system of the sophists.' 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. 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 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

1 Id. vi. 290.

2 Plat. Rep. vi. t. vi. p. 289. Cf. Athen. ii. 54.

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.' 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, 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 ὅτι ἀμαθία μὲν θάρσος, φρόνησις δ ̓ ἔκνον φέρει.

2

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

1 Plat. de Rep. vi. 293.

2 Plat. de Rep. vi. 333.

Cf.

Muret. Adnot. in Repub. p. 667, seq. 677, seq.

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.1 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.

1 Athen. xiv. 67.

265

CHAPTER VIII.

EDUCATION OF THE SPARTANS, CRETANS,

ARCADIANS, ETC.

A DIFFERENT picture is presented to us by the education of the Spartans,' 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.

1 See Müll. Dor. ii. 313, sqq. Cf. Pfeiff. Ant. ii. 57. p. 370.

2 To destroy the power of Sparta the Achæans could imagine no better means than to change their system of education. -Plut. Vit. Philop. § 16. Paus. vii. 8. 5. The Mityleneans, too, desirous of breaking the military spirit of certain of their allies, forbade them to give the least instruction to their children.—

Ælian, V. H. vii. 15. With the same view the Emperor Julian closed the public schools against the Christians.-Gibbon, iv. 111. Among our ancestors, too, when a blow was meditated against Dissenters, no measure more severe could be devised than to deprive them of education. Lord John Russell, Hist. of Eur. i. 273.

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