Roman Education in the Late Republic and Early Empire

J. J. Eyre

doi:10.1017/S0017383500012869

Roman Education in the Late Republic and Early Empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009

J. J. Eyre

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Early Roman education had been based on the mos maiorum rather than on reason, the guiding light of Greek education. It had been education not so much for intellectual achievement as for a clearly envisaged type of character, summed up in the word gravitas. A Roman, learning a way of life rather than a body of formal knowledge, was ‘usu … et domesticis praeceptis multo magis eruditus quam litteris’. This training was conducted largely by the father and was entirely un-supervised by the state, hi contrast with education in Hellenistic cities, whence, by 100 b.c., many new ideas had come. Such training, however, though suitable for a rural community, was bound to change when Rome became a city and when foreign campaigns during the expansion of her empire took fathers away from home for months on end. Moreover the influence which had been exerted from an early date by the near-by cities of Magna Graecia began to increase after the capture of Tarentum in 272 b.c., and the result of Rome's successive conquests of Sicily, Macedonia, Greece, and Asia during the third and second centuries was so great an increase of Greek culture in Roman life that Horace was finally able to say ‘Graecia capta ferum captorem cepit et artis | intulit agresti Latio’.

Type: Research Article
Information: Greece & Rome , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , March 1963 , pp. 47 - 59

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017383500012869 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Classical Association 1963

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^{page 52 note 4} Sound morals and good elocution; i. 1. 4. Chrysippos, whom Quintilian quotes, had even higher ideals.

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^{page 53 note 1} Previously called litteratus: Suet. Gram. 4.Google Scholar

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^{page 53 note 9} Corrupt; perhaps = nenias, ‘trifles’.

^{page 53 note 10} ‘Carved on stones’: i.e. capitals.

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^{page 54 note 12} See above, p. 50.

^{page 54 note 13} Wilkins, A. S., Roman Education (Cambridge, 1905), 73–75.Google Scholar

^{page 55 note 1} See above, p. 52.

^{page 55 note 2} i. 10. 36.

^{page 55 note 3} Ibid. 34.

^{page 55 note 4} Ibid. 36–39.

^{page 55 note 5} On music see above, p. 48; cf. also Quint, i. 12. 6.

^{page 55 note 6} See above, p. 51.

^{page 55 note 7} ‘Rem tene, uerba sequentur’.

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^{page 56 note 3} x. 1. 31–36.

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^{page 56 note 14} See above, p. 53.

^{page 56 note 15} Wilkins, A. S., op. cit. 44 f.Google Scholar; Carcopino, J., op. cit. 105.Google Scholar

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^{page 57 note 2} Mart. x. 62.

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^{page 57 note 4} 7. 186–9.

^{page 57 note 5} Schol. ibid. 243.

^{page 57 note 6} Mart. ii. 90.

^{page 57 note 7} Suet. Iul. 42.Google Scholar

^{page 57 note 8} For references see Marrou, H. I., op. cit. 301. Cf.Google Scholar also below, p. 59, n. 2.

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^{page 57 note 11} Sail. Cat. 25. 2; cf. Cic. Mur. 6. 13.

^{page 57 note 12} Suet. Aug. 64. 2.Google Scholar

^{page 57 note 13} Wilkins, A. S., op. cit. 42 f.Google Scholar

^{page 57 note 14} xii. 1. 1; cf. i.praef. 9.

^{page 57 note 15} xii. 1. 3; cf. Gwynn, A., op. cit. 231fin.Google Scholar

^{page 58 note 1} But cf. De Or. ii. 20. 85, iii. 14. 55.Google Scholar

^{page 58 note 2} See above, p. 56.

^{page 58 note 3} Quint, xii. 3. 9 f.

^{page 58 note 4} But cf. xii. 2.

^{page 58 note 5} See above, p. 50.

^{page 58 note 6} xii. 2. 30.

^{page 58 note 7} Cf. Colson, F. H., Quintilian Book I (Cambridge, 1924), pp. xvi f., xxv.Google Scholar

^{page 58 note 8} xii. 1. 11.

^{page 58 note 9} See above, p. 51.

^{page 58 note 10} i. 2. 1–31. See above, p. 53 n. 5.

^{page 58 note 11} ii. 2. 3–8, 3. 3–12.

^{page 59 note 1} See above, p. 57.

^{page 59 note 2} Plin. Pan. 26–28.Google Scholar

^{page 59 note 3} Ep. 4. 13; cf. 1. 8. 10.

^{page 59 note 4} Results of this are estimated by J. Carcopino, op. cit. 121.

^{page 59 note 5} JUV. 15. 110–12.

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