slaves, but to public officials of the highest rank.[180] But in well-regulated households the paidagogos was often a most worthy and valuable servant. Sikinnos, who attended the children of Themistokles in this capacity, was entrusted by his master with the famous message to Xerxes, which brought on the battle of Salamis; he was afterwards rewarded with his freedom, the citizenship of Thespiai, and a substantial sum of money.[181] The custom of employing these male-nurses dated back to early times at Athens: for Solon made regulations about them.[182] Boys were entrusted to paidagogoi as soon as they went to school at six. This tutelage might last till the boy was eighteen[183] and came of age; but more frequently it stopped earlier. Xenophon,[184] in his wish to disparage everything not Spartan, declares that in all other States the boys were set free from paidagogoi and schoolmasters as soon as they became μειράκια [meirakia], _i.e._ at about fourteen or fifteen. The conjunction of schoolmasters suggests the explanation of the variations in age. When an elder brother ceased to attend school, and his younger brothers were still pursuing their studies, there being only one paidagogos, he had to be left unattended. But in cases where there was only one son, or where the eldest of several stayed on at school until he came of age, he would have the paidagogos to attend him until he was his own master. The life of such an attendant must have been an anxious one in many cases. Plato compares his relations towards his charges with the relations of an invalid towards his health: “He has to follow the disease wherever it leads, being unable to cure it, and he spends his life in perpetual anxiety with no time for anything else.”[185] With unruly boys of different ages, and consequently of different tastes and desires, the slave must have been often in a difficult position. He had, however, the right of inflicting corporal punishment. The chief object of the paidagogos was to safeguard the morals of his charges. Boys were expected to be as modest and quiet in their whole behaviour, and as carefully chaperoned, as young girls. Parents told the schoolmasters to bestow much more attention upon the boy’s behaviour than upon his letters and music.[186] This attitude was characteristic of Athens from the first. The school laws of Solon, as quoted by Aischines, deal wholly with morality. He gives the following account of them[187]:――