laid out park.  Here to right and to left are short stretches of soft sand divided into convenient sections for wrestling, for quoit hurling, for javelin casting, and for jumping; but a loud shout and cheering soon draw us onward.  At the end of this park we find the stadium; a great oval track, 600 feet (a “stadium”) for the half circuit, with benches and all the paraphernalia for a foot race.  The first contest have just ended.  The races are standing, panting after their exertions, but their friends are talking vehemently.  Out in the sand, near the statue of Hermes (the patron god of gymnasia) is a dignified and self-conscious looking man in a purple edged chiton—­the gymnasiarch, the official manager of the Academy.  While he waits to organize a second race we can study the visitors and habitues of the gymnasium.

140.  The Social Atmosphere and Human Types at the Academy.—­What the Pnyx is to the political life of Athens, this the Academy and the other great gymnasia are to its social and intellectual as well as its physical life.  Here in daily intercourse, whether in friendly contest of speed or brawn, or in the more valuable contest of wits, the youth of Athens complete their education after escaping from the rod of the schoolmaster.  Here they have daily lessons on the mottoes, which (did such a thing exist) should be blazoned on the coat of arms of Greece, as the summing up of all Hellenic wisdom:—­

“Know thyself,”

and again:—­

“Be moderate.”

Precept, example, and experience teach these truths at the gymnasia of Athens.  Indeed, on days when the Ecclesia is not in session, when no war is raging, and they are not busy with a lawsuit, many Athenians will spend almost the whole day at the Academy.  For whatever are your interests, here you are likely to find something to engross you.

It must be confessed that not everybody at the Academy comes here for physical or mental improvement.  We see a little group squatting and gesticulating earnestly under an old olive tree—­they are obviously busy, not with philosophic theory, but with dice.  Again, two young men pass us presenting a curious spectacle.  They are handsomely dressed and over handsomely scented, but each carries carefully under each arm a small cock; and from time to time they are halted by fiends who admire the birds.  Clearly these worthies’ main interests are in cockfighting; and they are giving their favorites “air and exercise” before the deadly battle, on which there is much betting, a the supper party that night.  Also the shouting and rumbling from a distance tells of the chariot course, where the sons of the more wealthy or pretentious families are lessening their patrimonies by training a “two” or a “four” to contend at the Isthmian games or at Olympia.