Secondary Education, as long as it was supplied by the Sophists, reached every village in the Hellenic world; later, it had a tendency to be confined to the large towns. The Tertiary system of military training and special gymnastics for the epheboi would seem, from the scanty evidence of the inscriptions, to have been well-nigh universal.
I will now proceed to give a more detailed account of the several branches of this widespread educational system. As the evidence comes almost entirely from Athens, my description will deal in the main with Athenian education; but, as the same type prevailed throughout the greater part of Hellas, the description may be taken as applying to the other cities also.
[98] Herod. ii. 167. Corinth was an exception.
[99] Plato, Laws, 846 D.
[100] Arist. Pol. viii. 2. 4.
[101] Xen. Econ. iv. 3. Sitting was regarded as a slavish attitude, since the free citizen mostly stood or lay down. Xen. Econ. iv. 3.
[102] Plato, Protag. 328 A.
[103] Xen. Revenues, ii. 2.
[104] Plato, Kleitophon, 409 B.
[105] Plato, Rep. 421 E.