Of State action with regard to education in Hellas elsewhere than in Sparta, Crete, and Athens, little is known. But the Chalcidian cities in Sicily and Italy are said to have provided literary education at public expense and under public supervision.[161] The law enacting this is ascribed to the great lawgiver, Charondas, and, although he is a somewhat shadowy figure,[162] there must have been some foundation for the story, at any rate at a later date. During the Macedonian period kings and other rich men often bequeathed large sums of money to their favourite cities, in order to endow the educational system. We hear of this happening in Teos and at Delphi: in these places the parents, if they paid any fees at all, cannot have paid much. But there is no authority for any such endowments during the period which we are considering.
But if education was neither enforced nor assisted to any considerable degree by the State, it was certainly encouraged by the prizes which were offered. Every city, and probably most villages, had local competitions annually, and in many cases more frequently still, in which some of the “events” were reserved for citizens, while others were open to all comers. There were separate prizes for different ages; the ordinary division was into boys and grown men, an intermediate class of “the beardless” being sometimes added. But in some Attic inscriptions the boys are divided into three groups, and in Chios the epheboi were so distributed.
These competitions were no doubt largely athletic. But music was usually provided for as well, and in many places there were literary competitions also. At Athens the different φρατρίαι [phratriai] seem to have offered prizes annually on the Koureotis day of the Apatouria to the boys who recited best, the piece for recitation being chosen by each competitor. Kritias took part in the competition when ten years old.[163] From Teos we have a list of prizemen, belonging, it is true, to a later date; but it may be quoted, to give some idea of what the subjects might be.[164]
For rhapsody, Zoïlos, son of Zoïlos. For reading, Zoïlos, son of Zoïlos.
For rhapsody, Metrodoros, son of Attalos. For reading, Dionusikles, son of Metrodoros. For general knowledge, Athenaios, son of Apollodoros. For painting, Dionusios, son of Dionusios.