Part 15 (1/2)
138. The Road to the Academy.--We go out toward the northwest of the city, plunging soon into a labyrinth of garden walls, fragrant with the fruit and blossoms within, wander amid dark olive groves where the solemn leaves of the sacred trees are talking sweetly; and presently mount a knoll by some suburban farm buildings, then look back to find that slight as is the elevation, here is a view of marvelous beauty across the city, the Acropolis, and the guardian mountains. From the rustling ivy coverts come the melodious notes of birds. We are glad to learn that this is the suburb of Colonus, the home of Sophocles the tragedian, and here is the very spot made famous in the renowned chorus of his ”?dipous at Colonus.” It is too early, of course, to enjoy the nightingale which the poet a.s.serts sings often amid the branches, but the scene is one of marvelous charm. We are not come, however, to admire Colonus. The numerous strollers indicate our direction. Turning a little to the south, we see, embowered amid the olive groves which line the unseen stream of the Cephissos, a wall, and once beyond it find ourselves in a kind of s.p.a.cious park combined with an athletic establishment.
This is the Academy,--founded by Hipparchus, son of Peisistratus the tyrant, but given its real embellishments and beauty by Cimon, the son of Militiades the victor of Marathon.
139. The Academy.--The Academy is worthy of the visit. The park itself is covered with olive trees and more graceful plane trees.
The gra.s.s 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 n.o.ble 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 pa.s.s 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 G.o.d 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 h.e.l.lenic 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 pa.s.s us presenting a curious spectacle. They are handsomely dressed and over handsomely scented, but each carries carefully under each arm a small c.o.c.k; and from time to time they are halted by fiends who admire the birds. Clearly these worthies'
main interests are in c.o.c.kfighting; 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 G.o.dlike.”[*]
[*]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 Wors.h.i.+p of Manly Beauty.--The Greek wors.h.i.+p of the beautiful masculine form is something which the later world will never understand. In this wors.h.i.+p there is too often a coa.r.s.eness, a sensual dross, over which a veil is wisely cast. but the great fact of this wors.h.i.+p 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 G.o.ds, 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.