consequently, secondary education fell into two halves, the fluid

teaching of the wandering Sophists and the continuous teaching of the

more stationary schools of Plato and Isokrates. It will be convenient

to accept this division, and take the fluid half first. In subjects,

the two must overlap one another: the Sophists taught logic as much as

Plato, rhetoric as much as Isokrates, and universal information of

very much the same range as Aristotle. But the method was different,

just because as a rule the Sophist was here to-day and gone to-morrow,

while the stationary teachers taught the same pupils for several years

together and could study their particular idiosyncrasies, and the

value of education depends very largely on the teacher’s understanding

of, and sympathy with, the individual boys whom he teaches.

It is of interest to trace the development of the term Sophia and of

the Sophists who professed it.

The earliest thoughts of the Hellenic peoples were enshrined in

hexameter verse. Homer and Hesiod represent the science and

philosophy, as well as the religion, of their age. The poetical

tradition survived in philosophy as late as Parmenides and Empedokles:

the last trace of it may perhaps be found in the myths of Plato. The

religious and ritual thinkers and the composers of oracles also

employed verse. Consequently “wisdom,” in the earliest Hellenic

literature, is mainly associated with poetry and music, and the words

σοφοί [sophoi] and σοφισταί [sophistai] are applied indiscriminately

to poets.[505] This sense of σοφιστής [sophistês] survived in later

times, and Protagoras could call Homer, Hesiod, Mousaios, Orpheus, and

Simonides all alike by this title. Orpheus is so styled in the

_Rhesos_. Phrunichos called Lampros the musician a “hyper-sophist,”

and Athenaeus declares that Sophist was a general title for all

students of music.

A second use of the word “wise man” had also existed from the earliest

times, by which it had been applied to those who were skilful in some

particular craft, such as carpentering,[506] medicine,[507] or

chariot-driving.[508]

The “Seven Sages” also received the name of Sophist,[509] and in their

age the cognate words σοφός [sophos] and σοφία [sophia] became

connected with practical and political wisdom.[510]

Then the rise of education in Hellas, in which these old poets and

thinkers were largely employed, and the analogy of the other

educational titles with similar endings, γραμματιστής [grammatistês]

and κιθαριστής [kitharistês], gave the word σοφιστής [sophistês] an

association with the teaching profession. Scientific knowledge was

beginning to accumulate. Sufficient history was known to serve as a

foundation for political theory and precept. Rhetoric was becoming an

essential preliminary to political life, since, with the rise of

democracy, persuasion became the dominating influence in law-courts

and assemblies. The desire for knowledge was never so keen as during

the latter half of the fifth century in Hellas. With the demand came

the men. All over the Hellenic world arose professional teachers, who

carried the knowledge, which they had learnt from one another or

discovered for themselves, from city to city. Everywhere their

lectures attracted large and enthusiastic crowds. Among the subjects

which they studied and taught may be mentioned mathematics (including

arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy), grammar, etymology, geography,

natural history, the laws of metre and rhythm, history (under which

head fell also mythology and genealogies), politics, ethics, the

criticism of religion, mnemonics, logic, tactics and strategy, music,

drawing and painting, scientific athletics, and, above all, rhetoric.

To such a heterogeneous collection what name could be given but

“wisdom,” σοφία [sophia]? The name Sophist was applied indiscriminately

to all these secondary teachers.

There are several interesting accounts of these Sophists in extant

literature, but the writers are always prejudiced opponents.

In the _Clouds_ of Aristophanes, the Sophists and their pupils are

represented as living in an underground Thinking-Shop. They are pale

and squalid, engaged in all sorts of researches. Natural history is

represented by the important question, “How many times the length of

its own foot does a flea jump?” a problem which is solved by actual

experiment. Later in the play they inquire why the sea does not

overflow, since the rivers are always running into it. Scientific

instead of mythological explanations of thunder and lightning are

given. There is religious criticism too, such as Xenophanes had

uttered long before: “If Zeus imprisoned his own father, why has he

not been punished?” There is astronomy, “the paths and orbit of the

sun,” and a hanging basket is introduced as an observatory. Geometry

and compasses are mentioned. The visitor is shown a map of the world,

containing Euboia, Lakedaimon, and Attica on a large enough scale, it

would seem, to mark the deme Kikunna; perhaps, as Strepsiades expects

to find dikastai on it at Athens, it had pictures of elephants and

monsters in unknown districts. The students are interested in metres

and rhythms. The poet laughs at grammar, forming “cockess” as the

logical feminine of cock, and making the chief Sophist object to

feminine nouns with masculine terminations. It is suggested that the

pupils at the Thinking-Shop are dirty, half-starved vegetarians, too

economical to go to the hair-cutter or the baths, abstaining from wine

and the gymnasia. But the main point attacked by Aristophanes is the

teaching of Argument. The whole object of learning under the Sophists

is, according to him, to be able to cajole the dikastai and so win

impunity to cheat, and to have an argument to justify anything. The

successful scholars beat their fathers and mothers, giving logical

reasons for their behaviour; they refuse to go to school, and are too

clever to believe or accept anything. But their intellectual

exhilaration is spasmodic; they have been taught, if they reach a

difficult problem, to jump on to something else.

A vivid sketch of Sophist-life is given in Plato’s _Protagoras_. Young

Hippokrates, on returning to Athens in the evening after pursuing a

runaway slave to the frontier, hears that Protagoras the great Sophist

has arrived in the city. Only the lateness of the hour deters him from

rushing off to find Sokrates, who will give him an introduction to the

teacher. Next morning he comes round to Sokrates’ house long before it

is light, bangs and shouts at the door in his excitement, and

announces that he is ready to spend all the money which he and all his

friends possess, in fees.

They go off to the house of Kallias, where Protagoras and other

Sophists are staying. The porter is so worn out by the number of

visitors that he is distinctly rude. They find Protagoras walking up

and down in the cloisters of the house, with three or four listeners

on either side, one of whom is learning to be a Sophist himself.

Behind follows a crowd, mostly composed of the foreigners whom he

draws from city to city, like Orpheus, with his magic voice. Another

Sophist, Hippias, is sitting on a sort of throne in the opposite part

of the cloisters; around him on benches are a number of inquirers, who

were asking him questions about natural science and astronomy. A third

Sophist, Prodikos, is in a side-building, still in bed, covered up in

blankets.[511] His audience sat on neighbouring beds. The whole

assemblage finally collect couches and benches together in a great

circle to hear a discussion between Sokrates and Protagoras. Kallias,

the host on this occasion, often entertained Sophists: at another time

he had Gorgias and Polos in the house. His cloisters must have

provided a favourite lecture-room. The Sophists also haunted the

gymnasia. The discussion in the _Euthudemos_ takes place in the

undressing-room of the Lukeion: the two Sophists have been walking in

the cloister. Hippias on one occasion lectures in a school-room, on

another in a public place at Olympia.

Protagoras was the first of these teachers to take pay. His system was

very fair. On the close of their course of instruction his pupils, if

they chose, paid the fee for which he asked; otherwise, they went into

a temple, and, after taking an oath, paid as much as they said his

instruction was worth.[512] Hippias made about £600 in a very short

time in Sicily, receiving some £80 from the tiny town of Inukos,

although Protagoras was also lecturing in the island at the time.

Prodikos charged £2 for a particular lecture on correct speech,[513]

but there was also a less complete form of it which cost only 10d.; he

seems to have been noted for the gradations in his charges, for there

were also lectures at 5d., 1s. 8d., and 3s. 4d.[514] The sum which

Euenos of Paros asked for teaching the whole duties of a man and a

citizen was £20.[515] Probably, however, the charges of these

Sophists, and the money which they made, were much exaggerated by

their contemporaries. Isokrates, the pupil of Gorgias, gives a much

lower estimate. “None of the so-called Sophists,” he says, “will be

found to have collected much money. On the contrary, some passed their

lives in poverty and the rest in quite ordinary circumstances. The

richest Sophist within my memory was Gorgias. He spent most of his

time in Thessaly, the most prosperous part of Hellas. He lived to a

great age and followed his profession for a great many years. He did

not take upon himself any public burdens by settling in any one city.

He did not marry or have children to bring up. Yet with all these

opportunities of growing wealthy, he only left about £800 at his

death.”[516] It must be remembered that the Sophists received money

only from those who definitely enrolled themselves as pupils or came

to a few advertised lectures. Hippias lectured at Sparta frequently,

and never received a penny. Any one might go and ask a Sophist a

question, and would almost always receive a voluminous answer. The

eloquence and practical skill of these men were also always at the

disposal of their own city. Like the greater Renaissance scholars,

Hippias, Gorgias, and Prodikos were much occupied in going on

embassies. For the larger part of their life-work they received no

payment whatever; what they actually received was possibly less than

what their philosophic opponents obtained in donations from friendly

tyrants.

At any rate, their fees were not heavy enough to damp the ardour of

their pupils. Young men left their relations and friends to follow

Sophists from city to city. These enthusiastic disciples were almost

ready to carry their teachers about on their shoulders, so great was

their affection for them. Why this enthusiasm? Partly because the

Sophists were men of great personal charm. Partly because in that age

the thirst for knowledge was unbounded. Partly from a desire to learn

the way of virtue, which the Sophists claimed to teach. But the most

potent reason was ambition. The young wished to shine in conversation,

the great occupation of the age, and to be able to discuss every

conceivable topic with intelligence. But education was also the road

to political success. The Sophists taught systematic rhetoric, and

logic of a sort. They also supplied the subject-matter for orations,

in their practical handling of political science, of history, of

ethical commonplaces; for a public oration was expected to be a

storehouse of erudition. Rhetoric was needful not only for power, but

also for security; for in the courts it had more influence than mere

argument and facts.

* * * * *

About the individual Sophists little is known. They appear for us only

in the pages of those who traduced them. Plato is mainly occupied with

various conclusions which he draws from their philosophic theories,

which were not a part of their teaching. _Protagoras_, the eldest of

them, a most dignified personage, set himself to train good citizens:

he claimed that he enabled his pupils to manage their households and

govern their states. He imparted to them all the worldly wisdom which

he had gained by long years of personal experience. He made a special

study of political science, no doubt for this purpose, and left a

treatise upon the subject, which was sufficiently excellent for a

certain Aristoxenos to be able to say that Plato had plagiarised most

of the _Republic_ from it.[517] Being businesslike, he favoured

clearness of thought, and studied grammar: he was the first to

separate nouns into the three genders.[518]

_Prodikos_ belonged to the same practical school. He began by teaching

his pupils the right use of words.[519] Thus he told Sokrates not to

use δεινός [deinos] when he meant “clever”; for its proper meaning was

“terrible,” applicable to war, disease, or the like.[520] There is an

amusing skit on his pet subject in Plato.[521] “The audience in a

philosophical debate should give an impartial but not an equal

attention to both speakers; for it is not the same thing. For it is

right to give an impartial hearing, but you ought to incline, not

equally towards both, but rather towards the wiser speaker. I also ask

you to agree, and to discuss, not to dispute. For friends discuss with

friends for friendship’s sake, but enemies dispute. In this way our

meeting will be best conducted. For you, the speakers, would thus win

from the audience most repute, not praise (for repute is without

deception in the minds of the hearers, but praise is an outward

expression of what is often not felt); and we, the audience, would

thus receive most happiness, not pleasure; for happiness is produced

by the mental reception of knowledge and wisdom, pleasure by eating or

by some other pleasant physical state.” It was easy to laugh, but, as

Plato himself shows, these distinctions of meaning were extremely

useful in meeting logical quibbles, and were much needed in

contemporary logic. Besides this, Prodikos was a moral teacher, and

composed the famous _Choice of Herakles_, in which he inculcated the

duty of hard work as opposed to a life of laziness and pleasure. He

was an invalid, but worked on in spite of ill-health; the result was,

perhaps, a certain amount of pessimism.

_Hippias_ was a marvellously all-round genius. He once came to the

Olympian festival with everything that he wore or carried made by

himself, ring, oil bottle, shoes, clothes, a wonderful Persian girdle;

he also brought epic poems, tragedies, dithyrambs, and all sorts of

prose-works.[522] He knew astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, grammar. At

Sparta he taught history and archæology. He had a wonderful system of

mnemonics, by which, if he once heard a string of fifty names, he

could remember them all.[523] He lectured on Homer and other poets. He

also composed a moral discourse, which won great applause at Sparta,

where quibbles or bad morality would have been sternly repressed; it

was afterwards delivered in an Athenian school-room. Hippias was

always ready to answer any question which was put to him, and was

rarely at a loss.

A less prominent Sophist was _Antiphon_, who must be carefully

distinguished from his namesake the Attic orator. He published works

on physics, on concord (ὁμόνοια [homonoia]), and on political science.

The fragments are interesting, and show some popular handling of

ethical teaching. The following extracts[524] will give some idea of

the man:――

“First among things human I reckon education. For if you

begin anything whatever in the right way, the end will

probably be right also. The nature of the harvest depends

upon the seed you sow. If you plant good education in a

young body, it bears leaves and fruit the whole life long,

and no rain or drought can destroy it.”

“Life is like a day’s sentry-duty, and the length of life is

comparable to a single day. While our day lasts, we look up

to the sunlight, then we pass on our duty to our

successors.”

“A miser stored up money in a hiding-place, and did not lend

or use it. Then it was stolen. A man to whom he had refused

to lend it told him to put a stone in the hiding-place

instead, and imagine that it was money; it would be just as

useful.”

Among the Sophists were some apparently who were merely jesters, and

used their brains solely in arousing laughter. It may well be doubted

whether the account which Plato gives of _Euthudemos_ and

_Dionusodoros_ is true to life; but they probably represent a type. As

teachers, no sane man could take them seriously. They had been

gladiators, and had taught forensic rhetoric; afterwards they

discovered a genius for quibbles. They were ready to make out any

statement to be true or false. The respondent may only answer “Yes” or

“No,” and no previous statement could be quoted against them, since

they did not claim to teach anything consistent. A sample[525] of

their arguments will make their methods clearer. “_A._ Your father is

a dog. _B._ So is yours. _A._ If you answer my questions, you will

admit it. Have you a dog? _B._ Yes, a very bad one. _A._ Has it

puppies? _B._ Mongrels like itself. _A._ Then the dog is a father?

_B._ Yes. _A._ Isn’t the dog yours? _B._ Certainly. _A._ Then being

yours and a father, it is your father, and you are the brother of

puppies.” Absurd as it is, such discussions are a good means of

teaching logic, since they make the search for rules intellectually

compulsory.

No doubt there were black sheep among the lesser Sophists, to whom

Plato’s bitter definitions in the _Sophist_ were quite applicable, who

were “hunters after young men of wealth and position, with sham

education as their bait, and a fee for their object, making money by a

scientific use of quibbles in private conversation, while quite aware

that what they were teaching was wrong.” But they do not appear in

extant literature, which has only recorded a very few, and those the

very pick, of the hundreds of Sophists that there must have been in

the Socratic age.[526]

* * * * *

The Sophists who have been mentioned so far have been but little

concerned with Rhetoric: they form rather a school of Logic, opposed

to the rhetorical school of _Gorgias_ and his followers.

[Illustration: PLATE VIII.

IN THE PALAISTRA: FLUTE-PLAYERS (WITH φορβεία [phorbeia]),

JAVELIN-THROWER, DISK-THROWER, AND BOXER

Gerhard’s _Auserlesene Vasenbilder_, cclxxii. Fig. 1.

From a Kulix, now at Berlin, signed by Epiktetos (No. 2262).]

Of the rise of Rhetoric in Hellas I need say little: the whole subject

has been admirably treated elsewhere.[527] For educational purposes,

Hellenic rhetoric started with several fatal drawbacks and some

counterbalancing advantages. The southern nature of the Hellenes

preferred sensuous charm of sound to logical accuracy of fact; their

rhetoric, arising as it did out of poetry, and modelling itself upon

its literary parent, pandered only too readily to their taste. With

truth it had no more to do than Homer had; its object was to please

the ear by curious rhythms, balanced clauses, parisosis, and all other

possible devices. As long as the form was excellent, no matter how

trivial the subject:[528] mice or salt were good enough for a theme.

The oration must, of course, be full of passion, but that could be

simulated: rhetoric had inherited the legacy of acting from its

parent, Lyric Poetry. So rhetoric became simply a question of style,

not of argument; and since arguments were not required, the strength

or weakness of a case did not matter: rhetoric could make any cause

attractive to a sensuous Hellenic ear by its tricks of style, and thus

make “the weaker cause the stronger.” The method by which its

professors taught their pupils brought out this attitude clearly. They

were accustomed to take an imaginary case, and then to teach their

pupils how to write a speech on either side of it: the extant

“Tetralogies” of Antiphon are examples of the method, which was

excellent educationally; for it is good to see the arguments on both

sides of a case. It was the carelessness about fact and indifference

to truth, and the element of acting, that were so dangerous to the

pupils. These elements certainly wrecked the justice of the Athenian

courts; their effect on Hellenic character was probably equally

unsatisfactory.

Rhetoric also inherited the “gnome” or commonplace, a general

statement about ethics or politics or what not, which could be

developed into a sententious little essay. Budding orators learned to

compose a little store of these and keep them ready for use, to be

inserted in a speech whenever an opportunity occurred. For writing

these essays, a certain amount of independent thought about politics

and ethics was necessary; and both the thought and the essay-writing

were no doubt good for the lads.

The flowery and poetic style, which was the main characteristic of

early Hellenic rhetoric, was the creation of Gorgias. A fragment of a

funeral oration, in which no doubt he put forth all his powers, may be

given as a sample of the sort of thing which his pupils learned to

write:――

“As witness to their deeds these dead set up trophies over the foe,

offerings to Zeus, offered by themselves. They were not unskilled in

natural Ares nor lawful loves nor armèd strife nor beauty-loving

Peace; revering the Gods by Justice, honouring their parents by

Service, just to their countrymen by Equality, faithful to their

friends by Loyalty. Therefore, when they died, love for them died not

with them, but deathless in bodies no longer bodies it lives when they

live no longer.” In the _Encomium on Helen_ we have “fright exceeding

fearful, and pity exceeding tearful, and yearning exceeding painful,”

and “productive of pleasure, destructive of pain.” In the _Palamedes_

Gorgias even uses puns.

His poetical compounds and those of his pupil _Alkidamas_ were famous.

In short, at this time there was no boundary whatever between poetry

and prose: prose, if anything, was the more poetical of the two.

This strange hothouse Euphuistic style of Gorgias took Hellas by

storm, and his influence was enormous: it even half-mastered the

austere mind of Thucydides. As reformed by the greater critical

faculties of his pupil Isokrates, it became the parent of Ciceronian

Latin and so of the prose literature of centuries.

The other rhetorical Sophists of the time are less interesting.

_Likumnios_ and _Polos_, teacher and pupil, seem to have devoted

themselves to questions of rhythm: they employed quaint conceits and

affectations, like Gorgias. _Theodoros_ and _Euenos_ divided and

subdivided the parts of an oration into “confirmation” and “additional

confirmation,” and “by-blames” and “by-panegyrics”: in which work

Polos joined them. _Thrasumachos_ of Chalcedon, who seems to have been

a bigger man altogether, began to attack the psychological side of

rhetoric by studying the questions of pathos and indignation; these

studies he embodied in pamphlets, and no doubt his results were

imparted to his pupils.

One of the beauties of old Hellenic education had been that it did not

make the rich a class apart from the poor by giving a widely different

form of culture. The rise of the Sophists changed all this: their fees

excluded the poor. The odium of resultant class-separation fell upon

the teachers. Their pupils, rich, aristocratic, and cultured, inclined

towards oligarchy. Hellenic sentiment held the teacher responsible for

the whole career of his pupils. So for this reason again the

democracies regarded the Sophists with suspicion, as the trainers of

oligarchs and tyrants. It was chiefly because he had been the teacher

of Kritias and Alkibiades that Sokrates was put to death by the

restored democracy. The persuasive powers which the rhetoricians gave

to their pupils might be, and often were, misused; the pupils might

mislead the Ekklesia into bad policy or the law-courts into injustice

by their eloquence. However much the Sophists might protest that they

taught only rhetoric, not ethics, they were held responsible for the

dishonesty as well as for the eloquence of such pupils. Besides,

rhetoric gave the rich man, who alone could buy it, a most

undemocratic influence in the State. The odium against the Sophists

was increased by their religious and political views. They were free

thinkers in all things. Protagoras was a frank agnostic; Gorgias

believed that nothing whatever existed. Their political theories were

equally revolutionary, full of the idea of Social Contracts and the

right of the one strong man. All this was extremely distasteful to the

majority, who were democratic and orthodox. But it must be remembered

that no such views appeared in lectures: they were confined to an

occasional book or to private conversation. Outwardly the Sophists

were law-abiding and respectable servants of the constitution, and

their lectures were, if anything, rather commonplace.

Thus the prejudice against them was excited partly by their

freethinking and partly by their fees. The first of these two reasons

applied still more to Sokrates and the philosophic schools. But

Sokrates neither asked nor received fees: Plato and Aristotle only

accepted presents. Consequently when the philosophic party tried to

dissociate themselves in the popular mind from the Sophists with whom

they were confounded, they attempted to revive the old Hellenic

prejudice against taking fees for “wisdom,” which had given trouble to

the lyric poets, and to emphasise the money-making aspects of the

Sophists’ profession. This rather absurd appeal to the gallery has

influenced posterity; but it did not win universal acceptation in

Hellas. Aischines still calls Sokrates a Sophist. Under the Roman

Empire “Sophist” became a title of distinction applied to artistic

stylists and teachers like Libanius.

[495] Plato’s own schoolmaster, Diog. Laert. iii. 5.

[496] [Plato] _Lovers_, 132.

[497] Reputed inventor of Euclid i. 12 and 23, and a great

astronomer.

[498] Thus the lad Theages, who has learnt letters,

lyre-playing, and wrestling, is vaguely in search of a

Sophist, to make him “wise” ([Plato] _Theages_, 121 D, 122

E).

[499] Plato, _Theait._ 147 D.

[500] Aristoph. _Birds_, 1005.

[501] Plato, _Hipp. Maj._ 303 B.

[502] Stob. 98, p. 535.

[503] And learning to ride. He is thinking of the

aristocratic lad, who would afterwards enter the later

exclusive ephebic college.

[504] Among the common amusements of Athenian dinner-parties

was a geographical game, in which A gave, say, the name of a

city in Asia beginning with K, and B had to reply with one

in Europe beginning with the same letter (Athen. 457).

[505] Pind. _Isthm._ 5 (4) 36. σοφισταί [sophistai]; σοφός

[sophos], Pind. _Ol._ i. 15; _Pyth._ i. 42. σοφία [sophia],

_Hymn to Hermes_, and Pind. _Ol._ i. 187.

[506] Hom. _Il._ 15. 412.

[507] Pind. _Pyth._ 3. 96.

[508] _Ibid._ 5. 154.

[509] In Isokrates, _Antid._ 235.

[510] As in Theog. 1074.

[511] He was an invalid.

[512] Plato, _Protag._ 328 C.

[513] Plato, _Krat._ 384 E.

[514] [Plato] _Axioch._ 366 C.

[515] Plato, _Apol._ iv. 20 B.

[516] Isok. _Antid._ 156.

[517] Diog. Laert. iii. 25.

[518] Aristot. _Rhet._ iii. 3. 5.

[519] Plato, _Euthud._ 277 E.

[520] Plato, _Protag._ 341 A.

[521] _Ibid._ 337 A-C.

[522] Plato, _Hipp. Min._ 368.

[523] Plato, _Hipp. Maj._ and _Protag._ 318.

[524] Quoted in the Teubner Antiphon from Stobaeus. _Flor._

98. 533. _Flor._ Appendix, 16. 36. This Antiphon comes in

Xen. _Mem._ i. 6. 1.

[525] Plato, _Euthud._ 298 D.

[526] It is not fair to condemn Polos and Thrasumachos on

the score of the opinions which Plato puts into their

mouths.

[527] Jebb, _Attic Orators_.

[528] Compare Renaissance poetry in Italy.

CHAPTER VI

SECONDARY EDUCATION: II. THE PERMANENT SCHOOLS

Athens was the place in which the fluid educational system of the

Sophists would naturally begin to crystallise. Not only were the

Athenians the keenest and most intellectual of the Hellenes: owing to

the vast trade of their city, merchants, astronomers, inventors,

poets, thinkers of all sorts, poured into it, and men of all trades

and all tongues collected there. Many stayed there for a few days

only, in passing; for Athens was a sort of Clapham Junction in those

days. All these brought a perpetual supply of new ideas into the city,

which the inhabitants were quick to assimilate.

But, possessing all the advantages of a commercial centre, Athens was

free from the disadvantages. The clamour and vulgarity of trade were

confined to the Peiraieus: in the gymnasia or the streets or the

colonnades of Athens the philosopher and the thinker could teach and

meditate in peace, in an atmosphere ennobled by her treasures of

architecture and art and sculpture, which subdued the most blatant

visitor, amid the literary circles which her dramatic contests

attracted and encouraged. Here was an ideal spot for the meeting-place

of the best minds in Hellas and the growth of a great educational

system. The city was an education in itself. Perikles had called

Athens the school of Hellas; the name was now to be justified in its

most literal sense.

Early in the fourth century there arose established secondary schools

in Athens. Plato began to teach Logic and Philosophy, Isokrates

Rhetoric, not for a few weeks at a time, but permanently: their

courses lasted three or four years. Characteristically, there was no

State organisation or interference; Isokrates taught in his own house,

near the Lukeion, Plato in his garden near Kolonos and in the

Akademeia. Their pupils came from all parts of the civilised world,

staying in Athens during their course of study. Plato imposed a

preliminary examination in mathematics upon his pupils; Isokrates only

commended a knowledge of such subjects. The students of these two

schools became recognised features of Athenian life.

Plato led his pupils towards intellectual research and a life of

retirement; the tendency of the school was markedly aristocratic, and

several of the lads became tyrants in after life. Isokrates inculcated

the practical life: his teaching was meant as a preparation for

success in society and politics. But as his school naturally was only

for the comparatively wealthy and leisured classes, it also tended to

be aristocratic; however, it produced some of the leading democratic

statesmen of the day.

Besides these two great schools others grew up. It is hard to

distinguish exactly between the boys who went to Isokrates in order to

learn political speaking and those who went to a “logographos” like

Lusias or Demosthenes to learn forensic oratory. The “logographoi” do

not seem to have claimed to impart culture, but only technical

instruction: they are thus on the boundary line of education. But

Demosthenes went to the “logographos” Isaios to get precisely the

instruction which Isokrates had refused him: so it is hard to make a

clear distinction. I shall therefore give a short sketch of the

“logographoi” also.[529]

By the time that these schools began to establish themselves the

Sophists were beginning to die out. Times were harder in the fourth

century, and fewer people had money to spend on these expensive

teachers. The intellectual movement of the Periclean age had spent

itself, and the desire for universal knowledge was no longer so keen.

Moreover, it is quite probable that settled schools, like that of

Isokrates at Athens, were forming in many of the great centres: it is

known that Isokrates himself taught for a while in Chios. The great

demerit of the Sophists’ teaching, namely, that it was too much in a

hurry and gave no time for personal endeavour on the part of the

pupil, had been recognised: and the result was that the Sophists

settled down in a single place and gave continuous courses of

instruction.

But a good many Sophists of the old type remained, to vex Isokrates by

their criticisms and rivalries. They still came to Athens at the great

festivals, and gave hurried lectures.[530] But they had not the

originality of their predecessors, and people preferred to read the

works of Protagoras or Gorgias for themselves to hearing them repeated

as original by a lecturer. Books were already a serious rival to

lecturing, and were a cause of much searching of heart to Plato:

Isokrates, however, preferred to write himself and so advertise his

school.

Besides the wandering Sophists there were probably a good many

teachers, both of Philosophy and of Rhetoric, established permanently

at Athens. Isokrates mentions casually that all the schools[531]

produce only two or three first-class speakers. In his educational

prospectus, _Against the Sophists_, he criticises these rivals freely.

“They merely try to attract pupils by low fees and big promises. The

speeches which they write themselves are worse than the improvisations

of the wholly untrained, yet they promise to make a complete orator

out of any one who comes to them; for they make no allowance for

natural talent or for experience, but regard eloquence as an exact

science, just like the A B C and equally communicable; whereas it is

really a progressive art, where the same thing must never be said

twice, and its rules must be relative to the occasion and the

circumstances.”[532] It is clear that these rivals committed the

serious crime of underselling Isokrates and also of issuing more

attractive prospectuses; perhaps, too, they are the captious critics

to whom he is always referring.

Isokrates is still more severe on various philosophical teachers; he

cannot mean Plato alone, for he mentions their fees, and Plato made no

charge. There must have been a large number of philosophical

professors, of whom Plato was only the most brilliant. But in many

points Isokrates no doubt meant his denunciations to apply to Plato

also. The summary of his attack is as follows:――“They make impossible

offers, promising to impart to their pupils an exact science of

conduct, by means of which they will always know what to do. Yet for

this science they charge only 3 or 4 μναῖ [mnai] (£12 or £16), a

ridiculously small sum. They try to attract pupils by the specious

titles of the subjects which they claim to teach, such as Justice and

Prudence. But the Justice and the Prudence which they teach are of a

very peculiar sort, and they give a meaning to the words quite

different from that which ordinary people give; in fact, they cannot

be sure about the meaning themselves, but can only dispute about it.

Although they profess to teach Justice, they refuse to trust their

pupils, but make them deposit the fees with a third party before the

course begins.”[533] Here we have a picture of a distinct group of

ethical teachers all trying to work at that Socratic paradox that

virtue is knowledge, and imparting their results to pupils for low

fees.

All these Professors of Ethics seem to have made Mathematics and

Astronomy a part of their course, just as Plato did. “To the old

Athenian education, of Letters and Music and Gymnastics, they have

added a more advanced course, consisting of Geometry and Astronomy and

such subjects, together with eristic dialogues,” that is,

Dialectic.[534] This course seems to have been much criticised as

being a mere waste of time, since it was of no practical use and the

knowledge so obtained was soon forgotten in after life. But Isokrates,

although these subjects played no part in his own school, was

sufficiently good an educationalist to see their merits: the study of

subtle and difficult matters like Astronomy and Geometry “trains a boy

to keep his attention closely fixed upon the point at issue and not to

allow his mind to wander; so, being practised in this way and having

his wits sharpened, he will be made capable of learning more important

matters with greater ease and speed.”[535] But all these unpractical,

if improving, studies should be abandoned before the nineteenth year:

for they dry up the human nature and make men unbusinesslike. “Some of

those who have become so adept in these subjects that they teach them

to others, show themselves in the practical conduct of life less wise

than their pupils, not to say than their servants.”[536] Consequently,

those who care to study mathematics and eristic should confine them to

the years between fourteen and eighteen: and then pass on to learn

rhetoric with Isokrates; the rest can come to his school as lads, as

many did.

But, although he differentiated himself so carefully from what moderns

would call the philosophical schools, Isokrates styled himself a

teacher of philosophy quite as much as they did. To him, as to the

Romans, philosophy was the art of living a practical life. “That which

is of no immediate use either for speech or for action does not

deserve the name of Philosophy.”[537] The true philosopher is not the

dreamer who neglects what is practical and essential, but the man of

the world who learns and studies subjects which will make him able to

manage his household and govern his state well; for this is the object

of all labour and all philosophy.[537] With this practical end in view

he ridicules the metaphysical researches of “the old Sophists, of whom

Demokritos said that the number of realities was infinite, and

Empedokles declared for four, and Ion for not more than three, and

Alkmaion for only two, and Parmenides and Melissos for one, while

Gorgias asserted that nothing existed at all.”[538]

In the promises which he makes of imparting to his pupils this

practical wisdom which he calls philosophy, Isokrates is

characteristically cautious. An exact science, which will embrace all

possible questions and circumstances which may arise in domestic and

political matters, is an impossibility; men must be content with a

general capacity of forming a right judgment in view of each

particular case when it arises. Consequently he defines as “wise men,”

σοφοί [sophoi], “those whose judgment usually hits upon the right

course of action,” and as “seekers after wisdom” or philosophers,

φιλόσοφοι [philosophoi], “those who occupy themselves with those

studies and pursuits from which they will most quickly obtain this

practical wisdom,”[539] or capacity of forming correct judgments. But

a judgment can only be formed properly after a proper deliberation: so

the work of Philosophy is to practise her pupils in this

deliberation.[540]

This practice is, of course, provided in the school of Isokrates; for

his school was, in fact, a debating or deliberating society, in which

the pupils wrote and recited carefully composed speeches on given

themes, or listened to the harangues of their master. Sometimes they

discussed events of the day and matters of general interest[541] at

the moment; at another time their topic was some constitutional or

historical question, or the comparative merits of different nations

and governments.[542] At another time, as may be seen from the example

of Isokrates’ own orations, they dealt with those mythical characters

who were historical realities as well as sacred personages to the

average Hellene, Theseus and Helen and Bousiris: this in their eyes

was almost equivalent to religious instruction and they were virtually

writing theological essays. No doubt also the pupils wrote and recited

those “commonplaces” or short essays on general topics, composed in a

most elaborate style, which ancient orators kept in stock, ready to be

inserted in a speech when a suitable opening presented itself.

Isokrates’ own works are particularly full of these highly finished

little essays:[543] so it is at least extremely probable that he

insisted upon their composition in his school. Before his pupils, too,

Isokrates would recite those fine sermons of his, like the

_Demonikos_; and effective pieces of moral exhortation they must have

been.

Thus the Isocratean school claimed to be, and was, a school of morals:

it was also a school of good style and composition. The boys’ essays

had to be written in a particular style, grandiloquent and ornate, to

suit their themes. “For it is absurd to suppose that the matter and

manner of ordinary conversation or of forensic oratory are suitable to

Pan-Hellenic themes; on the contrary, in this kind of speech the

thoughts must be more original and more lofty, the style more

striking, and the diction more poetical and elaborate.”[544] Style,

diction, and matter must, in fact, be that which Isokrates worked out

in his own speeches. That style[545] I do not mean to discuss here.

The fact that he wrote in a study and never spoke in public, has made

him exaggerate the merits of the artistic prose-style of which he was

the first really great exponent; but of its popularity with an

Hellenic audience there can be no question. The pupils of Isokrates

became the most eminent politicians and the most eminent prose-writers

of the time; his house, as Cicero puts it, was the school of Hellas

and the manufactory of eloquence.

To acquire this kind of oratory, there was need both of natural

ability and of diligent study. Isokrates professes to supply, first an

exact science of all the rhetorical devices and the various forms

which speech can take, and then practice in the right employment and

arrangement of these several parts. To learn the technique of rhetoric

is comparatively easy, if the aspirant applies to the right man; but

the right use of the technique can never be brought under any set of

rules, or taught by one man to another: it can only be learnt by

experience. The future orator must try the effect of each arrangement

and combination of technique on the audience, and so draw up his own

system.[546] The requisite audience for these experiments will be

provided by the other pupils of the school, with the master as chief

critic. A good master is essential. By his personal influence he will

be able to communicate those finer elements of style which cannot be

communicated in formal teaching. If he is worth his salt, all his

pupils will bear the stamp of his own manner, and will easily be

distinguished from every one else by the similarity of their style to

his and to one another’s.[547] Education in rhetoric at Isokrates’

school seems to have begun with the study of his own works. In the

_Panathenaikos_ he describes himself as reading the speech over with

two or three of his regular pupils; they revise and criticise it as

they go along. This would give Isokrates the opportunity of expounding

his own views of technique, with his own works before him as

illustrations. It may be inferred from the beginning of the _Bousiris_

that the written speeches of other Sophists were also studied, and

their faults, or aberrations from Isocratean canons, pointed out, in

order that they might be avoided in future. At any rate, Isokrates

complains that other professors of the same sort of Rhetoric at Athens

made use of his writings for teaching their own pupils, though, of

course, according to him, they did so in order to show the boys what

to admire, not what to avoid. When this technique had been fully

mastered Isokrates set his pupils to write speeches on their own

account, choosing for them some great and improving theme: in these

speeches they had to apply the rules which they had learnt, and the

subtler influences which they had imbibed, from their teacher. But

they had also to think out the subject-matter, and in this lies much

of the merit of the whole system. For, as Isokrates observes, the

essayist who writes upon such themes will have to think noble

thoughts, and select noble deeds as his instances and illustrations.

This contemplation of what is noble will be a greater incentive to

virtue than any so-called science of ethics:[548] for there is no

science which can create goodness in wicked natures, but exhortation

and persuasion can work wonders. Moreover, since the orator’s best

argument is, after all, a good reputation, the young orator will see

that his conduct and character are as excellent as possible.[548] And

the practice of weighing just what thoughts and actions are suitable

to the speech involves that faculty of sound deliberation which is

necessary for the formation of right judgments. In fact, Isocratean

“Philosophy” does more to form character than it does to produce

eloquence.[549]