to write and to read with expression. Then, as they get on, we
versify, for the better impressing their memories, the sayings of
wise men, the deeds of old time, or moral tales. And as they hear
of worship won and works that live in song, they yearn ever more,
and are fired to emulation, that they too may be sung and marvelled
at by them that come after, and have their Hesiod and their Homer.
And when they attain their civil rights, and it is time for them to
take their share in governing—but all this, it may be, is
irrelevant. My subject was not how we train their souls, but why we
think fit to subject them to the toils we do. I will silence myself
without waiting for the usher, or for you, my Areopagite, who have
been too considerate, methinks, in letting me maunder on out of
bounds all this way.
_An_. Another point of Areopagite procedure, please, Solon.
When a speaker passes over essential matters in silence, has the
court no penalty for him?
_So_. Why? I do not take you.
_An_. Why, you propose to pass by the question of the soul,
which is the noblest and the most attractive to me, and discuss the
less essential matters of gymnasiums and physical exercise.
_So_. You see, my dear sir, I have my eye on our original
conditions; I do not want to divert the word-stream; it might
confuse your memory with its irregular flow. However, I will do
what I can in the way of a mere summary for this branch of the
subject; as for a detailed examination of it, that must be
deferred.
Well, we regulate their sentiments partly by teaching them the laws
of the land, which are inscribed in large letters and exposed at
the public expense for all to read, enjoining certain acts and
forbidding others, and partly by making them attend good men, who
teach them to speak with propriety, act with justice, content
themselves with political equality, eschew evil, ensue good, and
abstain from violence; sophist and philosopher are the names by
which these teachers are known. Moreover, we pay for their
admission to the theatre, where the contemplation of ancient heroes
and villains in tragedy or comedy has its educational effect of
warning or encouragement. To the comic writers we further give the
licence of mockery and invective against any of their fellow
citizens whose conduct they find discreditable; such exposure may
act both directly upon the culprits, and upon others by way of
example.
_An_. Ah, I have seen the tragedians and comedians you speak
of, at least if the former are men in heavy stilted shoes, and
clothes all picked out with gold bands; they have absurd head-
pieces with vast open mouths, from inside which comes an enormous
voice, while they take great strides which it seems to me must be
dangerous in those shoes. I think there was a festival to Dionysus
going on at the time. Then the comedians are shorter, go on their
own feet, are more human, and smaller-voiced; but their head-pieces
are still more ridiculous, so much so that the audience was
laughing at them like one man. But to the others, the tall ones,
every one listened with a dismal face; I suppose they were sorry
for them, having to drag about those great clogs.
_So_. Oh no, it was not for the actors that they were sorry.
The poet was probably setting forth some sad tale of long ago, with
fine speeches that appealed to the audience’s feelings and drew
tears from them. I dare say you observed also some flute-players,
with other persons who stood in a circle and sang in chorus. These
too are things that have their uses. Well, our youths’ souls are
made susceptible and developed by these and similar influences.
Then their bodily training, to which your curiosity was especially
directed, is as follows. When their first pithless tenderness is
past, we strip them and aim at hardening them to the temperature of
the various seasons, till heat does not incommode 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. Accordingly we devise elaborate gymnastic exercises,
appoint instructors of each variety, and teach one boxing, another
the pancratium. They are to be habituated to endurance, to meet
blows half way, and never shrink from a wound. This method works
two admirable effects in them: makes them spirited and heedless of
bodily danger, and at the same time strong and enduring. Those whom
you saw lowering their heads and wrestling learn to fall safely and
pick themselves up lightly, to shove and grapple and twist, to
endure throttling, and to heave an adversary off his legs.
_Their_ acquirements are not unserviceable either; the one
great thing they gain is beyond dispute; their bodies are hardened
and strengthened by this rough treatment. Add another advantage of
some importance: it is all so much practice against the day of
battle. Obviously a man thus trained, when he meets a real enemy,
will grapple and throw him the quicker, or if he falls will know
better how to get up again. All through we are reckoning with that
real test in arms; we expect much better results from our material
if we supple and exercise their bodies before the armour goes on,
so increasing their strength and efficiency, making them light and
wiry in themselves (though the enemy will rather be impressed with
their weight).
You see how it will act. Something may surely be expected from
those in arms who even without them would be considered awkward
customers; they show no inert pasty masses of flesh, no cadaverous
skinniness, they are not shade-blighted women; they do not quiver
and run with sweat at the least exertion, and pant under their
helmets as soon as a midday sun like this adds to the burden. What
would be the use of creatures who should be overpowered by thirst
and dust, unnerved at sight of blood, and as good as dead before
they came within bow-shot or spear-thrust of the enemy? But our
fellows are ruddy and sunburnt and steady-eyed, there is spirit
and fire and virility in their looks, they are in prime condition,
neither shrunken and withered nor running to corpulence, but well
and truly proportioned; the waste superfluity of their tissues they
have sweated out; the stuff that gives strength and activity,
purged from all inferior admixture, remains part of their
substance. The winnowing fan has its counterpart in our gymnastics,
which blow away chaff and husks, and sift and collect the clean
grain.
The inevitable result is sound health and great capacity of
enduring fatigue. A man like this does not sweat for a trifle, and
seldom shows signs of distress. Returning to my winnowing simile—
if you were to set fire on the one hand to pure wheat grain, and on
the other to its chaff and straw, the latter would surely blaze up
much the quicker; the grain would burn only gradually, without a
blaze and not all at once; it would smoulder slowly and take much
longer to consume. Well, disease or fatigue being similarly applied
to this sort of body will not easily find weak spots, nor get the
mastery of it lightly. Its interior is in good order, its exterior
strongly fortified against such assaults, so that it gives neither
admission nor entertainment to the destroying agencies of sun or
frost. To any place that begins to weaken under toil comes an
accession from the abundant internal heat collected and stored up
against the day of need; it fills the vacancy, restores the vital
force, and lengthens endurance to the utmost. Past exertion means
not dissipation but increase of force, which can be fanned into
fresh life.
Further, we accustom them to running, both of the long distance and
of the sprinting kind. And they have to run not on hard ground with
a good footing, but in deep sand on which you can neither tread
firmly nor get a good push off, the foot sinking in. Then, to fit
them to leap a trench or other obstacle, we make them practise with
leaden dumb-bells in their hands. And again there are distance
matches with the javelin. Yes, and you saw in the gymnasium a
bronze disk like a small buckler, but without handle or straps; you
tried it as it lay there, and found it heavy and, owing to its
smooth surface, hard to handle. Well, that they hurl upwards and
forwards, trying who can get furthest and outdo his competitors—an
exercise that strengthens the shoulders and braces the fingers and
toes.
As to the clay and dust that first moved your laughter, I will tell
you now why they are provided. In the first place, that a fall may
be not on a hard surface, but soft and safe. Secondly, greater
slipperiness is secured by sweat and clay combined (you compared
them to eels, you remember); now this is neither useless nor
absurd, but contributes appreciably to strength and activity. An
adversary in that condition must be gripped tightly enough to
baffle his attempts at escape. To lift up a man who is all over
clay, sweat, and oil, and who is doing his very best to get away
and slip through your fingers, is no light task, I assure you. And
I repeat that all these things have their military uses too: you
may want to take up a wounded friend and convey him out of danger;
you may want to heave an enemy over your head and make off with
him. So we give them still harder tasks in training, that they may
be abundantly equal to the less.
The function we assign to dust is just the reverse, to prevent one
who is gripped from getting loose. After learning in the clay to
retain their hold on the elusive, they are accustomed in turn to
escape themselves even from a firm grasp. Also, we believe the dust
forms a plaster that keeps in excessive sweat, prevents waste of
power, and obviates the ill effects of the wind playing upon a body
when its pores are all relaxed and open. Besides which, it cleanses
the skin and makes it glossy. I should like to put side by side one
of the white creatures who live sheltered lives and, after washing
off his dust and clay, any of the Lyceum frequenters you should
select, and then ask you which you would rather resemble. I know
you would make your choice at the first glance, without waiting to
see what they could do; you would rather be solid and well-knit
than delicate and soft and white for want of the blood that had
hidden itself away out of sight.
Such are the exercises we prescribe to our young men, Anacharsis;
we look to find them good guardians of their country and bulwarks
of our freedom; thus we defeat our enemies if they invade us, and
so far overawe our immediate neighbours that they mostly
acknowledge our supremacy and pay us tribute. During peace also we
find our account in their being free from vulgar ambitions and from
the insolence generated by idleness; they have these things to fill
their lives and occupy their leisure. I told you of a prize that
all may win and of a supreme political happiness; these are
attained when we find our youth in the highest condition alike for
peace and war, intent upon all that is noblest.
_An_. I see, Solon; when an enemy invades, you anoint yourselves
with oil, dust yourselves over, and go forth sparring at them; then
they of course cower before you and run away, afraid of getting a
handful of your sand in their open mouths, or of your dancing round
to get behind them, twining your legs tight round their bellies,
and throttling them with your elbows rammed well in under their
chin-pieces. It is true they will try the effect of arrows and
javelins; but you are so sunburnt and full-blooded, the missiles
will hurt you no more than if you were statues; you are not chaff
and husks; you will not be readily disposed of by the blows you
get; much time and attention will be required before you at last,
cut to pieces with deep wounds, have a few drops of blood extracted
from you. Have I misunderstood your figure, or is this a fair
deduction from it?
But perhaps you will take the equipment of your tragedians and
comedians, and when you get your marching orders put on those wide-
mouthed headpieces, to scare the foe with their appalling terrors;
of course, and you can put the stilted things on your feet; they
will be light for running away (if that should be advisable), or,
if you are in pursuit, the strides they lend themselves to will
make your enemy’s escape impossible. Seriously now, are not these
refinements of yours all child’s play—something for your idle,
slack youngsters to do? If you really want to be free and happy,
you must have other exercises than these; your training must be a
genuine martial one; no toy contests with friends, but real ones
with enemies; danger must be an element in your character-
development. Never mind dust and oil; teach them to use bow and
javelin; and none of your light darts diverted by a puff of wind;
let it be a ponderous spear that whistles as it flies; to which add
stones, a handful each, the axe, the shield, the breastplate, and
the helmet.
On your present system, I cannot help thinking you should be very
grateful to some God for not having allowed you to perish under the
attack of any half-armed band. Why, if I were to draw this little
dagger at my girdle and run amuck at your collective youth, I could
take the gymnasium without more ado; they would all run away and
not dare face the cold steel; they would skip round the statues,
hide behind pillars, and whimper and quake till I laughed again. We
should have no more of the ruddy frames they now display; they
would be another colour then, all white with terror. That is the
temper that deep peace has infused into you; you could not endure
the sight of a single plume on an enemy’s crest.
_So_. Ah, Anacharsis, the Thracians who invaded us with
Eumolpus told another tale; so did your women who assailed Athens
with Hippolyta; so every one who has met us in the field. My dear
sir, it does not follow from our exercising our youths without arms
that we expose them in the same condition to the real thing; the
independent bodily development once complete, training in arms
follows; and to this they come much the fitter for their previous
work.
_An_. Where is your military gymnasium, then? I have been all
over Athens, and seen no sign of it.
_So_. But if you stay longer you will find that every man has
arms enough, for use at the proper time; you will see our plumes
and horse-trappings, our horses and horsemen; these last amounting
to a quarter of our citizens. But to carry arms and be girded with
scimetars we consider unnecessary in peace time; indeed there is a
fine for going armed in town without due cause, or producing
weapons in public. _You_ of course may be pardoned for living
in arms. The want of walls gives conspiracy its chance; you have
many enemies; you never know when somebody may come upon you in
your sleep, pull you out of your cart, and dispatch you. And then,
in the mutual distrust inseparable from an independence that
recognizes no law or constitution, the sword must be always at hand
to repel violence.
_An_. Oho, you think the wearing of arms, except on occasion,
unnecessary; you are careful of your weapons, avoid wear and tear
for them, and put them away for use when the time comes; but the
bodies of your youth you keep at work even when no danger presses;
you knock them about and dissolve them in sweat; instead of
husbanding their strength for the day of need, you expend it idly
on clay and dust. How is that?
_So_. I fancy you conceive of force as something similar to
wine or water or liquid of some sort. You are afraid of its
dribbling away in exercise as those might from an earthenware jar,
and by its disappearance leaving the body, which is supposed to
have no internal reserves, empty and dry. That is not the case; the
greater the drain upon it in the course of exercise, the greater
the supply; did you ever hear a story about the Hydra? cut off one
of its heads, and two immediately sprang up in its place. No, it is
the unexercised and fibreless, in whom no adequate store of
material has ever been laid up, that will peak and pine under toil.
There is a similar difference between a fire and a lamp; the same
breath that kindles the former and soon excites it to greater heat
will put out the latter, which is but ill provided to resist the
blast; it has a precarious tenure, you see.
_An_. Ah, I cannot get hold of all that, Solon; it is too
subtle for me—wants exact thought and keen intelligence. But I
wish you would tell me—at the Olympic, Isthmian, Pythian, and
other Games, attended, you tell me, by crowds to see your youth
contend, why do you have no martial events? Instead, you put them
in a conspicuous place and exhibit them kicking and cuffing one
another, and when they win give them apples or wild olive. Now your
reason for that would be worth hearing.
_So_. Well, we think it will increase their keenness for
exercise to see the champions at it honoured and proclaimed by name
among the assembled Greeks. It is the thought of having to strip
before such a crowd that makes them take pains with their
condition; they do not want to be a shameful spectacle, so each
does his best to deserve success. And the prizes, as I said before,
are not small things—to be applauded by the spectators, to be the
mark of all eyes and fingers as the best of one’s contemporaries.
Accordingly, numbers of spectators, not too old for training,
depart with a passion thus engendered for toilsome excellence. Ah,
Anacharsis, if the love of fair fame were to be wiped out of our
lives, what good would remain? Who would care to do a glorious
deed? But as things are you may form your conclusions from what you
see. These who are so keen for victory when they have no weapons
and only a sprig of wild olive or an apple to contend for, how
would they behave in martial array, with country and wives and
children and altars at stake?
I wonder what your feelings would be if you saw our quail and cock
fights, and the excitement they raise. You would laugh, no doubt,
especially when you were told that they are enjoined by law, and
that all of military age must attend and watch how the birds spar
till they are utterly exhausted. And yet it is not a thing to laugh
at either; a spirit of contempt for danger is thus instilled into
men’s souls; shall they yield to cocks in nobility and courage?
shall they let wounds or weariness or discomfort incapacitate them
before there is need? But as for testing our men in arms and
looking on while they gash one another, no, thank you! that would
be brutality and savagery, besides the bad policy of butchering our
bravest, who would serve us best against our enemies.
You say you are going to visit the rest of Greece also. Well, if
you go to Sparta, remember not to laugh at them either, nor think
their labour is all in vain, when they charge and strike one
another over a ball in the theatre; or perhaps they will go into a
place enclosed by water, divide into two troops, and handle one
another as severely as enemies (except that they too have no arms),
until the Lycurgites drive the Heraclids, or vice versa, out of the
enclosure and into the water; it is all over then; not another blow
breaks the peace. Still worse, you may see them being scourged at
the altar, streaming with blood, while their parents look on—the
mothers, far from being distressed by the sight, actually making
them hold out with threats, imploring them to endure pain to the
last extremity and not be unmanned by suffering. There are many
instances of their dying under the trial; while they had life and
their people’s eyes were on them, they would not give up, nor
concede anything to bodily pain; and you will find their statues
there, set up _honoris causa_ by the Spartan state. Seeing
these things, never take them for madmen, nor say that, since it is
neither a tyrant’s bidding nor a conqueror’s ordinance, they
victimize themselves for no good reason. Lycurgus their lawgiver
would have many reasonable remarks to make to you on the subject,
and give you his grounds for thus afflicting them; he was not moved
by enmity or hatred; he was not wasting the state’s young blood for
nothing; he only thought it proper that defenders of their country
should have endurance in the highest degree and be entirely
superior to fear. However, you need no Lycurgus to tell you; you
can surely see for yourself that, if one of these men were captured
in war, no tortures would wring a Spartan secret out of him; he
would take his scourging with a smile, and try whether the scourger
would not be tired sooner than the scourged.
_An_. Solon, did Lycurgus take his whippings at the fighting
age, or did he make these spirited regulations on the safe basis of
superannuation?
_So_. It was in his old age, after returning from Crete, that
he legislated. He had been attracted to Crete by hearing that their
laws were the best possible, devised by Minos, son of Zeus.
_An_. Well, and why did you not copy Lycurgus and whip your
young men? It is a fine institution quite worthy of yourselves.
_So_. Oh, we were content with our native exercises; we are
not much given to imitating other nations.
_An_. No, no; you realize what a thing it is to be stripped
and scourged with one’s hands up, without benefit to oneself or
one’s country. If I do happen to be at Sparta when this performance
is on, I shall expect a public stoning at their hands for laughing
at it all, when I see them being whipped like robbers or thieves or
such malefactors. Really, I think a state that submits to such
ridiculous treatment at its own hands wants a dose of hellebore.
_So_. Friend, do not plume yourself on winning an undefended
case where you have it all your own way in the absence of your
opponents. In Sparta you will find some one to plead properly for
their customs. But now, as I have described ours to you, not
apparently to your satisfaction, I may fairly ask you to take your
turn and tell me how you train your youth in Scythia; what
exercises do you bring them up in? how do you make good men of
them?
_An_. Quite a fair demand, Solon; I will give you the Scythian
customs; there is no grandeur about them; they are not much like
yours; for we would never take a single box on the ears, we are
such cowards; but such as they are, you shall have them. We must
put off our talk till to-morrow, though, if you do not mind; I want
to think quietly over what you have said, and collect materials for
what I am to say myself. On that understanding let us go home; for
it is getting late.
OF MOURNING
The behaviour of the average man in a time of bereavement, his own
language and the remarks offered him by way of consolation, are
things that will reward the attention of a curious observer. The
mourner takes it for granted that a terrible blow has fallen both
upon himself and upon the object of his lamentations: yet for all
he knows to the contrary (and here I appeal to Pluto and
Persephone) the departed one, so far from being entitled to
commiseration, may find himself in improved circumstances. The
feelings of the bereaved party are in fact guided solely by custom
and convention. The procedure in such cases—but no: let me first
state the popular beliefs on the subject of death itself; we shall
then understand the motives for the elaborate ceremonial with which
it is attended.