A Day In Old Athens

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139. The Academy.--The Academy is worthy of the visit. The park
itself is covered with olive trees and more graceful plane trees.
The grass beneath us is soft and delightful to the bare foot (and
nearly everybody, we observe, has taken off his sandals). There
are marble and bronze statues skillfully distributed amid the
shrubbery--shy nymphs, peeping fauns, bold satyrs. Yonder is a
spouting fountain surmounted by a noble Poseidon with his trident;
above the next fountain rides the ocean car of Amphitrite. Presently
we come to a series of low buildings. Entering, we find them laid
out in a quadrangle with porticoes on every side, somewhat like the
promenades around the Agora. Inside the promenades open a series
of ample rooms for the use of professional athletes during stormy
weather, and for the inevitable bathing and anointing with oil
which will follow all exercise. This great square court formed by
the "gymnasium" proper is swarming with interesting humanity, but
we pass it hastily in order to depart by an exit on the inner side
and discover a second more conventionally laid out park. Here to
right and to left are short stretches of soft sand divided into
convenient sections for wrestling, for quoit hurling, for javelin
casting, and for jumping; but a loud shout and cheering soon draw
us onward. At the end of this park we find the stadium; a great
oval track, 600 feet (a "stadium") for the half circuit, with benches
and all the paraphernalia for a foot race. The first contest have
just ended. The races are standing, panting after their exertions,
but their friends are talking vehemently. Out in the sand, near
the statue of Hermes (the patron god of gymnasia) is a dignified
and self-conscious looking man in a purple edged chiton--the
gymnasiarch, the official manager of the Academy. While he waits
to organize a second race we can study the visitors and habitues
of the gymnasium.

140. The Social Atmosphere and Human Types at the Academy.--What
the Pnyx is to the political life of Athens, this the Academy and
the other great gymnasia are to its social and intellectual as
well as its physical life. Here in daily intercourse, whether in
friendly contest of speed or brawn, or in the more valuable contest
of wits, the youth of Athens complete their education after escaping
from the rod of the schoolmaster. Here they have daily lessons
on the mottoes, which (did such a thing exist) should be blazoned
on the coat of arms of Greece, as the summing up of all Hellenic
wisdom:--

"Know thyself,"

and again:--

"Be moderate."

Precept, example, and experience teach these truths at the gymnasia
of Athens. Indeed, on days when the Ecclesia is not in session,
when no war is raging, and they are not busy with a lawsuit, many
Athenians will spend almost the whole day at the Academy. For
whatever are your interests, here you are likely to find something
to engross you.

It must be confessed that not everybody at the Academy comes here
for physical or mental improvement. We see a little group squatting
and gesticulating earnestly under an old olive tree--they are
obviously busy, not with philosophic theory, but with dice. Again,
two young men pass us presenting a curious spectacle. They are
handsomely dressed and over handsomely scented, but each carries
carefully under each arm a small cock; and from time to time they
are halted by fiends who admire the birds. Clearly these worthies'
main interests are in cockfighting; and they are giving their
favorites "air and exercise" before the deadly battle, on which
there is much betting, a the supper party that night. Also the
shouting and rumbling from a distance tells of the chariot course,
where the sons of the more wealthy or pretentious families are
lessening their patrimonies by training a "two" or a "four" to
contend at the Isthmian games or at Olympia.

141. Philosophers and Cultivated Men at the Gymnasia.--All these
things are true, and Athens makes full display here of the usual
crop of knaves or fools. Nevertheless this element is in the
minority. Here a little earlier or a little later than our visit
(for just now he is in Sicily) one could see Plato himself--walking
under the shade trees and expounding to a little trailing host
of eager-eyed disciples the fundamental theories of his ideal
Commonwealth. Here are scores of serious bearded faces, and heads
sprinkled with gray, moving to and fro in small groups, discussing
in melodious Attic the philosophy, the poetry, the oration, which
has been partly considered in the Agora this morning, and which
will be further discussed at the symposium to-night. Everything
is entirely informal. Even white-haired gentlemen do not hesitate
to cast off chiton and himation and spring around nimbly upon the
sands, to "try their distance" with the quoits, or show the young
men that they have not forgotten accuracy with the javelin, or
even, against men of their own age, to test their sinews in a mild
wrestling bout. It is undignified for an old man to attempt feats
beyond his advanced years. No one expects any great proficiency
from most of those present. It is enough to attempt gracefully,
and to laugh merrily if you do not succeed. Everywhere there is
the greatest good nature, and even frolicking, but very little of
the really boisterous.

142. The Beautiful Youths at the Academy.--Yet the majority of
the visitors to the Academy have an interest that is not entirely
summed up in proper athletics, or in the baser sports, or in
philosophy. Every now and then a little whisper runs among the
groups of strollers or athlete "There he goes!--a new one! How
beautiful!"--and there is a general turning of heads.

A youth goes by, his body quite stripped, and delicately bronzed by
constant exposure to the sun. His limbs are graceful, but vigorous
and straight, his chest is magnificently curved. He lifts his head
modestly, yet with a proud and easy carriage. His hair is dark
blonde; his profile very "Greek"--nose and forehead joining in
unbroken straight line. A little crowd is following him; a more
favored comrade, a stalwart, bearded man, walks at his side. No
need of questioning now whence the sculptors of Athens get their
inspiration. This happy youth, just out of the schoolroom, and
now to be enrolled as an armed ephebus, will be the model soon for
some immortal bronze or marble. Fortunate is he, if his humility
is not ruined by all the admiration and flattery; if he can remember
the injunctions touching "modesty," which master and father have
repeated so long; if he can remember the precept that true beauty
of body can go only with true beauty of soul. Now at least is his
day of hidden or conscious pride. All Athens is commending him.
He is the reigning toast, like the "belle" of a later age. Not the
groundlings only, but the poets, rhetoricians, philosophers, will
gaze after him, seek an introduction, compliment him delicately,
give themselves the pleasure of making him blush deliciously,
and go back to their august problems unconsciously stimulated and
refreshed by this vision of "the godlike."[*]

[*]For pertinent commentary on the effect of meeting a beautiful
youth upon very grave men, see, e.g., Plato's "Charmides" (esp.
158 a) and "Lysis" (esp. 206 d). Or better still in Xenophon's
"Symposium" (I.9), where we hear of the beautiful youth Autolycus,
"even as a bright light at night draws every eye, so by HIS beauty
drew on him the gaze of all the company [at the banquet]. Not a
man was present who did not feel his emotions stirred by the sight
of him."

143. The Greek Worship of Manly Beauty.--The Greek worship of the
beautiful masculine form is something which the later world will
never understand. In this worship there is too often a coarseness,
a sensual dross, over which a veil is wisely cast. but the great
fact of this worship remains: to the vast majority of Greeks
"beauty" does not imply a delicate maid clad in snowy drapery; it
implies a perfectly shaped, bronzed, and developed youth, standing
forth in his undraped manhood for some hard athletic battle. The
ideal possess the national life, and effects the entire Greek
civilization. Not beauty in innocent weakness, but beauty in
resourceful strength--before this beauty men bow down.[*]

[*]Plato ("Republic," p. 402) gives the view of enlightened Greek
opinion when he states "There can be no fairer spectacle than that
of a man who combines the possession of MORAL beauty in his soul,
with OUTWARD beauty of body, corresponding and harmonizing with
the former, because the same great pattern enters into both."

It is this masculine type of beauty, whether summed up in a physical
form or translated by imagery into the realm of the spirit, that
Isocrates (a very good mouthpieces for average enlightened opinion)
praises in language which strains even his facile rhetoric. "[Beauty]
is the first of all things in majesty, honor, and divineness. Nothing
devoid of beauty is prized; the admiration of virtue itself comes
to this, that of all manifestations of life, virtue is the most
beautiful. The supremacy of beauty over all things can be seen in
our own disposition toward it, and toward them. Other things we
merely seek to attain as we need them, but beautiful things inspire us
with love, LOVE which is as much stronger than WISH as its object
is better. To the beautiful alone, as to the gods, we are never
tired of doing homage; delighting to be their slaves rather than
to be the rulers of others."

Could we put to all the heterogeneous crowd in the wide gymnasium
the question, "What things do you desire most?" the answer "To
be physically beautiful" (not "handsome" merely, but "beautiful")
would come among the first wishes. There is a little song, very
popular and very Greek. It tells most of the story.

The best of gifts to mortal man is health;
The next the bloom of beauty's matchless flower;
The third is blameless and unfraudful wealth;
The fourth with friends to spend youths' joyous hour.[*]

[*]Translation by Milman. The exact date of this Greek poem is
uncertain, but its spirit is entirely true to that of Athens in
the time of this sketch.

Health and physical beauty thus go before wealth and the passions
of friendship,--a true Greek estimate!

144. The Detestation of Old Age.--Again, we are quick to learn
that this "beauty" is the beauty of youth. It is useless to talk
to an Athenian of a "beautiful old age." Old age is an evil to
be borne with dignity, with resignation if needs be, to be fought
against by every kind of bodily exercise; but to take satisfaction
in it?--impossible. It means a diminishing of those keen powers
of physical and intellectual enjoyment which are so much to every
normal Athenian. It means becoming feeble, and worse than feeble,
ridiculous. The physician's art has not advanced so far as to
prevent the frequent loss of sight and hearing in even moderate age.
No hope of a future renewal of noble youth in a happier world gilds
the just man's sunset. Old age must, like the untimely passing
of loved ones, be endured in becoming silence, as one of the fixed
inevitables; but it is gloomy work to pretend to find it cheerful.
Only the young can find life truly happy. Euripides in "The Mad
Heracles" speaks for all his race:--

Tell me not of the Asian tyrant,
Or of palaces plenished with gold;
For such bliss I am not an aspirant,
If YOUTH I might only behold:--
Youth that maketh prosperity higher,
And ever adversity lighter.[*]

[*]Mahaffy, translator. Another very characteristic lament for
the passing of youth is left us by the early elegiac poet Mimnermus.

145. The Greeks unite Moral and Physical Beauty.--But here at the
Academy, this spirit of beautiful youth, and the "joy of life,"
is everywhere dominant. All around us are the beautiful bodies
of young men engaged in every kind of graceful exercise. When
we question, we are told that current belief is that in a great
majority of instances there is a development and a symmetry of
mind corresponding to the glory of the body. It is contrary to all
the prevalent notions of the reign of "divine harmony" to have it
otherwise. The gods abhor all gross contradictions! Even now men
will argue over a strange breach of this rule;--why did heaven
suffer Socrates to have so beautiful a soul set in so ugly a
body?--Inscrutable are the ways of Zeus!

However, we have generalized and wandered enough. The Academy is
a place of superabounding activities. Let us try to comprehend
some of them.

146. The Usual Gymnastic Sports and their Objects.--Despite all
the training in polite conversation which young men are supposed
to receive at the gymnasium, the object of the latter is after all
to form places of athletic exercise. The Athenians are without
most of these elaborate field games such as later ages will call
"baseball" and "football"; although, once learned, they could
surely excel in these prodigiously. They have a simple "catch"
with balls, but it hardly rises above the level of a children's
pastime. The reasons for these omissions are probably, first,
because so much time is devoted to the "palestra" exercises;
secondly, because military training eats up about all the time not
needed for pure gymnastics.

The "palestra" exercises, taught first at the boys' training
establishments and later continued at the great gymnasia, are nearly
all of the nature of latter-day "field sports." They do not depend
on the costly apparatus of the twentieth century athletic halls;
and they accomplish their ends with extremely simple means. The
aim of the instructor is really twofold--to give his pupils a body
fit and apt for war (and we have seen that to be a citizen usually
implies being a hoplite), and to develop a body beautiful to the
eye and efficient for civil life. The naturally beautiful youth
can be made more beautiful; the naturally homely youth can be made
at least passable under the care of a skilful gymnastic teacher.

147. Professional Athletes: the Pancration.--Athletics, then, are
a means to an end and should not be tainted with professionalism.
True, as we wander about the Academy we see heavy and over brawny
individuals whose "beauty" consists in flattened noses, mutilated
ears, and mouths lacking many teeth, and who are taking their way
to the remote quarter where boxing is permitted. Here they will
wind hard bull's hide thongs around their hands and wrists, and
pummel one another brutally, often indeed (if in a set contest)
to the very risk of life. These men are obviously professional
athletes who, after appearing with some success at the "Nemea," are
in training for the impending "Pythia" at Delphi. A large crowd
of youths of the less select kind follows and cheers them; but
the better public opinion frowns on them. They are denounced by
the philosophers. Their lives no less than their bodies "are not
beautiful"--i.e. they offend against the spirit of harmony inherent
in every Greek. Still less are they in genteel favor when, the
preliminary boxing round being finished, they put off their boxing
thongs and join in the fierce "Pancration," a not unskillful
combination of boxing with wrestling, in which it is not suffered
to strike with the knotted fist, but in which, nevertheless,
a terrible blow can be given with the bent fingers. Kicking,
hitting, catching, tripping, they strive together mid the "Euge!
Euge!--Bravo! Bravo!" of their admirers until one is beaten down
hopelessly upon the sand, and the contest ends without harm. Had
it been a real Pancration, however, it would have been desperate
business, for it is quite permissible to twist an opponent's wrist,
and even to break his fingers, to make him give up the contest.
Therefore it is not surprising that the Pancration, even more than
boxing, is usually reserved for professional athletes.

148. Leaping Contests.--But near at hand is a more pleasing
contest. Youths of the ephebus age are practicing leaping. They
have no springboard, no leaping pole, but only a pair of curved
metal dumb-bells to aid them. One after another their lithe brown
bodies, shining with the fresh olive oil, come forward on a lightning
run up the little mound of earth, then fly gracefully out across
the soft sands. There is much shouting and good-natured rivalry.
As each lad leaps, an eager attendant marks his distance with a
line drawn by the pickaxe. The lines gradually extend ever farther
from the mound. The rivalry is keen. Finally, there is one leap
that far exceeds the rest.[*] A merry crowd swarms around the
blushing victor. A grave middle-aged man takes the ivy crown from
his head, and puts it upon the happy youth. "Your father will take
joy in you," he says as the knot breaks up.

[*]If the data of the ancients are to be believed, the Greeks achieved
records in leaping far beyond those of any modern athletes, but it
is impossible to rely on data of this kind.

149. Quoit Hurling.--Close by the leapers is another stretch of
yellow sand reserved for the quoit throwers. The contestants here
are slightly older,--stalwart young men who seem, as they fling the
heavy bronze discus, to be reaching out eagerly into the fullness
of life and fortune before them. Very graceful are the attitudes.
Here it was the sculptor Miron saw his "Discobolus" which he
immortalized and gave to all the later world; "stooping down to
take aim, his body turned in the direction of the hand which holds
the quoit, one knee slightly bent as though he meant to vary the
posture and to rise with the throw."[*] The caster, however, does
not make his attempt standing. He takes a short run, and then the
whole of his splendid body seems to spring together with the cast.

[*]The quotation is from Lucian (Roman Imperial period).

150. Casting the javelin.--The range of the quoit hurlers in turn
seems very great, but we cannot delay to await the issue. Still
elsewhere in the Academy they are hurling the javelin. Here is a
real martial exercise, and patriotism as well as natural athletic
spirit urges young men to excel. the long light lances are being
whirled at a distant target with remarkable accuracy; and well they
may, for every contestant has the vision of some hour when he may
stand on the poop of a trireme and hear the dread call, "All hands
repel boarders," or need all his darts to break up the rush of a
pursuing band of hoplites.

151. Wrestling.--The real crowds, however, are around the wrestlers
and the racers. Wrestling in its less brutal form is in great
favor. It brings into play all the muscles of a man; it tests
his resources both of mind and body finely. It is excellent for
a youth and it fights away old age. The Greek language is full of
words and allusions taken from the wrestler's art. The palestras
for the boys are called "the wrestling school" par excellence.
It is no wonder that now the ring on the sands is a dense one and
constantly growing. Two skilful amateurs will wrestle. One--a
speedy rumor tells us--is, earlier and later in the day, a rising
comic poet; the other is not infrequently heard on the Bema. Just
at present, however, they have forgotten anapests and oratory. A
crowd of cheering, jesting friends thrusts them on. Forth they
stand, two handsome, powerful men, well oiled for suppleness, but
also sprinkled with fine sand to make it possible to get a fair
grip in the contest.

For a moment they wag their sharp black beards at each other
defiantly, and poise and edge around. Then the poet, more daring,
rushes in, and instantly the two have grappled--each clutching the
other's left wrist in his right hand. The struggle that follows
is hot and even, until a lucky thrust from the orator's foot lands
the poet in a sprawling heap; whence he rises with a ferocious grin
and renews the contest. The second time they both fall together.
"A tie!" calls the long-gowned friend who acts as umpire, with an
officious flourish of his cane.

The third time the poet catches the orator trickily under the thigh,
and fairly tears him to the ground; but at the fourth meeting the
orator slips his arm in decisive grip about his opponent's wrist
and with a might wrench upsets him.

"Two casts out of three, and victory!"

Everybody laughs good-naturedly. The poet and the orator go away
arm in arm to the bathing house, there to have another good oiling
and rubbing down by their slaves, after removing the heavily caked
sand from their skin with the stirgils. Of course, had it been a
real contest in the "greater games," the outcome might have been
more serious for the rules allow one to twist a wrist, to thrust an
arm or foot into the foeman's belly, or (when things are desperate)
to dash your forehead--bull fashion--against your opponent's brow,
in the hope that his skull will prove weaker than yours.

152. Foot Races.--The continued noise from the stadium indicates
that the races are still running; and we find time to go thither.
The simple running match, a straight-away dash of 600 feet, seems
to have been the original contest at the Olympic games ere these
were developed into a famous and complicated festival; and the
runner still is counted among the favorites of Greek athletics.
As we sit upon the convenient benches around the academy stadium
we see at once that the track is far from being a hard, well-rolled
"cinder path"; on the contrary, it is of soft sand into which the
naked foot sinks if planted too firmly, and upon it the most adept
"hard-track" runner would at first pant and flounder helplessly.
The Greeks have several kinds of foot races, but none that are very
short. The shortest is the simple "stadium" (600 feet), a straight
hard dash down one side of the long oval; then there is the "double
course" ("diaulos") down one side and back; the "horse race"--twice
clear around (2400 feet); and lastly the hard-testing "long course"
("dolichos") which may very in length according to arrangement,--seven,
twelve, twenty, or even twenty-four stadia, we are told; and it
is the last (about three miles) that is one of the most difficult
contests at Olympia.

At this moment a part of four hale and hearty men still in the
young prime are about to compete in the "double race." They come
forward all rubbed with the glistening oil, and crouch at the
starting point behind the red cord held by two attendants. The
gymnasiarch stands watchfully by, swinging his cane to smite painfully
whoever, in over eagerness, breaks away before the signal. All
is ready; at his nod the rope falls. The four fly away together,
pressing their elbows close to their sides, and going over the soft
sands with long rhythmic leaps, rather than with the usual rapid
running motion. A fierce race it is, amid much exhortation from
friends and shouting. At length, as so often--when speeding back
towards the stretched cord,--the rearmost runner suddenly gathers
amazing speed, and, flying with prodigious leaps ahead of his
rivals, is easily the victor. His friends are at once about him,
and we hear the busy tongues advising, "You must surely race at
the Pythia; the Olympia; etc."

This simple race over, a second quickly follows: five heavy, powerful
men this time, but they are to run in full hoplite's armor--the
ponderous shield, helmet, cuirass, and greaves. This is the exacting
"Armor Race" ("Hoplitodromos"), and safe only for experienced
soldiers or professional athletes.[*] Indeed, the Greeks take all
their foot races seriously, and there are plenty of instances when
the victor has sped up to the goal, and then dropped dead before
the applauding stadium. There are no stop watches in the Academy;
we do not know the records of the present or of more famous runners;
yet one may be certain that the "time" made, considering the very
soft sand, has been exceedingly fast.

[*]It was training in races like these which enabled the Athenians at
Marathon to "charge the Persians on the run" (Miltiades' orders),
all armored though they were, and so get quickly through the terrible
zone of the Persian arrow fire.

153. The Pentathlon: the Honors paid to Great Athletes.--We have
now seen average specimens of all the usual athletic sports of the
Greeks. Any good authority will tell us, however, that a truly
capable athlete will not try to specialize so much in any one kind
of contest that he cannot do justice to the others. As an all
around well-trained man he will try to excel in the "Pentathlon,"
the "five contests." Herein he will successfully join in running,
javelin casting, quoit throwing, leaping, and wrestling.[*] As
the contest proceeds the weaker athletes will be eliminated; only
the two fittest will be left for the final trial of strength and
skill. Fortunate indeed is "he who overcometh" in the Pentathlon.
It is the crown of athletic victories, involving, as it does, no
scanty prowess both of body and mind. The victor in the Pentathlon
at one of the great Pan-Hellenic games (Olympian, Pythian, Isthmian,
or Nemean) or even in the local Attic contest at the Panathenea is
a marked man around Athens or any other Greek city. Poets celebrate
him; youths dog his heels and try to imitate him; his kinsfolk take
on airs; very likely he is rewarded as a public benefactor by the
government. But there is abundant honor for one who has triumphed
in ANY of the great contests; and even as we go out we see people
pointing to a bent old man and saying, "Yes; he won the quoit
hurling at the Nema when Ithycles was archon."[+]

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