Chapter VIII

EDUCATION OF THE SPARTANS, CRETANS,
ARCADIANS, ETC.

A different picture is presented to us by the education of the Spartans,[852] which, almost perfect in its kind, aimed chiefly at unfolding the powers of the body. Mental acquirements in the states of Doric origin were few, and the object even of these seems to have been rather connected with the developement of the animal than the spiritual nature of man, though they were not utterly destitute of all those arts and accomplishments which embellish a life of peace. Little stress, however, can be laid on the elaborate divisions of youth into numerous classes, the intention of which is not stated. There can, nevertheless, be no doubt that much art, reflection and wisdom was exhibited in the forming of the system whose object was the creation of a military character, and through this the enjoyment of the hegemonia or lead in the public affairs of Greece, an honour which Sparta attained to and held during many years.[853]

Footnote 852:

See Müll. Dor. ii. 313, sqq. Cf. Pfeiff. Ant. ii. 57. p. 370.

Footnote 853:

To destroy the power of Sparta the Achæans could imagine no better
means than to change their system of education.—Plut. Vit. Philop. §
16. Paus. vii. 8. 5. The Mityleneans, too, desirous of breaking the
military spirit of certain of their allies, forbade them to give the
least instruction to their children.—Ælian, V. H. vii. 15. With the
same view the Emperor Julian closed the public schools against the
Christians.—Gibbon, iv. 111. Among our ancestors, too, when a blow
was meditated against Dissenters, no measure more severe could be
devised than to deprive them of education.—Lord John Russell, Hist.
of Eur. i. 273.

A modern writer has correctly remarked that by permitting the state to decide on the lives of infants, the institutions of Lycurgus recognised the authority of the community to regulate, how it pleased, the education they were to receive. The authority of parents over their children was thus all but annihilated, for, although the recognition and feeling of relationship continued after the state had undertaken the training of youth, their influence was exceedingly weakened, a circumstance to which may be attributed the seeming heroism of the Spartan women, who could stoically bear the death of their sons because they had been in a great measure estranged from them.

As, however, the institutions of Lycurgus differed in all things else from those of other Grecian legislators, it is not surprising they should also differ on the subject of education. But it may greatly be doubted whether we altogether comprehend his system. The accounts transmitted to us are in many points contradictory, and it may in general be remarked that on no subject whatever do modern ideas differ so much from those prevalent in antiquity, as on the subject of education. Plutarch and Xenophon, or rather the sophist who assumed his name, two of the authors on whom in this discussion most reliance is usually placed, were prejudiced and credulous, and often, to speak frankly, extremely ignorant. Both were unwilling, even if they possessed the power, to criticise the system, and yet by modern writers their opinions have generally without scruple been adopted. Xenophon himself, as well as the sophist who here apes him, was in predilections a Spartan, and as strongly disposed to satirise and underrate the institutions of his own country as to exaggerate the merits of the Laconian. Even were the trifling essay on the Lacedæmonian republic proved to be his, we should yet lay little stress upon its testimony, unless when corroborated by the evidence of other and better writers.

Elsewhere in Greece,—observes the author of this tract,[854] whoever he was,—persons, the most solicitous respecting the education of their children, placed over them at the first dawn of intellectual developement, pædagogues, who at the outset undertook their instruction, and afterwards conducted them to the schools where letters, music, and gymnastics were taught. In this respect, however, as a modern writer has shown, the institutions of Sparta were in no degree superior, since Helots were there the instructors of young children; and, on this account, he rejects the story of Plutarch,[855] that they were compelled to intoxicate themselves, to exhibit to the youths a practical proof of the deformity of drunkenness.[856] It was contrary, he says, to common sense. But as common sense had very little to do with any part of the system, this is a poor argument, and will not weigh against positive testimony.

Footnote 854:

Rep. Lac. ii. 1. Cf. Pfeiff. Ant. p. 370.

Footnote 855:

Lycurg. 28. Müll. Dor. ii. 39. Commonly, also, the nurses of the
kings were Helots.—Plut. Ages. § 3.

Footnote 856:

Plut. Inst. Lac. § 29.

Another evil which the Pseudo-Xenophon discovers in the common Hellenic plan of training,[857] was that lads were indulged with the use of shoes, and rendered effeminate by frequent changes of clean linen, while their appetite, generally keen in boyhood,[858] was suffered to be the measure of what they ate. Lycurgus, he remarks, managed all these things differently. Instead of remaining under the superintendence of their parents, and frequenting what schools and masters they might judge proper, boys at Sparta passed under a sort of camp discipline regulated by the laws and intrusted to the guardianship of a particular magistrate, whom they denominated a Pædonomos. This part of the system Xenophon[859] prefers to the Athenian practice of intrusting youth to the care of servile pædagogues. The Pædonomos, however, resembled in many respects the Athenian Gymnasiarch, and, so far as I can perceive, possessed no superiority over him, except that his authority extended beyond school hours. He was, indeed, a kind of despot, vested with the power to call the boys together when he pleased, and inflict chastisement, at his own discretion, on any whom he detected exhibiting the least symptom of effeminacy. To enable him to carry his resolutions instantly into effect he marched about the town like an executioner, attended by men having whips, who at his nod seized the boy delinquent and subjected him at once to the torture. Thus possessing the power of enforcing obedience, a great show at least of reverence attended him.

Footnote 857:

De Rep. Laced. ii. 5. Cf. Plut. Lycurg. § 17.

Footnote 858:

And keen it must needs have been before they could have relished
their black broth, with a dose of which Dionysios once made an
experiment upon his stomach. Having put a spoonful of the compound
into his mouth, he instantly spat it out again, declaring that he
could not swallow it, for it was the filthiest stuff he had ever
tasted; upon which his Spartan cook remarked, “You should have first
bathed in the Eurotas.”—Plut. Inst. Lac. § 2.

Footnote 859:

De Rep. Lac. ii. 2. Lycurg. § 17. Cf. Hesych. v. Παιδονόμος.

The privilege of sharing the paternal cares of the Pædonomos was not rigidly confined to the sons of Spartans (πολιτικοὶ παῖδες);[860] the Mothaces also, Spartans of half blood, and even strangers might share it. Who the Mothaces were it is extremely difficult to determine. Some contend that they were slaves brought up in the family.[861] But Athenæus, and Phylarchos whom he quotes, state most distinctly that they were free, ἐλεύθεροι μέν εἰσί. In order to remove the unfavourable impression made on mankind by the accounts transmitted to us of Spartan slavery, it has been pretended that they, as well as the Neodamodes, were Helots. Of the Neodamodes, however, the very author on whom reliance is placed asserts the contrary. They were originally slaves indeed, he says, but different from the Helots, ἑτέρους ὄντας τῶν εἱλώτων. With respect to the Mothaces,[862] notwithstanding the testimony of Hesychius and other grammarians, it seems clear that they were the sons of free though poor Laconians, who, desirous of obtaining for them the rights of Spartans, sent them to be the companions of such youthful citizens as would consent to receive them. It is moreover added that the youth, according to their means, chose one, two, or more of these companions; which shows that although the right of controlling the studies of its children was vested in the state, the expenses, in whole or in part, devolved upon the parents.

Footnote 860:

Athen. vi. 102.

Footnote 861:

Müll. ii. 314.

Footnote 862:

Harpocrat. v. Μόθωνες.

The Mothaces, or Mothones as they are sometimes called, were identical with the σύντροφοι:[863] but the τρόφιμοι were such youthful strangers—for example, the sons of Xenophon[864] and Phocion—as, by submitting to the severities of Spartan discipline, acquired the freedom of the city, the privilege of aspiring to political distinction, and, according to some writers, even a share of the land. This, if true, would render credible the statement of the philosopher Teles,[865] who affirms that even Helots, by the means above described, could rise to the rank of Spartans; while they who in this point disobeyed the laws, were they even the children of kings, sank to the condition of Helots, and of course forfeited their estates, otherwise there would have been no land to bestow on the military neophytes. Three of the most remarkable men in Spartan story, Lysander, Gylippos, and Callicratidas were Mothaces, whose fathers were obscure.[866] It will be seen that we have here the original of that system of education sketched by Xenophon in his Persian Utopia, and designed to recommend monarchy to his countrymen, as that of Sir Thomas More was framed for the contrary purpose.

Footnote 863:

De Rep. Lac. iii. 3. 3. Schneid.

Footnote 864:

Diog. Laert. ii. c. vi. § 10. Xen. Hellen. v. 3. 9. Plut. Ages. § 6.

Footnote 865:

Ap. Stob. Florileg. 40. 8. Gaisf. Cf. Plut. Inst. Lac. § 21, 22.
Athen. vi. 103. Müll. Dor. ii. 315. note p.—In Xenophon’s Persian
Utopia such citizens as were too poor to maintain their children at
school lost the benefits of public training; but, according to law,
the advantages of the Spartan system were open to all.—Arist. Polit.
iv. 9.

Footnote 866:

Ælian, Var. Hist. xii. 43.

According to the laws of Lycurgus the heir-apparent to the throne was exempted from the necessity of mixing with his fellow-citizens in the public schools, though the younger members of the royal family occupied the same level with other boys.[867] That this was an unwise regulation, however, will be at once evident, since no man stands so much in need of severe discipline as a prince, who in spite of correction is too apt to be guided by his unbridled passions. Fact, too, bears out this view, for two of the noblest sovereigns of Sparta, Leonidas and Agesilaos, had been subjected, while boys,[868] to the correction of their teachers.

It has been already remarked that the spirit of Spartan education was severe. It was, in fact, precisely the same as that which, in the last generation, pervaded the discipline of the Seneka and Mohawk Indians, and produced those numerous examples of patience, fortitude, and magnanimity, together with that force, agility and suppleness of body so greatly admired and, perhaps, envied by civilised nations. It was this stern and martial system that constituted the secret model, according to which Locke fashioned his plan of youthful training, designed rather to produce a sound mind in a sound body than to shatter and enervate the latter by the piling up in the brain of miscellaneous and often useless knowledge. But in his attempts at hardening the frame and rendering it invulnerable to the stings of suffering, our countryman did not dare to go the lengths of the Spartan legislator, who in this, at least, exhibited superior wisdom, that he did not consider the chastisement of stripes to have any tendency towards creating a base and servile habit of mind.[869]

Footnote 867:

Plut. Ages. § i.

Footnote 868:

Müll. Dor. ii. 315.

Footnote 869:

On the democratic tendency of Spartan discipline see Bœckh. in Plat.
Min. 181. sqq. Isocrat. Areop. § 14–16.

Consistently with the general aim of his institutions, Lycurgus, instead of ordaining, like Locke, that his alumni should wear leaky shoes, dispensed with the incumbrance altogether. And, certainly, in a soldier, the habit of trampling with the naked foot on ice and snow and the sharpest rocks, is worthy of acquisition.

Institutions are generally based on the actual circumstances of society. Lycurgus legislated for a people to whom it was important to be able easily to climb steeps, or descend them with a sure foot, to spring forward also, to run, to bend, and perform innumerable acts of personal dexterity. He, therefore, commenced with boyhood the inculcating of those habits and exercises which their manhood would imperatively require of them.

It has been seen that for change of linen an especial aversion was entertained at Sparta. Children were, therefore, taught to be content with one clean shirt per annum, at the termination of which period it was probably as well peopled as the Emperor Julian’s beard, particularly as, during all that time, it was considered low and unfashionable to bathe or make use of the ordinary ointments, an indulgence permitted to them but for a few days in the course of the year. All this time, however, they might more properly, perhaps, be said to be shirtless, since the himation only was left them, the chiton being taken away.[870] They were compelled also, as incipient soldiers, to lie hard on pallet beds, made with the tops of reeds collected, perfunctorily, without the help of the knife or dagger, from the banks of the Eurotas. To this, as an especial indulgence, they were in winter permitted to add a quantity of thistle-down, which material was supposed to contain much warmth.[871]

Footnote 870:

Plut. Lycurg. § 17. Inst. Lac. § 5. Xen. de Rep. Lac. ii. 4.

Footnote 871:

Plut. Inst. Lac. § 10.

The initiation into these accomplishments commenced at the age of twelve. At the same time, acting upon the Galenian maxim, that “a fat stomach makes a lean wit,” the boys were reduced to short commons, the Bouagor, or leader of the juvenile troop, being instructed to pinch them as closely as possible on that score, in order that when the chances of war should reduce them to the necessity of subsisting on famine rations, they might be prepared without murmuring to submit to it. Persons so educated, moreover, would be little delicate in the choice of provisions. Anything, from a sea hedgehog to a snail, would suit their stomachs; and it would be hard indeed if war could ever place them in circumstances where such food as they were accustomed to might not be found. Health, too, and light spirits, as Lycurgus well understood, are the offspring of an abstemious diet. The spare warrior, clean-limbed and agile, would leap round the man puffed out and bloated with overfeeding, and, therefore, to be fat was at Sparta an offence punishable at law.[872] However, not to be too hard on the young gentlemen, it was always permitted, when hunger grew troublesome, to have recourse to what, for want of a fitter name, we must call stealing.[873]

Footnote 872:

Ælian. V. H. xiv. 7. Plut. Inst. Lac. § 13. Athen. xii. 74.—Apropos
of this subject, the ancients have left us a very curious anecdote.
Dionysios, son of Clearchos, the first tyrant of Heraclea, having
succeeded to the government of his country, became insensibly so
corpulent by his daily excess and extreme niceness in the choice of
his viands, that he was nearly suffocated by the enormous mass of
his fat. Every time he fell into a deep slumber it was feared he
would never wake again; and, to rouse him from his lethargy, the
physicians were often compelled to thrust long, sharp needles into
his body until they reached the quick, upon which he would again
exhibit signs of animation. Of this prodigious obesity his majesty
was so much ashamed, however, that, when transacting business or
giving audience to strangers, he would ensconce himself behind a
large trunk, so that no part of him was visible but his face. Yet,
in spite of this infirmity, he lived fifty-five years and reigned
thirty-three; and, to the honour of corpulence be it remarked, that
no tyrant ever before exhibited so much mildness and moderation.—Id.
xii. 72.

Footnote 873:

Xen. Rep. Lac. ii. 6.—This writer observes, that what might be
filched was determined by law.—Anab. iv. 6. 14. And Plutarch
explains, that they might take as much food as they could.—Inst.
Lac. § 12.

In modern times it would be thought a poor compliment to any system of education to represent it as an admirable method for rendering a man an accomplished thief. But the Spartan sophists, whose wisdom Plato, in a jocular mood, so greatly extols, held a different theory. They did not undertake the teaching of morals, but such habits as became a soldier, among which thieving always maintains a distinguished place. Xenophon, however, is careful to guard us against the supposition that this habit of appropriation arose from want. The object of the legislator was, without the incurring of moral guilt, to nourish all the useful habits commonly found in a thief,—as, the power to watch by night, to wear the mask of honesty by day, craftily to lay snares, and even to set spies upon the individual to be plundered. To men designed to spend their lives in war such qualities are, doubtless, of the highest importance, since they enable them to procure provisions and overreach the enemy.[874] To this practice Xenophon alludes in the Anabasis, where the army is placed in circumstances of much difficulty. “I understand,” he says to Cheirisophos, “that among you Lacedæmonians the habit of stealing is carefully cultivated from childhood; and that, so far from being disgraceful, it is considered a necessary accomplishment, so long as you keep within the bounds prescribed by law. When detected, however, it is equally lawful to be scourged.”[875]

Footnote 874:

Xen. de Rep. Lac. ii. 7.

Footnote 875:

Anab. iv. vi. 14.

Were they scourged, then, for stealing? Not at all, but simply for being caught; and Xenophon is right in remarking, that, in all human arts, they who unskilfully perform what they undertake are punished, and so should a bungling thief.[876] The passage immediately following is mutilated or inextricably corrupt,[877] but, from an attentive examination, it would appear that the boys detected on these occasions were selected to be flogged[878] during the festival of Artemis Orthia, or Orthosia, whose altar was thus annually smeared with human blood. This impartial superstition extended its empire over all ranks and conditions of men, servile or free, from the beggar to the prince; for here, we are told, Helots had sometimes the honour to be scourged in company perhaps with a scion of the Eurypontid or Agid kings. At Alea, in Arcadia, women, by the command of an oracle, were subjected to the same discipline. “Here,” says Pausanias,[879] “during the festival of Dionysos women, by command of an oracle, were flogged like the youth of Sparta at the altar of Artemis Orthia.”

Footnote 876:

De Rep. Lac. ii. 8.

Footnote 877:

Schneid. in Xen. de Rep. Lac. ii. 9.

Footnote 878:

Sometimes to death.—Plut. Inst. Lac. § 39. Vit. Aristid. § 17.
Pausan. iii. 16. 6. Sext. Empir. Pyrrh. Hypot. iii. 24. p. 153. c.
Spanheim ad Callim. in Dian. 174. The Scholiast on Pindar derives
this name of Artemis from Mount Orthion or Orthosion in
Arcadia.—Olymp. iii. 54. Cf. Lycoph. 1330. with the Schol. of
Tzetzes. Schol. Plat. de Legg. p. 224. Ruhnk.

Footnote 879:

Arcad. viii. 23. 1. Meurs. (Græc. Fer. p. 256,) understands _sese
flagellabant_.

The above ordinance of Lycurgus led in the next instance to the hybernation of the youth upon the mountains:[880] to inure them still further to hardships, and, practically to teach them the art of providing for themselves, they were sent forth with a roving commission to prowl about the highlands and less frequented parts of Laconia, armed for self-protection, and that they might be able to bring down their game. At first, perhaps, they confined themselves within the limits prescribed by law. But almost of necessity they would become involved in quarrels with the Helots, by plundering whose farms and villages they chiefly subsisted. The Helots would sometimes resist and sometimes resent their incursions. Ill blood would be engendered. Hot and fiery youths, abandoned to their own guidance, would easily discover excuses for cruelty and revenge. From quarrels they would proceed to blows—from blows to assassination; and beaten, perhaps, by day, they would fall suddenly on the defenceless peasants in the dead of night, and butcher whole hamlets to avenge an affront offered to them perhaps by an individual. Thus, out of a custom blameless enough in its origin, grew the terrible institution of the Crypteia,[881] or annual massacre of the Helots, denied by some modern writers, but too well authenticated, and too much in keeping with the Spartan character and general policy, to allow of our indulging in any scepticism on the point.

Footnote 880:

The Platonic Scholiast confounds this practice with the Crypteia, so
called, he says, because the youth were compelled to conceal
themselves while they subsisted on plunder. Ἀπολύοντες γὰρ ἕκαστον
γυμνὸν, προσέταττον ἐνιαυτὸν ὅλον ἔξω ἐν τοῖς ὄρεσι πλανᾶσθαι, καὶ
τρέφειν ἑαυτὸν διὰ κλοπῆς, καὶ τῶν τοιούτων, οὕτω δὲ ὥστε μηδενὶ
κατάδηλον γενέσθαι· διὸ καὶ κρύπτεια ὠνόμασται· ἐκολάζοντο γὰρ οἱ
ὅπου δήποτε ὀφθέντες.—Ad Legg. p. 225. Ruhnk.

Footnote 881:

For a fuller account of this institution see Book V. Chapter VIII.

But, in addition to the above, there were other branches of education taught at Sparta,—that is gymnastics and music. Writers, desirous of enhancing the mental acquisitions of the Dorians, adhere somewhat too strictly to the meaning often affixed by the Greeks to the word _music_, which they employed to signify literature. But Xenophon, in his treatise on the Lacedæmonian Commonwealth, appears invariably to use it in its limited and modern signification.

To gymnastics the Dorians, upon the whole an unintellectual people, were naturally much addicted,—far too much according to ancient writers; but here again their modern historian steps in to their defence. He will have it, that it was in later times that they became philogymnasts, and quotes Dion Chrysostom as if he was the principal witness. Plato, to be sure, is referred to as a parasitical authority, and so is Aristotle;[882] but then the latter only says, that their constant violent exercises rendered them brutal, in which the historian appears to discover no harm. “This want of moderation, however, though it occurred in later times, is never perceivable in the maxims and ideas of the Dorians, who in this, as in several other cases, know how to set bounds to youthful ardour, and check its pernicious effects.”[883] This, it appears to me, is the language of an apologist. If they had such knowledge, how culpable must they have been not to check it in the matter of the Crypteia?

Footnote 882:

Polit. viii. 3. 3.—To this may be added the testimony of Plato, who
evidently, without naming them, means to describe the Spartans,
where he speaks of a people wholly given up to the study of bodily
exercises, and by that means becoming brutal and ferocious.—De Rep.
t. vi. p. 154.

Footnote 883:

Dorians, ii. 319. seq.

It may be observed, however, that though they devoted to gymnastics too much of their leisure, the fault lay in them, not in the system of exercises, which was in itself one of extreme beauty and simplicity. Its object,—which it was excellently calculated to attain,—was not to create athletæ but soldiers, not gigantic strength, but an elastic, agile, beautiful frame, adapted for all the movements of war. Boxing, accordingly, and the pancration[884] were banished from their gymnasia, a regulation evincing at the same time their wisdom and their taste; the former being the most barbarous and useless, the latter the most unseemly portion of gymnastics, often exhibiting the antagonists rolling and struggling, like savages or animals devoid of reason, on the ground.

Footnote 884:

Ταῦτα μόνα μὴ κωλύσαντος ἀγωνίζεσθαι τοὺς πολίτας, ἐν οἷς χεὶρ οὺκ
ἀνατείνεται.—Plut. Lycurg. § 19. The exercises, in which the
admission of being vanquished was made by holding up the hand, are
elsewhere named:—Πυγμὴν δὲ καὶ παγκράτιον ἀγωνίζεσθαι ἐκώλυσεν, ἵνα
μηδὲ παίζοντες ἀπαυδᾷν ἐθίζωνται.—Reg. Apophtheg. Lycurg. 4.
Apophtheg. Lacon. Lycurg. 23.

As the ancient idea of education included every thing employed to develope the powers of body or mind, we must regard in this light the military games peculiar to the Spartans and Cretans.[885] Among the former the youth, having sacrificed to Ares in a temple at Therapne, passed over into an island dyked round and called Platanistas, where, dividing off into separate parties, they engaged in a contest which wanted nothing but arms to render it a genuine battle. A learned historian, seldom sparing of words, avoids describing this interesting scene; and wherefore?—Because a faithful description of it must convey a striking idea of Spartan ferocity. “They exerted” says he, “every means in their power to obtain the victory.”—Exactly; but what were those means? “Adolescentium greges Lacedæmone vidimus ipsi indibili contentione certantes, pugnis, calcibus, unguibus, morsu denique; quum exanimarentur priusquam se victos faterentur.[886]” Yet were these battles carried on under the eyes of magistrates, the five Bidiæi[887] appointed to superintend these exercises as well as those performed elsewhere. The little island where they fought was a spot of great natural beauty, encircled by a sheet of clear water, and approached on all sides through thick and lofty groves of platane trees. A bridge thrown over the canal led to the island on both sides, and on the one stood a statue of Heracles, on the other of Lycurgus. This battle was reckoned among the institutions of the latter, and under the protection probably of the former. The preliminaries to the fight were as follow. They first sacrificed in the Phœbaion which stands without the city, not far from Therapne. Here each of the two divisions of the youth offered up a dog’s whelp to Ares, the bravest of domestic animals, sacred in their opinion to the bravest of the Gods. No other Grecian people sacrificed the dog excepting the Colophonians, who offered up a black bitch to Hecate. In both cities the sacrifice was performed by night. After the ceremony two tame boars were brought forward, one by each party, which they compelled to fight; and they whose brute champion proved superior, thence augured that victory awaited them in the Platanistas. On the following day, a little before noon, they entered by the bridges into the island, one party by one bridge, the other by the other. But the choice was not left to them, having been determined on the preceding night by lot. Being arrived, they faced each other, and commenced the battle, striking with the fist, kicking, leaping on each other, tearing one another with their teeth, and gouging after the most approved Kentucky fashion. Thus they struggled, man to man, urging forward together and thrusting each other into the water.[888] From these words, as well as from the testimony of Cicero cited above, it is clear the combat was conducted with no other arms than those furnished by nature, though Lucian, misemploying the verb ὁπλομάχειν,[889] would lead us to a different conclusion. But this kind of battle is always enumerated among the gymnastic exercises or contests; and what necessity would there have been to have recourse to fists, feet, teeth, and nails, had they been permitted the use of arms? Fatigued with this violent exertion they betook themselves for a short time to repose, refreshed by which they resumed their exercises, dancing in most intricate measures to the sound of the pipe.[890] Akin in spirit to the contests in the Platanistas were the ever-recurring battles fought by the young men with the three hundred followers of the Hippagretæ; three inferior magistrates appointed by the Ephori, who selected each one hundred followers from among the healthiest and bravest of the youthful population. Against this chosen band all the other young men of the city were bound by custom to make war; and, but that they could be parted by any citizen who might happen to be passing by, it is probable that these fierce boxing matches would often have terminated fatally.

Footnote 885:

Müll. ii. 26.

Footnote 886:

Cic. Tusc. Disput. v. 27.

Footnote 887:

Paus. iii. 11. 2.

Footnote 888:

Paus. iii. 14. 8. sqq.

Footnote 889:

Anachars. § 38.

Footnote 890:

Cf. Ubb. Emm. Antiq. Græc. iii. 89. sqq.

Similar customs prevailed in Crete, where, as in most other parts of Greece, the business of education appears to have commenced at the age of seven years, when the cake called Promachos was given to the boys, because, as it has been conjectured, they were thenceforward to be trained for fighting. Up to the age of seventeen they were denominated Apageli, since they were not until then admitted into those Agelæ[891] or bands, in which they thenceforward performed their exercises. Here, as in Sparta, the greatest possible care was taken to extirpate from the character every germ of effeminacy. They ate whatever food was given them squatting on the ground, not being permitted to join their elders at the board, and went abroad in all weathers clad in a single garment, like the boys of Sparta during their hibernation. However, the youth of the several Agelæ, armed with stones, and iron weapons, marching to the sound of flutes, and assailing each other, converted their exercises into something very like real warfare. Our cudgel-playing, single-stick, &c. are pastimes of the same description; and boxing now nearly exploded, can plead classical precedent. They were habituated, says Ephoros, to labours and arms, and taught to despise both heat and cold, rough roads and cliffs, and the blows they received in the gymnasium and their mock battles. The use of the bow formed part of their education, as well as the armed dance, at first taught by the Curetes, and afterwards named the Pyrrhic; so that a warlike spirit breathed through the whole system of their education.[892]

Footnote 891:

Ἀγέλη for the boys, συσσίτιον for the men.—Strab. x. 4. p. 379.
Müll. (Dor. ii. 326.) uses both indiscriminately.

Footnote 892:

Strab. x. 4. p. 380. seq.—This agrees with what Plato relates of the
Cretan polity.—De Legg. t. vii. p. 260. t. viii. p. 86.

With all these facts before him, though many of them he has suppressed, the historian of the Doric race, in direct contradiction to Plato and Aristotle, contends naïvely that it would be erroneous to conclude that the aim of bodily exercise among the Dorians was war, or that in their result they rendered the youth either brutal or ferocious. Their object, in his opinion, was to obtain something like ideal beauty of form, strength, and health, which, he says, they accordingly attained, being, about B. C. 540, the healthiest of the Greeks and most renowned for beautiful men and women. But Xenophon whom, on the subject of health he quotes, does not authorise his superlative:—"It would not be easy," are his words, “to find healthier or more active men.”[893] Again, the language of Herodotus by no means bears him out. He, indeed, affirms that Callicrates, a Spartan, was the handsomest man in the army at Platæa, but says nothing of the Spartans being handsomer than the other Greeks; but rather the contrary. He was not merely the handsomest man among his countrymen, but, which he evidently considered more remarkable, among all the other Greeks.[894]

Footnote 893:

De Rep. Lac. v. 9.—At a later period the reputation of being the
handsomest men in Greece was enjoyed by certain young men of
Athens.—Æschin. cont. Tim. § 31.

Footnote 894:

Herod. ix. 72.

Not, however, to insist on such points as these, let us proceed to examine the intellectual cultivation of the Dorians.[895] That the art of writing never flourished very generally at Sparta appears to be on all hands admitted, though we can by no means doubt that among them numerous individuals possessing this accomplishment might always be found. Thus, in the old story of the combat of the three hundred Spartans and Argives, it is related that Othryades, the sole survivor of the Laconian band, having remained last on the field of battle, erected a trophy and wrote upon it with his blood Λακεδαιμόνιοι κατ᾽ Ἀργείων, immediately after which he died of his wounds.[896] Generally, however, no great stress was laid on a knowledge of the art of writing, which, in the opinion of some authors, was of comparatively little value where the people were taught to chant their laws as well as their songs. Similar customs and regulations prevailed on this head in Crete, where, nevertheless, letters appear to have been viewed with a more favourable eye.[897] In addition to their body of legal poetry, which was probably less voluminous than a metrical version of the statutes at large, the youth were taught to sing hymns in honour of the gods and the praises of illustrious men.[898] In music, too, they were permitted to make some proficiency, though generally, we are told, it was their ambition to excel rather in the regularity of their manners than in the extent of their acquirements.

Footnote 895:

Cf. Ælian. Var. Hist. xii. 50.

Footnote 896:

Stob. Florileg. vii. 67.

Footnote 897:

Plut. Inst. Lac. § 14. seq.—The Spartans sacrificed to the muses
before going to battle in order that they might perform something
worthy of notice by them.—Id. § 16. It is remarked of king Cleomenes
that he studied philosophy under Sphæros the Borysthenite who was
likewise permitted to impart his system to the other youth.—Id.
Cleom. § 2.—Cf. Diog. Laert. vii. 6.

Footnote 898:

In later times learning grew to be more highly valued. Thus it was
ordained by law that the youth should assemble annually in the Hall
of the Ephori to hear the work of Dicæarchos on the constitution of
their country read to them.—Suid. v. Δικαίαρχ. t. i. p. 730. d.

With respect to the Spartans it is probable, though the testimony of ancient writers be sufficiently contradictory, that no great stress was laid even on the ability to read; for, while Plutarch[899] conceives this art to have been among their ordinary acquirements, Isocrates, a grave and more competent authority, is decidedly of the opposite opinion.[900]

Footnote 899:

Inst. Lac. § 4. Lycurg. § 16.

Footnote 900:

Panathen. § 83. Τοσοῦτον ἀπολελειμμένοι τῆς κοινῆς παιδείας καὶ
φιλοσοφίας εἰσιν ὥστ᾽ οὐδὲ γράμματα μανθάνουσιν.

Ælian,[901] too, coming in the rear of Plutarch, observes that the Lacedæmonians were ignorant of mental culture (μουσικῆς) meaning evidently as Perizonius has already observed, not “music” as Kühn would translate it, (for in this they were learned,) but a knowledge of poetry and eloquence.[902]

Footnote 901:

Var. Hist. xii. 50.

Footnote 902:

So again in Ælian. Var. Hist. iv. 15. Gelo, king of Syracuse, an
illiterate person is termed ἄμουσος.

That the Spartans were noted for their indifference to literature, is well known. Even Xenophon, their apologist, instituting a comparison between their system of education and that prevailing among the other Greeks, observes that the latter sent their boys to school that they might learn their letters, music, and the exercises of the palæstra, while the former placed them under the care of a grave man who might punish them if slothful and inactive, and inculcate great modesty and obedience in lieu of the usual accomplishments. Plato also, in the Greater Hippias,[903] having observed that their laws were averse from the reception of foreign learning, adds immediately after that the majority of them were even ignorant of arithmetic. In another place,[904] indeed, the philosopher appears to hold a different language, and is literally understood by Perizonius. But the reader who examines the passage attentively, will probably agree with me in considering it nothing more than one of those profoundly ironical strokes in which, above all writers, he abounds. He in fact remarks, what in another sense may have been very true, that no countries were more fertile in sophists than Crete and Lacedæmon, but that they dissembled their wisdom and feigned ignorance, lest they should appear to excel all their countrymen in sapience, of which in reality there was very little danger. He observes, however, no less ironically, that those rude and unrhetorical nations were of all men most philosophical and eloquent, and that it had long been understood by a great many that to _laconise_, or act the Spartan, was rather to be a philosopher than a diligent student of gymnastics. Perizonius,[905] indeed, conceives that all this is to be understood of natural sound sense, applied to morals and those brief and pithy sayings or λογοὶ, which constituted the science of laconics.

Footnote 903:

T. v. p. 418.

Footnote 904:

Protag. t. i. p. 209.

Footnote 905:

Not. ad Ælian. xii. 50.—From an ironical passage of Plato we
may likewise infer that they were able genealogists and
story-tellers.—Hipp. Maj. t. v. p. 419.

But, after all, there never was, as Cicero observes, a single orator among the Spartans; nor could it be otherwise, since all the arts which beget and foster eloquence, and, more important still, every political institution which favours it, were unknown in their state. Nay, so far did they push their aversion for the oratorical art, that if any citizen of Sparta acquired, in his experience abroad, the skill artificially to wield a syllogism or a trope, he was subjected to punishment,[906] while rhetoricians were expelled the city.[907] Ignorance, therefore, of whatever learned nations prize, was their chief boast. To them the sublime speculations of the Academy, and the logic, sharp and irresistible, of the Lyceum, were equally strangers; yet their discipline, and the habits of youth, imparted to them what in modern jargon is termed a kind of practical “philosophy.” They understood the great art, at least among them, how to command their passions; as Maximus Tyrius[908] relates of Agesilaos who, though educated in no school of philosophy, was nevertheless not a slave to love, which therefore the sophist infers could not be a matter of great difficulty. However there were limitations to their aversions for learning. They opened in their state an asylum for those antique teachers of mankind, the poets,[909] proscribed by Plato, and were in this respect so superior in good taste to that philosopher, that they at length, in imitation of the Great Preceptors of Greece, instituted public recitations of Homer. And this, Maximus Tyrius adduces as a proof that many well-constituted states had existed in which Homer was not publicly studied, for he could not mean that he was once entirely unknown at Sparta.[910]

Footnote 906:

The laws of Sparta were in this respect, as in many others, merely
imitations of those of Crete.—Sext. Empir. adv. Mathemat. l. ii. p.
68. Plutarch having remarked that they did learn to read, adds—τῶν
δὲ ἄλλων παιδευμάτων ξενηλασίαν ἐποιοῦτο, οὐ μᾶλλον ἀνθρώπων ἢ
λόγων.—Instit. Lac. § 4.

Footnote 907:

Cressol. Theat. Rhet. i. 12. p. 88.

Footnote 908:

Dissert. ix. p. 118.

Footnote 909:

Cf. Athen. xiv. 33.

Footnote 910:

Dissert. vii. p. 91.

Into the character of the Greeks, generally, there entered an element but faintly discernible in the moral composition of modern nations, I mean a most exquisite and exalted sensibility, which rendered them to the last degree susceptible, and liable to be swayed irresistibly for good or for evil by poetry and music. And this characteristic distinguished in some degree the Doric as well as the Ionic race. They could be excited, past belief, by the agency of sound. Music, therefore, with us at least a mere source of enjoyment, among them was invested with a moral character, and employed in education as a powerful means of harmonising, purifying, ennobling the principles and the affections of the heart. For this reason the government, which in Greece was in reality a Committee of Public Safety,[911] watched over the music no less sedulously than over the morals of the people, which it powerfully influenced. It must, nevertheless, be confessed that many ancient authors are little philosophical in relating or reasoning upon the effects of music. They often confound consequences with causes. Thus, in the example which certain authors undoubtingly adduce of the Sicilian Dorians,[912] whose morals we are told were corrupted by their fiddlesticks, they omit to inquire whether it was not rather the natural and necessary degeneracy of a wealthy people, which corrupted the music. This is my interpretation. For, in the history of the ancient Sicilians, I can discover causes enough of lax and imperfect morals, without calling in the aid of lyre or cithara. But some writers on this point have an easy faith. They suppose that the strict domestic discipline of Sparta “would hardly have been preserved”[913] without the old-fashioned music.

Footnote 911:

Plut. Inst. Lac. § 17.

Footnote 912:

Max. Tyr. iv. p. 54. Cic. de Legg. ii. 15.—Cicero, though apt in
most cases to defer to the opinion of Plato, hangs back here. He
does not, indeed, consider it a matter of indifference what songs
are sung, or what airs prevail in a state; but neither does he
credit the inferences drawn too subtilely by the great philosopher
from his musical theory.

Footnote 913:

Dorians. ii. 340.

In whatever way we decide on the metaphysics of the matter, certain it is that in old times music was an universal accomplishment in most parts of Greece; but this was when it was little more than the chanting of savages, in which, however ignorant, any one may join. Exactly in proportion as it rose into an art its cultivators diminished in number, until, when a high degree of perfection had been attained, it was abandoned almost wholly to professional musicians. The Athenians had been commanded by the Pythian oracle to chant chorically in the streets, a divine service in honour of Bacchos.[914] At Sparta similar performances took place during the gymnopædia, when choruses of naked men and boys, with crowns of palm leaves on their heads, proceeded through the streets singing the songs of Thaletas and Alcman and the pæans of Dionysidotos.[915] Mr. Müller, who loves to complete or round off the accounts he finds in ancient authors, says that, _doubtless_, a large portion of the inhabitants of the city took part in these exhibitions. Perhaps they did, but we have no authority for such a supposition. The place in the agora which contained statues of Apollo, Artemis and Leto, was called _Choros_,[916] because there the Ephebi danced in choruses in honour of Apollo. On these occasions unwarlike persons were sometimes thrust into the least honourable places,[917] while bachelors were excluded; so that, as Schneider has well remarked, cowardice was less dishonourable than celibacy. But it does not at all appear that the Spartans themselves were ever good musicians, though they were not incapable of relishing good music;[918] and hence the foreign musicians who flocked thither found a welcome reception. The developement of the warlike constitution of the state threw the favourable side of their discipline into the shade.[919]

Footnote 914:

Demosth. in Mid. § 15.

Footnote 915:

Athen. xv. 22.

Footnote 916:

Paus. iii. 11. 9.—Müller, ii. 341., supposes the whole agora may
have been thus denominated.

Footnote 917:

Xen. de Rep. Lac. ix. 5. Plut. Lycurg. § 15.

Footnote 918:

Aristot. Pol. viii. 5.

Footnote 919:

Cf. Müll. Dor. ii. 342.

The Arcadians, likewise, made great use of music in their system of education, and, though otherwise a rude race, continued to practise it up to the age of thirty. Among them alone, in fact, were children accustomed from infancy to sing, in certain measures, hymns and poems, in which they celebrated the praises of the gods and heroes of their country. After this, observes Polybius,[920] they learned the _nomoi_ of Timotheus and Philoxenos, and every year during the Dionysia formed choruses in the theatre, where they danced to the sound of the flute. Here boys contended with antagonists of their own age, and the young men with those more advanced towards their prime. During the whole of their lives they frequented these public assemblies, where they instructed each other by their songs, and not by means of foreign actors. With respect to other branches of education they considered it no disgrace to profess themselves ignorant; but not to know how to sing would, in Arcadia, have been a mark of extreme vulgarity. They habituated themselves to walk with gravity to the sound of the flute, and, having been thus instructed at the expense of the state, proceeded once a year in public procession to the theatre. Their ancestors introduced these customs, not with any view to pleasure, or that they might grow rich by the exercise of their talents, but in order to soften the austerity of character which their cold and murky atmosphere would otherwise have engendered. For the character of nations is invariably analogous to the air they breathe, and it is the geographical position of races which determines alone their temper of mind and the colour and configuration of their bodies.

Footnote 920:

iv. 20. 7. Athen. xiv. 21. seq.

Besides what has already been said of the Arcadians, it may be added, that it was customary among them for the men and women to unite in chanting certain odes, and to offer up sacrifices in common. There were also dances in which the youth of both sexes joined, and their object was to create and diffuse humane and gentle manners.

But the same habits were not prevalent throughout the whole country. The Kynæthes made no progress in these humanising arts, and as they dwelt in the rudest districts of Arcadia, and breathed the crudest air, their ferocity became proverbial; they addicted themselves to strife and contention, and degenerated into the fiercest and most untameable savages in Greece. In fact, obtaining possession of several cities, they shed so much blood that the whole nation was roused, and at length united in expelling them the land. Even after their departure the Mantinæans thought it necessary to purify the soil by sacrifices, expiations, and the leading of victims round the whole boundary line.

Dancing very naturally constituted a separate branch of education at Sparta as in Crete. In both places the execution of the Pyrrhic appears to have been regarded as a necessary accomplishment, the youths, from the age of fifteen or earlier, having been taught to perform it in arms.[921] It was or is—for the Pyrrhic still lingers in Greece,

“Ye have the Pyrrhic dance as yet—”

an exhibition purely military. The dancers, accoutred with spear and shield, went gracefully and vigorously through a number of movements, wheeling, advancing, giving blows or shunning them, as in real action.[922] In other parts of Greece, however, the Pyrrhic quickly degenerated in character, becoming little better than a wild dance of Bacchanals.[923] It has been rightly observed that at Sparta “the chief object of the Gymnopædia was to represent gymnastic exercises and dancing in intimate union, and, indeed, the latter only as the accomplishment and end of the former.”[924] One of the dances, resembling the Anapale, partook of a Bacchanalian character.”[925] The youth, also, when skilled in these exercises, danced in rows behind each other to the music of flutes, both military and choral dances, at the same time, repeating an invitation in verse to Aphrodite and Eros to join them, and an exhortation to each other.[926]

Footnote 921:

Athen. xiv. 29.—The armed dance was in particular favour with
Plato.—De Legg. vii. t. viii. p. 17. Boys danced in armour during
the Panathenaia at Athens.—Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 935.

Footnote 922:

Plat. de Legg. vii. t. viii. p. 54.

Footnote 923:

Athen. xiv. 29.

Footnote 924:

Müll. Dor. ii. 351.

Footnote 925:

Creuz. Com. Herod. i. 230.

Footnote 926:

Lucian de Saltat. § 10. seq.

It will be seen from the above details that the object of education at Sparta was rather the formation of habits and the disciplining of the mind to act in exact conformity with the laws, than to develope to their fullest extent the intellectual powers of individuals. They desired to amalgamate the whole energies of the people into one mass, upon the supposition that being thus impelled in any particular direction they would prove irresistible. No account was made of private happiness. Everything seems to have been devised for the effecting of national purposes, though from the known laws of the human mind even the restraint and tyrannical interference of such a system would with time be reconciled to the feelings and contribute to individual content. But very much of what renders life sweet, was sacrificed. Letters and arts, that subordinate creation, that world within a world which the beneficence of Providence has permitted man to call into existence, were at Sparta unknown. They enjoyed little or nothing of that refined delight which arises from multiplying the almost conscious fruits of the soul, from sending winged thoughts abroad to move, enchant, electrify millions, from deifying truth and confounding error, from ascending to the greatest heights of mortality, and diffusing from thence a light and a glory to warm and illuminate and gladden the human race for ever. This greater felicity was reserved for the education of Athens, which must, therefore, in all enlightened times, bear away the palm of excellence and utility.