The pupils practised themselves, as we have seen, by delivering their

harangues before Isokrates and their fellow-pupils. The school formed

a select clique of trained critics of Rhetoric; the encouragement of

criticism by this means must have been valuable. To this council

Isokrates submitted his own orations before publication; former pupils

were also invited to attend on these occasions. There is an

interesting account of such an assembly at the end of the

_Panathenaikos_. “I was revising the speech as it stands down to this

point,” Isokrates says, “with three or four of the lads who are

accustomed to study with me. On reading it through, we were satisfied

with it and thought it only needed a peroration. I determined,

however, to send for one of those among my pupils who had been brought

up in an oligarchy and had set themselves to praise Lakedaimon, so

that he might notice any false charge which we had unwittingly brought

against the Spartans.” The pupil comes, and, while praising the speech

enthusiastically, makes an unguarded criticism of its matter which led

to a long discussion, in the course of which he and Isokrates deliver

lengthy harangues. Finally, the pupil is crushed. The boys who had

been present throughout the discussion were completely convinced by

Isokrates and applauded him warmly. But the master himself was not

satisfied. So three or four days later he called together all his old

pupils who were in Athens, and the speech was submitted to their

judgment, and received with enthusiastic applause. The former critic

then delivered a brilliant harangue, trying to elucidate a hidden

meaning in the speech. “The crowd of pupils, which is usually ready to

applaud, shouted, flocked round him, and congratulated him, thoroughly

agreeing with his eulogy of me,” says Isokrates. “I praised him too,

but did not reveal whether he had hit off my secret meaning or not.”

The whole tone of the passage suggests that such an appeal to the

pupils for criticism and advice was common, the only extraordinary

feature being the presence of the “old boys.” This view is supported

by other passages. In the _Areiopagitikos_[550] Isokrates tells his

imaginary audience that “Some who heard me on a former occasion

describe this constitution which Athens once enjoyed, while praising

it enthusiastically and calling our ancestors happy,… told me that I

was not likely to persuade you to adopt it.” On another occasion his

speech made such an impression upon this preliminary audience that “No

one praised the beauty of the style, as they usually do, but all

admired the truth of the argument.” When he first told his pupils that

he meant to send an advisory speech to Philip, “they all thought he

was mad, and had the impudence to rebuke him, a thing which they had

never done before.… But when they had heard the speech, they changed

their minds completely and thought that Philip, Athens, and all Hellas

would alike be grateful to him.”[551]

Isokrates’ great political pamphlets, with their wonderfully polished

style and their striking themes, naturally served him as an excellent

advertisement, as he naïvely admits in the _Antidosis_. Those who

required further information about his educational methods and aims

would turn to the prospectus _Against the Sophists_, which he

published at the beginning of his career. Owing to these attractions,

pupils came to him from all parts of the Hellenic world, from Pontos,

Sicily, and Cyprus;[552] he had “more than all the other teachers of

philosophy put together.”[553] They were not merely private citizens,

but statesmen, generals, kings, and tyrants.[554] Probably the age at

which they came varied greatly, but most of his actual pupils would

probably be between fifteen and twenty-one. He often speaks of

μειράκια [meirakia] as among them. Moreover, he speaks of parents

bringing their sons to him,[555] which they certainly would not do if

the boys were over eighteen. Public life in the average Hellenic state

began at twenty; so boys would wish to be ready for it by that age.

The course at Isokrates’ school lasted for three or four years.[556]

The Athenian lad was more or less busy with his military duties from

eighteen to twenty, so he would probably take the course between

fourteen and eighteen; natives of other states would fit it in

according to their local customs. The fee for the whole course was 10

mnai, or £40.[557] The story[558] goes that Demosthenes, having only

£8, offered to pay that sum for one-fifth of the course. But Isokrates

replied that he could not sell his philosophy in slices; the customer

must take the whole fish or none at all. Probably, however, the tale

is a fiction: Isokrates himself claims not to have made any money out

of his countrymen, and only to have charged his foreign pupils.

Since, soon after the opening of his school, he had a hundred pupils,

the accounts of his great wealth, which he repudiated so indignantly,

cannot have been far wrong, especially as he received 20 talents

(nearly £5000) for his panegyric on Euagoras. His own comparison of

his wealth with that of Gorgias, who left only £800 at his death, is

curious, if the above statements are true.

But his pupils, drawn from a class that had sufficient substance to

live at leisure,[559] seem to have been well satisfied with what they

got for their money. “At the end of their time, when they were on the

point of sailing home to their friends, they so loved their life in

Athens that they parted from it with tears and sighs.” Isokrates kept

on friendly terms with them afterwards. Thus he writes to Timotheos,

tyrant of Herakleia and an old pupil, to congratulate him on his

accession and commend to him another old pupil, Autokrator. Then there

is the charming letter in which he introduces Diodotos, another of his

pupils, to the Macedonian Antipater, at some personal risk, for there

was war between Athens and Macedon at the time. “I have had many

pupils,” the letter runs, “some of whom have become great orators,

some men of action, some great thinkers, some, with no particular

talents, have at any rate become upright and cultured gentlemen:

Diodotos combines all these qualities.”

The chief boast of the school of Isokrates was that it produced

gentlemen. Isokrates defines education not as a knowledge of

metaphysics and a contemplation of the Good, nor yet as technical

ability in some particular profession, art, or trade, but as a sort of

culture and polish. “This is my definition of the educated man,” he

says. “First, he is capable of dealing with the ordinary events of

life, by possessing a happy sense of fitness and a faculty of usually

hitting upon the right course of action.

“Secondly, his behaviour in any society is always correct and proper.

If he is thrown with offensive or disagreeable company, he can meet it

with easy good-temper; and he treats every one with the utmost

fairness and gentleness.

“Thirdly, he always has the mastery over his pleasures, and does not

give way unduly under misfortune and pain, but behaves in such cases

with manliness and worthily of the nature which has been given to us.

“Fourthly (the most important point) he is not spoilt or puffed up nor

is his head turned by success, but he continues throughout to behave

like a wise man, taking less pleasure in the good things which chance

has given him at birth than in the products of his own talents and

intelligence.

“Those whose soul is well tuned to play its part in all these ways,

those I call wise and perfect men, and declare to possess all the

virtues; those I regard as truly educated.”[560]

Thus the object of Isokrates was rather to impart culture and polish

to his pupils than to teach them rhetoric; it is in this point that he

differs from the other professors who taught the same sort of rhetoric

as he did at Athens and have now been forgotten, and from the

logographoi, who taught the kind of speaking which suited the Athenian

law-courts, without professing to supply anything but a technical

knowledge of their particular subject.

In an Athenian trial the prosecutor and defendant had each to deliver

a speech for themselves; afterwards, regular advocates might address

the jury in some cases, but this was rare. So the duty of an Athenian

lawyer was simply to write speeches for his clients to deliver, not to

speak himself. Thus the metic Lusias, who had no right to speak in a

court himself, was a famous lawyer, or logographos, speech-writer, as

the Hellenes called him.

Mantitheos, say, finds himself involved in a lawsuit. He comes to

Lusias and explains the circumstances. Lusias masters the details,

looks up the laws on the question, and studies his client’s age,

character, and so forth. He then writes a speech sufficiently

dramatised to come naturally from Mantitheos’ mouth. In composing it

he will simulate the indignation which he supposes his client to feel,

he will adopt the nonchalant air of injured innocence which Mantitheos

showed in telling the story, and so on, till the speech is a real bit

of dramatisation like the speeches in a tragedy. When composed, the

speech would be carried off by Mantitheos, learnt by heart, and duly

recited. It is all a bit of acting on Lusias’ part. The habit of

simulating feelings when writing speeches was dangerous, when the

logographos came forward to speak in his own person on some question.

Demosthenes never quite escapes the suspicion of acting and posing,

even in his most impressive moments.

Besides these clients, the Athenian lawyers had permanent pupils, who

either intended to be lawyers themselves or thought the study would

help them in a political life. Their methods of teaching, as may be

seen from Plato’s _Phaidros_, resembled those of Isokrates. In the

dialogue called by his name, Phaidros is going out to walk off the

effects of sitting indoors too long.[561] He had been listening to

Lusias, “the cleverest speech-writer of the age,” reciting one of his

speeches, on which he had spent much labour. Phaidros had made him

repeat it several times, and has now borrowed the book in order to

learn it by heart during his walk. Sokrates persuades him to read it

aloud, in doing which he is quite carried away by its eloquence.[562]

Sokrates then proceeds to criticise the style and matter of the

speech,[563] and to compose one of his own on the same subject to show

how it ought to be treated.

This reveals the method of teaching. The teacher, as here and in

Isokrates’ case, recites a speech of his own, explaining how it was

done and asking for criticism from the pupils. Then the pupil would

learn it by heart and declaim it in some solitary place. On other

occasions, as Sokrates does here, the master would take the speech of

some rival professor and criticise it severely, composing a better

speech himself. The _Bousiris_ and _Helen_ of Isokrates show this

method. Or else the pupil replied to the teacher, or the teacher wrote

two speeches on opposite sides of the question. The extant work of

Antiphon and the lost work of Gorgias[564] are of this type.

Most of the Attic orators seem to have taken pupils. Isaios taught

Demosthenes. Demosthenes in his turn seems to have had great

popularity as a teacher. He “promises to teach young men the art of

speaking”;[565] “he filled Aristarchos with empty hopes of becoming

the prince of orators all in a moment”;[566] “he invited some of his

pupils to come and listen to the speech _On the False Embassy_,

promising to show them how to cheat and mislead the audience”;[567]

“later on he will brag before his boys of his tricks.” These passages

give an interesting picture of Demosthenes and his pupils, as seen

through his opponent’s green spectacles.

* * * * *

In opposition to the schools of Rhetoric stood the schools of

Philosophy, leading their pupils towards the life of retirement and

contemplation and away from the strenuous life of political and social

activity.[568] We have seen that there were many professors of

Philosophy at Athens in Isokrates’ time, charging fees of three or

four mnai for their course. But only one of them is known to

posterity, and he gave lessons gratis. Otherwise, Plato must be taken

as a member of a class, albeit the most brilliant member. The teaching

of Plato centred, as is well known, round the Akademeia. Plato

possessed a house and garden, which he bequeathed to his school,

between that gymnasium and Kolonos. When he and his pupils wished to

be private they could withdraw into his gardens; otherwise they

frequented the Akademeia, from which their school took its name. It

was not every one who could obtain admission to the school, for, as

Plato taught gratuitously, he could pick and choose his pupils. He

expected would-be students to be well grounded in Geometry: there must

have been some sort of entrance-examination. His successor,

Xenokrates, finding that an applicant was ignorant of Music, Geometry,

and Astronomy, told him to go away: “for you give philosophy no chance

of getting a grip upon you.”[569] The inner circle of the school had

their meals in common: the banquets were extremely plain. Timotheos,

the Athenian general, who was accustomed to rich living, after having

been a guest at one of these meals, remarked, on meeting Plato next

day, “Your suppers are more pleasant on the following day than they

are at the time.”[570] After the meal, a larger number of friends

probably came in; this, at any rate, was a custom at the similar

meetings held by the philosopher Menedemos a generation later.[571]

The discourse often went on all night. There was a fixed code of rules

to regulate these meals,[572] which is suggestive of Plato’s

pleasantries in the _Laws_ about the educational value of strictly

regulated bouts of intoxication. But drunkenness was, of course, not

allowed: Plato had a particular objection to it, and used to tell

drunkards to look in the looking-glass and they would never err in

that way again.[573] It offended his strict canons of physical beauty

and propriety. It is interesting to note that the author of the

_Republic_ admitted women on terms of equality to this inner circle of

the Akademeia, in defiance of Athenian prejudice. Lastheneia of

Mantineia and Axiothea of Phlious, who dressed in male attire, are the

first champions of women’s rights to a University education who appear

in history.[574] The discussions of this clique were probably

conducted after the model of the Platonic dialogue, and doubtless were

in Plato’s mind when in the _Laws_ he constructed his curious ethical

and political debating-society for the older and wiser members of his

state.

But admission to these mysteries must have been reserved for

comparatively few, personal friends and mature thinkers: the members

formed rather a private club than an educational system. The young

Athenian who wished, when his primary education was finished, to study

philosophy under Plato, had two means open to him: there were lectures

in various public places; there was also a school for lads in the

Akademeia.

The only lecture,[575] of which any very definite trace is left, was

not a great success from the educational point of view. Plato

announced beforehand that his subject would be “The Good.” A great

crowd collected, expecting to hear a neat Isocratean discussion of

such things as Health, Wealth, Friendship, which were popularly

considered to be rival claimants for the title of the Good. But Plato

began to talk about arithmetic and geometry and astronomy, and

discussed the One as the Good. The whole lecture was couched in

enigmatical language. The majority of the audience went away in

despair.[576] Only practised Platonists like Aristotle and Herakleides

and Hestiaios did their best to understand the lecture, and took

notes. The whole idea of a “popular lecture” must have been repugnant

to Plato. In his view, knowledge was only for the few, who, starting

with great natural abilities, could devote themselves for years at a

time to continual study and research. The pupil must be talented to

start with: he must undergo a long course of preparatory studies in

Logic and Mathematics: only when middle-aged might he approach the

inner mysteries of Philosophy. Holding such educational ideas as

these, Plato naturally made his lectures unintelligible to all but a

few: his main subject for public exposition seems to have been that

curious mathematical metaphysic which Aristotle combats as Platonic,

although it is nowhere found in the extant dialogues. By reading the

_Metaphysics_ of Aristotle the modern inquirer can perhaps realise how

difficult Plato’s lectures must have been.[577]

At the school in the Akademeia, Plato seems to have instructed his

lads chiefly in Logic and Mathematics. Logic consisted chiefly of

definitions, such as those for which Sokrates was always hunting, and

that curious process of “division” which is exemplified at such length

in the _Sophist_ and _Politikos_. Diogenes Laertius[578] gives a long

catalogue of such divisions, of which only a few can be found in

extant works: the rest must have figured in the school, and survived

as traditions in the commentaries. A comic poet has left a picture of

the logic school at work[579]:――

“_A._ What of Plato and Speusippos and Menedemos? Upon what

are they now engaged? What is their thought? What argument

is investigated among them? Tell me, I pray, if you know.

“_B._ I can tell you clearly. For at the Panathenaia I saw a

herd (ἀγέλη [agelê]: note the Spartan word) of lads in the

gymnasium of the Akademeia, and listened to strange,

portentous arguments. They were drawing up definitions about

natural history. They separated the life of animals and the

nature of trees and the tribes of vegetables: then, among

these last, they inquired to what tribe the cucumber

belonged.… First of all they stood speechless, and, putting

their heads down, thought for a long time. Then suddenly,

while the lads still had their heads down, and were

thinking, one of them said it was a circular vegetable,

another declared that it was a herb, another suggested a

tree. A Sicilian Doctor who was present ridiculed them most

rudely. But the lads took no notice; and Plato, very gently

and without losing his temper at all, told them to try again

to define the species to which it belonged. So they began

their divisions again.”

In the _Sophist_ the mysterious stranger divides Art into (1) creative

or productive, (2) acquisitive. Then acquisitive art into (1)

acquisition by exchange, (2) acquisition by capture. Then the art

which acquires its object by capture is divided into public or

competitive and secret or hunting. Then, when hunting has been duly

divided and subdivided, a definition of angling is obtained. In the

parody by Epikrates, the same process is employed in order to define

“cucumber,” although the stages are, of course, confused. A cucumber

is a form of life. Life is divided into animals and vegetation:

vegetation into trees and vegetables. Then the doubt arises, to which

half does the cucumber belong. Some of the pupils say it is a

vegetable, some a tree. So the lesson begins again.

Plato’s pupils seem to have been expected to take great care of their

personal appearance: their neatness is a common butt of contemporary

comedians[580]:――

Then rose a smart young man from the Akademeia

Of Plato.…

His hair was neatly smoothed, his foot was neatly

Laced in the sandal, bound with even lengths

Of shoe-lace curved about his ankle-bones:

And neat the corselet of his weighty cloak.

And again:

_A._ Who’s that old fellow yonder, do you know?

_B._ He looks a Hellene, wears a mantle white,

A fair grey tunic, little soft felt hat,

A well-tuned[581] staff, in fact, to put it short,

’Tis like a glimpse of the “Academy.”[582]

Of Plato himself, as he walked up and down among his pupils, wrestling

with intellectual difficulties, several pictures survive in

literature. A character in Alexis[583] remarks to a friend who has

come to visit him:

You’ve come in the nick of time. I’m in a fix.

Though walking up and down, like Plato, I’ve

Found nothing clever: but my legs are tired.[584]

Amphis, in his _Dexidemides_, said:

Plato, all you can do is to frown, drawing up your eyebrows

severely, like a shellfish.[585]

The psychological yearning of the _Phaidon_, perpetually interrupted

by cold currents of scepticism, must have found an echo in Plato’s

school-teaching, as the following dialogues from Comedy show[585]:――

_A._ My mortal frame grew dry:

My deathless part rushed forth into the air.

_B._ Why, bless us, are we in the school of Plato?

And

_A._ You’re a man, clearly, and have got a soul.

_B._ Like Plato, I don’t know but I suspect it.[585]

Of discipline in the Akademeia under Plato nothing is known: the

following story[586] belongs to the school a little after his death. A

certain Polemon agreed with some young friends of his, who attended

the school, that he would rush into the room during the lesson, drunk

and garlanded. This he carried out. But the teacher, Xenokrates, went

calmly on with his lecture, which happened to deal with Sobriety. This

conduct quite overcame Polemon, and he became a most diligent pupil,

and finally succeeded Xenokrates as teacher.

Of Plato’s affection for his pupils, his own poems afford sufficient

proof. One of them was named Aster, or Star. One day, as the lad was

studying the heavens, his master wrote the following epigram about

him:――

Star of my soul, thou gazest

Upon the starry skies;

I envy Heaven, that watches

Thy face with countless eyes.

And when he died, Plato wrote his epitaph:

Thou wert the morning Star among the living,

Ere thy fair light had fled:

Now, being dead, thou art as Hesperus, giving

New splendour to the dead.[587]

Additional evidence is given by his efforts on behalf of Dionusios and

Dion, which led him into so many perils in Sicily.

Plato was teaching in Athens almost continually from 388 till 347. His

pupils included, no doubt, many of the chief men of the day: Chabrias,

Iphikrates, Hupereides, Phokion, Lukourgos, and Demosthenes are

mentioned, besides the philosophers Speusippos, Xenokrates,

Herakleides of Pontos, and Aristotle. But posterity ascribed pupils

recklessly to all the great teachers of antiquity, so the catalogue

carries little weight. It is interesting to observe that the school as

a whole was attacked for producing tyrants: the bitter description of

the miseries of tyranny in the _Republic_ are at once a sad reflection

upon former pupils and a warning to those whom he was instructing at

the time. But the Philosopher-king, who embodied Plato’s ideal form of

Government, may well have had a corrupting influence upon the pupils.

Dion, the philosopher and patriot who became a tyrant, is an

interesting commentary upon the _Republic_.

Teaching in the Akademeia was given gratuitously; but those who were

so disposed might give presents to their teacher. Dionusios presented

Plato with over 80 talents.[588]

The school of Aristotle in the Lukeion differed little in its methods

from the school of Plato in the Akademeia. He had been a pupil of

Plato for twenty years before he began to teach on his own account. He

used to give instruction walking up and down in the walks of the

Lukeion. In his earlier period, at any rate, he seems to have taught

rhetoric, and taught it in Isocratean fashion: we hear of him setting

a theme, on which he and the pupils delivered harangues “in rhetorical

fashion.” Later the school became a home of universal knowledge and

research; in this respect Aristotle is the heir of the much-abused

Sophists. He adopted Xenokrates’ custom of appointing one of the

pupils to be Archon of the school for ten days, and then another: this

system must have relieved him of much petty business.[589] He

delivered two courses of lectures daily: one in the morning on

abstruse subjects to picked pupils; and the other in the afternoon,

open to all comers and more intelligible in matter and manner.[590]

His fame as a teacher was sufficient to win him the honour of being

chosen to be Alexander’s tutor, and he seems to have retained his

pupil’s respect, if not perhaps his affection. Aristotle, dreaming of

a tiny city-state, and Alexander, dreaming of a world-empire and

carrying out his dream, are an ill-assorted pair. What would Plato

have given for the chance of educating such a Philosopher-king?

That there were bitter feuds between the various educational leaders

in Athens, goes without saying. A Hellene could no more brook a rival

than could an Italian of the Renaissance. Isokrates attacks

Plato,[591] Plato Isokrates, and then their pupils take the quarrel on

into the next generation. Both attack with equal animus the wandering

Sophists and the Eristics, who retaliated with vigour. A would-be

pupil must have found it hard to choose a professor under whom to

study, when so much evil had been spoken of them all.[592]

* * * * *

The schools of Rhetoric and of Philosophy were only for the rich and

the leisured classes: the poor had neither the time nor the money

requisite for attending them. But they were not wholly debarred from

the higher knowledge. There were still Sophists lecturing for

advertisement in public places. Still more, there were books, which

were beginning to be both numerous and cheap: every Athenian could

read. How important a part books were beginning to take in national

education may be seen from the works of Isokrates and Plato, who are

both excessively indignant at the intrusion of such a rival.

“I know that what is read has less power of persuasion than what is

heard. It is universally believed that a speech, if actually

delivered, deals with serious and important subjects; but if only

written and never spoken, it is supposed to aim merely at effect and

the fulfilment of a contract. This opinion is quite reasonable. For

the written speech is deprived of the prestige of the author’s

presence and of his voice and of the proper rhetorical delivery: it is

read when the occasion which called it forth is past, and the points

which it discusses are consequently less interesting. The slave who

reads it aloud puts no character into it, but drones it out as though

he were reckoning up the items of a bill.” Such is Isokrates’ view,

somewhat freely translated, of “the written word,” which his shyness

compelled him to use instead of the spoken, and he beseeches Philip of

Macedon, whom he is addressing, to put aside the usual prejudice

against writings.

Plato regarded the written word with even greater contempt. To him it

is the cause of forgetfulness; those who employ writing learn to rely

on their notes, not on their memory, and are accustomed to register

their impressions on tables of wax, not of the mind.[593] Again, it is

impossible for an author to control the circulation of his works; they

may reach those for whom they are not intended.[594] For Plato expects

speaker and writer alike to express only what is suitable to their

audience; the teacher must, by a study of psychology, know what

arguments will do good and what will do harm to each particular pupil.

But a book cannot impart knowledge, in the Platonic sense of the word,

at all; for it is unable to answer questions or to explain its

author’s meaning when the reader fails to follow.[595] Comprehension

of a fact or of a statement made on a writer’s authority, without

comprehension of the meaning and the explanation, is not

knowledge.[596] Consequently, not even a lecture[597] or a sermon, far

less a book whose author is absent or dead, can impart knowledge; to

gain this, long study and a severe course of dialectic are essential.

The possessor of true knowledge must be able to defend his view

against any opposing arguments and to support it by discussion

himself:[598] neither book nor lecture can give this intimate

acquaintance with every point of view. Moreover, teaching is like

agriculture. There are different soils and different minds. The seed

of knowledge will bear different fruit in different soils, and there

are types of minds in which some particular seeds must not be sown at

all. Thus the same teacher will produce quite different philosophical

results in different minds: just as Sokrates did with his various

pupils. It is the development of the individual intellect and

aptitudes of each pupil, not the inculcation of his own theories, that

is the teacher’s true object.[599] Consequently, even a consistent

scheme of dogmas is wrong for educational purposes; for it may suit

the intellect of the teacher himself, but it cannot suit all his

pupils.

Hence, in order to be consistent with his own educational ideals,

Plato makes his works inconsistent: they are not a body of rigid

dogmas. Also, he provides in them just that discussion which he notes

as lacking in most books; it is possible to ask his books a certain

number of questions, for he anticipates and answers them himself in

the dialogue. In this way he makes his words pass through the

alembic[600] of each pupil’s brain, and come out according to the type

of mind through which they have passed. There is no enforcement of

authority in true Platonism.

Plato refused to publish any philosophy in his own name. By speaking

through the mouth of others, he could vary his attitudes just as he

wished. The written word, he declares, must necessarily contain much

trifling. Its composition is a good amusement for leisure hours.[601]

Its one use is that it serves to remind the writer of what he knows

already, when the forgetfulness of old age comes upon him. But the

writer is quite worthless if he possesses nothing better in his mind

than what he has written on paper,[602] “twisting words up and down,

glueing them together and pulling them apart.”[603]

Books, however, were already serious rivals to personal intercourse,

as a means of education. The libraries founded by Peisistratos at

Athens and by Polukrates at Samos were, it is true, almost certainly

fabulous; for Euripides was satirised for possessing a collection of

books, so it must have been a novelty in his time. Books were probably

very rare before the Periclean age, but then they multiplied with

great rapidity. The children used them in the schools. Schoolmasters

were expected to possess them: Alkibiades beat one for not having a

copy of Homer. The comic poet Alexis makes Herakles’ master, Linos,

possess copies of Orpheus, Hesiod, the tragedians, Choirilos, Homer,

Epicharmos, and all sorts of prose works, including a cookery-book. A

cargo of books was wrecked at Salmudessos,[604] a fact which points to

a large book-trade in Hellenic waters. Euthudemos, the companion of

Sokrates, possessed a fine collection of the best-known poets and

Sophists, including the works of Homer.[605] Sokrates suggests that he

may be collecting his books in order to learn Medicine, on which

subject there were many treatises, or Architecture or Geometry or

Astronomy. This shows how handbooks dealing with all manner of

subjects were multiplying.

Xenophon’s treatise on _The Horse_ had been preceded by a similar work

by Simon;[606] he himself also wrote on _Hunting_, on _The Duties of a

Cavalry Officer_, on _The Management of a Farm_, and _The Constitution

of Sparta_, besides his more definitely historical and philosophical

works. His _Education of Kuros_ conceals a treatise on the duties of a

general. The subjects are significant of the new movement; for earlier

Hellenes had supposed that Homer and Hesiod taught the whole art of

agriculture and generalship. Other agricultural treatises, containing

much theory but very little practical knowledge, were also in

circulation.[607] Later in the fourth century Aineias the Tactician

contributed a manual for generals. Medical treatises emanated in great

numbers from the school of Hippokrates, and probably from elsewhere.

Chares and Apollodoros published works on Husbandry,[608] Mithaikos a

_Sicilian Cookery-Book_,[609] Metrodoros a book of Homeric allegories.

Books of travels and geography are also mentioned by Aristotle.[610]

Handbooks on “Rhetoric” were first compiled by Korax and Tisias: they

dealt with the subject of “arguments from probability.” Show pieces

were written by Antiphon and Gorgias. A treatise by Polos upon the

systematic arrangement of a speech was read by Sokrates. Thrasumachos

published a work upon _Appeals to Compassion_.

The prices were probably not high, for the labour of copying could be

cheaply performed by means of slaves. Sokrates, in the Platonic

Apology,[611] mentions that a copy of Anaxagoras could sometimes be

picked up for a drachma; and there is no reason to suppose that

Anaxagoras was particularly cheap. If this was an average price, books

must have been within the reach of most Athenians.

[529] Isokrates clearly felt them to be his educational

rivals. See _Antid._ 310 A, and the end of the _Paneg._

[530] There is a sketch of them in Isok. _Panath._ 236 C; to

a lecture on Homer three or four of them had appended an

attack upon Isokrates.

[531] Isok. _Antid._ 99.

[532] Isok. _Soph._ 10. 293 A.

[533] Isok. _Soph._ 4. 291 D. Cp. the modern

“caution-money.”

[534] Isok. _Pan._ 26. 238 A.

[535] Isok. _Antid._ 118. 265.

[536] Isok. _Panath._ 238 D.

[537] Isok. _Antid._ 118. 266.

[538] _Ibid._ 118. 268.

[539] Isok. _Antid._ 118. 268.

[540] _Ibid._ 91.

[541] Isok. letter to Alexander.

[542] Isok. _Panath._ 275. It is noticeable how many of his

pupils became historians――Ephoros, Theopompos, Androtion,

Asklepiades.

[543] See, for example, “On Slander “(_Antid._ 313 E), “On

Speech” (115. 255).

[544] Isok. _Antid._ 48.

[545] For a complete analysis of it, see Jebb’s _Attic

Orators_.

[546] Isok. _ag. Soph._ 294 C; _Antid._ 91-93, etc.

[547] _Ibid._ 294 E.

[548] Isok. _Antid._ 121.

[549] Isok. _ag. Soph._ 295 D.

[550] Isok. _Areiop._ 151 B.

[551] Isok. _Philip_, 85, 86.

[552] Isok. _Antid._ 106.

[553] _Ibid._ 318 C.

[554] _Ibid._ 316 C.

[555] Isok. _Antid._ 110.

[556] _Ibid._ 62.

[557] [Demos.] _Lakritos_, 15 and 42.

[558] [Plutarch] _Ten Orators_, 837.

[559] Isok. _Antid._ 129.

[560] Isok. _Panath._ 239.

[561] Plato, _Phaidr._ 227-228.

[562] _Ibid._ 234 D.

[563] The criticisms do not suit Lusias; they fit Isokrates

much better.

[564] Cicero, _Brutus_, xii. 46-47.

[565] Aischines, _Timarch._ 171, 173.

[566] _Ibid._ 171.

[567] _Ibid._ 175.

[568] Plato, _Gorg._ 484-486; end of _Euthud._; _Theait._

172-177; _Rep._ 496.

[569] Diog. Laert. iv. 2. 6.

[570] Athen. 419 d.

[571] _Ibid._ 419 e and 55 d.

[572] Athen. 186 b.

[573] Diog. Laert. iii. 26.

[574] _Ibid._ iii. 31.

[575] See for this lecture Simplikios (on Aristot.

_Physics_, p. 202 B, 36), and Aristoxenos, _Harmon_, beg. of

Bk. ii. On one occasion, at least, it was delivered in the

Peiraieus (Themist. _Orat._ 21. 245).

[576] The popular attitude may be seen in Amphis’

_Amphrikates_ (Diog. Laert. iii. 25): “I no more know what

good you’ll get than I know what Plato’s Good is.”

[577] Plato seems also to have recited his dialogues in

public. Favonius asserted that Aristotle alone of the

audience stayed to the end when Plato thus delivered the

_Phaidon_ (Diog. Laert. iii. 25).

[578] Diog. Laert. iii. 45, etc.

[579] Epikrates (in Athen. 59 d, e).

[580] Ephippos, _Shipwrecked Man_ (Athen. 509).

[581] εὔρυθμος [eurythmos], probably a hit at Plato’s demand

for “rhythm.”

[582] Antiphanes, _Antaros_ (Athen. 545 a).

[583] Alexis, _Meropis_ (Diog. Laert. iii. 22).

[584] This walking up and down was characteristic of

Hellenic teaching. Compare the _Peripatetics_, and Archutas

in the temple-gardens at Tarentum (Athen. 545 b).

[585] Diog. Laert. iii. 22.

[586] _Ibid._ iv. 3. 1.

[587] The first translation is my own, the second Shelley’s.

[588] Saturos and Onetor in Diog. Laert. iii. 11.

[589] The above details are mainly from Diog. Laert. v.

[590] Aul. Gell. xx. 5. 4.

[591] Plato had also his feuds with Antisthenes, who wrote a

dialogue against him, calling him Satho, with Aristippos,

and with Aischines the Sokratic (Diog. Laert. iii. 24).

[592] Kriton feels this difficulty in _Euthud._ 306 D, E.

[593] Plato, _Phaidr._ 275 A.

[594] _Ibid._ 275 E.

[595] Plato, _Phaidr._ 275 D; _Theait._ 164; _Protag._ 329

A, and 347 E.

[596] So book-knowledge is a hothouse plant which has sprung

up unnaturally all in a moment, and very delicate when

exposed to the open air of criticism (_Phaidr._ 276-7).

[597] Plato, _Sophist_, 230 A.

[598] Plato, _Menon_, 97; _Rep._ 534 B, C.

[599] Plato, _Rep._ 518.

[600] Plato, _Phaidr._ 277 A.

[601] Plato, _Phaidr._ 276 D, E.

[602] Plato apparently regarded his dialogues as mere

trifles compared with what he taught to his inner circle.

[603] Plato, _Phaidr._ 278 D.

[604] Xen. _Anab._ vii. 5. 14.

[605] Xen. _Mem._ iv. 2.

[606] Xen. _Horsemanship_, i.

[607] Xen. _Econ._ xvi.

[608] Aristot. _Pol._ i. 11. 7.

[609] Plato, _Gorg._ 518 B.

[610] Aristot. _Pol._ ii. 3. 9.

[611] Plato, _Apol._ 26 D.

CHAPTER VII

TERTIARY EDUCATION

When he reached eighteen years, the young Athenian partly came of age.

His property passed into his possession, if he had been a ward, and he

could now prosecute his guardians if they had defrauded him. But he

could not appear in any other sort of lawsuit, or take part in the

National Assembly, nor could he be taxed, till he was twenty.

First of all, his deme or parish had to examine him to see if he was

of proper parentage and of the requisite age.[612] If they rejected

him, the case came before the regular Court of Athens. In the event of

being again rejected, if it was on the score of age, he returned to

the ranks of the boys to wait a further trial, but if on the score of

parentage, he might be sold as a slave and his price put into the

Treasury. If his deme accepted him he was again examined by the Boule

of 500 at Athens, who might rescind their decision.[613]

When he had passed all these preliminary examinations, the boy was

inscribed upon the roll of his deme, the ληξιαρχικὸν γραμματεῖον

[lêxiarchikon grammateion], and became in the eyes of the law an

ephebos. It was then incumbent upon him to take a solemn oath in the

temple of Aglauros, in the following terms[614]:――

“I will not disgrace my sacred weapons nor desert the

comrade who is placed by my side. I will fight for things

holy and things profane, whether I am alone or with others.

I will hand on my fatherland greater and better than I found

it. I will hearken to the magistrates, and obey the existing

laws and those hereafter established[615] by the people. I

will not consent unto any that destroys or disobeys the

constitution, but will prevent him, whether I am alone or

with others. I will honour the temples and the religion

which my forefathers established. So help me Aglauros,

Enualios, Ares, Zeus, Thallo, Auxo, Hegemone.”

This oath and ceremony must be ancient. The orator Lukourgos[616]

includes them among “the ancient laws and customs of the original

founders,” and claims that the oath of the Hellenic army at Plataea in

479 was imitated from the oath of the Athenian epheboi. By this solemn

act the ephebos accepted the duties and responsibilities of an

Athenian citizen. So in Plato’s dialogue, the _Kriton_,[617] where the

Laws of Athens are introduced as pleading their cause, they say, “When

any one has passed his examination, and has seen the constitution of

the city and us, the Laws of Athens, we bid him, if he is dissatisfied

with us, to take what is his and go whither he pleases. But if he

stays, we consider that he has promised to obey us.” For there is good

evidence, besides that which is afforded by the above passage, to show

that Athenian boys were taught what the laws of their city were,

before they promised to obey them. Thus Aischines says: “When any one

is inscribed upon the muster roll of his deme and knows the laws of

the city.”[618] Plato puts it even more definitely: “When the children

leave school,[619] the city compels them to learn the laws.”[620] So

the ephebos knew what he was doing when he swore to obey the law of

the land.

Meanwhile the tribes had met and each chosen three men of over forty

years of age, from whom the assembled people elected one, to look

after the epheboi of each tribe.[621] These supervisors were called

Sophronistai or Moderators. That these Moderators probably dated back

to Solonic times, and possessed a general, but rarely exercised,

supervision over all education, I have endeavoured to show in Chapter

II. Their province was the morality and discipline of the epheboi,

whose military training was naturally controlled by the military

officers, the Generals and Taxiarchoi; later, however, when the

epheboi ceased to be a military body, these latter functionaries

ceased to have any connection with them. Towards the close of the

fourth century the people elected a single Kosmetes or Chancellor for

the epheboi; he is first mentioned, if a probably spurious passage in

the _Axiochos_ is rejected, in an inscription, in which he is

associated with the epheboi and Moderators of the year in awarding a

crown to Theophanes in the Archonship of Nikostratos (333-332

B.C.).[622] But in 280 B.C., in the list of the officers and masters

of the epheboi, the Kosmetes is mentioned, but no Sophronistai:[623]

at that time the epheboi were too few to need an officer to each

tribe.

These newly appointed magistrates took the epheboi of their year in

charge at once. The young recruits were first taken round the temples,

and then put into garrison in Mounuchia and Peiraieus. They had

masters and under-masters appointed for them by the Sophronistai to

teach them the use of heavy arms, and also of the bow, javelin, and

catapult. There were also two Paidotribai, for gymnastics. These

masters, together with later introductions such as literary teachers,

chaplains, doctors, and so forth, appear regularly in the inscriptions

after 300 B.C.[624] The Sophronistai were paid a drachma a day for

their services. They also received four obols for every ephebos in

their tribe, out of which they had to provide the rations, etc.; the

ephebos did not handle the money himself. Each tribe messed

together.[625]

Besides the Sophronistai and Kosmetes, the Council of the Areiopagos

also kept a watch over the epheboi. Discipline seems to have been

fairly strict: the _Axiochos_[626] talks of “rods and immensities of

evils.” But there were plenty of amusements, and, apparently, plenty

of vacations. There were a very large number of special festivals, in

which the epheboi took part. There were also the torch-races at the

feasts of Hephaistos and Prometheus, for teams of epheboi from each

tribe, trained at the expense of a gumnasiarchos. The epheboi had also

a special part of the theatre reserved for them.[627]

No doubt a large part of the time of these epheboi was spent in severe

physical exercise in the gymnasia. The analogy of the epheboi in

Plato’s _Republic_ and _Laws_ would suggest this. The _Axiochos_

mentions, as consequent upon enrolment in the epheboi, “the Lukeion

and Akademeia,” _i.e._ practices in these gymnasia. Xenophon,[628]

just before mentioning the “peripoloi” or epheboi in their second

year, talks of “those who are ordered to practise gymnastic

exercises,” clearly referring to this period. He suggests that their

duties would be better and more cheerfully performed if they received

a larger supply of rations than those who were training for

torch-races; to these latter no doubt a liberal gumnasiarchos might

serve out meals costing much more than four obols a day. Probably

those who were physically inferior alone were told off for these

compulsory gymnastics: Xenophon’s phrase seems to distinguish them

from the epheboi selected for the torch-race, who would naturally be

the physically fittest in the tribal contingent.

At the end of their first year of training, the epheboi appeared in

the theatre at the great Dionusia to show off their military

evolutions and the drill which they had learned. After the review they

received a spear and shield from the State.[629] The sons of those who

had fallen in battle, being the wards of the State,[630] received a

complete outfit of armour. These arms, which the epheboi received from

the State, were considered to be sacred: consequently to throw away

the shield in flight was regarded as a serious offence, almost an act

of sacrilege.[631]

[Illustration: PLATE IX.

A RIDING LESSON――MOUNTING

_Archaeologische Zeitung_, 1885, Plate 11. From a Kulix at Munich,

attributed to Euphronios.]

After receiving their arms from the State, the epheboi were marched

out of Athens, and spent most of the next year patrolling the country

and frontiers, and garrisoning the forts.[632] Attica was studded with

these περιπόλια [peripolia], or patrol-stations, from Oinoé and Phulé

on the north-western frontier to Anaphlustos and Thorikos in the

south. The epheboi, like the κρυπτοί [kryptoi] in Plato’s _Laws_ and

at Sparta, were shifted about from district to district, in order that

they might acquire a thorough knowledge of their country’s

geographical peculiarities. The tribal companies, into which they were

divided, relieved one another in various stations. Thus in the course

of 334-333 we know that both the Hippothontid and the Kekropid tribes

were successively stationed at Eleusis, for the people of that

district pass two separate votes of thanks to them for the excellent

discipline which they had preserved.[633] There may also have been

open-air camps: the Eleusinian inscriptions talk of ὑπαίθριοι

[hypaithrioi].

The epheboi seem to have been assisted in their patrol-duties by a

mercenary force of foreigners. Thucydides[634] declares that

Phrunichos was assassinated by a peripolos: the Athenian people,

according to Lusias, rewarded Thrasuboulos of Kaludon as the slayer

and recorded his name on a pillar.[635] If the historian had meant to

dispute this award, he must have referred to it, for it was clearly

the accepted version. He also states that the plot was arranged at the

house of the captain of the peripoloi, and mentions an Argive as one

of the accomplices: Lusias mentions a Megarian. Both these foreigners

were probably peripoloi. But foreign youths cannot at this period have

been permitted to serve with the tribal companies of epheboi. A

legend, it is true, asserts that this privilege was granted to the

young men of Kos, in honour of the great doctor Hippokrates; but even

this only shows that all other states were excluded. Indeed,

foreigners were not enrolled among the Athenian epheboi until a much

later epoch, when the system was no longer military.

What, then, was this “Foreign Legion”? M. Girard identifies it with

the Mounted Archers, on the strength of a passage in Aristophanes’

_Birds_. An unknown deity has invaded the territory of Cloud-Cuckoo

town. Peisthetairos exclaims, “Why didn’t you despatch peripoloi after

him at once?” To which the messenger replies, “We did send 30,000

Mounted Archers.” The inscriptions at Eleusis also make a force of

non-citizen troops serve under the captain of the peripoloi. These

mercenary troops, having no civil duties, would naturally be used as a

patrol. Moreover, to an Athenian, “archer” meant “policeman.” Athens

was policed by foreign “Archers”: it would be natural for Attica to be

policed in like manner, only by a mounted force, as a greater distance

had to be covered.[636] But it is also possible that the non-Athenian

peripoloi were the sons of μέτοικοι ἰσοτελεῖς [metoikoi isoteleis],

who, being forced to serve as hoplites when grown up, would require

some preliminary training; these alien hoplites are coupled by

Thucydides[637] with the recruits and veterans, who garrisoned the

Athenian walls and forts: they seem to have served as a perpetual

patrol.

The first three classes of Athenian citizens in wealth must all have

passed through this training; for, although the two first were liable

to cavalry service, they might also be called upon to serve as

hoplites.[638] Rich young epheboi, who had plenty of time on their

hands, would naturally learn both cavalry and infantry drill. The

poorer Zeugitai would only have to learn their duties as heavy

infantry, and were probably allowed to spend a good proportion of

their time on their farms in Athens. But what about the fourth class,

the Thetes? They were not liable to be called out as hoplites, but had

to serve on land as light-armed troops or at sea as rowers. Did they

also have a recruit course? Now the garrisons of the Athenian forts

and walls were hoplites:[639] there is no trace of the Thetes here.

But the patrol duties in the mountains can hardly have been performed

by heavy troops: it is noticeable that in Xenophon light troops are

suggested for this purpose, when Sokrates is developing an elaborate

scheme for holding the frontiers of Attica against all invaders.[640]

In the next century, at any rate, light troops were used for this

purpose. In a later work Xenophon talks of “those who are ordered to

occupy the forts and those who have to serve as peltasts and patrol

the country,”[641] in a passage where he is clearly referring to the

epheboi. Thus there are two classes, the garrisons, who would

naturally be hoplites, and the patrols, who are peltasts, suitably

equipped for mountaineering. But the peltasts only began to appear

towards the close of the Peloponnesian War: the first mention of them

is in Thucydides’ account of the army of Brasidas. Before this time,

the light troops were archers and some slingers; thus, in the monument

to those of the Erechtheid tribe who fell in the year 459, after the

hoplites four archers are mentioned.[642] But they were a small force:

there were only 1600 of them in 431 B.C. The majority of the Thetes

served in the ships. In the _Birds_ of Aristophanes, which appeared in

414, when it was a question of repelling a sudden raid, just after the

peripoloi have been mentioned, Peisthetairos bids his immediate

attendants arm themselves with slings and bows: these are clearly the

weapons for a flying column despatched in pursuit of raiders.[643]

The passage of Xenophon makes it clear that there were peltasts in the

ephebic force in the fourth century; that of Aristophanes suggests the

probability of archers and slingers among them in the fifth. But

whether these light-armed troops consisted of enterprising Zeugitai

who added this training to their hoplite drill, or were a small

detachment of Thetes, cannot be fixed. Thetes must, at any rate, not

have been numerous in the ephebic force, for they could not have

spared the time necessary for such lengthy training.[644]

As a rule, the epheboi were not expected to do more than guard the

frontier and repel an occasional foray: even this, however, must have

given them plenty of employment in war-time. But they shared in

Muronides’ great victory in the Megarid in 458, when Athens had to use

her reserves.[645] Either they or the “foreign legion” joined in a

later invasion of Megara.[646] But as a rule they served for home

defence only. Their recruit-course ended with their twentieth year:

henceforth they were ordinary Athenian citizens and soldiers.

In about 332 B.C., when Lukourgos delivered his speech against

Leokrates, the old ephebic system seems still to have been in force.

The suggestion that Leokrates might have evaded the ephebic oath is

only rhetorical, for the orator immediately goes on to assume that he

took it.[647] In 328, the probable date of Aristotle’s _Athenian

Constitution_, it seems still to have been in existence, for the

philosopher records it as part of the contemporary regime. The

inscriptions support these authorities. A list of epheboi of the

Kekropid tribe enrolled in 334 is given under the vote of thanks: the

upper part of the list is gone, but the numbers were apparently

large.[648] Some forty-four names can be inferred from the fragments,

belonging to six or seven demes out of the twelve which composed the

tribe; but apparently the smallest contingents are at the bottom, so

there may well have been a hundred names in the tribe, and 1000

epheboi altogether. Considering the impoverishment of Attica and the

consequent decrease in the hoplite classes, this is probably a fair

proportion of epheboi.[649] A tribal contingent is still large enough

to serve as a garrison for Eleusis, and to act by itself.

But in the next century the numbers drop down to twenty-nine and

twenty-three. The service must have been voluntary. Moreover, brothers

are found serving together, from which it may be inferred that the

exact age qualification was no longer regarded.[650] Philosophy and

literature become subjects of study; and a library, swollen by gifts

from old epheboi, is collected. Foreigners begin to be enrolled in the

second century, and in course of time outnumber the native Athenians.

Although the old military service is preserved, no doubt in a

mummified condition, the system of the epheboi develops into the

Athenian university, where young Romans like Cicero’s son came to

learn philosophy, though they had little to learn from Athens in

military matters. The Sophronistai and Kosmetes become the Proctors

and Chancellor, the special festivals the compulsory services, of the

new University. The torch-races, the military duties, and the naval

races[651] become its athletics. It is the old conscription system of

Athens, not the schools of Plato or Isokrates, that gives birth to the

first University.

The system of epheboi was represented at Sparta by the κρυπτοί

[kryptoi]. We hear of an archephebos at Argos, and a

gumnasiarchos who manages the epheboi at Troizen.[652] In the

Megarid and in Boiotia the epheboi were trained as cavalry,

hoplites, or peltasts.[653] An ephebarchos can be traced in Teos.

There were patrol-houses, and so possibly epheboi patrols in the

territory of Syracuse.[654] This period of special training for

military duties seems to have been general all over Hellas. Plato

adopts it without demur in the _Republic_ and _Laws_.

[612] Aristot. Ἀθ. Πολ. [Ath. Pol.] 42 for these

examinations.

[613] Luk. _ag. Leok._ 18. 76.

[614] Pollux, viii. 105-106, etc.

[615] κραίνοντες [krainontes]. Note the archaic word.

[616] Luk. _ag. Leok_. 18. 75.

[617] Plato, _Krit._ 51 D, E.

[618] Aischin. _ag. Timarch._ 18.

[619] I have already suggested that metrical versions may

have been taught at the music-schools.

[620] Plato, _Protag._ 326 D. Boys used to listen to cases

in the law-courts. This would give them some idea of legal

procedure. (Compare the custom at some English public

schools of letting the boys go to hear the local assizes.)

Demosthenes thus went with his paidagogos to hear the trial

of Kallistratos.

[621] Aristot. Ἀθ. Πολ. [Ath. Pol.] 42. 2.

[622] _C.I.A._ IV. ii. 1571 B.

[623] _C.I.A._ II. 316.

[624] e.g. _C.I.A._ ii. 316. 338.

[625] Aristot. Ἀθ. Πολ. [Ath. Pol.] 42. 3.

[626] [Plato] _Axiochos_, 367 A.

[627] Schol. on Aristoph. _Birds_, 794.

[628] Xen. _Revenues_, iv. 52.

[629] Aristot. Ἀθ. Πολ. [Ath. Pol.] 42. 4.

[630] Thuc. ii. 46.

[631] Lucias, x. 1, and Aristophanes anent Kleonumos,

_passim_.

[632] Properly speaking, it was only during his second year

that the ephebos was a peripolos or patrol. Aischines,

however, claims to have served two years as a peripolos. The

term may have been used loosely, or else in times of crisis

the epheboi may have been hurried off to the frontier as

soon as they were enrolled.

[633] _C.I.A._ IV. ii. 574 D, and 563 B.

[634] Thuc. viii. 92.

[635] Lusias, xiii. 71.

[636] The force may also have included citizens, for the

younger Alkibiades once served in it (Lus. xv. 6). But that

was a special occasion, when the ordinary cavalry had

refused to receive him.

[637] Thuc. ii. 13. 6-7.

[638] Lus. xvi. 13, xiv. 10.

[639] Thuc. ii. 13. 6-7.

[640] Xen. _Mem._ iii. 5. 27.

[641] Xen. _Revenues_, iv. 52.

[642] _C.I.A._ I. 143. Cp. _C.I.A._ I. 79 for

citizen-archers.

[643] It is noticeable that in Aristotle’s time the epheboi

were taught by a “Teacher of Archery.” He may be a survival.

[644] In Boiotia and the Megarid the epheboi served as

cavalry, hoplites, or peltasts (_C.I.G._ Boiot. and Meg.

2715, 2717-21, 1747-48, etc.).

[645] Thuc. i. 105.

[646] _Ibid._ iv. 67.

[647] Luk. _ag. Leok._ 76.

[648] _C.I.A._ IV. ii. 563 b.

[649] In 431 B.C. Athens had 13,000 hoplites of between

twenty and forty years of age. On this average there would

be perhaps about 1000 epheboi per year, or 2000

altogether――the same number as here. The 16,000 of the

reserve in 431 includes veterans and metics as well as

epheboi.

[650] The changes seem to have happened shortly before 305,

for in an inscription of that year the numbers have dropped

greatly and brothers serve together.

[651] _C.I.A._ ii. 466, 470.

[652] _C.I.G._ Pelop. 589, 749, 753.

[653] See note 2 on p. 218.

[654] Thuc. vi. 45, vii. 48.

THE EPHEBIC INSCRIPTIONS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY

(Dealing with Attica only)

I. _C.I.A._ IV. ii. 574 d.

“The epheboi of the Hippothontid tribe, who were enrolled when

Ktesikles was Archon (334-333 B.C.), having been crowned by the Boule

and Demos, offered this offering.”

Then follows a mutilated vote of thanks from the people of Eleusis to

the epheboi for the discipline which they had preserved while

garrisoning the town, and to their Sophronistes, who is to receive a

crown, and to have a front seat at local festivals.

II. _C.I.A._ IV. ii. 563 b.

Decrees in honour of the epheboi of the Kekropid tribe.

(_a_) By the Kekropid tribe.

“Kallikrates of Aixoné proposed. Whereas the epheboi of the Kekropid

tribe, who were enrolled when Ktesikles was Archon (334-333 B.C.), are

orderly and do everything that the laws enjoin upon them, and are

obedient to the Sophronistes appointed by the people, we pass a vote

of thanks to them and crown them with a golden crown of 500 drachmas

for their excellent discipline and behaviour. We also pass a vote of

thanks to the Sophronistes, Adeistos, son of Antimachos, and award him

a golden crown of the aforesaid weight, for that he hath well and

diligently directed the epheboi of the Kekropid tribe. This vote to be

recorded on a stone pillar and set up in the shrine of Kekrops.”

(_b_) Vote of the Athenian people.

“Hegemachos, son of Chairemon, proposed. Whereas the epheboi of the

Kekropid tribe stationed at Eleusis do well and diligently pay heed to

the orders of the Boule and Demos, and do behave themselves orderly,

we pass a vote of thanks to them for their good discipline and

behaviour, and enact that each of them be crowned with an olive crown.

We also pass a vote of thanks to their Sophronistes, Adeistos, son of

Antimachos, and decree to him a crown of olive, when he has passed his

scrutiny. This vote to be recorded on the offering which the epheboi

of the Kekropid tribe offer.”

(_c_) Vote of Eleusinians.

“Protias proposed. Whereas the epheboi of the Kekropid tribe and their

Sophronistes, Adeistos, son of Antimachos, do well and diligently

garrison Eleusis, the people of the deme pass a vote of thanks to them

and crown each of them with a crown of olive.”

The vote to be recorded as before.

(_d_) Similar vote of the Athmonian deme in honour of their

fellow-demesman, Adeistos.

With this is a list of the epheboi in question, much mutilated.

III. _C.I.A._ IV. ii. 1571 b.

“Theophanes, son of Hierophon, offered this to Hermes, having been

crowned by the epheboi and Sophronistai and Kosmetai.”

This is signed by the epheboi for the years 333-332, 332-331, and

331-330.

IV. _C.I.A._ IV. ii. 251 b.

A vote of thanks from the Boule and Demos to the epheboi as a whole

for their exemplary behaviour, and to their Kosmetes and Sophronistai

and teachers. A mutilated list of epheboi follows. This belongs to the

year 305-304 B.C.

V. _C.I.A._ IV. ii. 565 b.

A vote of thanks of the Pandionid tribe to Philonides, who had been

elected by the people Sophronistes of their epheboi, and had performed

his duty well.

VI. Böckh, 214 (belonging to 320 B.C.).

(Dug up at Aixoné.)

An extract:――“We pass a vote of thanks to the Sophronistai and crown

each of them with a crown of olive, namely, Kimon, son of Megakles,

and Puthodoros, son of Putheas … for the zeal they showed in regard to

the all-night revel.”

The epheboi took part in a sacrifice and revel in honour of Hebe.

Apparently, as a rule, they were noisy and gave trouble to the

inhabitants of the neighbourhood. But this year they were kept in

order by the Sophronistai. Hence the vote.

PART II

THE THEORY OF EDUCATION

CHAPTER VIII

RELIGION AND EDUCATION IN HELLAS

The greater part of the religious instruction in Hellas was given

outside the schools, in the home and in public life. The child learnt

the current ritual observances proper to each particular deity or

occasion by participating in them himself. His religious devotion was

practised and stimulated by the festivals and sacred songs and dances

which made up so large a part of Hellenic life. In a religion like the

Hellenic, which was so largely a matter of forms and ceremonies, there

was little dogma to be learnt by children; no catechism, no sectarian

teaching was necessary. Such dogma as there was consisted in the myths

which were current about the various deities and heroes; and of these

myths there were so many varieties that heterodoxy about them became

almost impossible.

Such as it was, this dogma, consisting of manifold and often

contradictory myths, was enshrined in the poetry of the race, so that

most of the poems became sacred books, regarded by the orthodox as

inspired. This sacred literature, as we have seen, was the chief

object of study in the primary schools at Athens, where it was read,

written, and learnt by heart. At Sparta almost the whole of literary

and intellectual education consisted of sacred songs in honour of gods

and heroes. The myths were the very essence of primary education in

Hellas.

In order to understand the attitude of the educational theorists

towards these myths which run through most of the Hellenic poetry, it

is necessary to realise the extraordinary authority which was given to

the poets, and especially to Homer and Hesiod. Every word of them was

regarded as inspired and strictly true: their authority was

indisputable. At the beginning of the sixth century an interpolated

line in the _Iliad_ was made the main support of the Athenian claim to

the Island of Salamis. Gelon, the tyrant of Syracuse, according to the

current legend, was refused the command of the Hellenic forces against

Persia because, as the Spartan envoy put it, Agamemnon would groan if

he heard of such a thing, and because Homer had said that an Athenian

was the best man at drawing up and marshalling a host, for which cause

the Athenians now claimed the command.[655] That such arguments could

be employed shows in what veneration Homer was held. He was considered

to be especially inspired.[656] His admirers asserted that he had

educated Hellas, and that his works provided fit instruction for the

whole conduct of life.[657] More specifically, it was said that “The

divine Homer won his glory and renown from this, that he taught good

things, drill, valour and the arming of troops.”[658] He was misquoted

to support peculiar views, as in Plato.[659] People had their

favourite texts: Sokrates’ was “In due proportion to thy means pay

honour to the gods.” It was a not unheard-of accomplishment to know

the whole _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ by heart. Moral lessons were drawn

from them. Thus the story of Kirké was a warning against

self-indulgence. Kirké made the companions of Odusseus swine through

their over-indulgence in the pleasures of the table; Odusseus himself,

by Hermes’ advice and his own self-restraint in such matters, escaped

this fate.[660]

In time, however, the higher morality of the leading Hellenic thinkers

revolted against the low morality, to say nothing more, of much of the

mythology embodied in the poets. Xenophanes began the attack. “Homer

and Hesiod,” he cries, “ascribed to the gods all that is considered

disgraceful among men.” Herakleitos declared that Homer deserved a

thrashing. Even the pious Pindar tried to alter some of the myths to

suit his own morality, and Aeschylus fights hard for an underlying

monotheism. In the next generation the storm broke: awakening

intelligence, fostered by the Sophists and the philosophers, shrank

away from the horrors of the _Theogony_. Tragedy, by bringing

mythology before the eyes, had made its impossibility more apparent.

The researches of the earlier historians in comparative mythology had

undermined the bases of belief. Herodotos had found that a god named

Herakles had been recognised in Egypt 17,000 years before his time;

consequently the Hellenic Herakles, only six centuries before the

historian’s age, must be only a man of the same name.[661] Rationalism

began to master the mythology: Thucydides tried to apply scientific

methods to the Trojan War, making, for example, its duration due to

the difficulty of obtaining supplies for so large a force. The

rationalism of Euripides is well known. Metrodoros, a pupil of

Anaxagoras, made the gods natural forces and varieties of matter――a

device already employed by Empedokles for poetical convenience. In

this way Sokrates rationalises the Boreas-myth in the _Phaidros_,[662]

where Plato states that the wise disbelieve such tales; but Sokrates

was too busy studying his own personality to raise all these numerous

questions, so he accepts the customary belief. The defenders of Homer,

led by Metrodoros and Stesimbrotos,[663] tried to allegorise him,

declaring that the worst myths had a moral meaning in the background.

The allegories were often ludicrous: Plato rejects them wholly for

educational purposes, as children always take the literal

interpretation.

But public opinion was still fiercely attached to the old deities, as

the incident of the Hermai and the condemnation of Anaxagoras,

Protagoras, and Sokrates showed. The deities could not be sacrificed:

consequently it was the myths that had to go. The myths said that Zeus

dethroned his own father and committed adultery: if the myth is true,

since Zeus is Supreme God, these crimes are justifiable.[664]

Therefore the myth must be untrue. Homer and Hesiod lied: their works

are mainly a blasphemous fiction.[665] Isokrates[666] sums up this new

attitude. “The poets,” he declares, “blasphemously represented the

sons of the Immortals as having done and suffered worse deeds than the

most impious of men: they spoke such things about the gods as no one

would venture to allege of his worst enemy; not only do they make them

steal, commit adultery, and fall into slavery to mortals, but even

represent them as eating their children, mutilating their fathers, and

binding their mothers in chains.… For this the poets did not go

unpunished, but some of them were wanderers and begged their bread,

some became blind, another was an exile all his life long, and

Orpheus, who devoted himself especially to such stories, was torn in

pieces.”[667]

The greatest objection to these immoral legends was that they were

taught in the nursery and the elementary school, at the most

impressionable age.[668] Hence Plato wishes to lay down strict canons

for the myths, legends, and fables which are to be taught to children.

“For the beginning of everything is half the battle, especially in the

case of what is young and tender. Young children are like soft wax,

ready to take a clear and deep impression of any seal which is laid

upon them. Hence the immense importance of the earliest stages of

education, the myths and stories taught in the nursery and at school.…

The compositions of Homer and Hesiod are fiction, and unlovely fiction

at that; even if true, they had better not be told to the young and

undiscerning.… The myths must be improving on the surface, not by

allegory.”[669]

Plato is not prepared to rewrite the Hellenic Bible: he will only draw

up the canons which the poets must follow. It is to be noticed that

these canons are peculiar, and would exclude not merely most of Homer

and Hesiod, but a large part of the Old and some of the New Testament.

The first canon is that God, being good, cannot be the cause or

originator of any harm or evil to mankind; for these things some other

cause must be discovered. The greater part of the human lot is evil:

so God is not the cause of the majority of human events.

This excludes Homer’s lines:

Two butts of human fortunes by the gates of Heaven stood,

One full of all things evil, and one of all things good.

To whom God gives a mixture, his life is weal and woe,

But to whom He gives of the evil alone, he lives as a beggar below.

And

Zeus is the world’s housekeeper, who serves out weal and woe.

And Aeschylus’

God plants the seed of sin among mankind,

Whene’er He wills to bring a race to naught.

If God is represented as the cause of misfortunes, the poet must say

that the misfortunes were good for the sufferers, making them better

and happier.[670]

The second canon is that God is not a wizard, appearing now in one

form, now in another. Why should He change? External forces are not

likely to change Him: He would not change Himself, since it would

necessarily be a transition to the less good and less beautiful, since

He is perfect. So the lines――

Disguised as human strangers, in many a changing guise,

Gods roam about the cities, to spy iniquities,

and the tales of Proteus and other metamorphoses, are false.

Consequently mothers should not tell their children that a god may

always be present in disguise, for it is a lie and is also likely to

make the children cowardly. Lying is only useful in dealing with

enemies, for managing lunatics, and for making a satisfactory

explanation where certainty is impossible. God has no such reason for

lying or deception.

The character of the Deity having been thus purged of mythological

accretions, Plato passes on to the treatment of the future state. This

must not be described as in any way terrible, or the children will

learn to prefer dishonourable life to honourable death. So reject――

O better be a poor man’s serf, and share his scanty bread,

Than be the crownèd king of all the nations of the dead.

And

From him his soul bewailing her hapless fortunes fled,

Her youth and beauty leaving, to the kingdoms of the dead!

All such passages must be expurgated from school editions; nor is it

right to admit the fearful scenery of Hell, the rivers of Hate (Styx)

and Wailing (Kokutos), ghosts, banshees, and other terrible words, for

fear of making the children nervous.

Then comes the discussion of the ideal man, in which Achilles falls

from the pedestal which he had previously occupied as the ideal of

Hellenic manhood. Great men must not indulge in immoderate

lamentations for their dead friends. The lament of Achilles for

Patroklos and of Priam for Hektor, when he rolled in the dust and the

dungheap, must be rejected. “For if the young should take such stories

seriously and not laugh them to scorn as contemptibly improbable, they

would be most unlikely to consider such lamentations degrading, or to

check themselves when they felt any impulse to act in such a way, but,

without shame or restraint, they would whine out many dirges over tiny

misfortunes.”[671]

Nor must the heroes be made too fond of laughing. For immoderate

laughter leads by reaction to immoderate grief. So reject――

Then rose among the blessed gods a laugh unquenchable.

The myths must instil self-control, obedience to rulers and elders and

to the better instincts. This leads Plato to expurgate――

Thou drunkard, shameless as a dog, and fearful as a deer:

but commend――

Good father, sit in silence, and hearken to what I say.

Then Homer teaches gluttony, by making Odusseus, the wisest of men,

say――

Best thing in life I count it, a heavy-laden board, While in the

goblets ceaselessly the good strong wine is poured.

Still worse are the tales of the lusts of Zeus or of Ares and

Aphrodite, and of the covetousness of the gods.

Gifts win the heart of gods: gifts win the heart of kings.

Nor must the heroes be allowed to blaspheme. “My respect for Homer

makes me shrink from saying it, but it is impious to state or to

believe that Achilles was ready to fight against the river, a god, or

that he dragged Hektor’s body round Patroklos’ tomb or slaughtered

captives upon it, or that he gave to the dead Patroklos the hair which

he had dedicated to the river god Spercheios.”[672] Nor must poets say

that wicked men are enviable, if they are not found out, or that

justice does good to others but is a loss to oneself. On the contrary,

they must invent myths to establish the opposite, whether it be true

or not, because it is profitable.

Plato cares very little for literal truth in mythology; he is only

desirous that the fiction should be improving and in accordance with

sound ethics. It is impossible to know the truth, he thinks, about

things primeval and the gods, so it is necessary to invent stories as

near the truth as possible and such that they will be improving. The

majority of men, as Isokrates also noticed, prefer myths to anything

else; for their intelligence can only grasp ethical and metaphysical

truths when they are embodied in stories and parables and fables.[673]

These fictions, however, are like powerful drugs: their concoction

must only be entrusted to competent hands, or the result will be

deadly. The rulers of the State, the philosophers, must construct the

national mythology, not unskilled and irresponsible persons like

poets.[674] Plato himself gives a good many instances of such

profitable myths; he enshrines in them, as in a popular form, many of

his deepest beliefs, his psychology,[675] his views of the immortality

of the soul,[676] his political theory that all men are not

equal.[677] In his opinion mythology was the proper food for the

unenlightened many who were incapable of philosophic certainty; the

philosopher, by the light of his exact knowledge of ethics and

metaphysics, was to concoct this food.

In pursuance of this theory an ideal character, in history or fiction,

was required to personify and make real to the multitude the

disembodied ideals of Ethics.[678] Achilles had been tumbled from his

pedestal by philosophy. Who was to replace him? Plato tries to put an

idealised Sokrates in this position, but he could not square the

historical personality with the ideal man postulated in the

_Republic_. Xenophon, also thinking that a pattern man is “an

excellent invention for the study of morality,” proposes

Agesilaos.[679] Prodikos tried to make Herakles the model of the

young. Aristotle formulated the μεγαλόψυχος [megalopsychos], but never

personified him. Stoicism sought for its Wise Man or Perfect Saint,

but never found him; Epicureanism was satisfied with its founder. But

the search for the personification of the ethical ideal becomes the

central feature of Hellenic philosophy and religion from the time of

Plato onwards.

[655] Herod. vii. 159-161.

[656] Plato, _Ion_, 24 C.

[657] _Rep._ 606 E. So in Isokrates, _To Nikokles_, 530 B.

[658] Aristoph. _Frogs_, 1034-1036.

[659] Plato, _Rep._ 391 B.

[660] Sokrates in Xenophon, _Mem._ i. 3, 7. The moralisation

is quite un-Homeric.

[661] Herod, ii. 43-46. This tendency culminated in

Euhemeros, at the end of the fourth century, who claimed to

have found inscriptions in Crete giving the careers of

mortal kings named Ouranos, Kronos, and Zeus. He argued that

the gods were distinguished men, deified by admiring

posterity. His theory passed to Rome in Ennius’ translation

and supported the imperial cult.

[662] Plato, _Phaidr._ 229 C.

[663] Plato, _Ion_, 530. Cp. Xen. _Banquet_, iii. 6, where

Anaximandros is mentioned.

[664] Cp. Aristoph. _Clouds_, 905, 1080, representing

“Sophist” arguments.

[665] Plato, _Rep._ 377 D.

[666] Isok. _Bous._ 228 D.

[667] Cp. the statement of Herodotos (ii. 53) that Homer and

Hesiod created the details of Hellenic mythology, even the

names and functions of the deities.

[668] Plato, _Rep._ 377 B.

[669] _Ibid._ 378.

[670] Plato, _Rep._ 380.

[671] Plato, _Rep._ 388 D.

[672] _Ibid._ 391 B. Plato maligns Achilles. He only

promised the hair to Spercheios on condition that he

returned home alive, which he knew he would not do if he

slew Hektor.

[673] Compare Tennyson, _In Memoriam_, xxxvi.:

For Wisdom dealt with mortal powers,

Where truth in closest words shall fail,

When truth embodied in a tale

Shall enter in at lowly doors.

[674] Plato, _Rep._ 389 C.

[675] In the _Phaidros_.

[676] In the _Republic_, and elsewhere.

[677] _Rep._ 414-417, etc. For the use which Plato made of

myths as popular expositions of his views, cp. _Laws_, 663,

664, 713, 714, 716.

[678] Isokrates recognised this too, _Antid._ 105 C.

[679] Xen. _Ag._ x. 2.

CHAPTER IX

ART, MUSIC, AND POETRY

Since poetry, music, singing, and dancing were the chief components of

a Hellenic boy’s education, the æsthetic canons by which these were

regulated came to be of great importance in the moral history of

Hellas, and were the objects of much thought and inquiry on the part

of the educational theorists. It is hard for a modern reader to

understand the attitude which Plato and Aristotle adopt towards

poetry, art, and music, partly owing to the way in which these

subjects are neglected in many modern schools, and still more owing to

the immense changes which have taken place both in the subjects

themselves and in their relations to the State as a whole.

In ancient Hellas art, literature, and music were addressed to the

whole citizen-body, not to a cultured upper class. The epics were

recited to crowds that might number thousands. The choral lyrics were

danced and sung by large choruses in the presence of a whole city.

Tragedy and Comedy were acted before the whole Athenian populace,

swollen by crowds from every part of Hellas. The great orations were

spoken either to the national assembly, where every grown man might be

present, or to a jury of several hundred citizens. So with Hellenic

art. The statues and pictures were not created for private

drawing-rooms, but for public temples, colonnades, or gymnasia.

Thus it was national, not individual taste which was the standard of

Hellenic art and literature: they had to follow the taste of the city,

not of a clique. But every city in Hellas, as in the Italy of the

Renaissance, had an intense individuality of its own, which dominated

its poets, artists, and musicians. The art-schools of the islands, of

Argos, of Athens were as distinct from one another as those of Venice,

Florence, Perugia. The greater centres had types of music so far

distinct that they required different instruments. Language,

character, and politics in like manner presented a different aspect in

each community. But underneath this ubiquitous local individuality lay

the fundamental distinction between the Dorian, on the one hand, and

the Ionian, with whom for æsthetic purposes may be classed the

Aeolian, on the other. For Hellenism began to run its course in two

distinct channels, the Doric and the Ionic.[680]

The Doric characteristics were the sacrifice of the detail and the

individual to the whole and the community, a love of terseness and

simplicity, a strong sense of harmony, order, and proportion, a hatred

of complexity, mystery, vagueness, and luxury, and a preference for

the perfect body over the developed intellect. The Dorians were

essentially one-sided, and lacking in imagination, intellect, and

invention; they were strong conservatives, and any innovation was

repugnant to them.

The Ionians were a very different people. Individualism was strong in

them from the first. They had a tendency to floridity, to exaggeration

of detail, and to luxury. A quick-witted and imaginative race, they

were fond of perpetual innovation. Versatility was characteristic of

them. They preferred intellectual to physical success. Their

imagination outran their powers of execution. They had none of the

solidity of the less brilliant Dorian, none of his discipline,

self-restraint, directness, or perseverance. They were his inferiors

in most physical and ethical qualities, his superiors in all

intellectual pursuits.

Till the fifth century the two conflicting types exercise little

influence upon one another. The Ionians produce a sensuous, dreamy,

refined, and imaginative sculpture; the Dorians a series of physically

excellent but wholly unintellectual athlete-statues. The Aeolians

produce the personal lyrics of love and wine; the Dorians the choral

poetry of athletic triumphs and gymnastic dances. The Dorians can

claim the ethical and collectivist philosophy of Pythagoras; the

Ionians the intellectual and individualist philosophy of the so-called

Ionian schools.

Athens during this period was purely Ionic, as her statues, the

remains of which are now being recovered from the rubbish heaps where

Xerxes threw them, abundantly testify. Further evidence comes from the

style of dress shown in these statues and in other works of art of the

period: it is almost oriental.[681] The statues reveal an excess of

detail and over-refinement: the most common type was a draped woman.

The Dorians, on the other hand, were most successful in the nude male

type; and the great Aeginetan school quite failed to represent the

goddess Athena.

The same principle of differentiation applied to music as well as to

art, in Hellas: the Dorian, the Ionian, the Aeolian, as well as the

neighbouring Phrygian and Lydian, each produced a type of their own,

or “harmony,” as it was called. Each “harmony” bore the mark of the

“ethos,” or moral character, of the tribe or race which produced it,

plainly and unmistakably. Music in early Hellas must have been of a

primitive type, and an acute musical ear had not yet been developed by

long training. Consequently, the average Hellenic audience was in the

position of the utterly unmusical man of modern times: the complicated

music of modern masters would have been wholly unintelligible to them,

and the only meanings which they could extract from music were certain

broad ethical impressions. The unmusical man is stirred by a good

marching tune, moved to a certain depression by a dirge or dead march,

enlivened and excited by a rollicking bacchanalian song, and reduced

to a solemn and half-religious frame of mind by the tones of a great

organ. So with the average Hellene: he extracted this amount of

impressions from his music, and no more. Any idea of music as the

voice of the unutterable was quite foreign to his mind; in fact, he

disliked any music that was unaccompanied by singing: tunes without

words were unknown in earlier Hellas.

How these different harmonies were produced, by what combination of

notes and scales each was regulated, may be left to the specialists:

it is one of those questions which will probably never be settled

conclusively. The fact remains that they existed, each with an

unmistakable moral characteristic of its own. But what exactly the

moral characteristic of each was, is rendered doubtful by the

conflicting evidence of different writers; probably, as musical taste

changed and developed, the same “harmony” came to cause a different

impression. Plato’s ear, accustomed to the prevalent Dorian, found the

Lydian doleful and depressing; Aristotle and his contemporaries, more

used to softer music, praised it as valuable for educational

purposes.[682] Herakleides of Pontos,[683] who made a special study of

music, gives, in a fragment, a sketch of the old Hellenic “harmonies.”

The Dorian, according to him, was manly, dignified, stern, and robust,

not effeminate nor merry nor variegated nor versatile.[684] The

Aeolic, afterwards called “Hypo-Dorian,” was haughty and pretentious,

rather conceited, not, however, base in any way, but inflated and

confident. It was the right music for “woman, wine, and song.” The

Ionic, representing the old Ionic character before the race

degenerated, was passionate, headstrong, contentious, showing no signs

of benevolence or merriment, but revealing a certain hardness of heart

and temperament. It was not florid nor cheerful, but austere and

harsh, with a not ignoble dignity which fitted it to accompany

Tragedy. Later, the race and the “harmony” seem to have degenerated,

and are charged with being luxurious and effeminate. There used also

to be a Locrian “harmony,” which was used by Pindar and Simonides, but

afterwards it fell into contempt and died out.

Besides these purely Hellenic types, there were two which came from

barbarian races, the Lydian and the Phrygian. Of the Lydian there were

several varieties. The Mixed-Lydian was doleful and suitable to

dirges: it made the audience feel mournful and grave. The

Syntono-Lydian was very similar. The pure Lydian is rejected as

effeminate by Plato;[685] but Aristotle, resting on the musical

experts, declares that it involves order and arrangement (κόσμος

[kosmos]) and is well adapted for education. About the Phrygian

opinion is still more divided. Plato commends it. According to him it

suitably represents the notes and accents of a self-controlled man “in

peaceful and unconstrained circumstances, trying to persuade some one

or making a request, praying to a god or advising a man, or giving his

attention to the request or advice or arguments of some one else; and

if he attains his object, not puffed up, but in all things acting, and

accepting the consequences of his actions, with moderation and

self-control.” The philosopher then goes on to reject the flute, as

suitable only to hysterical enthusiasm. But this, as Aristotle pointed

out, was inconsistent. For the Phrygian harmony and the flute went

hand in hand: the wild orgies of Dionusos and other worships of an

enthusiastic nature were usually accompanied by the flute and could

only be set to the Phrygian harmony. The dithyramb, for instance,

could only be set in this way; when Philoxenos definitely tried to

write one to the Dorian, he slid back without being able to prevent it

into the Phrygian. Aristotle therefore, accounting it an enthusiastic

harmony, reserves it as a “purge” (κάθαρσις [katharsis]), which, by

providing under well-regulated conditions an occasional outlet for

hysteria, will work such affections out of the system for a long

period: at the end of which another dose will be required.[686]

In Hellas music was held to be an efficacious medicine for the ills

alike of body, soul, and mind. Even the grave and learned philosopher

Theophrastos, the pupil of Aristotle, asserted that the Phrygian

“harmony” on the flute was the proper means of curing lumbago.[687]

Pindar states that Apollo “gives to men and women cures for grievous

sickness, and invented the harp, and gives the Muse to whom he will,

bringing warless peace into the heart”:[688] the god of medicine is

the son of the god of the harp. The Pythagorean philosopher Kleinias,

when he was in a bad temper, used to take up his harp, saying, “I am

calming myself.”[689] He and his school regarded the harp as the true

means of attaining that peace and solemn orderliness of soul which as

true Dorian musicians they desired. Lukourgos produced at Sparta the

state of mind necessary to enable his reforms to be carried, by

sending from Crete a lyric poet named Thales, whose songs, by their

calm and orderly tune and rhythm, were an incentive to discipline and

concord: by this means the Spartans were imperceptibly calmed in

character.[690] The Arcadians, according to their compatriot Polubios,

from ancient times onwards “made music their foster-brother” from

their cradles till they were thirty years of age, in order to

counteract the brutalising tendencies of their rough life and harsh

climate; and the inhabitants of one district, Kunaitha, which

neglected this preventive, were notorious for their wickedness.[691]

Thus music came to be regarded as the best means of forming character.

It was only necessary to apply the right sort of “harmony” to the

young and susceptible personality, and the right “ethos” would be

produced. The Dorian was most in request for educational purposes: its

merits were universally recognised. For it “suitably represented the

notes and accents of a brave man in the presence of war or of any

other violent action, going to meet wounds or death or fallen into any

other misfortune, facing his fate with unflinching resolution.”[692]

Of the others, as has been said, Plato preferred the Phrygian and

Aristotle the Lydian.

* * * * *

Not only beautiful music, but beautiful art also, was believed to

produce, by an unconscious but irresistible influence, beautiful

characters in those who came into contact with it; while, on the other

hand, bad art, as well as bad music, was the cause of vice and low

moral ideals.[693] This, they naturally thought, was particularly true

in the case of children, who are so sensitive to all external

influences; moreover, it is the early impressions that make most

difference in a man’s life. To serve this educational end, the

Hellenes expected every statue and painting, as well as every poem and

tune, to have ἦθος [êthos], that is, according to Aristotle’s

definition,[694] to be such that its moral purpose was manifest to the

average man. For this purpose Hellenic art had to become impersonal:

the great statues represent a single trait of character. The smaller

individualising traits are omitted: the single trait chosen is then

idealised and carried to its utmost possible development. This

produced a single and easily intelligible effect. The frieze on the

Parthenon represented the perfect knight in various attitudes, not

So-and-so and Somebody-else. The same idealised abstractions can be

traced in the “Theseus” of the Pediment, and in most of the dramas of

Sophocles.

The realisation of this artistic ideal was made possible by the fusion

of the two currents, Doric and Ionic. At the end of the sixth century

a wave of Doricism passes over Athens, and the first competent

athlete-sculptors arise there. A second wave came in the middle of the

next century, in the period of Perikles. The Dorian characteristics

now dominate Attic artists alike in poetry, sculpture, and

vase-painting. Aeschylus had possessed the best traits of the Ionic

temperament, chastened by the great crisis of the Persian wars: his

imagination is half oriental, and he has often been compared to a

Hebrew prophet. But the canons of Sophocles are purely Doric, as are

those of Pheidias. The mixture of Doric ethics with Ionic imagination

produces the great age of Hellenic art and literature. With art in

such an educative condition, the effect of the great public buildings

and temples, which adorned even quite humble villages, and of the

glorious statues of which every temple, agora, and gymnasium formed a

perfect treasure-house, must have been very great upon the Hellenes,

who were probably the most susceptible of all peoples to artistic

influences. Moderns vaguely realise that a great Gothic Cathedral does

direct the emotions quite perceptibly. The more susceptible Athenians

must have been much more strongly influenced by the Parthenon and the

Propulaia. In fact, it is related that Epaminondas declared that his

countrymen could never become great unless they removed these

buildings bodily to Thebes. Strangers visiting Athens were so overcome

by her architectural glories that they thought her the natural capital

of the world――an effect which Perikles may well have intended. Great

works of art produce great effects: it is not unnatural to suppose

that smaller works produce a not inconsiderable, if smaller, effect.

Modern theorists often declare that the pictures and wall-paper of the

nursery ought to be in the best taste. Plato and Aristotle ruled that

everything, however humble, which surrounds the growing child should

be in accordance with the best canons of art, since art influenced

morality so strongly. “Ought we not to keep an eye,” says Plato,[695]

“on the craftsmen also, and prevent them from representing moral evil

or disorderliness or bad taste or lack of grace or lack of harmony

either in their imitations of animals or in their buildings or in any

other object of their craft? If they are unable to carry out our

directions in this matter, ought we not to expel them from the

community, lest boys who are brought up in the bad pasture of these

bad representations may pluck poison daily from everything around

them, and little by little insensibly accumulate a large amount of

evil in their souls? Must we not rather search for such craftsmen as

are able, by their native genius, to discover what is beautiful and

graceful? For in this way our children, dwelling in a region of

health, will be influenced for good by every sound and every sight of

these works of beauty, inhaling as it were a healthy breeze that blows

to them from a goodly land.” Every article of furniture, every detail

of architecture, is to take its part in educating the citizens. But if

art and music are so potent a factor in education, they require to be

carefully regulated: a depravation of popular taste, which will cause

a depravation of the dependent artists, will by its educating

influence increase the national decadence both of taste and of morals,

in an ever-widening degree.

* * * * *

Poetry had at least an equally potent influence upon contemporary

ethics. The works of the great poets were the chief medium of

education, and large quantities of them were learned by heart in all

the elementary schools.[696] What the boys learned, they then recited,

with as much dramatic action as they were capable of: the rhapsodes

provided them with models. Thus the boys really _acted_ the poets as

far as they could. Acting was a new thing in Hellas in Solon’s time,

and it was received with apprehension. When Thespis first acted one of

his plays, Solon asked him if he was not ashamed to tell such lies in

public, making himself out to be what he was not. Thespis replied that

it was only in fun. Then Solon struck the ground with his stick and

said, “We shall soon find this fun of yours invading our commercial

transactions.” Later, when Peisistratos obtained the bodyguard, to

which he owed his tyranny, by pretending to have been wounded by his

enemies, Solon said the stratagem was a case of acting.[697] This

objection was echoed by Plato, and is not wholly unjustified by the

course of history. For the great vice of Hellenic life was its

insincerity: it is impossible to tell how far a Hellene is in earnest.

It is this vice which ruins their oratory; it is this which, in later

times, made the “hungry little Greek” the type of a fawning liar in

Roman opinion. It was not only in recitations that acting played a

great part. The dances were essentially dramatic: it was this quality

which enabled them to give birth to the drama. In the war-dance all

the gestures and attitudes of attack and defence in actual battle were

represented. The Dionysiac dances were originally the acts of devotees

trying to assimilate themselves to the god in his sufferings and

triumphs.

How vividly a Hellene entered into the dramatisation may be seen from

the case of the rhapsode Ion. When he recited Homer, his eyes filled

with water and his hair stood on end; and his audience were in much

the same condition. The effect in the “Mimetic” dances, where music,

gestures, rhythm, and poetry all combined to produce a single

impression, must have been greater still; the audience, as well as the

performers, must often have been quite carried away. Such performances

were very frequent. Is it unnatural to suppose that such frequent

assimilation had an important effect on the Hellenes, with their

artistic temperament and great susceptibility? At any rate, Plato,

Aristotle, and Aristophanes, not to mention lesser names, believed

that it had.

Among these potent poetic influences, the drama must certainly not be

forgotten. Sokrates regarded the _Clouds_ of Aristophanes as a far

more deadly attack upon his career than anything that Anutos and

Meletos could say. To Plato, the theatre plays the part of the “Great

Sophist,” the educating influence which forms the opinion and the

character of the young.

It must be remembered that Hellenic poetry enshrined the religion of

the race: this fact gave it an enormous influence. The characters in

Aeschylus and Sophocles are divine or semi-divine; many of the

audience in the theatre were wont to revere Agamemnon or Theseus; all

paid worship to Athena and Apollo. The Athenian drama was sacred to a

Hellene as is the play at Oberammergau to a Christian. Had Shakespeare

dramatised the Bible, modern children might have recited his speeches

and acted his plays with somewhat similar feelings to those with which

Hellenic boys recited Homer or Aeschylus. Suppose Shakespeare had thus

dramatised the story of Esau and Jacob, and an imaginative child was

set to learn Jacob’s speeches and repeat them; suppose he was also in

the habit of hearing them recited by a first-class actor who knew how

to bring out the minuter traits of character.[698] Is it not, at any

rate, quite rational to argue that the child would gradually absorb

some of these traits of character, just as children often pick up the

peculiarities of nurses and others with whom they have no hereditary

connection? Might not underhand habits be reasonably attributed to

frequent acting of the part of Jacob? Yet in ancient Hellas the

influence was much stronger, for the people were more susceptible and

the characters were believed to be half-divine.

* * * * *

Thus in ancient Hellas music, art, and poetry had an immense effect on

the characters and morals of the race. This influence may well have

been exaggerated by Hellenic thinkers. Damon the musician declared

that every change in artistic standards produced a change in the tone

and constitution of a State; and Plato agreed with him.[699] The

danger of such innovations is a large part of the theme of the _Laws_,

and, in a less degree, of the _Republic_. Sparta accepted this

attitude and forbade all change. The opinion was certainly widely

held, and must have rested on experience.

Just as the thinkers were beginning to realise this principle, it

happened that a very great change in the artistic canons did take

place. Sophocles is succeeded by Euripides, Pheidias by Praxiteles:

music suffers a similar transformation. Idealism gives way to realism:

Sophocles and Pheidias had represented men as they ought to be,

Euripides and Praxiteles represent them as they are. Poets and

sculptors still pretend to be delineating deities, but in reality they

are delineating contemporary life.[700] Their creations not only cease

to be idealised, they cease to have only a single trait. The “Hermes”

of Praxiteles is a dreamy but vigorous young Athenian who might have

been met in the Akademeia or Lukeion; the “Herakles” of Euripides is

now a homicidal maniac, now a reckless mercenary.[701] The characters

become human by losing their divineness. In the next generation the

divine names are dropped, and Menander can depict contemporary life

without having to call his characters Orestes or Phaidra. Music also

ceased to be so severely separated off into types. All manner of

musical innovations arise, which it is very hard for a modern to

grasp. But the result is clear enough. It became no longer possible to

detect the ethical meaning of a tune: music was becoming complex, just

as characters in drama and sculpture were becoming complex. It was

also more homely in subject. It became daringly “mimetic” also,

imitating all the sounds of nature. This was an age of daring

experiments, and musicians shared the general movement.

To the Conservative party in Hellas and to the educational theorists

these changes naturally appeared ruinous. In their opinion, Euripides

was practically parodying the Bible and making divine characters share

all the follies and weaknesses, and use the homely language, of mere

men. Boys, learning such poetry by heart, would cease to have ideals:

everything would be commonplace to them. They would recite the most

homely language, and act the most homely parts, under the idea that

they were half-divine. Moreover, with the attack of the new school

upon the old religion, the more immoral parts of Hellenic mythology

were brought into undue prominence. Euripides seems to have chosen

some questionable subjects; the dithyrambic poets were worse, and

chose themes quite unsuitable for children to act or hear. And music

ceased to have any ethical value; it was all trills and onomatopœia.

Such changes meant a revolution in the results of education.

The poet Aristophanes is the first to raise his voice against the

change. A few months before the utter ruin of Athens, he produces the

_Frogs_, which really repeats the attack of the _Clouds_, with

Euripides instead of Sokrates for the defendant. The poet is attacked

as at once the prophet of the new culture of the Sophists and of the

new artistic standards. The following are some of the chief faults

which Aristophanes finds with the new school represented by

Euripides:[702] (1) an undignified style of music, worthy only of the

bones as an accompaniment; (2) its habit of mixing all sorts of

incongruous musical rubbish together, “lewd love-songs, drinking

catches of Meletos, Karian flute-music, dirges, and dances”; (3) its

trills or shakes, as in εἰειειειειλίσσετε [eieieieieilissete]; (4) its

mixture of incongruous pictures, “dolphins, spiders, halcyons,

prophet-chambers, and race-courses,” pathos and bathos, commonplace

and solemnity; (5) bad metre, licenses of every sort, and frequent

“resolved” feet. As a parody of its habitual incongruity Aristophanes

gives:

“O God of the sea, that’s what it is. O ye neighbours,

behold yon monstrous deed: Gluke’s gone off with my cock.

Nymphs, ye daughters of the hills! Mary Ann, lend a hand.”

Aristophanes’ voice comes with a certain pathos, for the play is the

last utterance of Periclean Athens, just at the point of falling and

trying to find a scapegoat on whom to lay the responsibility of its

ruin: and the scapegoat chosen is the new artistic and musical

standard. The Ionic temperament had, in fact, broken away from all

restraint. The Doric canons of order, symmetry, regularity, and

solidity were thrown aside. Everything antique was treated with

disdain; all authority was rejected with scorn. No standards, ethical

or artistic, were tolerated. Perpetual change, daily novelty, became

the one desire of Athens. The foundations of belief, the bases of the

moral code, were broken down. The whole world seemed to be crumbling

away, and nothing was arising to take its place. Spectators became

dizzy with the eternal fluctuations. What wonder if they turned

longing eyes towards the one centre of gravity in Hellas, towards the

one place where politics, art, and ethics retained their old

stability, towards Sparta? So Sparta becomes the philosopher’s ideal,

and it is the Spartan canon that Plato tries to reimpose on Ionicism

running riot.[703] The fault which he finds with contemporary art and

music is that they simply try to please and amuse the audience, not to

educate and improve it.[704] They are like parents who try to soothe a

fractious child with sweetmeats when his health requires castor oil.

But the poets and artists are the slaves of the mob which pays them.

They must be freed from this control, and made the servants of the

government. Strict canons must be drawn up, which they must follow on

pain of being expelled from the State. The canons must be drawn up by

a select body of experts; the mob is incapable of judging in such

matters; the critic must guide their taste, not follow it.[705] Good

music and art must bear the stamp of a good “ethos,” and, since men

appreciate the character most which most resembles their own, it will

be the good man who will most appreciate good music:[706] so the good

man becomes the standard. In order to point his moral, Plato sketches

the history of the Athenian drama, showing how its dependence on

popular opinion ruined it[707]:――

“At the time of the Persian wars Athens was a limited democracy, with

the magistracies arranged according to a property qualification. The

spirit of obedience and discipline prevailed in those days, and was

strengthened by the dread of Persia. The populace willingly obeyed the

laws that fixed the artistic and musical standards. By these

regulations the different types of song and accompaniment, hymns or

prayers to the gods, lamentations, pæans, dithyrambs, and so forth

were kept quite distinct, no one being allowed to mix them together;

the standard, too, was not fixed, as now, by the shouts and stampings

and confused applause of the mob, but every one listened in silence

until the end of the play, the educated classes from preference, and

boys and their paidagogoi, and the mob generally, under the direction

of the rod. Thus the mass of the citizens were ready to obey in an

orderly manner, not venturing to make noisy criticisms. In course of

time some poets, who ought to have known better, led the way in

breaking down these laws. Frenzied and distracted by their desire for

pleasure, they mixed lamentations with hymns and pæans with

dithyrambs, they imitated the flute on the lyre, they confused

everything with everything else. Blinded by ignorance, they lied and

said that there was no question of accuracy of representation in

music: the only standard was the pleasure of the hearer, whatever sort

of man he might be. With such style of poetry, and arguments to match,

they inspired the many with contempt for the laws of Art, and gave

them the idea that they were capable of criticising it. So the

audience was no longer silent but noisy, since it supposed that it

knew what was good and what was bad. Art was no longer governed by

good taste, but by the bad taste of the mob. Nor was this the worst of

it. From Art the infection spread to other spheres, and every one

began to think that he knew everything, and consequently to break the

laws. For, thinking themselves wiser than the laws, they no longer

feared them.… Next comes a refusal to obey the Archons, then contempt

for the orders of parents and elders, then a desire to be free from

the restraints of a constitution. The end is utter contempt for oaths

and covenants and the gods.”

It is the lack of order and system in contemporary music which Plato

dislikes.[708] In modern dances, he complains, manly words are set to

effeminate tunes or gestures, and the voices of men and beasts and

instruments are mixed together into a confused and unintelligible

hodgepodge.[709] Music without words is equally detestable. Music that

runs on without the proper pauses and loves mere speed and meaningless

clamour, using flutes and harps without words, is in the worst taste.

The meaning must be quite plain.

Music must also be good. Poets say much that is good, much that is

bad: they are irresponsible beings.[710] The State ought to appoint

censors who will reject all unsuitable poems and tunes and dances.

Those which are already in existence must be selected and expurgated.

If this ruins the poetry, never mind: moral tone is far more important

than poetical skill. In fact, poetry ought to be written by moral

citizens without any regard being paid to their poetical talents: it

would also be well if they did not compose till they were fifty![711]

A sketch of a Platonic Censor re-editing Homer is given in Books ii.

and iii. of the _Republic_: his methods are drastic.

But Plato’s chief denunciation is reserved for the “mimetic” or

imitative aspect of poetry. The poet teaches “posing.” Homer, when he

described the siege of Troy, is posing as a skilled tactician (as his

admirers often claimed that he was), when really the silence of

history proves that he was nothing of the sort. So too the painter who

represents a plough is posing as an authority upon agriculture:

question him, and he will prove to be completely ignorant of the

subject. Both poetry and painting are a fraud and a deception; by

their pretence of knowledge, they encourage the mind in the habit, to

which it is so prone, of accepting vague opinions as certainties

without testing their truth.[712] They foster that belief in the

sense-perceptions which it is the object of Platonic education to

destroy.

But the poet not only poses himself: he makes his audience, his

reader, his performer pose. The boy who recites the dying speech of

Aias in Sophocles’ play is posing as Aias, pretending to be Aias, and

adopting the tone and the traits of Aias. The boy who dances in the

dithyramb _Semelé_ is trying to enter into Semelé’s feelings and

moods, being helped by the music and the gestures and the words.[713]

Such posing, if begun in early years, will invade the character and

change it: the boy will become like the personages whom he is

accustomed to act. Hence Plato lays down strict laws dealing with the

recitations and dances of the young.[714] “If they speak in character,

it must only be in the character of those who are, what they

themselves must be when they are grown up, brave, temperate, pious

gentlemen. They must have no skill in taking unsuitable characters,

lest from their dramatic representation of what is vulgar and base

they become infected with the reality of vulgarity and baseness. For

imitation, if begun in early years and carried far, sinks into a boy’s

habits and nature, and influences his voice, his gestures, and his

ideas.… So boys must not be allowed to take the character of a woman,

young or old, abusing her husband or blaspheming against the gods or

uttering lamentations,――certainly not of a woman in sickness or in

love or in pangs; nor the character of slaves performing slavish

duties; nor of bad men, cowards, insulting or mocking one another,

using foul language, drunk or sober; nor yet of madmen.”[715] It will

be seen that this will exclude much of Hellenic drama, especially of

the plays of Euripides and Aristophanes. Comedy, according to Plato,

should only be acted by foreigners, and should serve as an awful

warning of everything that a gentleman ought not to do. The new music

is subjected to similar rules. “Boys must not imitate blacksmiths at

the forge, or craftsmen occupied in any trade, or sailors rowing, or

boatswains giving them orders, or anything of the sort; nor yet horses

neighing, or bulls roaring, or the noise of rivers or the sea or

thunder or wind or hail or chariot-wheels or pulleys or trumpets or

flutes or pipes …; nor the sounds made by dogs and sheep and birds.”

So the proper style of poetry for educational purposes will be mostly

narrative, with occasional dramatisation of virtuous men. To accompany

this simplified and purified poetry only the Dorian and Phrygian

“harmonies” will be required: all the others may be rejected. Simple

instruments alone will be wanted: many-stringed lyres and the flute

can be banished. The seven-stringed lyre and the shepherd’s pipe will

be left.

Plato finds it too difficult to carry these principles into rhythm,

since he is not an expert in the subject. But he thinks that the

metres could be regulated in accordance with his canons; the expert

Damon declared that some had a demoralising tendency.