Douris’ Cup and the Stages of Schooling in Classical Athens

274 . . : . THI YLtITt LESSON. THE WalTINe La.uo~ (AaoU: A WI.ITtNC·I.OL~ A 'OLDI.D TAaLIT. A RULINC JQlIAI.&, rrc.) From the Kulilo(Oololri.. no••l Btrlia(No.l1IS)' . Mo"..,.,;,ull' r",,;,,,,.. i•. PI..te S4TNI Lya. LIUON, .NO THr. POITay uuo ... (A~"l IS AN OI.N ..MIIlfTAL M.NIlISCalrt" u,s.n)-· From. Kulill bJ Douri.. aow in Bcrlu.(No.uISt. .' M....".",riJ"l/·/.lIit... I&. PLate S.. . BOOTH: FIGURE 1 275 DOURIS' CUP AND THE STAGES OF SCHOOLING IN CLASSICAL ATHENS The programme of study pursued by the well-born boy in the classical period comprised, on the intellectual side, letters and music; that is clearly attested. 1 The difficulty is to determine the order in which he tackled these subjects. The common view, insofar as one is represented by the authors mentioned below, would have the chi Id attend the grammatistes for letters and the kitharistes for music from the age of about seven, when schooling began, until puberty. 2 But despite the eloquent testimony thought to be offered by Douris in the scenes in Figure 1,3 such concurrent study is far from certain. One scene features a flute lesson and a writing lesson, while the other replaces the auletes with a ki tharistes. Training in the flute fell from fashion in the 5th c., as the anecdote about Alcibiades reminds: he refused such instruction lest puffing should distort his 1See Isoc. Ant. 267; PI. Chrm. 159c; Prt. 312b, 325d-326b; Xen. Lac. Pol. 2.1. TTfie text presenTS the essence of a paper read to the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America at Toronto in December 1984.) 2The third branch of boyhood instruction, athletics under the paidotribes, is bel ieved to have extended similarly through these years. This point merits reconsideration, but not within the confines of the present brief note. 3The reproductioris are borrowed from K. J. Freeman, Schools of Hellas (London 1907) plates 1A and 1B, opposite pp. 52 an~ further F.A.G. Beck, Album of Greek Education (Sydney 1975) 14-15, 18 (31), 32 (41); plate 10.53, 54; plate ~ E.A. Havelock, The Literate Revolution in Greece and its Cultural Consequences (Princeton 1982) 201-203 contests, unconvincingly, that primary education is here represented; cf. L. Woodbury, liThe Literate Revolution: A Review Article,1I EMC n.s.2 (1983) 331-32. 276 A. D. BOOTH profile. 4 But, clearly, both scenes represent the two subject-areas that exercised the mind of an Athenian lad. The figure with the crook is the paidagogos, the slave who shepherded the chi Id to and from school and supervised his conduct in public and in class. His presence indicates that we are dealing with public, not private, education. So the cup surely attests publ ic school ing in letters and music at Athens in the early part of the 5th c. But is it safe to deduce that the pupil would learn these subjects simultaneously? Such a conclusion has been prompted by the similarity of the figure in attendance at each of the teachers. But this line of reasoning should take a step further: since the auletes and grammatistes in one scene look alike, one ought then to infer that the same teacher taught both subjects. But that interpretation would have to be declared dubious in light of the other scene: there, certainly, the kitharistes and grammatistes look alike, but then the representation of the paidagogos does not differ markedly. Yet the painter surely did not intend to imply that the one man functioned simultaneously as paidagogos, grammatistes, and kitharistes. Hence the ready conclusion that, for the adults, the artist has used stylized figures. If this is so, then the same is likely to hold true for the pupi I; thus the resemblance between the figures attending the individual teachers cannot in itself be taken for secure proof that letters and music were studied contemporaneously. If the need for caution is obvious, it has nevertheless been ignored, with detriment. For the impression of "concurrency" created by these scenes has begotten a carelessness in the treatment of written sources. Thus P. Girard gave short shrift to the literary evidence, affirming, mainly on the...