EPHEBIC
An ephebe was a young male in the Athens just about to enter training to the military. An ephebic youth was then someone in the thick midst of puberty or adolescence. A requirement to gain citizenship was to graduate from school (yes, yes military school and also there was most likely a class structure in place as well as a gender issue which barred young girls and women from citizenship...BUT let us look beyond that antiqued ideal and use the word and the salvageable structures of the word's concepts) and swear an Ephebic Oath.
Telemachus saw her long before any one else did. He was sitting moodily among the suitors thinking about his brave father, and how he would send them flying out of the house, if he were to come to his own again and be honoured as in days gone by. Thus brooding as he sat among them, he caught sight of Minerva and went straight to the gate, for he was vexed that a stranger should be kept waiting for admittance. He took her right hand in his own, and bade her give him her spear. "Welcome," said he, "to our house, and when you have partaken of food you shall tell us what you have come for."
He led the way as he spoke, and Minerva followed him. When they were within he took her spear and set it in the spear- stand against a strong bearing-post along with the many other spears of his unhappy father, and he conducted her to a richly decorated seat under which he threw a cloth of damask. There was a footstool also for her feet, and he set another seat near her for himself, away from the suitors, that she might not be annoyed while eating by their noise and insolence, and that he might ask her more freely about his father. from the Odyssey by Homer Book 1
An ephebe was a young male in the Athens just about to enter training to the military. An ephebic youth was then someone in the thick midst of puberty or adolescence. A requirement to gain citizenship was to graduate from school (yes, yes military school and also there was most likely a class structure in place as well as a gender issue which barred young girls and women from citizenship...BUT let us look beyond that antiqued ideal and use the word and the salvageable structures of the word's concepts) and swear an Ephebic Oath.
Telemachus saw her long before any one else did. He was sitting moodily among the suitors thinking about his brave father, and how he would send them flying out of the house, if he were to come to his own again and be honoured as in days gone by. Thus brooding as he sat among them, he caught sight of Minerva and went straight to the gate, for he was vexed that a stranger should be kept waiting for admittance. He took her right hand in his own, and bade her give him her spear. "Welcome," said he, "to our house, and when you have partaken of food you shall tell us what you have come for."
He led the way as he spoke, and Minerva followed him. When they were within he took her spear and set it in the spear- stand against a strong bearing-post along with the many other spears of his unhappy father, and he conducted her to a richly decorated seat under which he threw a cloth of damask. There was a footstool also for her feet, and he set another seat near her for himself, away from the suitors, that she might not be annoyed while eating by their noise and insolence, and that he might ask her more freely about his father. from the Odyssey by Homer Book 1
