Paideia Essay ⋆ History Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Paideia is an ancient Greek system of education designed to show young people how to become an ideal citizen, to strive toward nobility of character, excellence of spirit, usefulness to society, and to exercise the body properly. Most important, it instructs one in how to be the highest form of human possible. These ideals, which may sound lofty to modern readers, were so central to Greek culture prior to 323 b.c.e. that they were a large part of what made someone a Greek. It was believed that to destroy a Greek city-state’s educational system would destroy that city’s culture, and in one noteworthy case, that led directly to a city’s collapse, conquest, and obliteration.

Paideia was more than just an educational system, as it reflected the very essence of Greek culture. The study of this Greek educational system is the study of ancient Greece itself. In adults as well as children, the concept of paideia is tied to the concept of virtue, called arete. According to Xenophon, renowned as a scholar, philosopher, soldier, historian, and general, the paideia education was “the process of educating man into his true form, the real and genuine human nature.” Furthermore, the oldest definition of education (to educe, to draw out) accords with the Greek notion that the ideal true form of a person resides somewhere within that person and can be drawn out by philosophical instruction. The word paideia is also used in the word encyclopedia, which comes from two Greek words meaning a “general education.” The two greatest, most powerful and most renowned Greek city-states were Athens and Sparta. Xenophon, steeped in Spartan culture, discussed the meaning of paideia in his treatise on the Spartan (Lacedaemonian) constitution. Paideia also permeated Athenian culture. The Ephebic Oath was sworn by an Athenian youth at the completion of his boyhood training (at about age 19) at the point when he ceased to be a boy and became a man and an Athenian citizen. The goal of Athenian paideia was in large part to produce citizens who could live up to each of the following points of the Ephebic Oath:

I will not disgrace my sacred arms

Nor desert my comrade, wherever I am stationed. I will fight for things sacred

And things profane.

And both alone and with all to help me.

I will transmit my fatherland not diminished

But greater and better than before. I will obey the ruling magistrates Who rule reasonably

And I will observe the established laws

And whatever laws in the future

May be reasonably established.

If any person seek to overturn the laws, Both alone and with all to help me,

I will oppose him.

I will honor the religion of my fathers. I call to witness the Gods . . .

The borders of my fatherland, The wheat, the barley, the vines,

And the trees of the olive and the fig.

The Ephebic Oath was designed to produce well-rounded guardians of the Athenian culture, belief system, and philosophical thought process. Note the emphasis on use of skill at arms to defend the laws, the religion, and the sacred. Other examples of Greek society’s lasting attention on paideia abound, particularly in the principles that were inscribed on their most sacred places. For example, inscribed on the temple at Delphi, to which even the wisest of the Greeks journeyed to seek the advice of the god Phoebus Apollo, are such phrases as “know thyself” and “nothing in excess.”

The Greek city-states were alike in many respects, and yet they fought with one another for many generations. It was not atypical for one Greek city to annihilate or completely enslave another city as a result of this internecine warfare. Perhaps the most powerful Greek city-state was Sparta, renowned for its powerful military, to which all male children were carefully indoctrinated from an early age. Many ancient authors note the number of nations that were saved from destruction by a single Spartan warrior. An endangered nation that appealed to Sparta for help would receive a single Spartan commander, who would successfully organize the defense into a victorious army. Paideia was instrumental in the success of this city over many generations during which a variety of powerful rivals were unable to overcome Sparta.

This conclusion is supported by the eventual conquest of Sparta by Argos, another Greek city. Argos did not destroy the town of Sparta, slaughter its citizens after the battle, or enslave its population. Argos compelled the Spartans to replace their own paideia with the paideia used in Argos. Never again was Sparta at the forefront of Greek military powers. Roman units, having heard of Sparta’s reputation, eagerly sought a battle with the city but instead found a humble village inhabited by mostly elderly people, unable to mount a noteworthy defense. This points to the difference— between being a superpower and being an anonymous agrarian village—that paideia made to the Greeks.

References:

Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans. New York: Modern Library, 1932;
———. On Sparta. New York: Penguin Classics, 2005;
Swift, Fletcher Harper. The Athenian Ephebic Oath of Allegiance in American Schools and Colleges. University of California Publications in Education 11, no 1 (1947).

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