We know how to Control our Youth! Discipline in the Lycurgan Ephebia

John Friend

University of Texas at Austin

The ephebia as Aristotle describes it in his Constitution of the Athenians (42) was a compulsory two-year long state-funded military and civic training program for eighteen and nineteen year old Athenian male citizens. One of the most remarkable aspects of the program was the ability of the ephebic officials and other magistrates to impose discipline upon the ephebes to an extent which Athenian citizens outside the ephebia would have considered intolerable.

As Debra Hamel has shown, Athenian strategoi were reluctant to punish disobedient soldier-citizens, though they had the means to do so (Aristotle Constitution of the Athenians 61.2), because they themselves were “subject to the disciplinary authority of the Athenian demos” (62). The strategos simply could not afford to antagonize the soldiers he commanded by being a harsh disciplinarian for fear that he, on account of his unpopularity, would face the wrath of his former command in a law court once the campaign had ended. Given this, it is unsurprising that Athenian citizens on military service are routinely described as ill-disciplined and disobedient (e.g. Xen.Mem. 3.5.19; Dem. 54.3-5).

In contrast, the ephebic inscriptions erected at the end of the ephebes’ national service praise them for their eutaxia (good order in a military sense) and kosmiotes (good order in a civil sense) (e.g. I.G. II² 1156). Aristotle implies that the sophronistes, who supervised the ephebes of his tribe and took care of their daily expenses (Constitution of the Athenians 42.2-3), was also responsible for disciplining the ephebes. The purpose of this paper is to show why the sophronistes, although he, like the strategos, was an elected official who was subject to an euthuna after his term of office, was able to impose discipline whereas the strategos was not.

I will argue that the obligatory nature of the ephebia and the fact that the completion of the ephebia was a prerequisite for full citizenship rights provided a disincentive for ephebes to be disobedient during their term of service. I will also suggest that the peculiar position of the sophronistes made it difficult for disgruntled ephebes, having completed their national service and now allowed to initiate lawsuits, to prosecute the sophronistes once he had left office. Provided that the sophronistes had performed his office to the satisfaction of his fellow tribal members, most importantly the ephebes’ fathers, he was in little danger of being prosecuted for his efforts to discipline the young Athenians under his charge.