Education, domestic and their voices were attuned to the praise of the national deities. When sons passed from the immediate care of the mother, their education was divided into three parts: the development of the mind was scholastic. entrusted first to the grammarian, and afterwards to the musician; while the body was disciplined by the exercises of the Palæstra and Gymnasium. Education reduced to system, and regulated by law, may be referred to the time of Solon: it progressed rapidly after the Persian war, and attained its perfection in the days of Pericles: after that time it was gradually undermined by luxury, which enfeebled the body, and by the system of the Sophists, which corrupted the mind. In the Iliad, Phoenix stands towards Achilles in the relation of tutor companion; this relation, under the name of Пaidaywyos, was recog nised, and regulated by law in Solon's time. Plato thought such a companion and guide as necessary for boys as a shepherd for a flock. His office (which, in fact, was common to Greece, except Lacedæmon) was to conduct the youths to and from school, and attend them in the city; some severity of discipline was permitted to them, and some share of the domestic education. In the meantime, public education was, in the best' times of the republic, uniform and common to all whose condition entitled them to share thereafter in public affairs; thus the schoolfellows of one generation became the fellow-patriots, or rivals, of another. Scholastic establishments were under the care of public officers called Zwopoviσrài (Moderators): the feelings and sentiments which they endeavoured to implant were a love of the honourable and the beautiful, filial respect, patriotic love, obedience to the laws, and reverence towards the deities: this last feeling, decoidaiμovia, remained as a trait of Athenian character till the time of St. Paul, and in Acts xvii. 22, the word "superstitious" is not well chosen to express it. Gymnastics. The importance attached to gymnastic exercises, we are not likely, in modern times, to appreciate aright. At Athens, to be a soldier was the duty and the delight of every genuine citizen: the fate of battles, moreover, depended on individual strength, prowess, and example, in a far greater degree than modern warfare permits: and the same qualifications repaid with glory the state that encouraged them, when her sons were victorious in the athletic exercises of the public festivals of Greece. A system, then, which communicated to the human frame so much of flexibility, elegance, and vigour, was applicable to all alike. It had been admitted in the time of Solon, and was in general use when Themistocles was a boy. It furnished for Athens the soldier who defended her liberties, the Pancratiast who exalted her name amidst competitors in the national games, and those 1 Many of the Athenian soldiers who were taken captive at Syracuse bettered their condition by their literature; hence there was a proverbial saying at that time, "Either he is dead or turned schoolmaster," Äroi ríévnxev ä didáczu vezu, мата. Οὐδὲ γράμματα οὐδὲ νεῖν ἐπίσταται, was another proverb: “ He can neither swim nor read."-Cramer, p. 23. perfect models of manly beauty which exercised the genius of her Gymnastics. artists. For these sports a public place was appointed, called the Gymnasium, where a magistrate presided.' It contained, besides the Palæstra, where those wrestled who were athlete by profession, the stadium for races, and the xystus, a covered gallery for the wrestlers, large halls opening into a square court,2 baths, porticoes, and groves to which the Athenians resorted for exercise or idleness, for private meditation or philosophical dispute. Here, too, the Athenian youth wrestled, leaped, threw the javelin, and the quoit, and tried their breath and speed by racing in deep sand. At eighteen, they were admitted into the class of Ephebi, and assumed the military character; each bound himself by an oath not to quit his post, not to dishonour the republic, nor to cease from attempting to extend her frontiers as long as there were wheat, barley, vineyards, and olive-trees beyond it. During the first year they did not serve out of Attica: at twenty, a solemn act registered them in their respective tribes, and it is probable they were admitted then to the full rights of citizens. In the meantime their mental faculties were cultivated by means Morals and which, without exactly answering to any one system of modern religion. instruction, combined the peculiarities of several. Some principles of religion and conduct were early learnt at home: for a moral sense is implanted in every breast; and a mother's affection will always cultivate this with as much of purity and knowledge, as the state of society admits. The pupils who frequented the public schools at early dawn, returned in the evening; so that although these institutions were the source of learning, home was its sanctuary; and the lessons of scholastic or moral discipline had their range and their application in the sphere of domestic life. The offices of the grammarian and musician were sometimes discharged by the same individual, Music. and it is neither easy nor necessary to mark their exact limits. The name of the former indicates that his instructions were elementary : generally he taught reading and writing, the latter either on waxen tablets or engraved metal; but the Greeks, by μovoin, meant much more than the term music expresses. It was, indeed, a very comprehensive word, implying all that was elegant, either in literature or art.7 Music, in its modern sense, being a part of it, was cultivated generally as an art and science. "After the repulse of Xerxes, a Lacedæmonian, exhibiting, at his own expense, a chorus of music himself 4 Lucian. 6 Plato, Lysis, and Eschin. in Timarch. music. Instrumental played on the flute, and there was then scarcely an Athenian citizen totally unacquainted with this instrument, as appears by the picture dedicated by Thrasyppus, of the musical exhibition." The double pipe was often accompanied by the lyre.' Alcibiades, however, set his fashionable influence against the pipe or flute, because it deranged the beauty of his features (Plutarch), and for this reason, or for others, it was proscribed in education, and its use forbidden to freemen." Themistocles played upon neither; the vanity of the man probably pleased itself with this deficiency, which introduced his famous saying, "It is true I never learned how to tune a harp, nor to play upon a lute, but I know how to raise a small and inconsiderable city to glory and greatness." Ethical effects of music. Literature. 66 Certain it is that music as a political and ethical instrument of education had more influence over the susceptible population of Athens than it has now. The grave view of this subject may be found in Aristotle's Politics, in Plato's Republic, and the first book of Quinetilian; the jocose and satirical view in the sixth chapter of the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus-a work in which the wit and humour of Swift, Pope, and Atterbury are brought to bear on the social condition of the Greeks, and the ancient commentators upon it.* The earliest patrons of literature were the Peisistratida; their plan of diffusing knowledge, by inscribing passages from various authors on columns in the public streets, proves the scarcity of books. All that was valuable, probably found its way to their collected library: the process of transcribing was costly and laborious, so that oral instruction' was the principal medium of education. Its chief materials were parts of the laws, the proverbial sentences of wise men, the fables of Æsop, the verses of Hesiod, Simonides, and Solon, the early lyric "I have here," says Cornelius, "a small lyre of my own, framed, strung, and tuned, after the ancient manner. I can play some fragments of Lesbian tunes, and I wish I were to try them upon the most passionate creatures alive." "You never had a better opportunity," says Albertus, "for yonder are two apple-women scolding." With that Cornelius jumps out into his balcony, his lyre in hand, in his slippers, a stocking upon his head, and waistcoat of murrey-coloured satin upon his body. The uncouth instrument, the strangeness of the man and of the music, drew the ears and eyes of the whole mob, and at last of the combatants. They all approached the balcony in as close attention as Orpheus' first audience of cattle. This sudden effect of his music encouraged him mightily. The mob laughed, sang, jumped; all which he judged to be caused by the various strains and modulations. "Mark," quoth he, " in this the power of the Ionian; in that you see the effect of the Eolian." But in a little time they began to grow riotous and threw stones. Cornelius then withdrew. "Brother," said he, "do you observe I have mixed unawares too much of the Phrygian; I might change it to the Lydian and soften their riotous tempers; but it is enough. If this lyre in my unskilful hands can perform such wonders, what must it not have done in those of a Timotheus or a Terpander?" Note also the use Hence &xou means what we express by the verb to read. of "Dictare," Hor. Sat. i. 10, 75, and Ep. ii. 1, 71. poets and tragedians, Theognis,' Solon, and Homer; the latter would Literature. naturally, in most cases, supersede the rest; if the imagination was to be cultivated at the expense of the other faculties (and it could scarcely be otherwise where literature was chiefly poetry), at least, it was under excellent tuition. Besides, from no other work could so much geographical knowledge be acquired as from the catalogue of ships in the second book of the Iliad; accordingly, boys learnt them by heart; the traditions also which are there preserved (and history flowed only in the channel of tradition), are more unbroken and more probable than those even of a later age: while the spirit which the study of Homer engendered, was a spirit of patriotic enterprise; an emulation of those achievements which the heroes of ancient Greece had performed, and which the poets of ancient Greece had sung. As Results of the books were scarce, the range of instruction was of course scanty; but scarcity of from oral teaching there resulted these advantages:-it imposed on all parties the necessity of speaking with accuracy and distinctness; and hence arose a quick and nice discrimination of all that is either excel books. lent or defective in pronunciation. Music, moreover, was never detached from poetry, and hence the Athenian ear was habitually alive to melody. It is obvious, too, that he who commits to memory wellselected passages of poetry, is likely to have a more lively perception of their beauty, and to cultivate his taste far more effectually than by their mere perusal. And the Athenians, who were a talking, rather than a reading, people, would unconsciously, if not by design, employ the stores of their memory to enrich and polish the language of daily conversation. If this was the natural course of things, it was accelerated both by the public policy and the private character of Pericles; Pericles and the former drew the people from the country to the town, and de- Aspasia. teriorated their general character, in proportion as he interfered with the habits and the virtues of a rustic life. But the same measure was 1 Isocr. ad Nicoclem. On the trade in books see Bekker, Excursus 2, Scene 3. Patrons of polished society and literature. Progress of civilization. Fine arts. Herodotus. the cause of that concentration of talent, and that collision of minds, to every variety of excellence. The soldier, 2 patriotism in one of those popular songs, which enlivened domestic festivities, and told of their reward in the islands of the blessed among the most celebrated of Homer's heroes. Where the fine arts are honoured, they will thrive: Cimon encouraged their progress; when he led the way, the aristocratical party followed; and the national taste, genius, and powers of execution could not fail to develop themselves with rapidity and success, where Phidias wrought under the patronage of Pericles, in a city peopled with statues, and crowned by the incomparable Parthenon. Such was the public encouragement which a free state extended to the fine arts; although the practice of drawing was not introduced 2 Εν μύρτου κλαδὶ τὸ ξίφος φορήσω. κ. τ. λ. 1 Ar. Rhet. i. 9. Paus. lib. i. 4 It is mentioned in Aristotle's Politics. |