Teaching Young Romans

[caldrail]

I have an intersting question here - what was the influence of foreign tutors?

 

Now please bear with me on this. After William I invaded england in 1066, the norman overlords often used saxon childminders. This is said to be the reason why saxon culture survived under norman control (I suspect there are others too!). The point made by a talking head in a tv documentary was that these childminders, nurses, and tutors were usually oppressed saxons, who didn't teach the norman kids quite what their parents thought they would. They were, if you like, taking the edge off norman arrogance at grass roots.

 

Now you can argue about that, but I wonder if something similar was going on in roman times? After all, many teachers weren't roman at all, and pedagogues were very often educated slaves who mught originate from any part of the empire and beyond and weren't necessarily keen on romans at all. Roman education seems very steadfast during the republic and early empire, but I don't see much said about it after that, though it obviously continued. Is it possible that one of the reasons that romans became less.. well... roman... because they were taught by increasing numbers of people with axes to grind or perhaps more with less roman civitas?

 

Thoughts anyone?

[Nephele]

A good question, Caldrail, but I don't think Roman fathers left their sons too much to the influence of their pedagogues. Sons were under the constant influence and guidance of their fathers, and those of senatorial rank were expected to accompany their fathers to the Senate in order to have the "Roman way" impressed upon them early on.

 

Quoting from my favorite old book on ancient Roman life and society, A Day in Old Rome by William Stearns Davis:

 

But as soon as boys, at least, begin to pass out of early childhood their fathers are expected to take them in hand, and even a man of high rank is criticized if he leaves his sons too much to the guidance of paid tutors and of slaves.

 

This paternal discipline may be harsh but it is seldom negligent. Boys are taught to go with their fathers almost everywhere; to watch and listen in silence, but to ask intelligent questions afterward. Thus young Titus is already old enough to accompany his father Calvus to the sessions of the Senate itself. On a seat reserved near the door for senators' sons he listens through many a solemn debate. Presently the routine of business is so familiar to him, that he presumptuously thinks he can correct the consul on certain points of order. He and his companions of like rank already are playing "praetor's court" -- with one of them on the tribunal and the others (like their parents) the orators in the great basilica. As the good old customs have waned this companionship of fathers and sons has perhaps somewhat waned also -- but it still remains one of the worthiest features of the Roman training.

 

-- Nephele

[M. Porcius Cato]

Cato the Elder was intensely concerned about the education of his sons, and he devised a whole curriculum for them through which Cato also led the sons of local boys.

 

I'm also not convinced that foreign teachers--some of them notoriously cruel--would make their Roman charges sympathetic to their callous teachers' homeland.

[Nephele]

I'm also not convinced that foreign teachers--some of them notoriously cruel--would make their Roman charges sympathetic to their callous teachers' homeland.

 

Good point. Digressing for a moment into the fictional world, I remember that Flavia Gemina in one of her Roman Mysteries stories included a bit about a Roman boy's dislike of his teacher, and how unpleasant schooling was for him due to the strictness of the teacher and the punishments leveled out. I've no doubt that FG carefully researched this bit.

 

On the other hand, FG also has a Greek teacher (Aristo) as a continuing character in her books who's quite well-liked by his charges. But he's the exception -- proving that he's an exceptional character.

 

-- Nephele

[Flavia Gemina]

... On the other hand, FG also has a Greek teacher (Aristo) as a continuing character in her books who's quite well-liked by his charges. But he's the exception -- proving that he's an exceptional character.

 

Too busy at the moment to copy out references for all my research but here's the passage from The Code of Romulus that Nephele was referring to:

'How did you know that Aristo is our tutor?' asked Flavia.

'Everyone in Ostia knows. Or at least everybody at my school. They're all jealous because you have a private tutor who is nice to you and lets you do projects and doesn't beat you when you get a sum wrong.'

'What school do you go to?' asked Jonathan.

'The one in the forum,' said Porcius. 'But I don't want to talk about school. Let's have a chariot-race with mice!'

Very briefly, as Greek was the lingua franca of the Roman Empire in the first century AD, having a Greek tutor was the desirable thing (though expensive)! Cicero engaged a Greek named Tyrannio as a tutor for his son. Need I say more?

 

Vale.

 

Flavia

Edited August 9, 2007 by Flavia Gemina

[caldrail]

I can see where people are coming from - a mass movement of disaffected tutors isn't at all likely, and in any case, Rome was sufficiently cosmopolitan to have a wide range of nationalities - though I agree greek tutoring was accepted as the standard. It is interesting that despite greeks being sneered at, their language and culture was nonetheless the bedrock of Rome's.

 

However, I'm not thinking just in terms of teachers with attitude. I'm also thinking of a slow drift in education, where teachers might not be disaffected exactly but who tend to dilute roman culture over time, given that some weren't entirley roman to begin with. Toward the late empire 'roman-ness' seems to fade somewhat. No doubt thats largely due to immigrants living in ghettoes and refusing to give up their former national identity - much as happens today - but I notice this attitude also affects the senatorial class. Again, since many senators (if not all) were descended from lowly families, you have to wonder if attitudes were anything like the old guard of republican days, and for that reason were they so keen to ensure a tutor taught the same values that their roman forebears once accepted as civilised?

[ASCLEPIADES]

Salve!

Check this reference:

 

Slave Education in the Roman Empire

S. L. Mohler

 

 

( Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 71, 1940, pp. 262-280 )

 

Abstract

The large number of educated slaves in Roman society received their training in ways varying from self-education to instruction in formally organized schools within the larger households, which were called paedagogia. The boys enrolled in these schools served as ornamental "pages," but that work was only on a part time basis. The imperial school ad Caput Africae employed twenty-four paedagogi at one time. Pupils were proud of their attendance, called each other "brothers" and boasted of their "graduation." The positions held by these youths in after life included the highest procuratorships open to freedmen.

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

The actual instruction given to the children by the father would vary with his own education and would at best be subject to all sorts of interruptions due to his private business or his public duties. We find that this embarrassment was appreciated in very early times, and that it was customary for the Pater familias who happened to have among his slaves one competent to give the needed instruction to turn over to him the actual teaching of the children. It must be remembered that slaves taken in war were often much better educated than their Roman masters. Not all households, however, would include a competent teacher, and it would seem only natural for the fortunate owner of such a slave to receive into his house at fixed hours of the day the children of his friends and neighbors to be taught together with his own.

 

 

For this privilege he might charge a fee for his own benefit, as we are told that Cato actually did, or he might allow the slave to retain as his pecūlium the little presents given him by his pupils in lieu of direct payment. The next step, one taken in times too early to be accurately fixed, was to select for the school a more convenient place than a private house, one that was central and easily accessible, and to receive as pupils all who could pay the modest fee that was demanded. To these schools girls as well as boys were admitted, but the girls had little time for studying more than their mothers could teach them; those who did carry their studies further came usually of families that preferred to educate their daughters in the privacy of their own homes and could afford to do so. The exceptions to this rule were so few that from this point we may consider the education of boys alone.

Taken from The Private Life of the Romans by H W Johnston

A ROMAN SCHOOL

From an ancient relief in Trier.

Edited August 11, 2007 by Gaius Paulinus Maximus

[ASCLEPIADES]

Salve.

 

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled."

Plutarch, On Listening to Lectures

 

More on the Education according to Plutarch (in French)

 

and

 

more on the Education in Ancient Rome (also in French).

 

I hope these links may be useful.