as to the other two together.  At sixteen, he left the school, and, until he was eighteen years of age, frequented the gymnasium alone; probably devoting most of his time to physical training, though enjoying opportunities of listening to the masters in philosophy.  The period of adolescence past, and his growing frame expanded and well knit by exercise, he either continued to follow athletic sports, or began a military or other career.  If a young man of leisure, he probably needed all the virtue imparted by his moral teachers to restrain him from dice, quail-fights, and fine horses, and all his physical vigor to resist the dissipations of Athens or Corinth, and the potations of the symposia.

So far the male rising generation was well cared for.  What became of the girls?

In accordance with the freer manners, but not less virtuous habits of Lacedemon, maidens were there admitted as spectators and sharers of the gymnastic sports.  Though clad only in the Spartan chiton, they took vigorous part in dancing and probably wrestling.  The Athenian maid could not air even her modest garments in public with the consent of popular opinion.  The girls were educated and the women stayed at home.  The gynaekeion, or female apartment, was nearly as secluded as the seraglio.  The females were under direct, though not slavish submission to the men.  Modesty forbade their appearance in the gymnasium.  Domestic occupations, the rearing of children, spinning, light work, and household cares filled up their time.  We are told that an Athenian mother once ventured in male attire to mingle among the spectators of the Olympic games.  Her cry of joy at the triumph of her son betrayed her.  Because she was the mother of many victors, she was spared from infamy; and her services to the state, in rearing men, alone saved her from the consequences of an act which maternal solicitude could not have excused.

Too much license in the intermingling of the sexes formed part of the arguments of many distinguished Romans against the gymnasium.  Habits of idle lounging and waste of time, together with even graver vices, were imputed to its influence.  Some said it favored polysarkia, or obesity, and unfitted for military or other active life.  The Romans were too utilitarian to see its higher aims.  Though there was some justice, it must be confessed, in these accusations, yet they applied with more force to the palaestra than to the gymnasium,—­to the trained fighters, who devoted their lives to exercise, than to the mass of the Greeks, who cultivated it for nobler purposes.