but any who may be discovered doing anything of the sort during their period of parentage [1336a] must be punished with a loss of privilege suited to the offence.
[loeb_section_15] [loeb_subsection_1] When the children have been born, the particular mode of rearing adopted must be deemed an important determining influence in regard to their power of body. It appears from examining the other animals, and is also shown by the foreign races that make it their aim to keep up the military habit of body, that a diet giving an abundance of milk is mostsuited to the bodies of children, and one that allows rather little wine because of the diseases that it causes. [loeb_subsection_2] Moreover it is advantageous to subject them to as many movements as are practicable with children of that age. To prevent the limbs from being distorted owing to softness, some races even now employ certain mechanical appliances that keep the bodies of infants from being twisted. And it is also advantageous to accustom them at once from early childhood to cold, for this is most useful both for health and with a view to military service. Hence among many non-Greek races it is customary in the case of some peoples to wash the children at birth by dipping them in a cold river, and with others, for instance the Celts, to give them scanty covering. [loeb_subsection_3] For it is better to inure them at the very start to everything possible, but to inure them gradually;and the bodily habit of children is naturally well fitted by warmth to be trained to bear cold. In the earliest period of life then it is expedient to employ this or a similar method of nursing; [loeb_subsection_4] and the next period to this, up to the age of five, which it is not well to direct as yet to any study nor to compulsory labors, in order that they may not hinder the growth, should nevertheless be allowed enough movement to avoid bodily inactivity; and this exercise should be obtained by means of various pursuits, particularly play. But even the games must not be unfit for freemen, nor laborious, nor undisciplined. [loeb_subsection_5] Also the question of the kind of tales and stories that should be told to children of this age must be attended to by the officials called Children’s Tutors. For all such amusements should prepare the way for their later pursuits; hence most children’s games should be imitations of the serious occupations of later life. [loeb_subsection_6] The legislators in theLaws Plat. Laws 792a. Plato merely says that a child’s crying shows it to be annoyed, and that it ought to have as little pain as possible or else it will grow up morose. forbid allowing children to have paroxysms of crying, but this prohibition is a mistake; violent crying contributes to growth, for it serves in a way as exercise for the body, since holding the breath is the strength giving factor in hard labor, and this takes place also with children when they stretch themselves in crying. The Tutors must supervise the children’s pastimes, and in particular must see that they associate as little as possible with slaves. For children of this age,
[1336b] and up to seven years old, must necessarily be reared at home; [loeb_subsection_7] so it is reasonable to suppose that even at this age they may acquire a taint of illiberality from what they hear and see. The lawgiver ought therefore to banish indecent talk, as much as anything else, out of the state altogether (for light talk about anything disgraceful soon passes into action)—so most of all from among the young, so that they may not say nor hear anything of the sort; and anybody found saying or doing any of the things prohibited, if he is of free station but not yet promoted to reclining at the public meals, must be punished with marks of dishonor and with beating, and an older offender must be punished with marks of dishonor degrading to a free man, because of his slavish behavior. [loeb_subsection_8] And since we banish any talk of this kind, clearly we must also banish the seeing of either pictures or representations that are indecent. The officials must therefore be careful that there may be no sculpture or painting that represents indecent actions, except in the temples of a certain class of gods to whom the law allows even scurrility; but in regard to theseThe MS. text gives and in addition to these; and the word still may be an interpolation. the law permits men still of suitable age to worship the gods both on their own behalf and on behalf of the children and women. [loeb_subsection_9] But the younger ones must not be allowed in the audience at lampoonsIambic verses, often abusive and indecent, recited at festivals of Dionysus. and at comedy, before they reach the age at which they will now have the right to recline at table in company and to drink deeply, and at which their education will render all of them immune to the harmful effects of such things. For the present therefore we have merely mentioned these matters in passing, but later we must stop to settle them more definitely, first discussing fully whether legislation prohibiting the attendance of the young is desirable or not, and how such prohibition should be put in force; but on the present occasion we have touched on the question only in the manner necessary. [loeb_subsection_10] For perhaps the tragic actor TheodorusA great Athenian performer of Sophocles; he took the part of Antigone. used to put the matter not badly: he had never once allowed anybody to produce his partLoosely put for to appear on the stage. before him, not even one of the poor actors, as he said that audiences are attracted by what they hear first; and this happens alike in regard to our dealings with people and to our dealings with things—all that comes first we like better. On this account we ought to make all base things unfamiliar to the young, and especially those that involve either depravity or malignity.
But when the five years from two to seven have passed, the children must now become spectators at the lessonsi.e. in gymnastics and music. which they will themselves have to learn. [loeb_subsection_11] And there are two ages corresponding to which education should be divided—there must be a break after the period from seven to puberty, and again after that from puberty to twenty-one. For those who divide the ages by periods of seven years are generally speaking not wrong,The MSS. give not right.