life was almost entirely physical. They were taught how to stand, how to
sit, and how to walk correctly: on a vase painting in the British
Museum, for example, we see a small child moving unsteadily towards its
mother, who waits with open arms to receive it, while an instructor with
long wand stands in the background. Athenian mothers usually were
inclined to delegate the care of their children to a hired nurse, and
there is an implied reproof to their indifference in the elaborate
precepts that Plato gives in the _Republic_ for the proper management of
infants. For example, he combats the idea that a good child should be
quiet, and insists upon the importance of constant motion for the young
baby, who in an Athenian nursery was often closely bandaged in swaddling
clothes and then left to its own resources.
‘The first principle,’ he says, ‘in relation both to the
body and the soul of very young creatures is that nursing and moving
about by day and night is good for them all, and that the younger they
are the more they will need it. Infants should live, if it were
possible, as if they were always rocking at sea. Exercise and motion in
the earliest years greatly contribute to create a part of virtue in the
soul: the child’s virtue is cheerfulness, and good nursing makes a
gentle and a cheerful child.’
Greek ears were very sensitive to sounds, and the noise of the
uncheerful infant protesting against life was doubtless very trying to
the father in the few hours that he spent at home. We have no
information of Plato’s practical experience of children, for, as far as
we know, he never married, but both he and Aristotle love to criticize
the customs of their native city. In the _Politics_, for example, as in
the _Republic_, the importance of the child is emphasized.
‘Young children,’ says Aristotle, ‘should be kept healthy by
exposure: to accustom children to the cold is an excellent practice
which greatly conduces to health and hardens them for military service.
Children should be amused till they are five years old, but the
amusement should not be vulgar or tiring or riotous. Their sports should
be imitations of the occupations which they will hereafter pursue in
earnest. Crying and screaming should not be checked, for they contribute
to growth, and in a manner, exercise the body. The Directors of
Education must keep a careful eye even upon young children, who will
stay at home until they are seven; and they must see that they are left
as little as possible with slaves. Formal education will begin after
seven years; it will be the same for all, given in public, and directed
to promote the good of all. Nature requires that we should be able not
only to work well but to use leisure well. Work and leisure are both
necessary, but the latter is the more important; and it is the chief
function of education to teach us how to use our leisure rightly.
Gymnastics and music are the chief branches of education; but for
children gymnastic exercises should be of a light kind. Children should
not be brutalized, as they are at Sparta, by laborious toil. Music
should be studied both for its intellectual and its ethical virtue.
Children should be encouraged to sing and play, for it will keep them
out of mischief; but the flute should be forbidden as over-exciting, and
musical studies should cease at manhood.’
It will be seen that Aristotle recognizes the necessity of amusement,
and Greek children seem to have had most of the toys familiar to our
nurseries. Little girls played with their terra-cotta dolls, boys with
their hoops and balls, and with the knuckle bones that took the place of
our marbles. An Alexandrian epigram (_Anth. Pal._ VI, 309) records the
dedication to Hermes of one such playbox.
‘This noiseless ball and top so round,
This rattle with its lively sound,
These bones with which he loved to play,
Companions of his childhood’s day;
To Hermes, if the god they please,
An offering from Philocles.’
Of dance games too, which give exercise both to mind and body, they had
an abundant variety; some simple like ‘The Wine-skin and Hatchet,’ which
could be played upon the stomach of a complaisant guest, others more
elaborate in their dramatic ritual, such as ‘The Swallow’ procession, of
which our ‘Jack in the Green’ is a reminiscence.
At the beginning of their lives then children were treated in much the
same way at Sparta and at Athens; but in the next stage of education,
after the period of early childhood was past, there was a sharp
divergence between Spartan and Athenian practice. At Sparta boys and
girls alike, over the age of seven years, were taken in hand by the
state, and given the most thorough of physical trainings. The girls
were allowed their meals at home, but otherwise were subjected to the
same discipline as the boys. They had to harden their bodies, so that
they might bear strong children, and among their sports were wrestling,
running, and swimming. They learned to throw the diskos and the javelin;
and wearing only the short Doric chiton engaged in contests of speed
with youths. The result we may see in the statue of the girl runner, a
copy of a fifth-century original, which is now in the Vatican at Rome,
and in the description of the Spartan woman envoy in Aristophanes’ play
_Lysistrata_, who looked ‘as though she could throttle a bull.’ The
boys, for their part, were organized in the strictest fashion into
‘packs’ of sixty-four and into divisions. Each pack fed together, slept
together on bundles of reeds for bedding, and played together. They had
to go barefoot always, wore only a single garment summer and winter, and
provided for their own wants.
One boy in the pack was appointed as ‘Bouagor,’ or ‘Herd-leader,’ and
could give orders and inflict punishment. Over him was a young man,
above twenty years of age, of tried character and courage, the ‘Eiren’
who was in charge of the pack’s organization and lived always with the
boys. In control of the whole system was the ‘Paidonomos,’ the minister
of education, an elderly citizen of rank and repute who had the ultimate
powers of discipline over boys and eirens alike. In the three ranks we
see something resembling the prefects, assistant masters, and Heads of
our schools: in manner of life there was a close approximation to the
boy-scout movement.
This Spartan type of education in some respects was not unlike the
English public school system, as we owe it to Dr. Arnold, before it was
affected by the spread of competitive examinations and the demand for
utilitarian knowledge. The qualities that the Spartans wished to
cultivate were not intellectual acuteness or literary taste, but the
moral virtues of obedience, discipline, and endurance. To obtain these
the lads were kept under constant supervision by grown men, and the
weakness of the system was that individual initiative was not
sufficiently encouraged, and that the claims of the mind were too
persistently disregarded. Of book study there was practically none.
Hunting, scouting, and foraging for food took up most of the boys’ time.
Fighting, both in play and in earnest, was encouraged, together with
gymnastics of an unspecialized sort, especially the musical drill which
the Spartans called gymnopædia. Competitions between individuals and
divisions were very frequent, and in many of them girls met boys on
equal terms. Above all things, the idea of military efficiency was kept
before the children’s eyes, and a strict military discipline was
enforced. In fact, the Spartan system had all the strength and weakness
of an exclusively military regime. The young Spartans were brave,
healthy, modest, hardy and obedient: on the other hand, they were
stupid, quarrelsome, brutal, lacking in self-restraint, and inclined to
a gross immorality when once they were free from the close restraint of
Spartan law. As long as a Spartan lived in his own country he behaved
well, but the vices that the system produced showed themselves
unpleasantly in any dealings with others. To the rest of Greece the
vices seemed more than to counterbalance the virtues, and the Athenian
ideal of education became the model for most of the other Greek States.
At Athens, everything was left to the individual parent and to the
private schoolmaster. The State recognized its responsibility for the
maintenance of children, and if a man died in battle his orphans were
reared at the public expense; but it did not recognize its
responsibility for their education. Some ancient laws, attributed to
Solon, did indeed enact that all free-born children should be sent to
school and there taught ‘letters and how to swim.’ Other regulations
fixed the school hours, and in the interests of morality forbade boys to
come home from school in the dark. But as regards the methods and the
subjects of education given to boys, the Athenian Government was
indifferent. The keeping of a school was a private speculation, and the
State required no evidence of moral or intellectual qualifications from
the schoolmaster. Accordingly, schools and the fees charged varied very
greatly. Poor folk sent their children to establishments where only the
elements of reading and writing were taught χαχὰ χαχῶς as the
sausage-seller in Aristophanes says. Richer parents not only gave their
children a better training in the early stages, but kept them at school
for a longer period.
The schoolmaster himself was regarded with extreme contempt. The father
of Æschines belonged to the despised class, and Demosthenes draws a
scornful picture of his youthful rival helping to mix the ink, scrub the
forms, and sweep the schoolroom. The fees were due on the last day of
the month; but they were grudgingly paid and mean parents would keep
their children away from school in those months of the year when the
State festivals gave the schoolmaster an opportunity of granting his
pupils a holiday. Of long intervals from work, such as our summer and
winter vacations, we have no trace in Athens, and the precept of the
Roman poet ‘æstate pueri si valent satis discunt’ apparently went
unregarded.
The school hours were arranged to suit the time of meals in the boys’
homes. After the early breakfast, taken at sunrise, the boy sets off to
his teacher, with whom he remained till noon. Then came the midday
meal, followed by a siesta, and then afternoon school. Discipline was
lax. The schoolmaster certainly had a rod to assist him in maintaining
order, but his social inferiority deprived him of any real authority.
Children would bring their pet dogs to school and play with them under
the master’s chair. The master usually was sitting, a position which an
Athenian despised as unworthy of a free-born man, and we have the
typical schoolmaster pictured for us on a vase by Euphronios. He is a
small, ill-developed man, with a bald head and a prominent nose. His
body twisted, he leans forward with a threatening gesture, his
forefinger raised in warning. In his left hand there is a stylus, for a
writing-lesson is in progress; his stick with crooked handle and
formidable knobs lies convenient to his right. He is drawn by a
malicious hand with something of the caricaturist’s touch, but he is
thoroughly alive and evidently closely resembles a real original. We may
imagine that not unlike him even in bodily form was the schoolmaster in
the third mime of Herondas who beats his idle pupil with his bull’s tail
strap until he is ‘black and blue like a spotted snake.’
The ordinary system of elementary education at Athens, as followed by
boys from seven to fourteen, consisted of three parts: letters, music
and gymnastics, presided over by the grammatiste, kithariste, and
pædotribe respectively. The grammatiste taught reading, writing and
simple arithmetic, and his methods, on the evidence of the papyri and
ostraka which have recently been discovered in Egypt, were not very much
unlike those of a modern school. We have long lists of alphabets, and of
simple and difficult combinations of letters; passages for dictation and
recitation, the conjugation of verbs, and elementary grammatical rules.
The kithariste taught ‘music’; i.e. the words of the lyric poets and the
simple lyre accompaniment which went with the words. In general
estimation he ranked a little higher than the grammatiste, but they both
taught under the same conditions, and usually in the same building. The
pædotribe was a much more important person than the other two, and his
teaching, which directed the boy’s physical development upon scientific
lines, lasted usually till manhood. He taught the rules of health,
‘dancing’ in the Greek sense of the word, and especially the five
exercises of the pentathlon, which aimed at producing a perfect,
all-round athlete. The palæstra was his school-room, and he was always
sure of eager pupils and interested spectators.
But upon the smaller boys no very arduous tasks were imposed.
Deportment, how to sit, stand, and walk gracefully, the correct manner
of salutation, a decorous and becoming carriage of the body; these with
some easy gymnastic exercises, together with a multitude of games and
an occasional cockfight, occupied most of a boy’s day. He spent much
more time at the palæstra than he did anywhere else, but the border-line
there between instruction and amusement was not very rigidly drawn. This
was the sort of education that seemed to Aristophanes ideal, and nowhere
is a better picture given of it than in the _Clouds_:
‘To hear then prepare of the Discipline rare which flourished in
Athens of yore,
When Honour and Truth were in fashion with youth and Sobriety bloomed
on our shore;
First of all, the old rule was preserved in our school that “boys should
be seen and not heard”:
And then to the home of the harpist would come, decorous in action
and word,
All the lads of one town, though the snow peppered down, in spite of
all wind and all weather;
And they sung an old song as they paced it along, not shambling with
thighs glued together...
But now must the lad from his boyhood be clad in a man’s all
enveloping cloke;
So that, oft as the Panathenæa returns, I feel myself ready to choke,
When the dancers go by with their shields to their thigh, not
caring for Pallas a jot.
You therefore, young man, choose me while you can; cast in with
my method your lot;
And then you shall learn the forum to spurn and from dissolute
baths to abstain,
And fashions impure and shameful abjure, and scorners repel
with disdain,
And rise from your chair if an elder be there, and respectfully
give him your place.
And with love and with fear your parents revere, and shrink
from the brand of disgrace...
Not learning to prate, as your idlers debate, with marvellous
prickly dispute,
Nor dragged into court day by day to make sport in some small
disagreeable suit:
But you will below to the Academe go, and under the olives
contend
With your chaplet of reed, in a contest of speed, with some
excellent rival and friend;
All fragrant with woodbine and peaceful content and the leaf
which the lime blossoms fling,
When the plane whispers love to the elm in the grove in the
beautiful season of spring.’
(_Clouds_, 961-1008, Rogers’ translation.)
Boyhood at Athens was a time of preparation; the real education of an
Athenian, in physical and in mental studies, began when ours too often
ceases, in the year when he reached manhood. Then, and not till then,
did the State step in and accept responsibility for his training. The
ephebe of eighteen enrolled, in his deme register, had first to take
the oath:
‘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
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, Enyalios, Ares, Zeus, Thallo, Auxo,
Hegemone.’
Then under the direction of specially appointed magistrates, the
‘Sophronistai’ or ‘Moderators,’ a definite and thorough course of
gymnastics and military training began. The young recruits were first
taken round the temples and afterwards put into garrison at Munychia and
Piræus. They had masters and undermasters to teach them the use of the
hoplite’s accoutrement, and pædotribes for their gymnastic exercises.
Discipline was fairly strict, but there were plenty of amusements, and
many festivals in which the ephebes played a special part. When they
were not engaged in military drill they were usually to be found in the
gymnasia and palæstræ, and at the end of their first year of training
they were reviewed in the theatre during the celebration of the greater
Dionysia. After the ceremony they received a spear and shield as a gift
from the State and marched out of Athens, spending most of their final
year patrolling the country and garrisoning the outlying forts. Then,
this first initiation into the science of physical fitness achieved,
they returned to the city, and during the rest of their lives devoted a
large proportion of their time to perfecting their knowledge of the laws
of health and developing the strength of their body.
The academies, where these studies in a Greek city were pursued by young
and old together, were of two kinds, and were called either ‘gymnasia’
or ‘palæstræ.’ A gymnasium was an open space, with trees for shelter
from the sun and, if possible, near a stream of running water; and there
went on those sports that required plenty of room. The two chief
gymnasia at Athens were both outside the town walls, the Academy in the
sacred grove of the hero Academus and the Lyceum in the precinct of the
hero Lycus. They corresponded fairly closely to the playing fields about
our public schools, except that they belonged to the whole community and
were used by all classes and ages alike. If we could imagine Hyde Park
thronged every day and all day with men and boys running, jumping,
hurling quoits, and throwing javelins,
[Illustration: INDOOR SPORTS (Athens)]
we should get some idea, although of course on a very much larger scale,
of the appearance of the Lyceum in the time of Socrates.
The palæstra, on the other hand, bore more resemblance to our school
gymnasium. It was a covered building used especially for the indoor
sports of boxing and wrestling. Built round a central court which in
fine weather was normally the scene of these competitions, it had also a
large hall opening on to the court and a number of smaller rooms used
for bathing, rubbing down and undressing. In the large hall the
spectators gathered, and a vivid picture of the impression made upon a
foreigner by the sight is given in Lucian’s dialogue _Anacharsis_. The
young Scythian speaks:
‘Why do your young men behave like this, Solon? Some of them
grappling and tripping each other, some throttling, struggling,
intertwining in the clay like so many pigs wallowing. And yet their
first proceeding, after they have stripped--I noticed that--is to oil
and scrape each other quite amicably; but then I do not know what comes
over them--they put down their heads and begin to push, and crash their
foreheads together like a pair of rival rams. There, look! that one has
lifted the other right off his legs, and dropped him on the ground; now
he has fallen on top, and will not let him get his head up, but presses
it down into the clay; and to finish him off he twines his legs tight
round his belly, thrusts his elbow hard against his throat, and
throttles the wretched victim, who meanwhile is patting his shoulder;
that will be a form of supplication; he is asking not to be quite choked
to death.’
(Lucian, _Anacharsis_, I, Fowler’s translation.)
There were only three gymnasia in all Athens, but there was a very large
number of palæstræ, some public, some private, some frequented by men,
some by boys, the majority used indifferently by men and boys together.
In the public establishments the instructors were provided and paid by
the State, and were probably at the head of their profession, for as the
oligarch who wrote the treatise on the Athenian Republic bitterly says:
‘As for gymnasia and baths, some rich people have their own,
but the people also have built palæstræ for their own use, and the mob
now has far more advantages in this respect than the fortunate few.’
The popularity of a private palæstra, especially if it were intended
chiefly for the instruction of boys, depended largely on the personality
of the pædotribe who there gave instruction, and Athenian fathers were
as fond of expounding the merits of their own favourite teacher as
Englishmen are of singing the praises of their old school. The pædotribe
was usually assisted by subordinates--_gymnastæ_, who coached pupils in
special exercises and prepared them for competitions, and _aleiptæ_ who
undertook for boys the actual rubbing down and massaging which men and
youths performed for themselves; but he alone was the directing spirit
of the place. He required to have considerable medical knowledge, and
held a rank in popular estimation of equal importance with a physician.
His business was to prevent, the doctor’s only to cure, disease. He had
to know what exercises would suit what constitutions; he was called on
frequently to prescribe in matters of diet and sometimes must advise a
strengthening and sometimes a lowering regime. Besides giving his pupils
health, he was expected also to increase their beauty and their
strength. Finally, according to Plato, a good pædotribe was able to
produce by his teaching firmness of character and strength of will:
therefore he must know exactly how much training to administer to each
boy, for too much of these qualities is as bad as too little. It will be
seen that a successful pædotribe combined in his person most of the
capacities and duties which in our educational institutions are shared
among the headmaster, the games master, the school doctor, the drill
sergeant and the cricket professional; with the additional
responsibility of having frequently to teach both parents and children.
But the larger palæstræ, as we have said, were usually public and free,
and it may be useful to give here a brief account of their
arrangements. On entering from the street the visitor passed down a
short passage into the _‘Apodyterion_,’ the undressing room, a large
hall with one side opening directly on to the cloisters which surrounded
the central court. His first business was to strip; for all the
exercises of the palæstra were performed naked; and then to anoint
himself all over, and carefully rub the oil into his skin. As Lucian
says again in the _Anacharsis_, speaking now through the mouth of the
great law-giver, Solon:
‘When their first pithless tenderness is past, we strip our
youths and aim at hardening them to the temperature of the various
seasons till heat does not incommode them nor frost paralyse them. Then
we anoint them with oil by way of softening them into suppleness. It
would be absurd that leather, dead stuff as it is, should be made
tougher and more lasting by being softened with oil, and the living body
get no advantage from the same process.’
Another room, the ‘_Konisterion_,’ was set apart for athletes to powder
themselves with dust before exercise. The effects on the body of powder
were regarded as no less beneficial than those of oil. It closed the
pores of the skin, checked excessive perspiration, and kept the body
cool, thus protecting it from chills and rendering it less susceptible
to fatigue. Special sorts of powders were supposed to have special
virtues; those of a clayey nature were particularly cleansing, those
that were gritty stimulated perspiration if the skin was inclined to be
over-dry, the yellow earthy kind made the body supple and sleek, and
gave that glossy appearance which was the sign of good condition and
training.
Yet another apartment was the ‘_Korykeion_,’ where the punch-balls hung;
some of them large skins filled with sand hanging about waist-level and
used by wrestlers who would try and check their rebound, others smaller
and lighter filled with fig seeds or meal, hanging as high as the
athlete’s head and used by boxers as a mark for their blows.