music, that they were more than instructors in an art, that they watched over and guided the moral growth of their pupils, was probably fully true. What were the poet's reminiscences of his own education, we may infer from an interesting fragment in which such a training is sketched.
"Now let us go, my children, to the schools
Where wise men teach, and learn the Muses' arts,
And ever, day by day, take one step on,
Till we gain power to study nobler things.
In boyhood mischief comes spontaneously,
And each, self-taught, learns all too easily,
But good, not even with the teacher near,
Abides with him, but is full hardly gained.
Ο let us, then, be watchful, and work hard,
My children, that we seem not to belong
To those who ne'er have learnt true discipline,
The children of a father far from home." [1]
IV.
B.C. 480.
The poet's fifteenth year was made memorable by a Persian invasion more terrible than that of Datis and Artaphernes. The great King himself was coming at the head of his countless hosts. There seemed no power in Greece able to oppose him. The fierce patriotism of Athens, which had showed itself under Dareios in the murder of the heralds who came to demand earth and water, was now to meet with a fierce retribution. There came panic and dismay,
- ↑ Fragm., 729.
