But upon the smaller boys no very arduous tasks were imposed. Deportment, how to sit, stand, and walk gracefully, the correct manner of salutation, a decorous and becoming carriage of the body; these with some easy gymnastic exercises, together with a multitude of games and an occasional cockfight, occupied most of a boy’s day. He spent much more time at the palæstra than he did anywhere else, but the border-line there between instruction and amusement was not very rigidly drawn. This was the sort of education that seemed to Aristophanes ideal, and nowhere is a better picture given of it than in the _Clouds_: ‘To hear then prepare of the Discipline rare which flourished in Athens of yore, When Honour and Truth were in fashion with youth and Sobriety bloomed on our shore; First of all, the old rule was preserved in our school that “boys should be seen and not heard”: And then to the home of the harpist would come, decorous in action and word, All the lads of one town, though the snow peppered down, in spite of all wind and all weather; And they sung an old song as they paced it along, not shambling with thighs glued together... But now must the lad from his boyhood be clad in a man’s all enveloping cloke; So that, oft as the Panathenæa returns, I feel myself ready to choke, When the dancers go by with their shields to their thigh, not caring for Pallas a jot. You therefore, young man, choose me while you can; cast in with my method your lot; And then you shall learn the forum to spurn and from dissolute baths to abstain, And fashions impure and shameful abjure, and scorners repel with disdain, And rise from your chair if an elder be there, and respectfully give him your place. And with love and with fear your parents revere, and shrink from the brand of disgrace... Not learning to prate, as your idlers debate, with marvellous prickly dispute, Nor dragged into court day by day to make sport in some small disagreeable suit: But you will below to the Academe go, and under the olives contend With your chaplet of reed, in a contest of speed, with some excellent rival and friend; All fragrant with woodbine and peaceful content and the leaf which the lime blossoms fling, When the plane whispers love to the elm in the grove in the beautiful season of spring.’ (_Clouds_, 961-1008, Rogers’ translation.)