The academies, where these studies in a Greek city were pursued by young and old together, were of two kinds, and were called either ‘gymnasia’ or ‘palæstræ.’ A gymnasium was an open space, with trees for shelter from the sun and, if possible, near a stream of running water; and there went on those sports that required plenty of room. The two chief gymnasia at Athens were both outside the town walls, the Academy in the sacred grove of the hero Academus and the Lyceum in the precinct of the hero Lycus. They corresponded fairly closely to the playing fields about our public schools, except that they belonged to the whole community and were used by all classes and ages alike. If we could imagine Hyde Park thronged every day and all day with men and boys running, jumping, hurling quoits, and throwing javelins, [Illustration: INDOOR SPORTS (Athens)] we should get some idea, although of course on a very much larger scale, of the appearance of the Lyceum in the time of Socrates. The palæstra, on the other hand, bore more resemblance to our school gymnasium. It was a covered building used especially for the indoor sports of boxing and wrestling. Built round a central court which in fine weather was normally the scene of these competitions, it had also a large hall opening on to the court and a number of smaller rooms used for bathing, rubbing down and undressing. In the large hall the spectators gathered, and a vivid picture of the impression made upon a foreigner by the sight is given in Lucian’s dialogue _Anacharsis_. The young Scythian speaks: ‘Why do your young men behave like this, Solon? Some of them grappling and tripping each other, some throttling, struggling, intertwining in the clay like so many pigs wallowing. And yet their first proceeding, after they have stripped--I noticed that--is to oil and scrape each other quite amicably; but then I do not know what comes over them--they put down their heads and begin to push, and crash their foreheads together like a pair of rival rams. There, look! that one has lifted the other right off his legs, and dropped him on the ground; now he has fallen on top, and will not let him get his head up, but presses it down into the clay; and to finish him off he twines his legs tight round his belly, thrusts his elbow hard against his throat, and throttles the wretched victim, who meanwhile is patting his shoulder; that will be a form of supplication; he is asking not to be quite choked to death.’ (Lucian, _Anacharsis_, I, Fowler’s translation.) There were only three gymnasia in all Athens, but there was a very large number of palæstræ, some public, some private, some frequented by men, some by boys, the majority used indifferently by men and boys together. In the public establishments the instructors were provided and paid by the State, and were probably at the head of their profession, for as the oligarch who wrote the treatise on the Athenian Republic bitterly says: