[6] Plut. “Alkib.,” c. 2.
[7] This seems to be the interpretation of “Achar.” 920 sq., according to Grasberger.
[8] ix. 103.
[9] I do not know whether so late an authority is valid proof for the early Greek origin of a game. Most certainly the polo played at Constantinople at the same time came from an equestrian people, and not from the Greeks.
[10] There is a possibility of recovering some of them by a careful collection of the ναναρίσματα of the modern Greeks, which in many cases doubtless correspond to their forerunners the βαυκαλήματα of the old Greeks. Stories of Mormo and Gorgo and the Empousa are still current to frighten children, as are also (about Arachova) songs about Charos (the old Charon), the ruthless genius of death. The belief in Lamia is still so common that ἔπνιξεν ἡ Λάμια—Lamia choked it—is a common expression when a child dies suddenly. Cf. Βενίζελος, “On the Private Life of the Old Greeks,” Athens, 1873.
CHAPTER III.
SCHOOL DAYS—THE PHYSICAL SIDE.
§ 13. The most striking difference between early Greek education and ours was undoubtedly this, that the physical development of boys was attended to in a special place and by a special master. It was not thought sufficient for them to play the chance games of childhood; they underwent careful bodily training under a very fixed system, which was determined by the athletic contests of after-life. This feature, which excites the admiration of the modern Germans, and has given rise to an immense literature, is doubtless all the more essential now that the mental training of our boys has become so much more trying; and we can quite feel, when we look at the physical development of ordinary foreigners, how keenly they must envy the freedom of limb and ease of motion, not only as we see it suggested by Greek statues, but as we have it before us in the ordinary sporting Englishman. But it is quite in accordance with their want of practical development, that while they write immense books about the physical training of the Greeks, and the possibility of imitating it in modern education, they seem quite ignorant of that side of English education at our public schools; and yet there they might see in practice a physical education in no way inferior to that described in classical authors. I say it quite deliberately—the public-school boy, who is trained in cricket, football, and rowing, and who in his holidays can obtain riding, salmon-fishing, hunting, and shooting, enjoys a physical training which no classical days ever equalled. The athletic part of this training is enjoyed by all boys at our public schools, though the field sports at home only fall to the lot of the richer or more fortunate.
§ 14. When we compare what the Greeks afforded to their boys, we find it divided into two contrasted kinds of exercise: hunting, which was practised by the Spartans very keenly, and no doubt also by the Eleans and Arcadians, as may be seen from Xenophon’s “Tract on [Hare] Hunting;” and gymnastics, which in the case of boys were carried on in the so-called palæstra, a sort of open-air gymnasium (in our sense) kept by private individuals as a speculation, and to which the boys were sent, as they were to their ordinary schoolmaster.[11] We find that the Spartans, who had ample scope for hunting with dogs in the glens and coverts of Mount Taygetus, rather despised mere exercises of dexterity in the palæstra, just as our sportsmen would think very little of spending hours in a gymnasium. But those Greeks who lived in towns like Athens, and in the midst of a thickly populated and well-cultivated country, could not possibly obtain hunting, and therefore found the most efficient substitute.