Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Musing of the Moment: Isocrates on the Youth in Ancient Greece

I'm running an independent study with an undergraduate who wants to study classical rhetoric. 

As I was reading Antidosis by Isocrates, I came across this passage of his take on the problems among the youth in Ancient Greece. 

"It is from these pursuits that you have for a long time now been driving out youth, because you accept the words of those who denounce this kind of education. Yes, and you have brought it about that the most promising of our young men are wasting their youth in drinking bouts, in parties, in soft living and childish folly, to the neglect of all efforts to improve themselves; while those of grosser nature are engaged from morning until night in extremes of dissipation which in former days an honest slave would have despised. You see some of them chilling their wine at the 'Nine-fountains'; others, drinking in taverns; others, tossing dice in gambling dens; and many, hanging about the training schools of the flute girls."

I'm thinking "same as it ever was, bruh."

They're youth.

Today I think you could replace the drinking with smoking weed.

I am intrigued by the prospect of "flute girls" though. Most people associate flute girls with prostitution, but according someone who knows Ancient Greece better than me, they are not necessarily prostitutes.

Check out "Flute Girls" on Mindship.

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