Von der Bürgerschule zum aristokratischen Klub? Die athenische Ephebie in der römischen Kaiserzeit

Abstract

The article sets out to explain why the Athenian ephebeia outlived the disappearance of its original aims for more than two hundred years. For this purpose the article contrasts the ephebeia of the High Empire with its Hellenistic precursors. The epigraphical representation will show that this institution has rightly been called «elitist» by modern scholarship, but that it would be misleading to call it an «aristocratic club». During the imperial period the ephebeia was still considered an institution of the polis, and since it served local elites as a means to form an identity and to differentiate their status, it continued to offer much attraction late into the third century AD. This institution seems to have disappeared following the Herulian invasion of 268 AD, but its disappearance was not the consequence of material decline, but of a general loss of local identities and urban traditions, which led to a new concept of education.