National Latin Exam Study Guide: A Journey Through Ancient Rome

Remember that the history of Rome covers from 753 BC to 409 AD. That's a lot of time. When you consider the style of education today versus that of your parents, grandparents and great grandparents, you realize the dramatic changes in but a few years. How many of your parents had computers in their schools? Did your great grandparents have different entrances to their schools for boys and girls? When in this country was a woman allowed to be married and teach, to be pregnant and continue to teach? I can answer the last; my first year of teaching was in 1959-60 and it was also my first year of marriage. My son was born that summer and I had to resign before my pregnancy was apparent. Why do I explain this? I want you to understand that whatever you read that claims "how it happened in ancient Rome" is not "how it happened throughout Roman history".

 

In ancient Rome, children learned oratory, literacy and arithmetic. Boys also learned fighting and farming, while girls learned to cook and sew. When Rome discovered Greek culture (2nd century BC), schools began introducing Greek thought. Students studied Greek literature, rhetoric, debate and science. Not every Roman child was educated. The majority were taught only the basics of reading and arithmetic. Some girls attended a primary school, taught by a litterator and a few girls (12-16 years) would go on with the boys to the next level with a grammaticus. Only a small number of students would study with a rhetor. Students would go to the town where the rhetor taught (Athens was a common choice) to attend the rhetor's class.

 

Writings on Education

 

 

Horace in Satires 1.6:

 

Although he ( my father) was a poor man, with only an infertile plot of land, he was not content to send me to Flavius's school which the burly sons of burly centurions attended, carrying their book-bags and writing tablets slung over their left shoulders and paying their few pennies on the Ides. My father had the courage to take his boy to Rome, to have him taught the same skills which any equestrian or senator would have his sons taught. If anyone had seen my clothing or the slaves that attended me, as is the custom in a large city, he would have thought that my expenses were being paid for from an ancestral estate. But my paedogogus... who was my father, accompanied me to school...

 

 

 

Plutarch The Life of Marcus Cato 20:

 

And when the child was old enough to read, Cato himself took charge and taught him to read and write, even though he owned an accomplished slave ... who was a teacher and had instructed many boys. But Cato did not think it proper for his son to be criticized by a slave or to have his ears tweaked by a slave when he was a slow learner, or to owe to a slave so precious a gift as his education. Therefore, Cato was his reading teacher, his law professor, his athletic coach. ... He also says that he wrote his book in large letters so that his son might have the opportunity at home to become familiar with his society's ancient customs and traditions. He was careful to avoid indecent language in his son's presence.

 

 

 

Suetonius in A Book about Schoolteachers:

 

Lucius Orbilius Pupillus was an orphan who had an army career. When his commitment to service was fulfilled, he returned to study and become a teacher. In his 50th year, he moved to Rome to teach. He earned more fame than money. He published a book in which he complained about the insults and injuries he received from negligent or ambitious parents. His temper caused him to use the whip often. He lived over 100 years and a statue stood in Beneventum, his home town.

 

 

 

Juvenal Satires 7:

 

What grammaticus ... ever receives the salary which his hard work deserves? And then this amount, however small, (certainly less than a rhetor earns) is further diminished by bribes to greedy paedogogues and fees to accountants... resign yourself. As long as you get some money for sitting in a classroom in the middle of the night when no laborer or woolworker would be on the job (classes started very early)! As long as you get some money for enduring the stink of oil lamps (i.e. olive oil)... and yet rarely do you get your money without a court case. But still the parents set impossible standards for you. You must know the rules of grammar perfectly, memorize history books ... Then the parents say, "Do your job well, and when the end of the year comes, we'll pay you for the twelve month period the same amount that a chariot driver earns in one race."

 

 

 

Horace Satires 1.1:

 

Coaxing teachers sometimes give cookies to their students to encourage them to learn.

Suetonius in Book about Schoolteachers:

Marcus Verrius Flaccus, a freedman, was renowned for his methods of teaching. He used to make his students compete against one another in contests in order to stiulate their minds and encourage them to study. He gave them a topic on which to write an essay and then awarded a prize to the author of the best essay. The prize was always an old book, valuable for its beauty or rareness.

 

 

 

Pliny the Younger, Epistles 4.13:

 

A paraphrase: Discussing why students did not attend school in their home town, the author raises the point of the difficulty of finding teachers and then finding ways to pay them. He himself offered to subsidize teachers but feared that the governing officials would find a way to divert the money. His solution is to give to parents alone the authority to hire teachers so they children can learn where they are born and grow to love their land.

A summary of the day of a schoolboy

Rise before dawn, wash hands and face, don the tunica and belt, grease down the hair and comb it.

Don scarf, cloak and rain cloak ( if needed)

Greet parents and leave with paedagogus

Enter school, kiss teacher hello

Paedagogus hands over wax tablet, writing box and writing instruments

Smooth the wax and write the assigned sentence

Review, recite, write from dictations, decline parts of speech and parse sentences

Have lunch of bread, olives, cheese , dried figs and nuts with cold water

 

 

 

For the average man... from Petronius Satyricon 58:

 

I didn't learn geometry and literary criticism and useless nonsense like that. I learned how to read the letters on public inscriptions. I learned how to divide things into hundreds and work out percentages and I know weights, measures and currency.

 

 

 

Lower class families:

Most could not afford to pay a teacher and the children remained illiterate. Some were apprenticed to learn a trade.