“But Sophroniscos, no less than Charidemos, was a father.”

“Exactly; the former was my father, the latter Patrocles’.”

“Then was Charidemos other than a father?”

“He was other than mine.”

“Then he was a father, and not a father? But, come, are you the same thing as a stone?”

“I fear,” replied Socrates, “I shall appear to be no better in your hands, though I do not discover the identity.”

“Well, being other than a stone, you are not a stone; being other than gold, you are not gold. And must not the same thing happen to Charidemos? Being something else than a father, he is not a father.”

“So it seems,” replied the philosopher.

“And what is true of Charidemos,” replied the younger sophist, “must be true of Sophroniscos. Being other than a father, he is not a father: from which, my good friend, it follows that you never had any father at all!^[835]”

Socrates being thus placed on a level with the first man, his friend Ctesippos took up the ball, and sent it with so much force into the face of the sophists, that it somewhat startled them.

“Come, then,” said he, “is not your own father in precisely the same circumstances? Is he not different from my father?”

“Not at all,” answered Euthydemos.

“What, then, he is the same?”

“Exactly.”

“I should be sorry to think so. However, is he my father only, or is he everybody else’s father?”

“Everybody’s, of course; for can you imagine him to be a father, and not a father?”

“I should have thought so,” answered Ctesippos.

“What! that gold is not gold, and that a man is not a man?”

“Not so, friend Euthydemos; but you do not, as the saying is, mingle flax with flax; and your assertion, that your father is the father of all men, seems very extraordinary.”

“But he is, though.”

“Very good; but is he not only the father of men but of horses and every other animal?”

“Of everything!”

“And your mother, in like manner, is the mother of all things?”

“Certainly.”

“Then she is the mother of the sea-hedgehog.”

“And so is yours!”

“And you are the full brother of gudgeons, cubs, and sucking-pigs.”

“So are you!”

“And your father is a dog.”

“And yours, too!”

It was now evident they were in anger, and accordingly Dionysidoros interposed, and observed jocularly,—

“Provided you will answer me, Ctesippos, I undertake to make you confess that your father is just what my brother has said. So, tell me, have you a dog?”

“I have, and a snappish cur he is, too.”

“And has he young ones?”

“Ay, and they are more snappish than himself.”

“Well, now, is not the dog their father?”

“No doubt.”

“And the dog is yours?”

“Certainly.”

“It follows then, if he be a father and yours, that he must be your father; so that his cubs are your brothers.”

Before the young man could reply to this compliment the sophist proceeded:

“Answer me, Ctesippos, a little longer. Do you ever beat that dog?”

“That I do,” replied Ctesippos laughing; “and I wish I could administer the same discipline to you in your turn.”

“Then you beat your own father!”

“The beating,” answered the young man, “would be more justly inflicted on yours, for having knowingly let loose two such sages upon mankind!”^[836]

But these, after all, were but laughing sophists, who, though they had succeeded in confounding and obliterating from their own minds every trace of difference between right and wrong, fell short of that superb degree of wickedness at which Polos, Callicles, and Thrasymachos arrived, at least in speculation. The former were mere babblers, who corrupted a pupil or two whom bad luck threw in their way. Thrasymachos flew at higher game. His sophistry was political,^[837] and his aim the destruction of freedom, by extinguishing that sense of justice on which it must ever be based. The genius of the man was considerable. He had deep thoughts, and investigated boldly; but his sympathies having somehow been early perverted, he grew sombre, fierce, and unsociable, and without the slightest disguise advocated, like our Hobbes,^[838] tyrannical maxims and morals. Money, like the rest, he of course worshipped. Nay, in the conversation at the house of Cephalos he even ventures to sneer rudely at Socrates’ poverty; upon which Glaucon^[839] observes:—"Don’t fear to go unpaid for the instruction you may give him, for we will enter into a subscription on his behalf."^[840] Thrasymachos, however, was still more vain than avaricious. He thirsted to exhibit his notions in order to enjoy the satisfaction arising from shocking those who heard him. He maintained that justice is nothing more than what in any state the rulers think proper to establish; and that, consequently, the ordinances of a tyrant are as binding and as just as the laws of a free state, since by nature all actions are indifferent.

It was, in fact, a part of the sophistical doctrine, to maintain in politics, what Hobbes afterwards advocated, the right of the stronger:—

But because there is in every man’s heart a rooted prejudice in favour of justice, they were fain to argue that all governors, in as far as they deserved the name, would ordain what was best for themselves, and that, whatever it might be, was just:^[841] a very satisfactory doctrine, which has never grown wholly out of fashion. They laughed to scorn, as persons who required nurses to look after them and wipe their noses,^[842] whomsoever they found entertaining the notion that governments were instituted for the good of the governed.

Their staple comparison was always a flock or a herd. What shepherd, they inquired, ever looked after his flock for their benefit, and not for his own use? In like manner magistrates, who, as is proper, hold the chief place in cities, look on the public exactly as if they are so many sheep or oxen, and think of nothing, night or day, but how they may derive most advantage from them. Justice, therefore, is what promotes the interests of the governors, though it may be loss to the governed. The man, esteemed just and pious and holy by the philosopher, was merely, in their opinion, a fool. Whenever anything is to be gained he gets less than any man, and when anything is to be done for the community he does more. He is always ready with his purse whenever anything is to be paid; always out of the way when gain is afloat. The unjust man, on the contrary, knows what he is about. He pays and does as little as possible for the public, and takes from it all he can. The former renders himself disagreeable to his friends and domestics, by refusing to commit any unjust action on their behalf. The latter, on the other hand, unscrupulous in acquisition, is able to oblige many by his wealth if he happens to require their services. Thus even in private life and small matters injustice is to be preferred; but when it operates on a grand scale, plunders whole cities, and usurps over them supreme authority, it reaches the acme of felicity, is saluted by the name of prince, and becomes an object of envy to all mankind.

Nor did they pause even here. It was not enough to show the happiness of vice as vice; they undertook to prove that vice is virtue and virtue vice, which may be considered as their magnum opus. They went to work boldly, but, like the fox of Archilochos,^[843] always kept something of their figure concealed, that, if any necessity arose, they might be able to retreat by treating their whole chain of argumentation as a mere rhetorical exercise. “You appear to be in earnest,” observed Socrates on one occasion. “What does it signify to you whether I am in earnest or not,” replied the sophist, “if you cannot refute what I advance?” With this prudent reserve, they taught that injustice is a powerful and beautiful principle, reckoning it among the virtues, and attributing to it all the characteristics usually attributed to justice.^[844] Pascal, in developing the morals of the Jesuits, describes their principles exactly. They patronised even cutting purses, providing the operator had the ingenuity to conceal his performance. No doubt, in thus arguing, they did violence to their secret convictions, and might, by an able dialectician, be made to feel, though never to acknowledge, the deformity of their doctrines, as Thrasymachos, driven up in a corner by the logic of Socrates, blushes and is chap-fallen;^[845] but as sophistry was their occupation, the misery and degradation was, that, convinced or not convinced, they must still sing the old song. It is evident, in fact, that, like many sophists of other days, they were bold with the lips while the heart within trembled. The light of conscience could not be wholly quenched. They conceived the gods to be armed with power and disposed to exert it, not only against evil doers but against evil speakers also. Pressed upon this point, whether the bad be not obnoxious and the good agreeable to the deities, Thrasymachos would not deny it. And why? Lest he should render himself hateful to them, ἴνα μὴ τοῖς δὲ ἀπέχθωμαι. So that in the worst times of paganism, religion, how corrupt soever, failed not to preserve some influence over men’s minds, to save them from the bestial recklessness into which they seemed desirous to plunge.^[846]

Nevertheless, the sophists on many points did but methodise, condense and embody in florid language the maxims and modes of thinking current in corrupt ages among the vulgar. Their doctrines were but an echo of what was heard in the ecclesiæ, in the law courts, in the theatres, and in the camps. It would have been to little purpose, therefore, to have silenced them, unless, at the same time, the above schools could have been purified, wherein young and old, men and women, imbibed the opinions, maxims, prejudices, which constituted the system of the sophists.^[847] And Plato, who observes this, supplies us, in doing so, with a fresh proof that women frequented the theatre. In one of these four places, he says, they were corrupted: but they were not soldiers, and, therefore, not in the camp; they were not dicasts, and, therefore, not in the law courts; they were neither orators nor voters, and, therefore, not in the ecclesiæ. The evil doctrines they imbibed, therefore, must have been imbibed at the theatre.^[848] Here, too, the youth, disciplined and principled in better things by his philosophical teachers, received a new education which overthrew the former. Deeds and words, condemned by his teachers, he often found to be greeted here with rapturous applause, re-echoed by rocks and walls; while hisses, sneers, or vociferous vituperation would, perhaps, be showered on things he had been taught most to revere. In his feelings, therefore, and internal convictions a revolution was soon effected. He grew ashamed of the notions implanted in him at school. Every lingering sentiment of honour seemed to him an unfortunate prejudice despised by men of the world, and he hastened to shift his notions as a clown does his dress to prepare for admittance into fashionable company.

The sophists, skilled in the study of mankind, soon discovered, that to please and ultimately to rule the ignorant, it was necessary to humour their failings, and, in appearance at least, to adopt their opinions. In a commonwealth, governed by wholesome principles, great men obtain influence, not by resembling the majority but by differing from them. They are popular by the authority of their virtues. They are reverenced with the reverence due to a father from his child, who confides in him from long experience in his love and implicit faith in his honour, and will submit to be rebuked and chastised, and determined by him in his actions from the conviction that his superior wisdom and probity and affection entitle him to rule. But the sophists, and their political disciples, despaired of thus governing the people. In their manners there was none of the dignity, in their minds none of the wisdom, in their resolutions none of that inflexible firmness arising from consciousness of right, which neither threats nor clamour can subdue. They regarded the populace as a huge beast, whose ways and temper they must study, whose passions and desires they must know how to raise and how to satisfy; by what arts they might safely enter his den, stroke his terrible paws, or mount, if they thought proper, on his back and direct his irresistible might against their enemies. And this they esteemed as wisdom, and upon those who excelled in it they bestowed the name of statesmen and philosophers.^[849] Among the arts by which this influence was acquired were flattery and boasting; by the former they disposed people to listen, by the latter they sought to justify them for listening, by dwelling on the wonders they could perform. If they might be believed, they could convert fools into wise men, which philosophers regarded in the light of a miracle. This disposition τὸ θρασὺ καὶ τὸ ἰταμὸν,^[850] as Basilius expresses it, is admirably painted by Plato in the character of Thrasymachos. And the contrast afforded by Socrates makes good, as Muretus observes, the wise remark of Thucydides ὅτιὅτι ἀμαθία μὲν θάρσος, φρόνησις δ᾽ ὄκνον φέρει.

Such, however, as they were, the reputation of the sophists spread far and wide. Even among the barbarians of Asia a desire was felt to have the ear tickled by their eloquence, as we may gather from the letter of Amytocrates, an Indian king, to Antiochos, requesting him to ship off for India as soon as possible, some boiled wine, dried figs, and a sophist, observing that he would very willingly pay the price of him. But Antiochos, either loth to part with so useful a servant of the monarchy, or out of pity for the Indians, whom he suspected to be already sufficiently tormented, replied, that as for boiled wine and figs he might be supplied to his heart’s content, but that with respect to sophists the law prohibited their exportation.^[851] He had all the while, however, without knowing it, abundant specimens of the race in his own realms, where the Brahmins have, time out of mind, cultivated and thriven by the same arts, and maintained the same opinions, as conferred celebrity on the followers of Gorgias and Protagoras. Their practices, indeed, as well as those of the Yoghis, are in India modified by the state of society and public opinion. The wonder which among the Greeks was excited by the advocacy of monstrous doctrines, on the banks of the Ganges, arises out of physical pranks. The Greek sophist tortured his mind, the Indian tortures his body for the edification of the public, but the result is the same; the practitioners thus contrive to subsist in idleness on the earnings of the industrious and credulous.

A different picture is presented to us by the education of the Spartans,^[852] which, almost perfect in its kind, aimed chiefly at unfolding the powers of the body. Mental acquirements in the states of Doric origin were few, and the object even of these seems to have been rather connected with the developement of the animal than the spiritual nature of man, though they were not utterly destitute of all those arts and accomplishments which embellish a life of peace. Little stress, however, can be laid on the elaborate divisions of youth into numerous classes, the intention of which is not stated. There can, nevertheless, be no doubt that much art, reflection and wisdom was exhibited in the forming of the system whose object was the creation of a military character, and through this the enjoyment of the hegemonia or lead in the public affairs of Greece, an honour which Sparta attained to and held during many years.^[853]

A modern writer has correctly remarked that by permitting the state to decide on the lives of infants, the institutions of Lycurgus recognised the authority of the community to regulate, how it pleased, the education they were to receive. The authority of parents over their children was thus all but annihilated, for, although the recognition and feeling of relationship continued after the state had undertaken the training of youth, their influence was exceedingly weakened, a circumstance to which may be attributed the seeming heroism of the Spartan women, who could stoically bear the death of their sons because they had been in a great measure estranged from them.

As, however, the institutions of Lycurgus differed in all things else from those of other Grecian legislators, it is not surprising they should also differ on the subject of education. But it may greatly be doubted whether we altogether comprehend his system. The accounts transmitted to us are in many points contradictory, and it may in general be remarked that on no subject whatever do modern ideas differ so much from those prevalent in antiquity, as on the subject of education. Plutarch and Xenophon, or rather the sophist who assumed his name, two of the authors on whom in this discussion most reliance is usually placed, were prejudiced and credulous, and often, to speak frankly, extremely ignorant. Both were unwilling, even if they possessed the power, to criticise the system, and yet by modern writers their opinions have generally without scruple been adopted. Xenophon himself, as well as the sophist who here apes him, was in predilections a Spartan, and as strongly disposed to satirise and underrate the institutions of his own country as to exaggerate the merits of the Laconian. Even were the trifling essay on the Lacedæmonian republic proved to be his, we should yet lay little stress upon its testimony, unless when corroborated by the evidence of other and better writers.

Elsewhere in Greece,—observes the author of this tract,^[854] whoever he was,—persons, the most solicitous respecting the education of their children, placed over them at the first dawn of intellectual developement, pædagogues, who at the outset undertook their instruction, and afterwards conducted them to the schools where letters, music, and gymnastics were taught. In this respect, however, as a modern writer has shown, the institutions of Sparta were in no degree superior, since Helots were there the instructors of young children; and, on this account, he rejects the story of Plutarch,^[855] that they were compelled to intoxicate themselves, to exhibit to the youths a practical proof of the deformity of drunkenness.^[856] It was contrary, he says, to common sense. But as common sense had very little to do with any part of the system, this is a poor argument, and will not weigh against positive testimony.

Another evil which the Pseudo-Xenophon discovers in the common Hellenic plan of training,^[857] was that lads were indulged with the use of shoes, and rendered effeminate by frequent changes of clean linen, while their appetite, generally keen in boyhood,^[858] was suffered to be the measure of what they ate. Lycurgus, he remarks, managed all these things differently. Instead of remaining under the superintendence of their parents, and frequenting what schools and masters they might judge proper, boys at Sparta passed under a sort of camp discipline regulated by the laws and intrusted to the guardianship of a particular magistrate, whom they denominated a Pædonomos. This part of the system Xenophon^[859] prefers to the Athenian practice of intrusting youth to the care of servile pædagogues. The Pædonomos, however, resembled in many respects the Athenian Gymnasiarch, and, so far as I can perceive, possessed no superiority over him, except that his authority extended beyond school hours. He was, indeed, a kind of despot, vested with the power to call the boys together when he pleased, and inflict chastisement, at his own discretion, on any whom he detected exhibiting the least symptom of effeminacy. To enable him to carry his resolutions instantly into effect he marched about the town like an executioner, attended by men having whips, who at his nod seized the boy delinquent and subjected him at once to the torture. Thus possessing the power of enforcing obedience, a great show at least of reverence attended him.

The privilege of sharing the paternal cares of the Pædonomos was not rigidly confined to the sons of Spartans (πολιτικοὶ παῖδες);^[860] the Mothaces also, Spartans of half blood, and even strangers might share it. Who the Mothaces were it is extremely difficult to determine. Some contend that they were slaves brought up in the family.^[861] But Athenæus, and Phylarchos whom he quotes, state most distinctly that they were free, ἐλεύθεροι μέν εἰσί. In order to remove the unfavourable impression made on mankind by the accounts transmitted to us of Spartan slavery, it has been pretended that they, as well as the Neodamodes, were Helots. Of the Neodamodes, however, the very author on whom reliance is placed asserts the contrary. They were originally slaves indeed, he says, but different from the Helots, ἑτέρους ὄντας τῶν εἱλώτων. With respect to the Mothaces,^[862] notwithstanding the testimony of Hesychius and other grammarians, it seems clear that they were the sons of free though poor Laconians, who, desirous of obtaining for them the rights of Spartans, sent them to be the companions of such youthful citizens as would consent to receive them. It is moreover added that the youth, according to their means, chose one, two, or more of these companions; which shows that although the right of controlling the studies of its children was vested in the state, the expenses, in whole or in part, devolved upon the parents.

The Mothaces, or Mothones as they are sometimes called, were identical with the σύντροφοι:^[863] but the τρόφιμοι were such youthful strangers—for example, the sons of Xenophon^[864] and Phocion—as, by submitting to the severities of Spartan discipline, acquired the freedom of the city, the privilege of aspiring to political distinction, and, according to some writers, even a share of the land. This, if true, would render credible the statement of the philosopher Teles,^[865] who affirms that even Helots, by the means above described, could rise to the rank of Spartans; while they who in this point disobeyed the laws, were they even the children of kings, sank to the condition of Helots, and of course forfeited their estates, otherwise there would have been no land to bestow on the military neophytes. Three of the most remarkable men in Spartan story, Lysander, Gylippos, and Callicratidas were Mothaces, whose fathers were obscure.^[866] It will be seen that we have here the original of that system of education sketched by Xenophon in his Persian Utopia, and designed to recommend monarchy to his countrymen, as that of Sir Thomas More was framed for the contrary purpose.

According to the laws of Lycurgus the heir-apparent to the throne was exempted from the necessity of mixing with his fellow-citizens in the public schools, though the younger members of the royal family occupied the same level with other boys.^[867] That this was an unwise regulation, however, will be at once evident, since no man stands so much in need of severe discipline as a prince, who in spite of correction is too apt to be guided by his unbridled passions. Fact, too, bears out this view, for two of the noblest sovereigns of Sparta, Leonidas and Agesilaos, had been subjected, while boys,^[868] to the correction of their teachers.

It has been already remarked that the spirit of Spartan education was severe. It was, in fact, precisely the same as that which, in the last generation, pervaded the discipline of the Seneka and Mohawk Indians, and produced those numerous examples of patience, fortitude, and magnanimity, together with that force, agility and suppleness of body so greatly admired and, perhaps, envied by civilised nations. It was this stern and martial system that constituted the secret model, according to which Locke fashioned his plan of youthful training, designed rather to produce a sound mind in a sound body than to shatter and enervate the latter by the piling up in the brain of miscellaneous and often useless knowledge. But in his attempts at hardening the frame and rendering it invulnerable to the stings of suffering, our countryman did not dare to go the lengths of the Spartan legislator, who in this, at least, exhibited superior wisdom, that he did not consider the chastisement of stripes to have any tendency towards creating a base and servile habit of mind.^[869]

Consistently with the general aim of his institutions, Lycurgus, instead of ordaining, like Locke, that his alumni should wear leaky shoes, dispensed with the incumbrance altogether. And, certainly, in a soldier, the habit of trampling with the naked foot on ice and snow and the sharpest rocks, is worthy of acquisition.

Institutions are generally based on the actual circumstances of society. Lycurgus legislated for a people to whom it was important to be able easily to climb steeps, or descend them with a sure foot, to spring forward also, to run, to bend, and perform innumerable acts of personal dexterity. He, therefore, commenced with boyhood the inculcating of those habits and exercises which their manhood would imperatively require of them.

It has been seen that for change of linen an especial aversion was entertained at Sparta. Children were, therefore, taught to be content with one clean shirt per annum, at the termination of which period it was probably as well peopled as the Emperor Julian’s beard, particularly as, during all that time, it was considered low and unfashionable to bathe or make use of the ordinary ointments, an indulgence permitted to them but for a few days in the course of the year. All this time, however, they might more properly, perhaps, be said to be shirtless, since the himation only was left them, the chiton being taken away.^[870] They were compelled also, as incipient soldiers, to lie hard on pallet beds, made with the tops of reeds collected, perfunctorily, without the help of the knife or dagger, from the banks of the Eurotas. To this, as an especial indulgence, they were in winter permitted to add a quantity of thistle-down, which material was supposed to contain much warmth.^[871]

The initiation into these accomplishments commenced at the age of twelve. At the same time, acting upon the Galenian maxim, that “a fat stomach makes a lean wit,” the boys were reduced to short commons, the Bouagor, or leader of the juvenile troop, being instructed to pinch them as closely as possible on that score, in order that when the chances of war should reduce them to the necessity of subsisting on famine rations, they might be prepared without murmuring to submit to it. Persons so educated, moreover, would be little delicate in the choice of provisions. Anything, from a sea hedgehog to a snail, would suit their stomachs; and it would be hard indeed if war could ever place them in circumstances where such food as they were accustomed to might not be found. Health, too, and light spirits, as Lycurgus well understood, are the offspring of an abstemious diet. The spare warrior, clean-limbed and agile, would leap round the man puffed out and bloated with overfeeding, and, therefore, to be fat was at Sparta an offence punishable at law.^[872] However, not to be too hard on the young gentlemen, it was always permitted, when hunger grew troublesome, to have recourse to what, for want of a fitter name, we must call stealing.^[873]

In modern times it would be thought a poor compliment to any system of education to represent it as an admirable method for rendering a man an accomplished thief. But the Spartan sophists, whose wisdom Plato, in a jocular mood, so greatly extols, held a different theory. They did not undertake the teaching of morals, but such habits as became a soldier, among which thieving always maintains a distinguished place. Xenophon, however, is careful to guard us against the supposition that this habit of appropriation arose from want. The object of the legislator was, without the incurring of moral guilt, to nourish all the useful habits commonly found in a thief,—as, the power to watch by night, to wear the mask of honesty by day, craftily to lay snares, and even to set spies upon the individual to be plundered. To men designed to spend their lives in war such qualities are, doubtless, of the highest importance, since they enable them to procure provisions and overreach the enemy.^[874] To this practice Xenophon alludes in the Anabasis, where the army is placed in circumstances of much difficulty. “I understand,” he says to Cheirisophos, “that among you Lacedæmonians the habit of stealing is carefully cultivated from childhood; and that, so far from being disgraceful, it is considered a necessary accomplishment, so long as you keep within the bounds prescribed by law. When detected, however, it is equally lawful to be scourged.”^[875]

Were they scourged, then, for stealing? Not at all, but simply for being caught; and Xenophon is right in remarking, that, in all human arts, they who unskilfully perform what they undertake are punished, and so should a bungling thief.^[876] The passage immediately following is mutilated or inextricably corrupt,^[877] but, from an attentive examination, it would appear that the boys detected on these occasions were selected to be flogged^[878] during the festival of Artemis Orthia, or Orthosia, whose altar was thus annually smeared with human blood. This impartial superstition extended its empire over all ranks and conditions of men, servile or free, from the beggar to the prince; for here, we are told, Helots had sometimes the honour to be scourged in company perhaps with a scion of the Eurypontid or Agid kings. At Alea, in Arcadia, women, by the command of an oracle, were subjected to the same discipline. “Here,” says Pausanias,^[879] “during the festival of Dionysos women, by command of an oracle, were flogged like the youth of Sparta at the altar of Artemis Orthia.”

The above ordinance of Lycurgus led in the next instance to the hybernation of the youth upon the mountains:^[880] to inure them still further to hardships, and, practically to teach them the art of providing for themselves, they were sent forth with a roving commission to prowl about the highlands and less frequented parts of Laconia, armed for self-protection, and that they might be able to bring down their game. At first, perhaps, they confined themselves within the limits prescribed by law. But almost of necessity they would become involved in quarrels with the Helots, by plundering whose farms and villages they chiefly subsisted. The Helots would sometimes resist and sometimes resent their incursions. Ill blood would be engendered. Hot and fiery youths, abandoned to their own guidance, would easily discover excuses for cruelty and revenge. From quarrels they would proceed to blows—from blows to assassination; and beaten, perhaps, by day, they would fall suddenly on the defenceless peasants in the dead of night, and butcher whole hamlets to avenge an affront offered to them perhaps by an individual. Thus, out of a custom blameless enough in its origin, grew the terrible institution of the Crypteia,^[881] or annual massacre of the Helots, denied by some modern writers, but too well authenticated, and too much in keeping with the Spartan character and general policy, to allow of our indulging in any scepticism on the point.

But, in addition to the above, there were other branches of education taught at Sparta,—that is gymnastics and music. Writers, desirous of enhancing the mental acquisitions of the Dorians, adhere somewhat too strictly to the meaning often affixed by the Greeks to the word music, which they employed to signify literature. But Xenophon, in his treatise on the Lacedæmonian Commonwealth, appears invariably to use it in its limited and modern signification.

To gymnastics the Dorians, upon the whole an unintellectual people, were naturally much addicted,—far too much according to ancient writers; but here again their modern historian steps in to their defence. He will have it, that it was in later times that they became philogymnasts, and quotes Dion Chrysostom as if he was the principal witness. Plato, to be sure, is referred to as a parasitical authority, and so is Aristotle;^[882] but then the latter only says, that their constant violent exercises rendered them brutal, in which the historian appears to discover no harm. “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, know how to set bounds to youthful ardour, and check its pernicious effects.”^[883] This, it appears to me, is the language of an apologist. If they had such knowledge, how culpable must they have been not to check it in the matter of the Crypteia?

It may be observed, however, that though they devoted to gymnastics too much of their leisure, the fault lay in them, not in the system of exercises, which was in itself one of extreme beauty and simplicity. Its object,—which it was excellently calculated to attain,—was not to create athletæ but soldiers, not gigantic strength, but an elastic, agile, beautiful frame, adapted for all the movements of war. Boxing, accordingly, and the pancration^[884] were banished from their gymnasia, a regulation evincing at the same time their wisdom and their taste; the former being the most barbarous and useless, the latter the most unseemly portion of gymnastics, often exhibiting the antagonists rolling and struggling, like savages or animals devoid of reason, on the ground.

As the ancient idea of education included every thing employed to develope the powers of body or mind, we must regard in this light the military games peculiar to the Spartans and Cretans.^[885] Among the former the youth, having sacrificed to Ares in a temple at Therapne, passed over into an island dyked round and called Platanistas, where, dividing off into separate parties, they engaged in a contest which wanted nothing but arms to render it a genuine battle. A learned historian, seldom sparing of words, avoids describing this interesting scene; and wherefore?—Because a faithful description of it must convey a striking idea of Spartan ferocity. “They exerted” says he, “every means in their power to obtain the victory.”—Exactly; but what were those means? “Adolescentium greges Lacedæmone vidimus ipsi indibili contentione certantes, pugnis, calcibus, unguibus, morsu denique; quum exanimarentur priusquam se victos faterentur.^[886]” Yet were these battles carried on under the eyes of magistrates, the five Bidiæi^[887] appointed to superintend these exercises as well as those performed elsewhere. The little island where they fought was a spot of great natural beauty, encircled by a sheet of clear water, and approached on all sides through thick and lofty groves of platane trees. A bridge thrown over the canal led to the island on both sides, and on the one stood a statue of Heracles, on the other of Lycurgus. This battle was reckoned among the institutions of the latter, and under the protection probably of the former. The preliminaries to the fight were as follow. They first sacrificed in the Phœbaion which stands without the city, not far from Therapne. Here each of the two divisions of the youth offered up a dog’s whelp to Ares, the bravest of domestic animals, sacred in their opinion to the bravest of the Gods. No other Grecian people sacrificed the dog excepting the Colophonians, who offered up a black bitch to Hecate. In both cities the sacrifice was performed by night. After the ceremony two tame boars were brought forward, one by each party, which they compelled to fight; and they whose brute champion proved superior, thence augured that victory awaited them in the Platanistas. On the following day, a little before noon, they entered by the bridges into the island, one party by one bridge, the other by the other. But the choice was not left to them, having been determined on the preceding night by lot. Being arrived, they faced each other, and commenced the battle, striking with the fist, kicking, leaping on each other, tearing one another with their teeth, and gouging after the most approved Kentucky fashion. Thus they struggled, man to man, urging forward together and thrusting each other into the water.^[888] From these words, as well as from the testimony of Cicero cited above, it is clear the combat was conducted with no other arms than those furnished by nature, though Lucian, misemploying the verb ὁπλομάχειν,^[889] would lead us to a different conclusion. But this kind of battle is always enumerated among the gymnastic exercises or contests; and what necessity would there have been to have recourse to fists, feet, teeth, and nails, had they been permitted the use of arms? Fatigued with this violent exertion they betook themselves for a short time to repose, refreshed by which they resumed their exercises, dancing in most intricate measures to the sound of the pipe.^[890] Akin in spirit to the contests in the Platanistas were the ever-recurring battles fought by the young men with the three hundred followers of the Hippagretæ; three inferior magistrates appointed by the Ephori, who selected each one hundred followers from among the healthiest and bravest of the youthful population. Against this chosen band all the other young men of the city were bound by custom to make war; and, but that they could be parted by any citizen who might happen to be passing by, it is probable that these fierce boxing matches would often have terminated fatally.

Similar customs prevailed in Crete, where, as in most other parts of Greece, the business of education appears to have commenced at the age of seven years, when the cake called Promachos was given to the boys, because, as it has been conjectured, they were thenceforward to be trained for fighting. Up to the age of seventeen they were denominated Apageli, since they were not until then admitted into those Agelæ^[891] or bands, in which they thenceforward performed their exercises. Here, as in Sparta, the greatest possible care was taken to extirpate from the character every germ of effeminacy. They ate whatever food was given them squatting on the ground, not being permitted to join their elders at the board, and went abroad in all weathers clad in a single garment, like the boys of Sparta during their hibernation. However, the youth of the several Agelæ, armed with stones, and iron weapons, marching to the sound of flutes, and assailing each other, converted their exercises into something very like real warfare. Our cudgel-playing, single-stick, &c. are pastimes of the same description; and boxing now nearly exploded, can plead classical precedent. They were habituated, says Ephoros, to labours and arms, and taught to despise both heat and cold, rough roads and cliffs, and the blows they received in the gymnasium and their mock battles. The use of the bow formed part of their education, as well as the armed dance, at first taught by the Curetes, and afterwards named the Pyrrhic; so that a warlike spirit breathed through the whole system of their education.^[892]

With all these facts before him, though many of them he has suppressed, the historian of the Doric race, in direct contradiction to Plato and Aristotle, contends naïvely that it would be erroneous to conclude that the aim of bodily exercise among the Dorians was war, or that in their result they rendered the youth either brutal or ferocious. Their object, in his opinion, was to obtain something like ideal beauty of form, strength, and health, which, he says, they accordingly attained, being, about B. C. 540, the healthiest of the Greeks and most renowned for beautiful men and women. But Xenophon whom, on the subject of health he quotes, does not authorise his superlative:—"It would not be easy," are his words, “to find healthier or more active men.”^[893] Again, the language of Herodotus by no means bears him out. He, indeed, affirms that Callicrates, a Spartan, was the handsomest man in the army at Platæa, but says nothing of the Spartans being handsomer than the other Greeks; but rather the contrary. He was not merely the handsomest man among his countrymen, but, which he evidently considered more remarkable, among all the other Greeks.^[894]

Not, however, to insist on such points as these, let us proceed to examine the intellectual cultivation of the Dorians.^[895] That the art of writing never flourished very generally at Sparta appears to be on all hands admitted, though we can by no means doubt that among them numerous individuals possessing this accomplishment might always be found. Thus, in the old story of the combat of the three hundred Spartans and Argives, it is related that Othryades, the sole survivor of the Laconian band, having remained last on the field of battle, erected a trophy and wrote upon it with his blood Λακεδαιμόνιοι κατ᾽ Ἀργείων, immediately after which he died of his wounds.^[896] Generally, however, no great stress was laid on a knowledge of the art of writing, which, in the opinion of some authors, was of comparatively little value where the people were taught to chant their laws as well as their songs. Similar customs and regulations prevailed on this head in Crete, where, nevertheless, letters appear to have been viewed with a more favourable eye.^[897] In addition to their body of legal poetry, which was probably less voluminous than a metrical version of the statutes at large, the youth were taught to sing hymns in honour of the gods and the praises of illustrious men.^[898] In music, too, they were permitted to make some proficiency, though generally, we are told, it was their ambition to excel rather in the regularity of their manners than in the extent of their acquirements.