THE LAST STAGE OF EDUCATION--MILITARY TRAINING OF THE EPHEBI.
§ 45. The small size and narrow bounds of Greek states made the support
of a professional army seldom possible, and accordingly we find
expedients now suddenly again become fashionable from very different
causes--a citizen army, and general liability to military service. No
Greek boy was allowed to pass from his school-days into citizen life
without some preliminary training and practice in the use of arms and
in military discipline. This is the discipline of the _ephebi_, or
grown-up boys, concerning which so much has been written of late years
by the learned. A number of inscriptions regarding the duties and
ceremonies to be performed by them have been lately discovered, and
we seem to see in them a sort of general agreement throughout Greece,
rather differing in the time allotted, and in other details, than in
principles.[48] There were actual masters in the art of using arms,
so far as this was not included in the gymnastic exercises of the
palæstra; we do not hear, however, of much drilling, and probably the
drill of Greek armies, if we except the Spartans, was very imperfect
in the best period. It was not until the growth of mercenary armies,
and (almost simultaneously) the great military outburst at Thebes under
Epaminondas, that war became a science in our sense.
On the other hand, all the patrol duty of the frontier was done by
these _ephebi_, who, at about the age of sixteen, were brought into
the rank of citizens by a solemn service and sacrifice, at which they
swore oaths of fidelity and patriotism, and undertook their military
duties as a preliminary to their full life of political burgesses.
The orphans of citizens killed in battle had their arms and military
dress presented to them (at Athens) by the State. The youths assumed
the short dark-gray cloak (χλαμύς), and the broad-brimmed soft hat
(πέτασος), suitable for marching duty, and then, as περίπολοι, or
patrolling police, they looked to the safety of the country, the
condition of the roads, and occupied the frontier forts, of which we
see such striking remains still in Attica. The mountain fort of Phylæ,
that of Dekelea, of Œnoe (or Eleutheræ), of Sunium, of Thorikos, of
Oropos, and others, were the stations from which the frontiers were
patrolled.
It is doubtless owing to this precaution that, though we read of
insecurity in the streets of Athens by night, we never read of
brigandage through the country. Some scholars have, indeed, asserted
that the περίπολοι had police duty to perform in the city, and at the
public assembly. This we need not accept; though on solemn occasions,
and when a great ceremony was to be held, they appeared, not only to
preserve order, but to participate in the show. It is the latter duty
which we see them performing in the famous friezes of the Parthenon,
which represent the Panathenaic procession. They were allotted a
separate place in the theatre, and were in every respect regarded as a
distinct order in the State, the hope and pride of their city, and its
ornament on all stately occasions.
Their patrol duty on the frontier was appointed to them for divers
reasons. They attained through it the discipline of arms, and learned
some of the hardships of campaigning. They learned an accurate
knowledge of the roads and ways through their country, and of the
nature of their frontier, and that of their neighbors. They were kept
away from the mischiefs which threaten youths of their age in every
city.
But the Athenians and other Greeks were careful not to commit the
mistake of which we now hear so much--that of expecting these youths
under twenty to face the enemy in battle. They were specially reserved
for garrison duty, and one of Myronides’ victories was particularly
noted, because he fought it with these boys, who were not expected to
stand firm in the horrors of a battle.
§ 46. According to the words of the oath, indeed, as preserved by
Stobæus and Pollux, the standing firm beside one’s comrade is specially
mentioned; but even if this interesting document be not spurious, as
Cobet supposes,[49] this particular declaration may be considered
prospective, and applying to the remainder of the citizen’s life. I add
the words here for the benefit of those who have not the Greek text
at hand: “I will never disgrace these hallowed weapons, or abandon
my comrade, beside whomsoever I am placed, and I will fight for both
sacred and common things personally and with my fellows. I will not
leave my country less, but greater and better by sea and land, than I
may have received it. I will obey the rulers for the time being, and
obey the established laws, and whatsoever others the commonwealth may
agree to establish; and if any one abolish the ordinances or disobey
them, I will not allow it, but will defend them personally and with the
rest. I will obey the established religion. Be my witnesses Aglauros,
Enyalios, Ares, Zeus, Thallo, Auxo, Hegemone.” Though Cobet be right
that some features of this oath can hardly have been generally used
through the course of Athenian history, and that it was probably made
up at a late period, the list of gods, so curious and unlike what a
late pedant would invent, points to some old source; and perhaps there
are other really historical traditions in it.
The _general_ authenticity of this text has rather been confirmed by
the discovery of the oath of the ephebi of Dreros (near Knossus) in
Crete--an inscription of undoubted authenticity. Here, there are not
only the general declarations of loyalty and patriotism, but special
oaths to support the allied Knossus, and declarations of hatred and
hostility against the town of Lyttos.[50] This formal declaration of
hatred may be compared with the outspoken aristocratic oath quoted
by Aristotle: “I will be ill-disposed to the demos, and will do it
whatever harm I can devise.”
The various religious ceremonies connected with the admission to the
status of an ephebus, which was considered distinct both from a boy
and from a man--the sacrifices, the cutting of the long hair (except
in Sparta), the solemn assembly of relatives, remind us strongly of
the _confirmation_ of the Christian Church, to which it is the heathen
parallel.
§ 47. What a solemn procession of ephebi must have been is best shown
by the equestrian and sacrificial procession on the frieze of the
Parthenon. We notice some young men naked, some in the short cloak and
hat, riding horses and leading victims. The riding of the horses was
not so easy as with us, for, in the first place, they had no saddles
and stirrups, and, in the second, it was thought necessary for a good
display to have the horse continually on his hind-legs. A quiet walking
horse in a procession was thought very tame by the Greeks. Hence
the management of these curvetting and caracoling steeds must have
necessitated careful training in their riders. Again, we find others
leading bulls to the sacrifice, and the frequent mention of contests
with bulls has even misled many authorities to imagine that the Attic
ephebi practised bull-fighting. The fact is that an unruly victim was
of evil omen, and hence the careful leading of these beasts, with skill
and strength combined, so as to make a proper part of a great show,
came under ephebic training. This, too, we see on the Parthenon frieze.
Wherever, in fact, any public display was required, the artistic taste
of the Greeks ordained that the fairest and most stalwart men should
be there to adorn it; and as nothing is so beautiful as a crowd of
vigorous fresh youths, in the bloom of life and the happiness of youth,
we can conceive how splendid was a State procession then compared
with those of our day, when the grandest show is one of old generals,
effete officials, and other venerable but decrepit magnates, who must
be covered with fine clothes, brilliants, and orders to prevent their
real ugliness and decay from being painfully obtrusive. In Roman
days we hear of these youths being employed as guards of honor when
distinguished foreigners visited Athens.
§ 48. Though this ephebic training is spoken of as universal--and it
seems that after his inscription into the _register_ (ληξιαρχικὸν
γραμματεῖον) of his deme, which was his patent of citizenship, every
Athenian lad was bound to serve as _patroller_ (περίπολος) and undergo
his military training--there must have been many exceptions; and,
indeed, this whole education is evidently that of the higher classes,
and unsuitable for the poor. In Roman days, we even find strangers
coming to Athens and enrolling themselves among the ephebi, as those
wealthy foreigners who understand what culture means often send their
sons to England to receive the unique training of the English public
schools. But this points to its being a privilege, a special and
much-prized education, though we do not know what restrictions there
were, or how the sons of poorer men, who could not afford the time and
outlay, avoided it. The number of official ephebi was never, I fancy,
large, and always a class from which Phidias might well select for his
models, when seeking for ideal types of youth and manliness.
It has, indeed, not been sufficiently noticed, in the various essays
on this ephebic training, that the very idea of such a class never
occurs in Herodotus or in Thucydides, though it does in Xenophon;[51]
and if Plutarch speaks of Alcibiades influencing the ephebi in the
gymnasia with his wild schemes of western conquest, we may be sure the
historian transferred the titles and notions of his age to older times.
In the third century B.C., there are so many inscriptions about this
class extant that it must have assumed a most prominent place in Attic
life. From that time onward into Roman times, we hear of it constantly,
and from many sources. It is impossible that Socrates and his school
should not have alluded to it, had it already formally existed. We may
therefore infer that though its component parts--the formal enrolment
and sacrifices at a certain age, the patrol duties, the gymnastic and
musical training, the procession duty at festivals--were developed in
the best period of Attic history, their official reduction to a State
system of education could not have taken place till later, till the
decay of practical public life had given men time to theorize about
methods of restoring by education what was irreparably lost.
Apparently, the earliest _formal_ notice is in a fragment of the orator
Lycurgus, who, in his famous speech on his own management of the
Athenian exchequer, alluded to the statue of a certain Epicrates, which
had been set up in bronze _on account of his law about the ephebi_. We
cannot tell whether this was a special enactment or not. But it _may_
have been the very law which established this famous system, so praised
and sought after by all the Hellenistic world in Roman days. If so, the
establishment would date from the very time when it proved of little
real importance to the history of Attica or of the world.
Nevertheless, the many inscriptions reveal to us certain curious and
interesting features, which make us approve of the good taste of
Cicero and his friends, when they sent their boys away from Rome to
Athens, as we send our sons to schools in England. Thus the learned
Germans who have investigated with great pains the various titles of
the magistrates or dignitaries among these ephebi are often at a loss
to determine whether they are masters set over them, or leaders among
the ephebi themselves. Indeed, the so-called ἄρχων τῶν ἐφηβῶν (head of
the ephebi) appears to have been no other than the most successful and
brilliant youth, the representative and spokesman of the rest, like the
senior prefect at some of our public schools. No doubt, learned men
who, in future ages, investigate the ephebic training of the English
will puzzle themselves over the senior prefect at Winchester, and
wonder whether he was a master or a boy; and, if a boy, how he could
have so much power intrusted to him. We also find that the expenditure
of keeping up the solemn processions and public contests was so great
that the ephebi themselves were encouraged to contribute largely; and
if they were rich, they gained an importance disproportionate (we
may suspect) to their age. What is even more interesting to English
students is that they had independent clubs and associations, and
even held solemn meetings, where they used the terms of public life,
and entitled the resolutions (ψηφίσματα) enacted in their assembly
(ἀγορά) laws (νόμοι). They had archons, strategi, agoranomi, and even
areopagites in these associations of youths. It must have been with
the approval of these formal meetings that the gymnastic side of the
ephebic training became gradually discredited. Whether the dislike of
great generals like Alexander and Philopœmen to athletics contributed
to change public opinion, we cannot tell. But I confess to feeling a
considerable sympathy with the reform which asserted the superiority of
hunting and riding to the exercises of the gymnasium--a change which is
regarded by some German critics as a melancholy sign of degradation.
§ 49. In these later days, when the seven subjects of knowledge,
including rhetoric, philosophy, etc., were formally adopted, the
ephebic training assumed the character of a university course. There
were, indeed, masters appointed for fencing, the use of arms, dancing,
and wrestling, as of old; but the leading philosophical schools
did not then carry off the youths from the ephebic training; they
rather supplied it with formal professors. In the better and strictly
classical days, before we hear of the technical term _ephebi_, the
practical training of the youths for patrols, and then as incipient
citizens, rather corresponded to what we call the sixth form at a
public school, and did not embrace really philosophic teaching, such
as is supposed to be found at our universities. It had the same
mixture of the physical and intellectual, the same attention to mere
accomplishments, the same careful surveillance which we practise in
schools, but which are not a complete introduction to full citizen
life. This was the summit of Spartan training, where the object was not
to train really political men able to discuss public affairs and assist
in the government of the State, but brave soldiers, and fine men,
physically able to endure hardship and submit to strict discipline.
Something quite different and intellectually higher was needful for
a really democratic life, for an intelligent understanding of State
functions, and the proper discussion of them. It was all very well to
dance complicated figures with grace, to play the lyre and sing sweetly
with it, to wrestle and run with force and ease. This was the old
training, which made fine soldiers, but good citizens only in the sense
of stupidly ignorant, and therefore obedient, hearers of the orders
of their superiors. The necessity of a change came with the rise of
democracy in Greece, and the Greeks provided themselves, when the need
arose, with teachers suited to their wants. These men, the Sophists,
were the first who gave any education corresponding to our university
courses, and to these we now turn.
FOOTNOTES:
[48] Cf. the list in Grasberger, iii. 65.
[49] “N. L.,” p. 233.
[50] Cf. for the text of his oath _Philol._ for 1854, p. 694, or
Grasberger, iii. 61.
[51] Especially in his “Education of Cyrus.”