The first three classes of Athenian citizens in wealth must all have passed through this training; for, although the two first were liable to cavalry service, they might also be called upon to serve as hoplites.[638] Rich young epheboi, who had plenty of time on their hands, would naturally learn both cavalry and infantry drill. The poorer Zeugitai would only have to learn their duties as heavy infantry, and were probably allowed to spend a good proportion of their time on their farms in Athens. But what about the fourth class, the Thetes? They were not liable to be called out as hoplites, but had to serve on land as light-armed troops or at sea as rowers. Did they also have a recruit course? Now the garrisons of the Athenian forts and walls were hoplites:[639] there is no trace of the Thetes here. But the patrol duties in the mountains can hardly have been performed by heavy troops: it is noticeable that in Xenophon light troops are suggested for this purpose, when Sokrates is developing an elaborate scheme for holding the frontiers of Attica against all invaders.[640] In the next century, at any rate, light troops were used for this purpose. In a later work Xenophon talks of “those who are ordered to occupy the forts and those who have to serve as peltasts and patrol the country,”[641] in a passage where he is clearly referring to the epheboi. Thus there are two classes, the garrisons, who would naturally be hoplites, and the patrols, who are peltasts, suitably equipped for mountaineering. But the peltasts only began to appear towards the close of the Peloponnesian War: the first mention of them is in Thucydides’ account of the army of Brasidas. Before this time, the light troops were archers and some slingers; thus, in the monument to those of the Erechtheid tribe who fell in the year 459, after the hoplites four archers are mentioned.[642] But they were a small force: there were only 1600 of them in 431 B.C. The majority of the Thetes served in the ships. In the Birds of Aristophanes, which appeared in 414, when it was a question of repelling a sudden raid, just after the peripoloi have been mentioned, Peisthetairos bids his immediate attendants arm themselves with slings and bows: these are clearly the weapons for a flying column despatched in pursuit of raiders.[643]
The passage of Xenophon makes it clear that there were peltasts in the ephebic force in the fourth century; that of Aristophanes suggests the probability of archers and slingers among them in the fifth. But whether these light-armed troops consisted of enterprising Zeugitai who added this training to their hoplite drill, or were a small detachment of Thetes, cannot be fixed. Thetes must, at any rate, not have been numerous in the ephebic force, for they could not have spared the time necessary for such lengthy training.[644]
As a rule, the epheboi were not expected to do more than guard the frontier and repel an occasional foray: even this, however, must have given them plenty of employment in war-time. But they shared in Muronides’ great victory in the Megarid in 458, when Athens had to use her reserves.[645] Either they or the “foreign legion” joined in a later invasion of Megara.[646] But as a rule they served for home defence only. Their recruit-course ended with their twentieth year: henceforth they were ordinary Athenian citizens and soldiers.
In about 332 B.C., when Lukourgos delivered his speech against Leokrates, the old ephebic system seems still to have been in force. The suggestion that Leokrates might have evaded the ephebic oath is only rhetorical, for the orator immediately goes on to assume that he took it.[647] In 328, the probable date of Aristotle’s Athenian Constitution, it seems still to have been in existence, for the philosopher records it as part of the contemporary regime. The inscriptions support these authorities. A list of epheboi of the Kekropid tribe enrolled in 334 is given under the vote of thanks: the upper part of the list is gone, but the numbers were apparently large.[648] Some forty-four names can be inferred from the fragments, belonging to six or seven demes out of the twelve which composed the tribe; but apparently the smallest contingents are at the bottom, so there may well have been a hundred names in the tribe, and 1000 epheboi altogether. Considering the impoverishment of Attica and the consequent decrease in the hoplite classes, this is probably a fair proportion of epheboi.[649] A tribal contingent is still large enough to serve as a garrison for Eleusis, and to act by itself.
But in the next century the numbers drop down to twenty-nine and twenty-three. The service must have been voluntary. Moreover, brothers are found serving together, from which it may be inferred that the exact age qualification was no longer regarded.[650] Philosophy and literature become subjects of study; and a library, swollen by gifts from old epheboi, is collected. Foreigners begin to be enrolled in the second century, and in course of time outnumber the native Athenians. Although the old military service is preserved, no doubt in a mummified condition, the system of the epheboi develops into the Athenian university, where young Romans like Cicero’s son came to learn philosophy, though they had little to learn from Athens in military matters. The Sophronistai and Kosmetes become the Proctors and Chancellor, the special festivals the compulsory services, of the new University. The torch-races, the military duties, and the naval races[651] become its athletics. It is the old conscription system of Athens, not the schools of Plato or Isokrates, that gives birth to the first University.
The system of epheboi was represented at Sparta by the κρυπτοί [kryptoi]. We hear of an archephebos at Argos, and a gumnasiarchos who manages the epheboi at Troizen.[652] In the Megarid and in Boiotia the epheboi were trained as cavalry, hoplites, or peltasts.[653] An ephebarchos can be traced in Teos. There were patrol-houses, and so possibly epheboi patrols in the territory of Syracuse.[654] This period of special training for military duties seems to have been general all over Hellas. Plato adopts it without demur in the Republic and Laws.
[612] Aristot. Ἀθ. Πολ. 42 for these examinations.
[613] Luk. ag. Leok. 18. 76.
[614] Pollux, viii. 105-106, etc.
[615] κραίνοντες. Note the archaic word.