Old Greek Education

by J. P. Mahaffy

This state of things, which reminds us so strongly of the mediæval universities, and is inestimably honorable to a growing age of culture when the masses want leavening, may be driven to a dangerous excess when the educated classes become too numerous; for it dissuades every ambitious young man from agriculture and the commercial pursuits so necessary to a nation’s welfare. And as this is the case in Greece now, so it was doubtless the case when, in the days of Hellenism, Athens offered philosophy at so cheap a rate to all the Greek-speaking world. The class of learned idlers who would not pursue any mercantile calling increased throughout Greece.[62] Although, therefore, the condition of things at Oxford and Cambridge—which, in addition to their vast endowments, demands a heavy outlay from their alumni—is not to be defended, there is an opposite error, and one likely to do more mischief: it is the setting-up of the lower classes to seek university degrees with a minimum of expense and trouble, and consequently a minimum of culture. This mistaken course, which now threatens the Irish people, in addition to all their other misfortunes, tends strongly to increase (as is the case in modern Greece) a dangerous class of social and political malcontents, who consider that their high education is not recognized, and that they have no scope for their literary or political talents.[63]

§ 72. We turn to the endowments by bequest, which were the direct cause of the establishment of philosophical schools at Athens. This idea seems due to Plato, who acquired for his school a local habitation as well as a name. It is well known that from early times there were two gymnasia (in the Greek sense) provided for the youth who had finished their schooling—that in the groves of the suburb called after the hero Academus, and that called the Kynosarges, near Mount Lycabettus. The latter was specially open to the sons of citizens by foreign wives. Thirdly, in Pericles’ day was established the Lykeion, near the river Ilisos. They were all provided with water, shady walks and gardens, and were once among the main beauties of Athens and its neighborhood.

The Academy became so identified with Plato’s teaching that his pupils Antisthenes (the Cynic) and Aristotle settled beside or in the Kynosarges and Lykeion respectively, and were known by their locality till the pupils of Antisthenes removed to the frescoed portico (stoa) in Athens, and were thence called Stoics. Epicurus taught in his own garden in Athens. All these settlements were copied from Plato’s idea. He apparently taught both in the public gymnasium and in a private possession close beside it; and in his will, preserved by Diogenes Laertius, he bequeaths his two pieces of land to Speusippus, thus designating him as his formal successor. His practice being followed, the title scholarch soon grew up for the head of the school, and the owner of a life interest in the διατριβή or locality devoted to the purpose. Each master was called the successor (διάδοχος) of his predecessor, and the succession of these heads of schools has been traced with more or less success all through the Hellenistic period.

§ 73. This is, no doubt, the cause of the fixed and traditional character of the philosophical schools at Athens, and one main reason why this city became in the Roman Empire, when original research had died out, the principal university of the old world. The successive scholarchs seem to have thought of nothing but the repeating and expounding of the founder’s views; and it is mentioned as a special loss to the Peripatetic school that Aristotle’s works were left away from the school, and travelled into the possession of Neleus to Scepsis in the Troad. Hence the scholarchs, instead of developing a new doctrine, were simply helpless, and only taught what they could remember, or what had been preserved by fragments in the note-books of the school. The proper investment of the school property was also the scholarch’s duty, and we hear that in the fourth century A.D., under Proclus, the Platonic endowment was worth more than one thousand pieces of gold annually. Suidas tells us[64] “that from time to time pious patrons of learning bequeathed in their wills to the adherents of the school the means of living a life of philosophic leisure.” This is very analogous to the bequests of pious founders in the Middle Ages, especially of those who had the far-seeing wisdom to free their endowments from the penalty of teaching—a humane and enlightened intention, now frustrated by the rage for turning universities into mere training establishments.

The designating of a successor by will, or shortly before the scholarch’s death, became the rule in the principal schools of rhetoric, except that at Athens election by the school came to take its place. So far as we know, this was first suggested by Lycon, Aristotle’s third successor, if not by Theophrastus. But the will of Lycon, preserved by Diogenes, is express: “I bequeath the peripatos to my pupils Bulon, Kallinos, etc., without condition. Let them appoint whomsoever they think will be most zealous and best keep together the school. May the rest of the school stand by him, for my sake and that of the place.” These words not only imply that there was a staff of assistants, selected from favorite pupils who intended to make philosophy their profession, but is peculiarly interesting as naturally suggesting a competitive examination, without naming it, as the method of choice. In Lucian’s “Eunuch,” the appointment is described as an election by votes of the chief men, after an examination of the candidate in his knowledge of, and faith in, the system. There were cases when the electing body was not the school, but the Areopagus, or the council; for the hatred and jealousy of the schools made an election from without safer. When the chief literary posts at Athens became salaried by the State, such interference was natural, and disputed elections were even referred to the emperor at Rome.

§ 74. Eunapius tells us of an interesting dispute of this kind for the office of Sophist (the highest literary post at Athens) on the death of Julianus, 340 A.D., and its consequent vacation. Six candidates—four of them pupils of Julianus, and two other needy persons—were selected by common consent; the Roman proconsul was president of the electing court, and so violent was the canvassing that he was obliged to interfere and order people out of Athens. The candidates handed in essays and made set speeches. There were claqueurs ready with their prepared applause. Then the proconsul again cited them, and gave them a theme for an extempore speech. Five refused, saying they were not accustomed to pour out, but to think out, their orations. Prohæresius, a pupil of Julianus, alone took up the challenge, and, all applause being interdicted, maintained his reputation splendidly. Nevertheless, he did not then obtain the chair; for his opponents secured influential electors with dinners and presents, and, no doubt, the social talents of a Sophist in this chair were very important. They took shameful ways of succeeding; “but, indeed,” says Eunapius, “you can hardly blame them for working their case as best they could.”

This interesting story belongs to later days, when the chairs of philosophy and rhetoric at Athens came under State support and control. In early days, up to the Christian era, the schools were perfectly private, free, and independent of the State. We hear, indeed, of such decrees as that of the Thirty Tyrants forbidding rhetoric and philosophy to be taught. But though any ancient state, even a free democracy, would have thought itself quite justified in such interference for public reasons, there is no definite attempt at such a policy till the days of Theophrastus, when (about 316 B.C.) Sophocles, son of Amphicleides of Sunium, passed a law that no one should open a school of philosophy without the approval of the senate and people. There was a formal exodus of philosophic students, who only returned with Theophrastus, when Sophocles was convicted under the law against illegal procedure (γραφὴ παρανόμων), and his law repealed. This attempt of Sophocles might have been defended from Plato’s “Republic” and “Laws,” where the philosopher distinctly recommends State control of education. But it was, no doubt, the antidemocratic tone of the schools, especially of the Platonic school, which prompted this action, for we hear that Demosthenes’ nephew, Demochares, and other democratic leaders, supported Sophocles, on the special ground that Plato’s school had supplied most of the later tyrants to Greece.

The true way of controlling education had not yet dawned upon the public men of Athens—the endowing of chairs, with a power of removal. We hear, indeed, gradually of small salaries for sophronistæ and other guardians of youth, but direct State patronage of teachers first meets us among the Egyptian and Pergamene successors of Alexander. Then the Roman emperors, as we shall presently see, appointed regular professors. But all this took the form of honoring a great teacher, as states honored him with civic freedom, immunity from taxes, bronze statues, and the like. His special teaching was not criticised or directed from without.

§ 75. The time came, however, when more than formal or irregular honors were paid to the teaching profession. The Roman emperors established chairs (θρόνοι) of theoretical and practical rhetoric, and of the four sects of philosophy, the former of which they endowed with 10,000 drachmæ per annum each. The highest chair was entitled the Sophist’s chair, that term having, after all, maintained its old respectability, and recovered from the obloquy thrown upon it by Socrates and Plato. There was even a subdivision of the Sophist’s chair, a second chair being called the political chair. These appointments seem to have been the device of Hadrian, though L. Egnatius Lollianus of Ephesus was the first salaried occupant of the chair, and was appointed under Antoninus Pius. The same policy, carried out by Marcus Aurelius, gave immunity from taxes and civic duties to all the learned professions—physicians, philosophers, rhetoricians, and grammarians. Then the term δημοσιεύειν (to be a public servant), once applied to a public hangman or a dispensary doctor, now came to mean a public and salaried professor.

The salaries were paid in kind—five Roman modii of wheat per month—and were thus free from the great fluctuations in money values common in those days. The pupils’ fees were paid in money, and were due on January 1; but we hear many complaints of irregularity in this respect. This was mainly caused by the ambition of the rival teachers to have their class-rooms filled, and hence their indulgence in the case of the poor and the procrastinating, who could not or would not pay, and were nevertheless permitted to continue their studies. One hundred drachmæ paid down seem to have been thought an average fee; but great variations were allowed, and there was evidently no tariff, or any such credentials as our parchments to show that a man had attended his course, paid his fees regularly, and obtained what we call a degree. Libanius mentions an amusing case of a man sending with his son to Athens a donkey, by the sale of which the fees were to be paid. No doubt, the profits made by the greater chairs were considerable, and the sophist and rhetor, with their higher colleagues, represented Athens on state occasions as civic dignitaries. They were expected to go out to meet any very distinguished visitor, and address him with complimentary harangues; they had to present themselves officially every month to the proconsul at Corinth, presumably to report on the state of Athens. We hear that they obtained leave of absence only by special permission and with difficulty. In contrast to this importance and splendor, we have a pitiable account in Libanius of the miseries of the rhetors at Antioch, who strove to keep up a respectable appearance while they were persecuted with duns and creditors, and almost starved at home.