ABSTRACT
The monarchical institutions of Ptolemaic Egypt form, as it were, a compact monument, solidly resting on foundations thousands of years old. The foreign kings who restored the edifice adapted its plan with a rigid logic which is one of the features of the Greek intelligence. But, to make a place for Hellenism in such a crowded fabric, a breach had to be made somewhere. The Kings effected a fairly large one by the maintenance or creation of the cities. These should preserve and hand on the traditions of Hellenic culture which, in the eyes of the ancients, were bound up with the civic spirit. It was, therefore, necessary to develop that spirit and to shelter it from the harmful influences which, in that Oriental world, threatened it on every hand. This seems to have been understood by the Greek cities of the Hellenistic period. By the way in which they developed the institution of the gymnasium and the Ephebeia they showed a concern for education which we also find in the states of classical Greece. Unfortunately, we know hardly anything about the organization of the Ephebeia and the gymnasiums in the cities of Ptolemaic Egypt. 1 We find mention of the kosmetes, gymnasiarchos, and paidotribes, whom we should doubtless regard as magistrates of the city. We may take it that the age of Ephebeia was that of political majority, namely, fourteen years. This was also the age at which a youth entered his deme. But there were other divisions of the body politic, besides that into demes; certain indications suggest that in Alexandria and Ptolemais there were also age-classes—children, Ephebi, striplings, young men, fully developed men, and old men, the last of whom formed a body called the Gerusia. These classes, which were, no doubt, closely connected with the gymnasiums, were certainly well adapted to preserving the cult of Hellenic traditions. 1
