Cheiron's Way: Youthful Education in Homer and Tragedy by Justina Gregory (review)

Gregory offers a thoughtful examination of education as depicted in Homer and in various Greek tragedies. Noting the close relationship between tragedy and the Homeric poems, she argues for seeking continuity among the works in terms of their theories of education. Gregory uses Achilles' educational development in the Iliad as a template for the growth in wisdom of several tragic figures, while noting that the pattern is varied more often than not.

In the Introduction and the first chapter ("Cheiron the Centaur"), Gregory looks at archaic and classical attitudes towards education. Traditional teaching of the young relies primarily on nurturing habitus (internalization of values) through personal association and offering verbal instruction in the form of hupothēkai (injunctions), gnōmai (maxims) and paradeigmata (exemplary stories). Despite the good intentions of teachers, their instructions are often ignored or forgotten by students. Gregory also examines the popular debate in antiquity over the relative value of phusis (nature) and nomos (instruction). Nature is emphasized by the aristocratic element, while instruction is stressed by those who are less traditional. However, Gregory shows, the distinction is a matter of emphasis not exclusivity. Cheiron, the tutor of several Greek heroes including Achilles, represents the traditional element. The great Centaur is wise, but he has his own apparent failures in education, including Asclepius, Actaeon and his own daughter, Hippo.

In Chapters 2 and 3, Gregory focuses on the Iliad, a poem "not only about heroic war but about heroic education" (57). Education is carried out by fathers and foster-fathers who tend to be benevolent, instructing through verbal guidance and the inculcation of habitus. In the third chapter, Achilles becomes the major focus.

In support of her claim that the epic is concerned significantly with Achilles' education, Gregory cites the frequent references to his youth and his education before the war, reminders that "invite reconstruction of Achilles' childhood and education" (87). Achilles has been well trained in the tradition, but, when faced with Agamemnon's humiliation, he suffers a "Crisis of Disillusionment" (90). Achilles comes to question the heroic code, eventually concluding that it does not take into account "death's leveling effect" (96). After Patroclus' death, Achilles' pain is not immediately assuaged by the brutality he exercises upon the Trojans. Still, he seems slowly to be gaining wisdom, which Gregory sees in his sardonic comment to Lycaon (21.106-13), his actions in Book 23 and his eventual generosity to Priam. The latter is occasioned by his "Crisis of Empathy" (103), in which he comes to understand his enemy's sorrow. In her treatment of Achilles growth, Gregory sees a pattern in which the hero first appears as one raised in the convention, then grows disillusioned and eventually becomes empathetic and didactic. Gregory's final chapter on Homer examines the Odyssey, and especially Telemachus, whose education does not show the full development that we see in Achilles. Telemachus does not enjoy the usual paternal instruction and encounters little cultivation of habitus and sunousia (camaraderie). Although Athena gives him a crash course on his way to adulthood, Gregory contends that his fatherless upbringing limits his ability to empathize and so acquire the compassion of Achilles.

In the remainder of the book, Gregory focuses primarily on tragedy, connecting dramatic education with the patterns she finds in the Homeric poems, especially the development seen in Achilles' character. Gregory begins with Sophocles' Ajax, in which the titular hero possesses elements of his own Homeric characterization as well as that of Hector and Achilles. Gregory rejects the assertion that Ajax is impious, instead seeing him simply as proud and susceptible to being slighted. She finds some of Ajax' intransigence as coming from his father, who seems more demanding and less affectionate than the typical Homeric model. Though Ajax, like Hector in the Iliad, loves his wife and son, he fails "to attain the imaginative identification with another human being...