Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/414

404 40 i On the Birth-Year of Deynosthenes. ^evrepov eviavTov^ Aristotle contradicts ^Eschines, who, speak- ing of his own education, mentions that he had himself served two years as irepiTroXo^s ttj^ X^P^^ (Fals. Leg. p. 50) whereas according to Aristotle this duty only began in the second year of the ephebia. The lexicographer suggests that the orator may have exaggerated his own merits, by boasting that he had voluntarily spent two years in the service for which only one was required by law. This explanation, absurd enough in itself, appears to be founded on a misunderstanding of Aristotle's meaning ; for the second year of which he spoke was probably calculated not from the final probation but from the age of puberty, and the examination at the festival of Cureotis, by which this was legally determined. If this took place in the boy'^s sixteenth year, the oath taken in Boedromion would fall in the second year, a few months after the registration in the lexiarchic books, and at the time when according to all accounts the service of the irepiiroXoi began. But according to this construction of Aristotle''s words it would appear that he made the ephebia to begin from the age of puberty. This appearance may indeed be deceptive, and may be merely owing to the manner in which his ex- pressions have been reported. But there seem to be other indications that the terms ephehus and ephebia were used in two senses, a larger and a narrower one, the one referring to the time of life, the period of adolescence following that of boyhood, which began in the sixteenth year from the Apa- turia : the other to the legal maturity which qualified the citizen to become master of his estate, and which began in the eighteenth year, and perhaps in a certain month : the last, if Boeckh is right in his conjecture, of the civil year. It is in the latter sense that the term is used by Ulpian (on De- mosth. 7r€pl 11. p. 117 Wolf.) when he says: o e^iovre^ €i9 Tov^ €(pr]fiov9 €K Traicwv /uLeTct TvavoTrXicov o)fxvvov VTrepixayeiv ay^pi Oavdrov. But it is probably in the former that we ought to understand it in an interesting passage of the So- cratic dialogue Axiochus, where the author after mentioning the various kinds of tyranny to which the boy is subject in the course of his education from a multitude of masters, proceeds: eTreL^cw Se el^ rous €(pf]j3ov^ eyypacpyj^ Koa/mrjT}]^ Kal (po(io^ yeiptov^ 67retra Af/celoi/ kol AKaSrjfxia Kai yv/mvacfL'