The analogy between agriculture and learning in the 5th and 4th c. B.C.E.

Even though no fully articulated educational theory has survived Greek antiquity, there is sufficient evidence to allow us a glimpse into the various tropes through which the Greeks of the 5^th and 4^th c. B.C.E. conceived of education. Several metaphors about education figure prominently in poetry and prose of the period in question, most widespread being the ones emphasizing the gymnastic and hierarchical aspects of the educational process (Jaeger 1947; Too 2001; Joyal, McDougall, and Yardley 2009). Viewed through these angles, learning is akin to hardship and requires discipline, while the power relations that obtain between teacher and pupil parallel the normative domination of mind over body. In addition to the above, an analogy that gained momentum over time was one that saw teaching in terms of farming, and while it rose to prominence later on, its heritage can be traced back to the beginnings of Greek thought: the agricultural analogy is present inchoately in Greek texts of the archaic era, while it progressively runs across a wide array of genres, ranging from poetry and tragedy to philosophic discourse. Previous scholarship has dealt with agricultural metaphors, but the focus has largely been on the Hellenistic and Imperial times (Horowitz 1998; cf. Worman 2015). Similarly, there has been significant research on agricultural metaphors in education mostly for later authors such as Quintilian and Pseudo-Plutarch (Morgan 1998), but for the most part it has been the gymnastic and hierarchical conceptions of education that have received attention for the classical and Hellenistic ages (Hawhee 2002; Cribiore 2005). Though an exception can be found in Kronenberg’s 2009 study, its relevant sections are restricted to the agricultural metaphors found in Xenophon’s Oeconomicus. Accordingly, the purpose of this presentation is to provide an overview of the material dating to the period under discussion which has largely escaped notice. The analysis begins from Pindar’s Nemean 8 (Carey 1976) and Sophocles’ Antigone, extends to examine relevant extant fragments of Protagoras, Antiphon, and Democritus (Taylor 1999; Pendrick 2002; Bonazzi 2021), and concludes with Plato’s and Xenophon’s extensive use of the analogy (Sayre 1995).