Very few Greek cities had a state-run education system. The Athenians certainly did not have one and nothing at all resembling the intense involvement of the state in children’s education like our own (pause and reflect on just how little we or our families get to decide what we learn and how we learn it…). Most Athenian citizens (males, 18+)unless they possessed wealthcould not afford expensive private tuition in the three areas of elite education: music, athletic training and writing/rhetorical training. They were mostly farmers who learned what they needed from family, and sometimes just enough to read. To be active in the democracy they learned through participation, listening, and experience.
The closest Athens came to a formal preparation to transition young people to their adult lives was in two strange (to our eyes) institutions: the Ephebia (for boys aged 17-20) and the Arkteia (for girls aged between 8-14). We will examine what these institutions tried to achieve.
Firstly, what do these words mean?
1. Ephebia comes from the word ephebos (): ‘an ephebe’, someone (almost always male) said to be “on the cusp of adulthood”, typically 17-20 years old, literally “one who has come upon youth”from epi (‘upon’) + hebe (‘signs of young adulthood’, e.g. beard, etc). Therefore ephebia means “the condition of being a ephebe”the formal age-class at Athens halfway between adolescence and full-citizenship. An ephebe was no longer a child, but he was not yet technically a full citizen of Athens (an Athenaios): for about 2 years he was in a no-man’s land!
2. The Arkteia was a ritual process undertaken by Athenian girls at various stages between the ages of around 9-14. The word comes from the ancient Greek word for ‘brown bear’ (arktos). At certain ages girls went away on a kind of summer camp to the sanctuary of the goddess Artemis Brauronia on the east coast of Attica quite a distance from the city of Athens near an Attic town called Brauron. There they dressed as bears and performed rituals of socialisation until their final trip (just after their first menstruation, around 12-14) when they removed the skins and dedicated clothes and toys to the goddess Artemis. Out there, right? But what’s going on here? If this is a kind of girls’ education, what is the point?
Each entry should be a minimum of 250 words but no more than 300 maximum.
How does this work? It is a very straightforward process designed to get you thinking about the content of tutorials. Across the semester you will carry out the following process four (4) times:
Choose a modern scholarly reading (article, book chapter) from the ‘READINGS’ section of a tutorial page of your choice;
Read it carefully and take notes
Write up a short review of its argument and content as you understand it;
Focus on questions such as (but not only):
what point is the article making?
what evidence is being discussed?
what larger debates is the article contributing to?
do you find the argument persuasive?
was there one thing that you found particularly enlightening?
