Areopagiticus

Accordingly, they believed that by removing the root of evil they would deliver the young from the sins which spring from it. On the other hand, they compelled those who possessed sufficient means to devote themselves to horsemanship,[*](That is, in training for the races at the festivals.) athletics,[*](There were three gymnasiums in Athens: the Lyceum, the Academy, and the Cynosarges.) hunting,[*](In Aristoph. Kn. 1382 ff., the reformed Demos declares that it will henceforth make all these demagogues take to hunting and give up concocting “decrees” for the Assembly.) and philosophy,[*](The cultivated life. See Isoc. 4.47 ff.) observing that by these pursuits some are enabled to achieve excellence, others to abstain from many vices.

But when they had laid down these ordinances they were not negligent regarding what remained to be done, but, dividing the city into districts and the country into townships, they kept watch over the life of every citizen,[*](The supervision of the young through guardians appointed by districts survives in the later period. See Aristot. Ath. Pol. 42.) haling the disorderly before the Council, which now rebuked, now warned, and again punished them according to their deserts. For they understood that there are two ways both of encouraging men to do wrong and of checking them from evil-doing;

for where no watch is kept over such matters and the judgements are not strict, there even honest natures grow corrupt; but where, again, it is not easy for wrongdoers either to escape detection or, when detected, to obtain indulgence, there the impulse to do evil disappears. Understanding this, they restrained the people from wrongdoing in both ways—both by punishment and by watchfulness; for so far from failing to detect those who had gone astray, they actually saw in advance who were likely to commit some offence.

Therefore the young men did not waste their time in the gambling-dens or with the flute-girls or in the kind of company in which they now spend their days,[*](The same picture of degeneracy is found in Isoc. 15.287. Cf. Theopompus in Athen. 532d.) but remained steadfastly in the pursuits to which they had been assigned, admiring and emulating those who excelled in these. And so strictly did they avoid the market-place that even when they were at times compelled to pass through it, they were seen to do this with great modesty and sobriety of manner.[*](Cf. Aristoph. Cl. 991; Plat. Theaet. 173c-d.)