Schools of Hellas: An Essay on the Practice and Theory of Ancient Greek Education from 600 to 300 B. C.Freeman, Kenneth J. (Kenneth John)
History
Schools of Hellas: An Essay on the Practice and Theory of Ancient Greek Education from 600 to 300 B. C.
Freeman, Kenneth J. (Kenneth John)
Education, Greek
The gumnasiarchia is certainly reckoned among leitourgiai as a general
rule. A speaker in Lusias,[487] giving a list of these duties which he
had performed, says: “I supplied a chorus of men at the Thargelia, a
chorus of war-dancers at the Panathenaia, a cyclic chorus at the
little Panathenaia, I was Gumnasiarchos for the Prometheia and was
victorious, then choregos with a chorus of boys, then with beardless
war-dancers at the little Panathenaia.” In Andokides[488] a
gumnasiarchos at the Hephaisteia is mentioned. The author of the
treatise on the Athenian constitution says:[489] “In the case of the
choregiai, gumnasiarchiai, and trierarchiai, the Athenians realise
that the rich fill the offices and the populace serve under them and
get the benefit. So the populace claims to be paid for singing and
running and dancing and sailing in the ships.” Now “singing and
dancing” belong to the choregiai, and “sailing in the ships” to the
trierarchiai. So “running” is left for the gumnasiarchiai. The main
feature of the yearly festivals of Hephaistos and Prometheus, which
the two earlier passages gave as the scene of the duties of the
gumnasiarchos, was a torch-race. It may thus be inferred that the duty
of the gumnasiarchos was to collect, and train, a team of his own
tribe for the torch-race at these festivals.[490] In connection with
this duty, they could prosecute members of their team, or any one who
interfered with them, for impiety before the Archon Basileus,[491]
since the race was a religious function. They were thus in the
sacrosanct position which Demosthenes as choregos claims for himself
in his speech against Meidias.
So far the gumnasiarchos is an ordinary performer of a leitourgia, and
his duties are confined to providing a tribal team for the torch-races
at the Prometheia and Hephaisteia. His team, usually at any rate,
consisted of epheboi, as we learn from an inscription describing the
victory of Eutuchides with his epheboi.[492]
* * * * *
There is also the law quoted as Solon’s in Aischines’ speech against
Timarchos.[493] “The gumnasiarch_ai_ (note that it is a different
word) “are not to allow any one over age to keep company with the boys
at the festival of Hermes in any way whatsoever: if he does not keep
all such persons out of the gymnasia, the gumnasiarch_es_ shall be
liable to the law that prescribes penalties for those who corrupt free
boys.” But the orator himself only mentions paidotribai, and special
enactments dealing with the Hermaia; there is no mention of a
gumnasiarches. The law itself is an addition made in a later period
when there was a special officer to control the gymnasia. But there is
no evidence for such an official in the days of the independence of
Hellas.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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