3. In Crete the boys, as long as they remained in the house of their father, were said to dwell in darkness.[1446] At this period they were admitted into the syssitia of their respective fathers, where they sat together on the ground; after the syssitia they formed themselves into societies under separate paidonomi.[1447] It was not till their seventeenth year that they were enrolled in the agelæ,[1448] so that the education was here entrusted to the family for a longer period than at Sparta. They remained in the agelæ till married, and consequently even after they had attained the age of manhood; hence in the extant treaty between the Latians and Olontians, it is required that the agelæ also should take the oath.[1449] From the circumstance, [pg 312] however, that these troops of young men were brought together by one of the most wealthy and illustrious in their body, whose father held the office of commander (ἀγελάτης), led them to the chase and the games, and exercised the right of punishment over them;[1450] we perceive that a far greater influence, as well over the government[1451] as the education, was permitted to particular families in Crete than at Sparta, whilst the system itself was less strict and impartial. The age of manhood was in Crete dated from the time of admittance into the male gymnasia (there called δρόμοι;)[1452] hence a person who had exercised ten years among the men was called δεκάδρομος;[1453] the youth who had not as yet wrestled or run in them ἀπόδρομος.[1454] We have no account respecting other Doric towns, and merely know that the classes of the ephebi at Cyrene were called from the number of each, the “three hundred.”[1455]
4. Thus far respecting the arrangements for training the youths. The education itself was partly bodily, partly mental; although the division must not be drawn too strictly, since each exercise of the body includes at the same time that of the mind, at least of its hardihood, patience, and vigour. The Greeks, however, used the general terms of gymnastic for the [pg 313] former, and music for the latter of these branches. It is well known that the Dorians paid more attention than any other Greeks to gymnastic exercises;[1456] and it has been above remarked, that these exercises in their proper sense first originated among the Cretans and Spartans; the latter in particular have often been censured for practising them in an immoderate degree.[1457] This want of moderation, however, though it occurred in later times, is never perceivable in the maxims and ideas of the Dorians, who in this, as in several other cases, knew how to set bounds to youthful ardour, and check its pernicious effects. Aristotle himself[1458] remarks concerning the Spartan education, that it did not tend to form athletes, who considered gymnastic exercises as the chief business of life; and that the exercises tending to the beauty and elasticity of the frame were accurately separated from those of an opposite character, is shown by the absolute prohibition of the rougher exercises of boxing and the pancration;[1459] the latter being a mixture of wrestling [pg 314] and boxing, in which the fall of either party did not decide the victory, but the most violent contest often took place when the combatants were struggling on the ground. The reason of this is said to be, that in these alone an express confession of the defeated party by the raising of the hand, served to put an end to the contest; and that Lycurgus would not permit such an avowal to his Spartans. But the real reason is probably that stated above. On the other hand, gladiators (ὁπλόμαχοι) who publicly exhibited their skill in the use of arms, were not tolerated in Laconia,[1460] probably because the use of arms was thought too serious for mere sport and display. Nevertheless the colony of Cyrene adopted this custom from Mantinea in Arcadia,[1461] under their legislator Demonax.[1462]
5. The Doric race, to whom the elevation of gymnastic contests into great national festivals was principally owing, were probably likewise the first who introduced crowns in lieu of other prizes of victory. The gymnastic combatants in Homer are excited by real rewards; but from the advanced state of civilization on which the Dorians stood in other respects, it is probable that they also purified the exhibition of bodily activity from all other motives than the love of honour. The first crown was bestowed at Olympia, and was gained in the seventh Olympiad by Daicles a Dorian of Messenia.[1463] How much gymnastic exercises [pg 315] were practised in the different Doric states, may be collected from the extant catalogues of the conquerors at the Olympian, and Pythian games: some conclusions may even be drawn from an examination of Corsini's Catalogue. This shows that the Spartans never practised either boxing or the pancration,[1464] and their principles were so generally recognized at the Olympian games, over which they possessed great influence, that boys were not till a very late period permitted to contend in the pancration.[1465] On the other hand, many conquerors in the race came from Sparta, particularly between the 20th and 50th Olympiads: besides numerous pentathli and wrestlers: amongst the former Philombrotus (Olymp. 26-28.), amongst the latter Hipposthenes (Olymp. 37-43.) and his son Hetœmocles are distinguished by the number of crowns gained at Olympia; the first victors in both contests were also Lacedæmonians. Before the 9th Olympiad, the Elean catalogues mention Messenians in particular as victors in the race: from the 49th Olympiad, the natives of Croton are conspicuous as victors in the stadium; of these, Tisicrates and Astylus occupy the whole period between the 71st and 75th Olympiads. At the same time the swift-footed Phallys was thrice victorious at the Pythian games: this champion was likewise the wonder of his age in the pentathlon (a contest requiring extraordinary activity), but particularly in the exercise of leaping,[1466] [pg 316] being also a warrior and athlete. The gymnastic training of the young Crotoniats at that time attained the height of the development of the body in equal beauty and strength; Croton was celebrated for its beautiful boys and youths.[1467]
During this period there existed at Croton a school of wrestlers, the chief of whom was Milo, who from the 62nd Olympiad was victorious in almost every one of the four principal games, more frequently than any other Greek. It was however whilst the philosophy of Pythagoras directed the public institutions of Croton, and influenced its manners, that this city outshone the rest of Greece by its warriors and athletes.[1468] Milo himself, the fabulous champion of posterity, was at the same time a sage and hero. But the conquest of Sybaris, the destruction of the Pythagorean league, and the adoption of the Achæan constitution, soon put an end to this system, and Croton, without suffering any external change, lost at the end of the 75th Olympiad the whole of her internal vigour. As the athletes of this town followed in their choice of exercises the fundamental principles of Spartan discipline, the case was reversed amongst the Rhodians, particularly whilst the family of Diagoras flourished, [pg 317] which produced more than six boxers, the first of their day, and men of gigantic bodily strength.[1469] The Æginetans were famed for their dexterity in the contests, and from the 45th Olympiad till the dissolution of their state, bore off numerous victories in the race, wrestling, and pancration, and were particularly distinguished as boys.[1470] The distant colonies in Sicily and Libya took little interest in gymnastic contests: the latter expected more glory from their renowned horses and chariots,[1471] the former from their breed of mules.[1472] The Cretans, although particularly distinguished in running, fought (according to Pindar, whose statement is confirmed by these catalogues) “like gamecocks in the arena of their own court.”[1473] It is not possible to detail the peculiarities of the Doric states in their management of the various exercises, till the customs observed at their contests, particularly in wrestling, have been more accurately examined.[1474]
6. But all the exercises in the gymnasium of Sparta were esteemed of perhaps less importance to the education of the body, than another class, the object of which was to harden the frame by labour [pg 318] and fatigue. The body was obliged to undergo heat and cold (the extremes of which were felt in an immoderate degree throughout the narrow valley of Sparta),[1475] likewise hunger, thirst and privations of every description. To this they were trained by frequent hunting on the mountains, in which manner the youths of Crete were also exercised,[1476] as also in the agelæ, under the agelates.[1477] Next came the laborious service in the most distant parts of the Laconian territory, amidst which the young men of Sparta grew up from youth to manhood, obliged to administer to their own wants without the assistance of a servant.[1478] The boys were also inured to hardships, by being forced to obtain their daily nourishment by stealing; for this custom was also limited to a particular period in the education of the sons of the Equals.[1479] We should certainly afford at the best but a very partial representation of these peculiar customs, if we were to single out some striking peculiarity from a connected system, and attempt to examine in detail a subject which should be criticised generally, or not at all. According to the scattered fragments of our information, the state of the case was as follows:[1480] the boys at a certain period were generally banished from the town, and all communion with men, and were obliged to lead a wandering life in the fields and forests. When thus excluded, they were forced to obtain, by force or cunning [pg 319] the means of subsistence from the houses and court-yards, all access to which was at this time forbidden them; frequently obliged to keep watch for whole nights, and always exposed to the danger of being beaten, if detected. To judge this custom with fairness, it should only be regarded in the connexion which we have explained above. The possession of property was made to furnish a means of sharpening the intellect, and strengthening the courage of the citizens, by forcing the one party to hold and the other to obtain it by a sort of war. The loss of property which was thus occasioned, appeared of little importance to a state where personal rights were so little regarded; and the mischievous consequences were in some measure avoided by an exact definition of the goods permitted to be stolen,[1481] which were in fact those, that any Spartan who required them for the chase, might take from the stock of another. Such was the idea upon which this usage was kept up; it might possibly however have originated in the ancient mountain-life of the Dorians, when they inhabited mounts Œta and Olympus, cooped up within narrow boundaries, and engaged in perpetual contests with the more fortunate inhabitants of the plains: as a relic and memorial of those habits, it remained, contrasted with the independent and secure mode of life of the Spartans at a later period. Respecting the triumph of Spartan hardihood, viz. the scourging at the altar of Artemis Orthia, it has been above remarked in what manner, by a change made in the genuine Grecian [pg 320] spirit, the gloomy rites of a sanguinary religion had been turned to a different and useful purpose.[1482]
7. The gymnastic war-games, which were peculiar to the Cretans and Spartans, still remained to be noticed as a characteristic feature of the Doric education. At the celebration of these, the ephebi, after a sacrifice to Ares in a temple at Therapne, went through a regular battle unarmed, in an island formed by ditches, near the garden called Platanistas, and exerted every means in their power to obtain the victory.[1483] In Crete the boys belonging to one syssition frequently engaged in battle against those of another, the youths of one agele against those of another, and these contests bore a still nearer resemblance to a real engagement. They marched to the sound of flutes and lyres, and besides fists, weapons of wood and iron were employed.[1484] Yet although at Sparta gymnastic exercises were certainly brought to a nearer resemblance with war than in the rest of Greece, it would be erroneous [pg 321] on that account to conclude, that the aim of all bodily education among the Dorians was to obtain superiority in war. Enough has been alleged to prove satisfactorily to any unprejudiced reader, that the chief object of Spartan discipline was to invigorate the bodies of the youth, without rendering their minds at the same time either brutal or ferocious. And that this endeavour to attain, as it were, an ideal beauty and strength of limb, was not altogether unsuccessful, may be seen from the fact, that the Spartans, as well as the Crotoniats, were about the 60th Olympiad (540 B.C.) the most healthy of the Greeks,[1485] and that the most beautiful men as well as women were found amongst them.[1486]
8. The female sex underwent in this respect the same education as the male, though (as has been above remarked) only the virgins. They had their own gymnasia,[1487] and exercised themselves, either naked or lightly clad, in running, wrestling, or throwing the quoit and spear.[1488] It is highly improbable that youths or men were allowed to look on, since in the gymnasia of Lacedæmon no idle bystanders were permitted; every person was obliged either to join the rest, or withdraw.[1489] Like the Elean girls in the temples of [pg 322] Here, so at Sparta the eleven Bacchanalian virgins exhibited their skill in the race at a contest in honour of their god.
The whole system of gymnastic exercise was placed at Sparta under the superintendence of magistrates of the highest dignity, the bidiæi; and the ephors every ten days inspected the condition of the boys, to ascertain whether they were of a good habit of body, if so general a meaning can be attached to the testimony of Agatharchides.[1490]
The whole of this book from the first chapter has been employed in considering the manners and physical existence of the Dorians (the δίαιτα Δωρικὴ). We now come to the second great division of education, viz. music; in which term the whole mental education of the Doric race was included, if we except writing, which was never generally taught at Sparta.[1491] Nor indeed was it essential in a nation, where, as in Crete, laws, hymns, and the praises of illustrious men, that is the jurisprudence and history of such a people, were taught in the schools of music.[1492]