CHAPTER VII
TERTIARY EDUCATION
When he reached eighteen years, the young Athenian partly came of age. His property passed into his possession, if he had been a ward, and he could now prosecute his guardians if they had defrauded him. But he could not appear in any other sort of lawsuit, or take part in the National Assembly, nor could he be taxed, till he was twenty.
First of all, his deme or parish had to examine him to see if he was of proper parentage and of the requisite age.[612] If they rejected him, the case came before the regular Court of Athens. In the event of being again rejected, if it was on the score of age, he returned to the ranks of the boys to wait a further trial, but if on the score of parentage, he might be sold as a slave and his price put into the Treasury. If his deme accepted him he was again examined by the Boule of 500 at Athens, who might rescind their decision.[613]
When he had passed all these preliminary examinations, the boy was inscribed upon the roll of his deme, the ληξιαρχικὸν γραμματεῖον, and became in the eyes of the law an ephebos. It was then incumbent upon him to take a solemn oath in the temple of Aglauros, in the following terms[614]:—
“I will not disgrace my sacred weapons nor desert the comrade who is placed by my side. I will fight for things holy and things profane, whether I am alone or with others. I will hand on my fatherland greater and better than I found it. I will hearken to the magistrates, and obey the existing laws and those hereafter established[615] by the people. I will not consent unto any that destroys or disobeys the constitution, but will prevent him, whether I am alone or with others. I will honour the temples and the religion which my forefathers established. So help me Aglauros, Enualios, Ares, Zeus, Thallo, Auxo, Hegemone.”
This oath and ceremony must be ancient. The orator Lukourgos[616] includes them among “the ancient laws and customs of the original founders,” and claims that the oath of the Hellenic army at Plataea in 479 was imitated from the oath of the Athenian epheboi. By this solemn act the ephebos accepted the duties and responsibilities of an Athenian citizen. So in Plato’s dialogue, the Kriton,[617] where the Laws of Athens are introduced as pleading their cause, they say, “When any one has passed his examination, and has seen the constitution of the city and us, the Laws of Athens, we bid him, if he is dissatisfied with us, to take what is his and go whither he pleases. But if he stays, we consider that he has promised to obey us.” For there is good evidence, besides that which is afforded by the above passage, to show that Athenian boys were taught what the laws of their city were, before they promised to obey them. Thus Aischines says: “When any one is inscribed upon the muster roll of his deme and knows the laws of the city.”[618] Plato puts it even more definitely: “When the children leave school,[619] the city compels them to learn the laws.”[620] So the ephebos knew what he was doing when he swore to obey the law of the land.
Meanwhile the tribes had met and each chosen three men of over forty years of age, from whom the assembled people elected one, to look after the epheboi of each tribe.[621] These supervisors were called Sophronistai or Moderators. That these Moderators probably dated back to Solonic times, and possessed a general, but rarely exercised, supervision over all education, I have endeavoured to show in Chapter II. Their province was the morality and discipline of the epheboi, whose military training was naturally controlled by the military officers, the Generals and Taxiarchoi; later, however, when the epheboi ceased to be a military body, these latter functionaries ceased to have any connection with them. Towards the close of the fourth century the people elected a single Kosmetes or Chancellor for the epheboi; he is first mentioned, if a probably spurious passage in the Axiochos is rejected, in an inscription, in which he is associated with the epheboi and Moderators of the year in awarding a crown to Theophanes in the Archonship of Nikostratos (333-332 B.C.).[622] But in 280 B.C., in the list of the officers and masters of the epheboi, the Kosmetes is mentioned, but no Sophronistai:[623] at that time the epheboi were too few to need an officer to each tribe.
These newly appointed magistrates took the epheboi of their year in charge at once. The young recruits were first taken round the temples, and then put into garrison in Mounuchia and Peiraieus. They had masters and under-masters appointed for them by the Sophronistai to teach them the use of heavy arms, and also of the bow, javelin, and catapult. There were also two Paidotribai, for gymnastics. These masters, together with later introductions such as literary teachers, chaplains, doctors, and so forth, appear regularly in the inscriptions after 300 B.C.[624] The Sophronistai were paid a drachma a day for their services. They also received four obols for every ephebos in their tribe, out of which they had to provide the rations, etc.; the ephebos did not handle the money himself. Each tribe messed together.[625]
Besides the Sophronistai and Kosmetes, the Council of the Areiopagos also kept a watch over the epheboi. Discipline seems to have been fairly strict: the Axiochos[626] talks of “rods and immensities of evils.” But there were plenty of amusements, and, apparently, plenty of vacations. There were a very large number of special festivals, in which the epheboi took part. There were also the torch-races at the feasts of Hephaistos and Prometheus, for teams of epheboi from each tribe, trained at the expense of a gumnasiarchos. The epheboi had also a special part of the theatre reserved for them.[627]
No doubt a large part of the time of these epheboi was spent in severe physical exercise in the gymnasia. The analogy of the epheboi in Plato’s Republic and Laws would suggest this. The Axiochos mentions, as consequent upon enrolment in the epheboi, “the Lukeion and Akademeia,” i.e. practices in these gymnasia. Xenophon,[628] just before mentioning the “peripoloi” or epheboi in their second year, talks of “those who are ordered to practise gymnastic exercises,” clearly referring to this period. He suggests that their duties would be better and more cheerfully performed if they received a larger supply of rations than those who were training for torch-races; to these latter no doubt a liberal gumnasiarchos might serve out meals costing much more than four obols a day. Probably those who were physically inferior alone were told off for these compulsory gymnastics: Xenophon’s phrase seems to distinguish them from the epheboi selected for the torch-race, who would naturally be the physically fittest in the tribal contingent.
At the end of their first year of training, the epheboi appeared in the theatre at the great Dionusia to show off their military evolutions and the drill which they had learned. After the review they received a spear and shield from the State.[629] The sons of those who had fallen in battle, being the wards of the State,[630] received a complete outfit of armour. These arms, which the epheboi received from the State, were considered to be sacred: consequently to throw away the shield in flight was regarded as a serious offence, almost an act of sacrilege.[631]
PLATE IX.
A RIDING LESSON—MOUNTING Archaeologische Zeitung, 1885, Plate 11.
From a Kulix at Munich, attributed to Euphronios.
After receiving their arms from the State, the epheboi were marched out of Athens, and spent most of the next year patrolling the country and frontiers, and garrisoning the forts.[632] Attica was studded with
these περιπόλια, or patrol-stations, from Oinoé and Phulé on the north-western frontier to Anaphlustos and Thorikos in the south. The epheboi, like the κρυπτοί in Plato’s Laws and at Sparta, were shifted about from district to district, in order that they might acquire a thorough knowledge of their country’s geographical peculiarities. The tribal companies, into which they were divided, relieved one another in various stations. Thus in the course of 334-333 we know that both the Hippothontid and the Kekropid tribes were successively stationed at Eleusis, for the people of that district pass two separate votes of thanks to them for the excellent discipline which they had preserved.[633] There may also have been open-air camps: the Eleusinian inscriptions talk of ὑπαίθριοι.
The epheboi seem to have been assisted in their patrol-duties by a mercenary force of foreigners. Thucydides[634] declares that Phrunichos was assassinated by a peripolos: the Athenian people, according to Lusias, rewarded Thrasuboulos of Kaludon as the slayer and recorded his name on a pillar.[635] If the historian had meant to dispute this award, he must have referred to it, for it was clearly the accepted version. He also states that the plot was arranged at the house of the captain of the peripoloi, and mentions an Argive as one of the accomplices: Lusias mentions a Megarian. Both these foreigners were probably peripoloi. But foreign youths cannot at this period have been permitted to serve with the tribal companies of epheboi. A legend, it is true, asserts that this privilege was granted to the young men of Kos, in honour of the great doctor Hippokrates; but even this only shows that all other states were excluded. Indeed, foreigners were not enrolled among the Athenian epheboi until a much later epoch, when the system was no longer military.
What, then, was this “Foreign Legion”? M. Girard identifies it with the Mounted Archers, on the strength of a passage in Aristophanes’ Birds. An unknown deity has invaded the territory of Cloud-Cuckoo town. Peisthetairos exclaims, “Why didn’t you despatch peripoloi after him at once?” To which the messenger replies, “We did send 30,000 Mounted Archers.” The inscriptions at Eleusis also make a force of non-citizen troops serve under the captain of the peripoloi. These mercenary troops, having no civil duties, would naturally be used as a patrol. Moreover, to an Athenian, “archer” meant “policeman.” Athens was policed by foreign “Archers”: it would be natural for Attica to be policed in like manner, only by a mounted force, as a greater distance had to be covered.[636] But it is also possible that the non-Athenian peripoloi were the sons of μέτοικοι ἰσοτελεῖς, who, being forced to serve as hoplites when grown up, would require some preliminary training; these alien hoplites are coupled by Thucydides[637] with the recruits and veterans, who garrisoned the Athenian walls and forts: they seem to have served as a perpetual patrol.
The first three classes of Athenian citizens in wealth must all have passed through this training; for, although the two first were liable to cavalry service, they might also be called upon to serve as hoplites.[638] Rich young epheboi, who had plenty of time on their hands, would naturally learn both cavalry and infantry drill. The poorer Zeugitai would only have to learn their duties as heavy infantry, and were probably allowed to spend a good proportion of their time on their farms in Athens. But what about the fourth class, the Thetes? They were not liable to be called out as hoplites, but had to serve on land as light-armed troops or at sea as rowers. Did they also have a recruit course? Now the garrisons of the Athenian forts and walls were hoplites:[639] there is no trace of the Thetes here. But the patrol duties in the mountains can hardly have been performed by heavy troops: it is noticeable that in Xenophon light troops are suggested for this purpose, when Sokrates is developing an elaborate scheme for holding the frontiers of Attica against all invaders.[640] In the next century, at any rate, light troops were used for this purpose. In a later work Xenophon talks of “those who are ordered to occupy the forts and those who have to serve as peltasts and patrol the country,”[641] in a passage where he is clearly referring to the epheboi. Thus there are two classes, the garrisons, who would naturally be hoplites, and the patrols, who are peltasts, suitably equipped for mountaineering. But the peltasts only began to appear towards the close of the Peloponnesian War: the first mention of them is in Thucydides’ account of the army of Brasidas. Before this time, the light troops were archers and some slingers; thus, in the monument to those of the Erechtheid tribe who fell in the year 459, after the hoplites four archers are mentioned.[642] But they were a small force: there were only 1600 of them in 431 B.C. The majority of the Thetes served in the ships. In the Birds of Aristophanes, which appeared in 414, when it was a question of repelling a sudden raid, just after the peripoloi have been mentioned, Peisthetairos bids his immediate attendants arm themselves with slings and bows: these are clearly the weapons for a flying column despatched in pursuit of raiders.[643]
The passage of Xenophon makes it clear that there were peltasts in the ephebic force in the fourth century; that of Aristophanes suggests the probability of archers and slingers among them in the fifth. But whether these light-armed troops consisted of enterprising Zeugitai who added this training to their hoplite drill, or were a small detachment of Thetes, cannot be fixed. Thetes must, at any rate, not have been numerous in the ephebic force, for they could not have spared the time necessary for such lengthy training.[644]
As a rule, the epheboi were not expected to do more than guard the frontier and repel an occasional foray: even this, however, must have given them plenty of employment in war-time. But they shared in Muronides’ great victory in the Megarid in 458, when Athens had to use her reserves.[645] Either they or the “foreign legion” joined in a later invasion of Megara.[646] But as a rule they served for home defence only. Their recruit-course ended with their twentieth year: henceforth they were ordinary Athenian citizens and soldiers.
In about 332 B.C., when Lukourgos delivered his speech against Leokrates, the old ephebic system seems still to have been in force. The suggestion that Leokrates might have evaded the ephebic oath is only rhetorical, for the orator immediately goes on to assume that he took it.[647] In 328, the probable date of Aristotle’s Athenian Constitution, it seems still to have been in existence, for the philosopher records it as part of the contemporary regime. The inscriptions support these authorities. A list of epheboi of the Kekropid tribe enrolled in 334 is given under the vote of thanks: the upper part of the list is gone, but the numbers were apparently large.[648] Some forty-four names can be inferred from the fragments, belonging to six or seven demes out of the twelve which composed the tribe; but apparently the smallest contingents are at the bottom, so there may well have been a hundred names in the tribe, and 1000 epheboi altogether. Considering the impoverishment of Attica and the consequent decrease in the hoplite classes, this is probably a fair proportion of epheboi.[649] A tribal contingent is still large enough to serve as a garrison for Eleusis, and to act by itself.
But in the next century the numbers drop down to twenty-nine and twenty-three. The service must have been voluntary. Moreover, brothers are found serving together, from which it may be inferred that the exact age qualification was no longer regarded.[650] Philosophy and literature become subjects of study; and a library, swollen by gifts from old epheboi, is collected. Foreigners begin to be enrolled in the second century, and in course of time outnumber the native Athenians. Although the old military service is preserved, no doubt in a mummified condition, the system of the epheboi develops into the Athenian university, where young Romans like Cicero’s son came to learn philosophy, though they had little to learn from Athens in military matters. The Sophronistai and Kosmetes become the Proctors and Chancellor, the special festivals the compulsory services, of the new University. The torch-races, the military duties, and the naval races[651] become its athletics. It is the old conscription system of Athens, not the schools of Plato or Isokrates, that gives birth to the first University.
The system of epheboi was represented at Sparta by the κρυπτοί [kryptoi]. We hear of an archephebos at Argos, and a gumnasiarchos who manages the epheboi at Troizen.[652] In the Megarid and in Boiotia the epheboi were trained as cavalry, hoplites, or peltasts.[653] An ephebarchos can be traced in Teos. There were patrol-houses, and so possibly epheboi patrols in the territory of Syracuse.[654] This period of special training for military duties seems to have been general all over Hellas. Plato adopts it without demur in the Republic and Laws.
[612] Aristot. Ἀθ. Πολ. 42 for these examinations.
[613] Luk. ag. Leok. 18. 76.
[614] Pollux, viii. 105-106, etc.
[615] κραίνοντες. Note the archaic word.
[616] Luk. ag. Leok. 18. 75.
[617] Plato, Krit. 51 D, E.
[618] Aischin. ag. Timarch. 18.
[619] I have already suggested that metrical versions may have been taught at the music-schools.
[620] Plato, Protag. 326 D. Boys used to listen to cases in the law-courts. This would give them some idea of legal procedure. (Compare the custom at some English public schools of letting the boys go to hear the local assizes.) Demosthenes thus went with his paidagogos to hear the trial of Kallistratos.
[621] Aristot. Ἀθ. Πολ. 42. 2.
[622] C.I.A. IV. ii. 1571 B.
[623] C.I.A. II. 316.
[624] e.g. C.I.A. ii. 316. 338.
[625] Aristot. Ἀθ. Πολ. 42. 3.
[626] [Plato] Axiochos, 367 A.
[627] Schol. on Aristoph. Birds, 794.
[628] Xen. Revenues, iv. 52.
[629] Aristot. Ἀθ. Πολ. 42. 4.
[630] Thuc. ii. 46.
[631] Lucias, x. 1, and Aristophanes anent Kleonumos, passim.
[632] Properly speaking, it was only during his second year that the ephebos was a peripolos or patrol. Aischines, however, claims to have served two years as a peripolos. The term may have been used loosely, or else in times of crisis the epheboi may have been hurried off to the frontier as soon as they were enrolled.
[633] C.I.A. IV. ii. 574 D, and 563 B.
[634] Thuc. viii. 92.
[635] Lusias, xiii. 71.
[636] The force may also have included citizens, for the younger Alkibiades once served in it (Lus. xv. 6). But that was a special occasion, when the ordinary cavalry had refused to receive him.
[637] Thuc. ii. 13. 6-7.
[638] Lus. xvi. 13, xiv. 10.
[639] Thuc. ii. 13. 6-7.
[640] Xen. Mem. iii. 5. 27.
[641] Xen. Revenues, iv. 52.
[642] C.I.A. I. 143. Cp. C.I.A. I. 79 for citizen-archers.
[643] It is noticeable that in Aristotle’s time the epheboi were taught by a “Teacher of Archery.” He may be a survival.
[644] In Boiotia and the Megarid the epheboi served as cavalry, hoplites, or peltasts (C.I.G. Boiot. and Meg. 2715, 2717-21, 1747-48, etc.).
[645] Thuc. i. 105.
[646] Ibid. iv. 67.
[647] Luk. ag. Leok. 76.
[648] C.I.A. IV. ii. 563 b.
[649] In 431 B.C. Athens had 13,000 hoplites of between twenty and forty years of age. On this average there would be perhaps about 1000 epheboi per year, or 2000 altogether—the same number as here. The 16,000 of the reserve in 431 includes veterans and metics as well as epheboi.
[650] The changes seem to have happened shortly before 305, for in an inscription of that year the numbers have dropped greatly and brothers serve together.
[651] C.I.A. ii. 466, 470.
[652] C.I.G. Pelop. 589, 749, 753.
[654] Thuc. vi. 45, vii. 48.
THE EPHEBIC INSCRIPTIONS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY
(Dealing with Attica only)
I. C.I.A. IV. ii. 574 d.
“The epheboi of the Hippothontid tribe, who were enrolled when Ktesikles was Archon (334-333 B.C.), having been crowned by the Boule and Demos, offered this offering.”
Then follows a mutilated vote of thanks from the people of Eleusis to the epheboi for the discipline which they had preserved while garrisoning the town, and to their Sophronistes, who is to receive a crown, and to have a front seat at local festivals.
II. C.I.A. IV. ii. 563 b.
Decrees in honour of the epheboi of the Kekropid tribe.
(a) By the Kekropid tribe.
“Kallikrates of Aixoné proposed. Whereas the epheboi of the Kekropid tribe, who were enrolled when Ktesikles was Archon (334-333 B.C.), are orderly and do everything that the laws enjoin upon them, and are obedient to the Sophronistes appointed by the people, we pass a vote of thanks to them and crown them with a golden crown of 500 drachmas for their excellent discipline and behaviour. We also pass a vote of thanks to the Sophronistes, Adeistos, son of Antimachos, and award him a golden crown of the aforesaid weight, for that he hath well and diligently directed the epheboi of the Kekropid tribe. This vote to be recorded on a stone pillar and set up in the shrine of Kekrops.”
(b) Vote of the Athenian people.
“Hegemachos, son of Chairemon, proposed. Whereas the epheboi of the Kekropid tribe stationed at Eleusis do well and diligently pay heed to the orders of the Boule and Demos, and do behave themselves orderly, we pass a vote of thanks to them for their good discipline and behaviour, and enact that each of them be crowned with an olive crown. We also pass a vote of thanks to their Sophronistes, Adeistos, son of Antimachos, and decree to him a crown of olive, when he has passed his scrutiny. This vote to be recorded on the offering which the epheboi of the Kekropid tribe offer.”
(c) Vote of Eleusinians.
“Protias proposed. Whereas the epheboi of the Kekropid tribe and their Sophronistes, Adeistos, son of Antimachos, do well and diligently garrison Eleusis, the people of the deme pass a vote of thanks to them and crown each of them with a crown of olive.”
The vote to be recorded as before.
(d) Similar vote of the Athmonian deme in honour of their fellow-demesman, Adeistos.
With this is a list of the epheboi in question, much mutilated.
III. C.I.A. IV. ii. 1571 b.
“Theophanes, son of Hierophon, offered this to Hermes, having been crowned by the epheboi and Sophronistai and Kosmetai.”
This is signed by the epheboi for the years 333-332, 332-331, and 331-330.
IV. C.I.A. IV. ii. 251 b.
A vote of thanks from the Boule and Demos to the epheboi as a whole for their exemplary behaviour, and to their Kosmetes and Sophronistai and teachers. A mutilated list of epheboi follows. This belongs to the year 305-304 B.C.
A vote of thanks of the Pandionid tribe to Philonides, who had been elected by the people Sophronistes of their epheboi, and had performed his duty well.
VI. Böckh, 214 (belonging to 320 B.C.).
(Dug up at Aixoné.)
An extract:—“We pass a vote of thanks to the Sophronistai and crown each of them with a crown of olive, namely, Kimon, son of Megakles, and Puthodoros, son of Putheas … for the zeal they showed in regard to the all-night revel.”
The epheboi took part in a sacrifice and revel in honour of Hebe. Apparently, as a rule, they were noisy and gave trouble to the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. But this year they were kept in order by the Sophronistai. Hence the vote.