In fact the fortunes of war often in those days reduced men of virtue and ability to the condition of slaves, when they would naturally be chosen as the governors of youth. Thus we find Diogenes the Cynic purchased by a rich Corinthian, who intrusted to him the education of his sons. The account which antiquity has left us of his sale, reception by his master, and manner of teaching, being extremely brief, we shall here give it entire. Hermippos[[559]] who wrote a small treatise called the Sale of Diogenes, observes that when the philosopher was exposed in the slave-market and interrogated respecting his qualifications, he replied that “He could command men;” and then addressing himself to the herald, bade him inquire whether there was any one present who wanted a master. Being forbidden to sit down, he said “This matters nothing, for fish are bought in whatever way they may lie.” He remarked also, that he wondered that when people were buying a pot or a dish they examined it on all sides, whereas when they purchased a man they were contented with simply looking at him. Afterwards, when he had become the slave of Xeniades, he informed his owner that he expected the same obedience to be paid to him as men yield to a pilot or a physician.

It is further related by Eubulos, who likewise wrote a treatise on this incident, that Diogenes conducted with the utmost care the education of the children under his charge. In addition to the ordinary studies, he taught them to ride, to draw the bow, to use the sling, and to throw the javelin. In the palæstra, moreover, where, contrary to the Athenian practice he remained to watch over the boys, Diogenes would not permit the master of the Gymnasium to exercise them after the manner of the athletæ; but in those parts only of gymnastics, which had a tendency to animate them and strengthen their constitutions. They learned also by heart,[[560]] under his direction, numerous sentences from the poets and historians, as well as from his own writings. It was his practice likewise very greatly to abridge his explanations in order that they might the more easily be committed to memory. At home he habituated them to wait on themselves, to be content with frugal fare, and drink water, from which it may be inferred that others drank wine. He accustomed them to cut their hair close, not to be fastidious in dress, and to walk abroad with him barefoot and without a chiton, silent and with downcast eyes.[[561]] He also went out with them to hunt. On their part they took great care of him, and pleaded his cause with their parents. He therefore grew old in the family, and they performed for him the rites of sepulture.

Now what Diogenes was in the house of Xeniades numerous pædagogues were doubtless found to be in other parts of Greece. But the majority it is thought were open to blame; and so they are everywhere, and so they would be, though taken from the best classes of mankind. That is, they were men with many failings, far from what could be wished; but that their character upon the whole was respectable seems to me demonstrated by the powers delegated to them by the parents. For not only could they use upon occasion, as we have said, menace and harsh language,—they were even permitted to have recourse to blows, in order to preserve their pupils from vices which none would have sooner taught than they, had their characters been such as is commonly believed. For example, would they have made a drunkard the guardian of a boy’s sobriety? a thief the guardian of his honesty? a libertine of his chastity? a coarse and ribald jester the inculcator of modesty and purity of language?[[562]]

At home, of course, the influence and example of the parents surpassed all other influences, of the mother more especially, who up to their manhood retained over her sons the greatest authority. Of this a playful illustration occurs in the Lysis of Plato.[[563]] Socrates, interrogating the youth respecting the course of his studies, inquires archly whether when in the harem he was not as a matter of course permitted to play with his mother’s wool basket, and loom, and spathe, and shuttle?

“If I touched them,” replied Lysis, laughing, “I should soon feel the weight of the shuttle upon my fingers.”

“But,” proceeds the philosopher, “if your mother or father require anything to be read or written for them, they, probably, prefer your services to those of any other person?”

“No doubt.”

“And in this case, as you have been instructed in reading and spelling, they allow you to proceed according to your own knowledge. So likewise, when you play to them on the lyre, they suffer you, as you please, to relax or tighten the chords, to touch them with the fingers, or strike them with the plectron,—do they not?”

“Certainly.”

From this it would appear that the authority of the parents was equal; though generally at Athens, as Plato[[564]] elsewhere complains, greater reverence was paid to the commands of the mother even than to those of the father. Indeed to be wanting in respect to her was there deemed the ne plus ultra of depravity.[[565]] The father, however, of necessity took a considerable share in the instruction and moral training of his son,[[566]] who at home profited by his conversation, and, arrived at the proper age, accompanied him abroad.[[567]] When reduced to the state of orphanhood the republic took children under its own protection, not considering it safe to intrust them to the sole guidance of masters or pædagogues.