[614]. Πραΰνομοι. Cham. Pont. ap. Athen. xiv. 18.
[615]. Thus demons were expelled by the sound of brass bells.—Magius, Var. Lect. p. 205. b.
[616]. Athen. xiv. 18. Apollon. ap. Schweigh. Animad. xii. p. 399. on the story, and bronze votive offerings on the Tænarian promontory of the musician Arion.—Herod. i. 23. seq. Dion. Chrysost. Orat. xxxvii. p. 455. Pausan. i. 24. Ælian. de Nat. Animal. xii. 45.
[617]. Polit. viii. 3.
CHAPTER V.
EXERCISES OF YOUTH.
Simultaneously with the above studies,[[618]] that highly intricate and artificial system of exercises denominated gymnastics occupied a considerable portion of the time of youth. Among northern nations the influence of education is requisite to soften the manners and check ferocity; but in the south hardihood must in general be the fruit of discipline, and flourishes only while assiduously cultivated. Thus we find that the Persians,[[619]] by acting on the advice of Crœsos, and teaching the Lydians to become musicians and shopkeepers, uprooted entirely their martial spirit. In Greece, however, during the flourishing period of her history there was more danger that the passion for war should drown all others, than that its influence should be too feeble. Among the Athenians particularly, that restless energy of character, so marvellous and so distasteful to the Dorians, sought vent in dangerous and distant wars and stupendous schemes of ambition. This characteristic trait is adduced by Plato for the purpose of suggesting a contrast with the rival race. He had been dwelling, to his Cretan and Spartan companions, on the exercises necessary for pregnant women,[[620]] and observing their astonishment, he could understand, he said, how it might appear extraordinary to them, but at Athens his recommendation would be perfectly intelligible; for there, people were rather too active than otherwise. The difficulty always was to find becoming employment. Accordingly, for lack of something better, not merely boys but grown-up men, comprehending nothing of the dolce far niente, employed themselves in breeding cocks, quails, and other birds for fighting, and the care of these imposed on them the necessity of much exercise. To be sure, these cock-fighters, during their professional perambulations, presented a spectacle infinitely ludicrous. All regard to appearances was abandoned. With a couple of small cocks[[621]] in their hands, and an old one under either arm, they sallied forth, like vagabonds who had been robbing a henroost, to give their favourite animals air and gentle exercise, and thus laden often strolled several miles into the country.
To such a people the gymnasium opened up a source of peculiar delight, and in the end became a passion prejudicial to the cultivation of the understanding. But within the bounds of moderation it was prescribed by philosophers in lieu of physic, and as an antidote against those pale faces and emaciated frames, too common where intellectual studies are ardently pursued.[[622]] It was a law of Solon, that every Athenian[[623]] should be able to read and to swim; and the whole spirit of Attic legislation, leaving the poor to the exercise of industrious and hardy occupations, tended to create among the opulent and the noble a taste for field-sports, horsemanship, and every martial and manly exercise.[[624]] The difficulty, of course, was to render them subordinate to mental cultivation, and to blend both so cunningly together as to produce a beautiful and harmonious system of discipline, well fitted to ripen and bring to greatest perfection every power and faculty of body and mind.
The practises of the gymnasium may be traced backward to the remotest antiquity, and probably commenced among the warriors of the heroic ages,[[625]] in the peaceful intervals occurring between expeditions, from the desire to amuse their leisure by mimic representations of more serious contests. At first, no doubt, the exercises, frequently performed in honour of the gods,[[626]] were few and rude; but by the age of Homer they had assumed an artificial and regular form, and comprehended nearly all such divisions of the art as prevailed in later times. Other views than those with which they were instituted, caused them to be kept up. When reflection awoke, it was perceived that in these amicable contests men acquired not only force and agility, a martial bearing, the confidence of strength, beauty, and lightness of form; but, along with them, that easy cheerfulness into which robust health naturally blossoms.[[627]] In fact, so far were the legislators of Greece from designing by gymnastics to create, as Montesquieu[[628]] supposes, a nation of mere athletes and combatants, that they expressly repudiate the idea, affirming that lightness, agility, a compactly knit frame, health, but chiefly a well-poised and vigorous mind, were the object of this part of education. In order the better to attain this point, Plato in his republic ordains that boys be completed in their intellectual studies, which in his ideal state they were to be at the age of sixteen, before they entered the gymnasium, the exercises of which were to be the companions of simple music. From converting their citizens into athletes they were prevented by experience; for it was quickly discovered that those men who made a profession of gymnastics acquired, indeed, by their diet and peculiar discipline a huge stature and enormous strength, but were altogether useless in war, being sleepy, lethargic, prodigious eaters, incapable of enduring thirst or hunger, and liable to the attacks of sudden and fatal diseases if they departed in the least degree from their usual habits and regimen.[[629]]
Already in the Homeric age, gymnastics, though not as yet so named, constituted the principal object of education, and many branches of the art had even then been carried to a high degree of perfection.[[630]] The passion for it descended unimpaired to the Spartans, whose polity, framed solely for the preservation of national independence and the acquisition of glory in war, inspired little fondness for mental pursuits, but left the youth chiefly to the influence of the gymnasia, which gradually created in them a temper of mind compounded of insensibility and ferocity,[[631]] not unlike that of the North American Indians. This, however, they above all things prized, though as has been justly observed their exercises could in no sense be considered among the aids to intellectual cultivation.[[632]]