Greek and Roman Education

A Sourcebook

Mark Joyal, J.C Yardley, Iain McDougall

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780415338066
• eBook ISBN: 9781136931352
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

Modern western education finds its origins in the practices, systems and schools of the ancient Greeks and Romans. It is in the field of education, in fact, that classical antiquity has exerted one of its clearest influences on the modern world. Yet the story of Greek and Roman education, extending from the eighth century B.C. into the Middle Ages, is familiar in its details only to relatively few specialists.

Containing nearly 300 translated texts and documents, Greek and Roman Education: A Sourcebook is the first book to provide readers with a large, diverse and representative sample of the primary evidence for ancient Greek and Roman education. A special feature of this Sourcebook is the inclusion not only of the fundamental texts for the study of the subject, but also unfamiliar sources that are of great interest but are not easily accessible, including inscriptions on stone and Greek papyri from Egypt. Introductions to each chapter and to each selection provide the guidance which readers need to set the historical periods, themes and topics into meaningful contexts. Fully illustrated and including extensive suggestions for further reading, together with an index of passages explored, students will have no further need for any other sourcebook on Greek and Roman education.

1

EARLY GREECE TO c. 500 BC

The earliest written evidence for the Greek language dates to c. 1450–1200, a time frequently called the Mycenaean Period after the most famous Bronze Age site on the Greek mainland. The writing appears usually on clay tablets formed in the shape of either palm-leaves or pages; these tablets were preserved only because they were baked hard from fires that destroyed the buildings on the mainland and the islands where the tablets were stored, in centres such as Pylos, Mycenae, Thebes and Knossos. This writing was not expressed in the Greek alphabet familiar to us today, which did not come into use until perhaps three or four hundred years after the end of the Bronze Age. Instead it was transmitted in a “pictographic” script (i.e. images of familiar things representing complete syllables and their sounds) which scholars call Linear B. The thousands of Linear B tablets and fragments that have come to light do not, however, provide direct evidence for education in Bronze Age Greece. They are instead mainly inventories and official records from Mycenaean palaces, and inform us about palace administration.

There is little evidence that in this period literacy extended beyond its use in the Mycenaean palaces. Since the script of Linear B contains over ninety symbols, it must have been difficult to master and probably required special training (some tablets within a single collection have even been identified as students’ writing exercises; Chadwick 1968: 17–21). We do not know, however, whether a class of Mycenaean “scribes” existed: no reference to that profession has been identified in the tablets, nor do the authors make any mention of themselves (Palaima 2003: 173–77).

The period that lasted roughly 300 years after the Bronze Age is frequently referred to as the Greek “Dark Age,” largely because of its economic and cultural degeneration. This degeneration included, apparently, the complete collapse of literacy. Most education in this period, indeed until about 500 BC, must have involved the transmission of skills in farming or in other trades (1.1). Tradesmen no doubt learned their skills through an apprenticeship, probably with their fathers, as perhaps professional singers like Phemius and Demodocus in the Odyssey did too (though in Odyssey 22.347 Phemius claims to be “self-taught,” autodidaktos). Such a system is reflected in the tradition about Solon’s law on the teaching of trades, which, if historical, would date to the early sixth century BC (1.2). Another element of “popular” education in early Greece, though in this case containing a heavily ethical ingredient, is reflected in “wisdom literature,” which took the form of instructional (or “didactic”) poetry (1.3).

For the period c. 800–500 we are able to form a picture of “élite” education, mainly from the poets Homer, Theognis and Pindar (1.4–7). This education was really a moral training that a young person received from his association with an older role-model. Something similar may possibly be said about the relationships with young females that the poet Sappho describes, but the evidence for her educational influence is both late and uncertain (1.8).

The centaur Chiron plays an intriguing role in the upbringing of numerous mythological figures, most prominently Achilles and Asclepius (1.10–11). This relationship defies secure interpretation; it may be that Chiron’s role is to be linked with initiation rites, such as we find on Crete (1.12). Initiation rites also played a role in the upbringing of girls, especially through their performances in choruses (Ingalls 2000; Skinner 2005: 71–78).

Some time between about 900 and 800 BC, under circumstances that are unclear, the Greeks adopted and adapted the Phoenician writing system for their own use. The Greeks themselves preserved fairly specific memories about the origin of their alphabet, though they ascribed it to their mythical past (1.14). Evidence for the earliest Greek schools relates to the end of the period surveyed in this chapter (1.15).

General background: Pomeroy et al. 1999: 1–130; Sansone 2004: 1–47; Morris and Powell 2006: 60–92, 148–70. Linear B and the Bronze Age: Chadwick 1967: 126–31; Ventris and Chadwick 1973: 109–17; Chadwick 1976: 15–33; Castleden 2005: 85–91. Early Greece: Marrou 1956: xi–xviii, 3–13; Bowen 1972: 43–50, 57–62; Barrow 1976: 14–22; Griffith 2001; van Wees 1997.

1.1 Professional craftsmen

Homer, Odyssey 17.381–86

Homer identifies a special class of workers, called demioergoi (lit. “workers for the people”; cf. Odyssey 19.134–35), who are distinguished by the fact that they hire their services to the public. Their areas of expertise are among the most prized in the society that Homer depicts. The appearance of these specialists shows that a system of training in crafts that were in heavy demand existed in Homer’s time and earlier. The speaker in this extract is Eumaeus, Odysseus’ swineherd; Antinous is one of the suitors of Odysseus’ wife Penelope. Further reading: Finley 1978: 36–37, 55–57; Burkert 1992: 14–25; Griffith 2001: 29–33.

Antinous, a nobleman you are, but the words you speak are a disgrace. For who summons strangers from foreign lands and brings them here on his own unless they are those who work for the people (demioergoi) – a seer, or a healer of diseases, or a carpenter, or even an inspired singer, who delights others with his songs? These are men who are invited over the vast expanse of the earth.

1.2 Solon's law on teaching trades

Plutarch, Life of Solon 22.1

Athenians of the fifth and fourth centuries often attributed to Solon (c. 630– 560 BC) certain laws which were established only much later. The law which required a father to teach his son a trade, however, is coherent with the general nature of the other laws that we know Solon laid down, since those too seem to have focused on the family. Further reading: Ehrenberg 1973: 71–75; MacDowell 1978: 43; Osborne 1996: 220–21.

Solon noted that the city was becoming full of people continuously streaming into Attica from all directions in order to find security against the dangers they faced, that most of the land was mediocre and unproductive, and that those who came by sea to trade were not in the habit of bringing anything into the Athenian market for those who had nothing to offer them in return. He therefore focused the attention of his fellow-citizens on the skills required in craftsmanship and drew up a law whereby no son was under obligation to support his father if he had failed to teach him a trade.

1.3 Traditional wisdom

Hesiod, Works and Days 286–319

In the Works and Days (composed c. 725–700 BC), Hesiod assumes the role of moral advisor, dispensing wisdom in large quantities to his brother Perses. Partly for this reason, the poem is commonly classified as “wisdom literature,” a very old genre with near-eastern, non-Greek relatives, and concerned especially with the transmission of traditional knowledge. Further reading: Beck 1964: 66–69; Walcot 1966: 80–103; West 1978: 3–40, 1999: 76–78, 306–33; Heath 1985: 253–63.

With good purpose shall I speak to you, most foolish Perses. You can easily choose Inferiority in abundance; the path is smooth, and it lives very near. But the immortal gods set sweat in front of Superiority, and the road to it is long and straight and rough at first. When one reaches the summit, then it is easy, despite its former difficulty.

By far the best man is he who perceives everything on his own, contemplating what will be better later and in the end. He too is a noble person who follows good advice. But he who neither perceives on his own nor takes to heart what he hears from another, that man is useless. But you, Perses, always bear in mind my instruction, and work, you who are sprung from Zeus, so that hunger may hate you and revered Demeter of the fair crown favour you and fill your granary with food. For hunger always accompanies a lazy man. Gods and men are hostile to that man who lives an idle life, with a temper like blunttailed drones who in their laziness wear down and eat away the toil of the bees.

May your tasks be welcome to you, to order them in due measure, so that your granaries may be full of food in its season. As a result of work men are rich in flocks and wealthy, and he who works is far dearer to the gods. Work is no reproach, but laziness is a reproach. If you work, a lazy man will at once envy you as you gain wealth. Superiority and honour accompany wealth. But whatever state your fortune is in, working is better, if you turn your dim-witted heart from other people’s possessions towards work and take thought for your livelihood as I tell you to do. Modesty is not good at providing for a needy man – modesty, which is a great harm and a great help for men. Modesty accompanies poverty, boldness accompanies prosperity.

1.4. Phoenix and Achilles

(a) Homer, Iliad 9.485–95, (b) Homer, Iliad 9.438–45

The relationship between Phoenix, the speaker in these two passages, and Achilles, the son of Peleus and central character in the Iliad, resembles that between master and apprentice: the younger member learns – by prolonged association, observation and practice – the skills that enable him to become successful and to gain honour among his peers. The result of this association, in the present case at least (b), is intellectual and physical excellence, i.e. skill in counsel and war. The role which Phoenix plays is like that of the pedagogue (paidagogos), who was to become a central figure in the upbringing of both Greek and Roman children (e.g. 3.3–5). The Iliad was probably composed some time in the second half of the eighth century BC. Further reading: Jaeger 1947: 26–29; Beck 1964: 60–62; Marrou 1956: 7–8; Held 1987: 248–53.

a

I made you the man you are today, godlike Achilles, and loved you from the bottom of my heart. You refused to go to a feast in the company of any other man or to take your meals in the hall until I had given you a seat upon my knees and given you your fill of the food, cutting the first slice for you and offering the wine. Frequently you soaked the tunic on my breast as you sprayed wine from your mouth in your annoying childishness. Thus countless are the sufferings and toils I have endured on your behalf, as I bore in mind that it was not the will of the gods that I should have a child of my own. Instead, godlike Achilles, I made you my son so that one day you might protect me from the disgrace of ruin.

b

Old Peleus, that driver of horses, sent me to you on the day when, as a young child, you were dispatched from Phthia to join Agamemnon. As yet you knew nothing of war, the great leveller, or of the assemblies where men win great distinction. It was on this account that he sent me to teach you all these things, to become skilled at making speeches in public and performing deeds of war. Therefore, dear child, I would not wish to be left behind without you.

1.5. Learning through association

Theognis 27–36

In this extract Theognis offers advice to his friend Cyrnus which he himself learned when he was a child (pais). It is therefore likely that Cyrnus too is a boy or a young man. The instruction which Theognis presents here is heavily ethical and reminiscent of the content and tone of passages in Hesiod’s Works and Days (1.3); and we can imagine that the broad topics which it involves are the kind that Phoenix would have concerned himself with in his teaching of Achilles (1.4). Theognis’ dates are difficult to fix; suggestions for his birth have ranged from about the middle of the seventh century to the late sixth century BC. Further reading: Jaeger 1947: 194–204; Adkins 1960: 7...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Frontispiece map
• Introduction
• 1 Early Greece to c. 500 BC
• 2 Sparta
• 3 Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries BC
• 4 The Sophists, Socrates, and the fifth-century Enlightenment
• 5 Fourth-century theory and practice: Isocrates, Plato, and Aristotle
• 6 The Hellenistic Period (c. 335–30 BC)
• 7 Early Rome to c. 100 BC
• 8 Reading, writing, and literary study: Late Roman Republic and Empire
• 9 Teaching and learning the liberal arts and rhetoric: Cicero to Quintilian
• 10 Pagans and Christians: from the second century AD to the end of Antiquity
• Bibliography
• General index
• Index of passages