Just south of the entrance to this gulf lies a Greek state called Elis, a peaceful state, where flocks feed, and grain is waving in the fields in these July days, and grapes are ripening in the sunshine, and nobody fears that some enemy will suddenly come by land or sea, to molest or destroy, for to all the people of Greece this is a sacred state and therefore safe from all harm.

I want to show you a valley in Elis before I begin to tell about Cleon.

It is almost shut in by mountains, and a river, the Alpheus, flows through it. Its hill-sides are green and wooded, and its fields covered with grass and flowers. In these old days, long ago, a temple stood in this valley, guarded by a golden statue of Victory, and beneath the statue hung a shield of gold.

Shall I let you pass between the long rows of pillars and look in at the great throne, and the gold and ivory statues of Zeus, the "father of gods and men."

See how beautiful the throne is; cedar-wood and ebony, and richly set with precious stones; but when we look at the mighty statue that sits upon it, we forget all the glory of the throne, and think only of the Olympian Zeus.

Those old Greeks used to say, "Not to have seen the Olympian Zeus was indeed a misfortune to any man." The great sculptor, Phidias, had done his finest work when he made this statue. He made it as beautiful and as grand as he could, because he said always to himself while he worked, "It is in honor of the mighty Zeus, the father of all the gods, and he will look with favor on my work if it is worthy." So he carved the face, the chest, the arms and the feet of ivory; the hair and beard of solid gold, the eyes were precious stones, and the robe was of gold with jewelled flowers. In one outstretched hand stood a golden figure of the Winged Victory, in the other was the mighty sceptre. Forty feet high was this grand statue (as high as the house I live in). He sat there with a look sublime and inapproachable, yet not stern nor angry.

And this statue our little Cleon is really going to see with his own eyes. I wish we could see it with him, for to us also, to you and to me, it would be very grand, though we know that no image can represent God, the father of us all; but the rows of pillars and the long lines of light and shadows that fall across the pavement, the costly throne, the gems and gold and ivory, the majestic figure and face, and the great golden Victory over the door, make us stand still with a solemn feeling and ask what it all means.

Can you see it like a picture, and will you not forget it, while I take you away to Cleon and the others, who are hastening over the long roads in the bright summer weather, towards this very valley, to take part in the great Olympic games?

From the south came the Spartan youths, marching (they always march instead of walking) over the rough road with their bare feet. A bit of black bread in their wallets, and water from a wayside spring, is food enough for the journey. Among them are four boys who trudge on silently behind their companions. It is not respectful for boys to speak in the presence of men.

Will the boys get very tired on this long walk, full sixty miles, I think? Or, if they do, will the men stop for them to rest or march slower for their sake? Oh no, they are used to such marches. If they can't keep up they had best go back, for none but vigorous athletes are wanted at Olympia. Few comforts these boys have had in their lives, and no luxuries. For this last year they have been left to their own resources, living upon what they could find or steal. Their bed is of rushes that they gathered by the river-side, and last winter, when it was very cold, they added to it thistle-down that they pulled in the fields.

Watch for these boys, you will see them again.

From Corinth and from Thebes they are coming, young men for the games, old men to look on, and recall the days when they too were young. And the islands are sending their bravest and best, and the distant colonies fit out ships with two or three rows of long oars, and carry the colonists home for the great games.

But we have chiefly to do with the travellers from Athens, among whom is Cleon.

That you may know Cleon well, I must tell you what he has been doing for the past few years, and I can't tell you that without introducing to you his pedagogue.

I sometimes wish the boys had pedagogues in these days. Perhaps you don't know what a pedagogue was, and can't tell whether you would like to have one or not.

Look in the dictionary and you find the definition, a teacher or schoolmaster; then you will say, "Why, yes indeed, I do have a pedagogue."

But if you look in the great unabridged dictionary, you will see, just after the word "pedagogue" and before the definition, two strange-looking words in Greek letters, and their meanings following them,—"to lead," and "a child." So you see that in Greece, where the word came from, a pedagogue was one who led a child.

Every man in Athens who could afford it bought slaves. These slaves were the captives taken from other nations in war, and sold for greater or less prices according to their ability; a man or woman who could only cook might be bought for a mina of silver, while a learned man, who could oftentimes teach not only the children but the father himself, might cost a thousand drachmas.

Among the family slaves was always a pedagogue, who, as soon as the little boys of six left the care of their mothers and nurses, led them to school, went with them to their games, watched over them in every way, that they might form no bad habits, and that they might also notice and become interested in all that was best and most beautiful.

They led them to school, and then left them with the schoolmaster. When they were old enough, led them to the gymnasium, where there was always one room set apart for the boys, where they were trained in racing, wrestling, and all manly games.

But we shall understand it all better if we go to school with Cleon and see what he does there.

The pedagogue leads him to school at sunrise. On Monday morning do you suppose? Oh no, there were no Mondays and no weeks,—at least no weeks like ours. Three decades made a month. Some months had thirty days, and in those each decade was, as its name shows, ten days; but others had only twenty-nine days, and then the last decade had but nine; and as for the names of the days, they were only first, second, third, and so on.

School began at sunrise and ended at sunset, but I hope the same set of boys did not stay all that time.

Cleon is even earlier than usual this morning: for Glaucon—a boy two or three years older than himself—is still busy washing the benches with a great sponge, while Lysias grinds the ink for the parchment writing and waxes the tablets. These boys are too poor to pay a teacher, and yet they have a great love of learning, so they are working for the schoolmaster, who will pay them in teaching.

Little Cleon is still in the youngest class, learning to read and to repeat poetry, but next year he will begin to write on a little waxed tablet with a pen called a stylus. It is made of ivory, pointed at one end and flattened at the other. He writes with the pointed end, and afterwards rubs out the letters and smooths over the wax with the other, and the tablet is all ready for a new lesson.

He has a little classmate named Atticus, who found it almost impossible to learn his letters, although in the way of mischief there was nothing Atticus couldn't learn. So at last his father took him away from school and bought twenty-four little slaves of the same age as his son. These little fellows he named for the letters of the alphabet,—not A, B, C, but Alpha, Beta, etc.,—and he hired a schoolmaster to teach the whole twenty-five together, and it wasn't long before Atticus, who shouted to Gamma to catch the ball, or called Delta to run a race with him, had learned all the letters and begun to put them together to make words.

Before Cleon began to go to school, and when he was still a very little boy, only five years old, he one day climbed up the steps that led to his mother's bed; for you must know that going up stairs to bed was exactly what they always had to do in Athens, for the bedsteads were so high as to need several steps to reach them. Well, he climbed upstairs on to his mother's bed, and, wrapping his little chiton across his breast with one arm, held out the other as he had seen the orator do when his nurse led him past the marble porticos, where the people were often gathered to hear some wise man speak, and then, in his baby-talk, made a little speech, beginning, "Citizens of Athens."

Though his father and mother did not appear to take special notice of this at the time; they afterwards said one to the other, "Our boy will become an orator; we must see that he studies the works of the poets."

So, even before he can handle the stylus, he has begun to study the grand, heroic verses of Homer; not from a book, for I am sure you must know that there were no printed books in those days, and few written ones; but his master taught him, being quite as careful that he should stand gracefully, and hold his head erect, and his arms and hands at ease, as that he should understand the noble words and repeat them in a clear tone and with good expression.

Sometimes it is a speech of the wise Nestor to the Greeks before Troy:—

Or with Ajax he makes a stand to defend the ships, and shouts,—

Or he learns by heart the brave old tales, and grows to understand,—

Inspired by such grand words the boys will grow up to do brave deeds in battle some day themselves.

When they can read and write and count, and reckon by numbers a little, the lessons in music will begin. For although the law of Solon teaches only that every Athenian must learn to read and to swim, no less surely must every Athenian learn to sing and to play on the lute or cithara; for he must be able to sing the great pæan when he goes into battle, to join in the sacred choruses in honor of the gods, and also, in time of peace, he must know how to play and sing for the pleasure of himself and his friends in company.

But of course Cleon does something besides study.

Don't you want to go out with him to the sea-shore, three miles away, and skip shells (flat oyster-shells), as we do stones, on the blue water of the Mediterranean? And he can play leap-frog with the best of you. It is a Persian game, brought from that country years ago. To play ball is a part of his education, for the body must be educated as well as the mind, and makes one erect and agile to toss and catch and run.

A year or two ago he used to drive hoop, a lovely hoop with tinkling bells around the inside of it. Wouldn't that be a good present for somebody? Do you suppose it was a Christmas present to him?

No, there is no Christmas yet, any more than there was for Darius. He had the hoop on his birthday. He is too old for it now, but it is put away in case he should ever have a little brother.

It is only within a year that Cleon has been training for the foot-races.

Perhaps you don't see why every Athenian boy must be a swift runner, but when you remember that war was then the chief occupation of the people, and that a Greek army ran into battle shouting a grand pæan, you will realize that a soldier untrained in running was but half a soldier.

Cleon has been doing his very best in the racing, for this year he is going for the first time to the great Olympic games. Three of his neighbors and friends go with him, and of course his pedagogue, Diogenes, who has trained him so well, goes with him also. He will take care of them all, and the boys must be sure to obey him; for obedience is one of the duties of a good citizen, and good citizens they are all bound to become.

You and I have reason to be particularly interested in these Athenian boys; for Athens is a republic, the very first republic in the world, so far as we know, and all that you learn in becoming acquainted with Cleon will show you what was necessary in those old days to make boys into good citizens of a republic.