He was only nine years old now; only nine years ago it was that the olive branch had been tied to the door of Simonides' house as a sign of a boy's birth, and the nurse had run around the blazing fire on the family hearth carrying the baby in her arms, and friends and relatives had brought presents and come to eat a cake on the day when the boy's name was given him. A happy child he had been, with many toys and a nurse who told him Æsop's old, old stories of the fox and the raven and the lion and the mouse. But the happiest days had been those in the studio, and often he had kept still for hours, while in absorbed interest he watched the clay take shape under his father's hands until he could recognize his own face even as he had seen it in his mother's bronze mirror.

These scenes are painted around the center of a shallow bowl, hence their peculiar shape. In A  we see at the left a music teacher seated at his lyre, giving a lesson to the lad seated before him. In the middle sits a teacher of reading and literature, holding an open roll from which the boy standing before him is learning a poem. Behind the boy sits a slave who brought him to school and carried his books. In B  we have at the left a singing lesson, aided by the flute to fix the tones. In the middle the master sits correcting an exercise handed him by the boy standing before him, while behind the boy sits the slave as before. (From Breasted, \"Ancient Times\")

But those days were over, and at nine he was a boy in school. Each morning at sunrise his pedagogue called him from bed and hurried him off to school, following behind him with his books and never leaving him all day. As they went through the city streets, all astir even at this hour, they caught the cries of the market people in the agora: "Buy fish!" "Buy oil!" "Buy charcoal!" They passed dignified citizens wrapped in cloaks and followed by slaves. Megacles saluted each one gravely. As they neared the Acropolis, they heard the din of hammer and chisel, the shouts of command and the straining of the men at work, for here before their eyes great temples were being built and statues of the gods rising in their places.

Photograph furnished by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Regretfully Megacles left it all behind to enter the school, where only too surely a flogging awaited him, For he had brought the clay, and his writing was put aside while once again he began to work and pinch. This time the figure grew to a whole man seated, and then another bending above him: a barber at work with his shears—just such a scene as he had passed that morning. And so again the master's voice caught him; and again he had to produce his exercise untouched since yesterday. The master frowned with his shaggy brows and with his eyes searched him all through. "The thing with which thy hands have been busy,—go fetch it at once!" There it was: the little clay barber was held up for the whole school to laugh at, while Megacles hung his head as he stood waiting. Greek schoolmasters never spared the rod, and Megacles suffered all that day in his body. But he suffered too in mind, for the master had kept his toy,—his unfinished toy which like a good workman he wanted to complete and to take away from ridicule. And so all day while he tried to do the tiresome writing, he was comforting himself by repeating: "Laugh now, old thick-wits, but some day I will show you!" For Megacles intended to follow after his father and be a great sculptor some day. And he never guessed that that night the master showed his toy to Aristides, Megacles' uncle, saying, "Regard it! the very stoop of the shoulders, the way we all cringe under the shears, has he not caught it? Is he not already a worthy son of Simonides?"

This is a marble figure of a boy on the side of a Greek altar of the fifth century B.C. The cithara had strings like a small harp and was played with a pick or plectrum. (Photograph furnished by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

In spite of such beginnings Megacles learned to read and write; he also learned by heart long rolls of Homer's poems; by playing on the cithara, he trained his spirit in love of harmony and beauty, and in the wrestling schools he developed his body. He learned too to sing and dance. And one day at home he was dancing and chanting some verses of Homer, to the accompaniment of his sister's flutes, when Aristides, his uncle, came in. Aristides was a man of fortune and now doubly prominent in the life of Athens, for he had undertaken to train the chorus for a drama. For this was the season of the Dionysiac festival, when for three days dramas were played before the people of Athens to see which play the judges would declare was the best. And for each play there was a chorus, trained at the expense of one of the citizens. Aristides was full of interest in his new work. He caught sight of the dancing children as he was on his way to see Simonides, who was just beyond, in the studio, and he called out, "Good day. What, have we a dancer here? Come, let me borrow thy lad, Simonides. Why should he not go with me tomorrow to the play? Mark my words! It is worth his remembrance,—a chorus well-trained, even I must admit," he laughed good-naturedly, "and Sophocles' lines are not those doomed to perish with the day. If these make him not immortal, then am I no judge of tragedy."

Here the great plays of Sophocles were given, while the people sat on the hillside, or in later times on seats placed like these in a circle. The seats for the chief men were at the front. (From Robinson and Breasted, \"History of Europe, Ancient and Medieval\")

So it came about that the next morning at sunrise, Megacles with his uncle was swept into the great stream of people that was setting toward the theater on the edge of the Acropolis hill. Men, women, and children were on their way there, many like Megacles and Aristides wreathed with ivy, many carrying baskets of eatables, for they had come to spend the day,—all in holiday dress and mood, pouring into the vast semicircle of benches that climbed the hillside. Near the front, in a seat of importance, sat Megacles with his uncle. The excitement was intense. There was the interest and wonder about what the play would be, but besides, since this play was one of three in the competition between the tragedies, there was also the great question of the prize at the end. To whom would the judges give the prize as the best writer of a tragedy? Which actor would they reward, which trainer of a chorus? The great throng was seated and ready, when only a moment after sunrise the chorus stepped into its place, an actor appeared on the wooden stage, and the play began. Would the audience listen to it gladly, or would they pelt the actor with figs and howl down the lines? It was the question of only a moment. In an instant all were held by the great lines of the drama, for this was Sophocles' tragedy of King Œdipus.

This is a painting on a Greek amphora, or jar, made in the fifth century B.C. (Photograph furnished by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

The story was well known: King Laius of Thebes was warned by an oracle that his own son would cause his death, and so when his boy, Œdipus, was born, he had him taken to the mountains and left there to die. Kind shepherds found the child and took him to the king of Corinth who brought him up as his son. But when Œdipus was a man grown, he heard the fate which the oracle had prophesied about him. Supposing that of course the king of Corinth was his father, he left Corinth lest somehow unknowingly he should kill the king, his father. With a few followers he journeyed away, until in a narrow path he met an old man whose attendants quarreled with his attendants over the right of way. In the struggle Œdipus by accident killed the old man. Going on to Thebes, he was, like everyone else, halted by the Sphinx with her riddle: What creature is it that in the morning goes on four legs, at noon on two and in the evening on three? "Man," Œdipus replied, "who as a baby crawls on all fours, in his strength walks erect on his two feet, and in old age must use a cane." So he solved the riddle of the Sphinx and in shame the monster put an end to herself; and the rejoicing citizens of Thebes asked Œdipus to become their king in the place of their king Laius who had just been killed, while away on a journey. So Œdipus was made king and married the queen, and all seemed happy until it became apparent that the gods were displeased with the city. The reason was that the city was sheltering the murderer of King Laius. Instantly Œdipus did everything in his power to find who the murderer was, swearing that, no matter who was guilty, he would not be spared the hardest punishment. At last proof was brought only too clearly that Œdipus himself was the wrongdoer, for the old man whom he had killed on his journey was Laius, King of Thebes and his own father. And so unsuspecting he had fulfilled the fate foretold by the oracle. Then, though he had acted innocently and without knowing what he did, Œdipus cruelly punished himself as he had said he would punish whoever was guilty. He put out both eyes, left the city and went into banishment for the rest of his days.

As the actors unfolded the story of the tragedy, deeper and deeper fell the hush upon the listening audience, except at moments when in response to the singing or the wailing of the chorus, the whole assembly swayed and sighed as if a wind was sweeping over the strings of a lyre. To Megacles it was the greatest moment of his life, and when at the end he walked quietly back from the theater beside his uncle, he seemed to himself not the same boy who had so lightly set out in the morning. For questions were repeating themselves over and over in his mind, one especially: Why must the king suffer for a wrong that was no fault of his? It was too big a question for a boy to answer, and he turned to his uncle. "Why did Œdipus do it?" he asked, "why punish himself for what he could not help?"

"Do you not remember the story of Heracles," Aristides answered, "how, when because of his great strength he unwittingly killed his music master, Linus, he was sent away to live in the mountains alone with the shepherds? So must it always be, for good intentions do not hold back the dire effects of evil done."

But Megacles was not satisfied. "It is not fair," he murmured. "Is  it fair for the gods to cause the evil and then to punish for it?"

"Tut, tut, 'for who can understand the will of the gods?' " his uncle quoted. "But no, it was not only because the gods willed it, but because Œdipus wanted to punish himself that he did it. For how could he face the light of the sun and live happily in the midst of his fellows when with his own hand he had killed his father? Only if he suffered too, could he find peace. It was the easier way for him. Such things thou canst not understand as yet, my lad."