See BRITAIN: 6TH CENTURY.
GYLIPPUS, and the defense of Syracuse.
See SYRACUSE: B. C. 415-413.
GYMNASIA, German.
See EDUCATION, MODERN:
EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.—PRUSSIA: A. D. 1874.
GYMNASIA, Greek.
"Amongst public buildings [of the ancient Greeks] we mentioned
first the gymnasia, which, originating in the requirements of
single persons, soon became centre-points of Greek life.
Corporeal exercise was of great importance amongst the Greeks,
and the games and competitions in the various kinds of bodily
skill … formed a chief feature of their religious feasts.
This circumstance reacted on both sculpture and architecture,
in supplying the former with models of ideal beauty, and in
setting the task to the latter of providing suitable places
for these games to be celebrated. For purposes of this kind
(as far as public exhibition was not concerned) the palæstrai
and gymnasia served. In earlier times these two must be
distinguished. In the palæstra … young men practised
wrestling and boxing. As these arts were gradually developed,
larger establishments with separate compartments became
necessary. Originally such places were, like the schools of
the grammarians, kept by private persons; sometimes they
consisted only of open spaces, if possible near a brook and
surrounded by trees. Soon, however, regular
buildings—gymnasia—became necessary. At first they
consisted of an uncovered, court surrounded by colonnades,
adjoining which lay covered spaces, the former being used for
running and jumping, the latter for wrestling. In the same
degree as these exercises became more developed, and as
grown-up men began to take an interest in these youthful
sports, and spent a great part of their day at the gymnasia,
these grew in size and splendour. They soon became a necessary
of life, and no town could be without them, larger cities
often containing several."
_E. Guhl and W. Koner,
Life of the Greeks and Romans,
section 25._
Of gymnasia "there were many at Athens; though three only,
those of the Academy, Lyceum, and Cynosarges, have acquired
celebrity: The site of the first of these gymnasia being low
and marshy was in ancient times infested with malaria, but
having been drained by Cimon and planted with trees it became
a favourite promenade and place of exercise. Here, in walks
shaded by the sacred olive, might be seen young men with
crowns of rushes in flower upon their heads, enjoying the
sweet odour of the smilax and the white poplar, while the
platanos and the elm mingled their murmurs in the breeze of
spring. The meadows of the Academy, according to Aristophanes
the grammarian, were planted with the Apragmosune, a sort of
flower so called as though it smelt of all kind of fragrance
and safety, like our heart's-ease or flower of the Trinity.
This place is supposed to have derived its name from Ecadamos,
a public-spirited man who bequeathed his property for the
purpose of keeping it in order. … The name of the Lyceum,
sometimes derived from Lycus, son of Pandion, probably owed
its origin to the temenos of Lycian Apollo there situated. It
lay near the banks of the Ilissos, and was adorned with
stately edifices, fountains and groves. … In this place
anciently the Polemarch held his court and the forces of the
republic were exercised before they went forth to war.
Appended to the name of the Cynosarges, or third gymnasium
surrounded with groves, was a legend which related that when
Diomos was sacrificing to Hestia, a white dog snatched away a
part of the victim from the altar, and running straightway out
of the city deposited it on the spot where this gymnasium was
afterwards erected."
_J. A. St. John,
The Hellenes,
book 2, chapter 5._
"The name of that most illustrious of the Athenian gymnasia,
the Academy, has been preserved through the dark ages, and
exactly in the situation indicated by ancient testimony. We
are informed that the Academy was six or eight stades distant
from a gate in the wall of the asty named Dipylum, and that
the road from thence to the Academy led through that part of
the outer Cerameicus, in which it was a custom to bury the
Athenian citizens who had fallen in battle on important
occasions. Dipylum was the gate from whence began the Sacred
Way from Athens to Eleusis. … It appears also that the
Academy lay between the Sacred Way and the Colonus Hippius, a
height near the Cephissus, sacred to Neptune, and the scene of
the Œdipus Coloneus of Sophocles; for the Academy was not far
from Colonus, and the latter was ten stades distant from the
city. That part of the plain which is near the olive-groves,
on the northeastern side of Athens, and is now called
Akadhimia, is entirely in conformity with these data. It is on
the lowest level, where some water-courses from the ridges of
Lycabettus are consumed in gardens and olive plantations."
_W. M. Leake,
Topography of Athens,
section 2._
See, also,
EDUCATION, ANCIENT: GREECE.
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