Legionary Literacy

[sylla]

Era is also extremely important... early to mid Republic legionaries consisted of landed citizenry and were likely to have better access to education than military counterparts in the later Republic and imperial eras or in armies of other "states".

The Vindolanda tablets were written by and for legionaries from the middle and late Imperial eras; I'm not aware of any archeological evidence that might imply an even higher literacy level for the Roman soldiers of any previous period.

[Primus Pilus]

Era is also extremely important... early to mid Republic legionaries consisted of landed citizenry and were likely to have better access to education than military counterparts in the later Republic and imperial eras or in armies of other "states".

The Vindolanda tablets were written by and for legionaries from the middle and late Imperial eras; I'm not aware of any archeological evidence that might imply an even higher literacy level for the Roman soldiers of any previous period.

 

That's an important distinction and my comment is misguided... I was really projecting middle republic against late Republic and early imperial periods where "the masses" were first granted carte blanche access to a military career. My apologies for not being clearer and letting my own time frame area of focus influence the comment.

[Kosmo]

We know that in some periods and places illiteracy was widespread while, Formosius, you did not give any reason why romans were different.

We still had modern populations where what we say it's equally truth (and had more advantages) with 90% illiteracy.

My answer it's because the vast and silent majority was rural population.

More accurately they were peasants and their mothers did not know how to write. Probably they did not know anybody who could write and a book was more expensive then themselves and their family.

[sylla]

We know that in some periods and places illiteracy was widespread while, Formosius, you did not give any reason why romans were different.

We still had modern populations where what we say it's equally truth (and had more advantages) with 90% illiteracy.

My answer it's because the vast and silent majority was rural population.

More accurately they were peasants and their mothers did not know how to write. Probably they did not know anybody who could write and a book was more expensive then themselves and their family.

Illiteracy is (surprise!) the lack of literacy, currently defined by the UNESCO as "the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, compute and use... written materials ... to enable an individual to achieve his or her goals... and to participate fully in the wider society"; under such definition (age 15 and over) the literacy rate for the World as a whole was 82% by 2007, and the worst score was for Burkina Faso (23,6 %).

Even if the rural population was the vast majority, it wasn't always so silent. Written records are not restricted to the books; the thousands of amphorae recovered from all over the Empire (multiple rural areas included) have almost always at least some short inscription regarding its contents, producers and shippers.

If no one was able to read, why were so many inscriptions required?

Unsurprisingly, one of the most constant archaeological evidence of the barbarian conquest across the V and VI centuries was the abrupt decline on the written record.

[Formosus Viriustus]

Salvete Omnes !

 

Illiteracy is (surprise!) the lack of literacy, currently defined by the UNESCO as "the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, compute and use... written materials ... to enable an individual to achieve his or her goals... and to participate fully in the wider society"; under such definition (age 15 and over) the literacy rate for the World as a whole was 82% by 2007, and the worst score was for Burkina Faso (23,6 %).

Even if the rural population was the vast majority, it wasn't always so silent. Written records are not restricted to the books; the thousands of amphorae recovered from all over the Empire (multiple rural areas included) have almost always at least some short inscription regarding its contents, producers and shippers.

If no one was able to read, why were so many inscriptions required?

Unsurprisingly, one of the most constant archaeological evidence of the barbarian conquest across the V and VI centuries was the abrupt decline on the written record.

 

 

 

Yes, I totally agree with that : the confusion, I think, mainly stems from what is understood by the words 'literate' and 'illiterate'. Even that definition given here is pretty subjective and can be interpreted in a wide variety of ways. If you applied today's standards to the population of the Roman Empire around the beginning of the Christian era, most likely 90 % or more of the population would be illiterate.

However, if you interprete it as it should be interpreted, that is : what number of people at the time had enough literacy to function reasonably well within their society, it would be completely different.

 

BTW, I think those present day statistics are also misleading. It may be true that according to the high, 21

[Ingsoc]

I have had a quick look at numismatics. Don't know anything about the subject at all, but by the beginning of the CE all minted coins had inscriptions on them while a couple of centuries earlier this seems not to be the case. Can that mean anything ?

 

I think it does. coins were also used as a propaganda mean and in the imperial period their main function was as payment to the soldiers, hence most of the imperial coins present the emperor as a military commander (Imperator and so on) to me it's suggest that a large portion of the Roman soldiers could recognize at least some basic words.

[Formosus Viriustus]

I have had a quick look at numismatics. Don't know anything about the subject at all, but by the beginning of the CE all minted coins had inscriptions on them while a couple of centuries earlier this seems not to be the case. Can that mean anything ?

 

I think it does. coins were also used as a propaganda mean and in the imperial period their main function was as payment to the soldiers, hence most of the imperial coins present the emperor as a military commander (Imperator and so on) to me it's suggest that a large portion of the Roman soldiers could recognize at least some basic words.

 

Thanks. End of discussion then ?

 

Formosus

[caldrail]

Era is also extremely important... early to mid Republic legionaries consisted of landed citizenry and were likely to have better access to education than military counterparts in the later Republic and imperial eras or in armies of other "states".

 

Interesting point, but was the spread of education as prevalent in those earlier times as during the imperial period?

Edited April 29, 2009 by caldrail

[Primus Pilus]

Era is also extremely important... early to mid Republic legionaries consisted of landed citizenry and were likely to have better access to education than military counterparts in the later Republic and imperial eras or in armies of other "states".

 

Interesting point, but was the spread of education as prevalent in those earlier times as during the imperial period?

 

Not in the sense of an organized system, though small schools "ludi" began popping up in the 4th to 3rd centuries. Still these were targeted for children of means and were not intended as a comprehensive system for everyone. Parental home schooling and private tutoring was still the key component in education by the middle and even late Republic. While I shouldn't give the impression that the so-called masses of the post-Marian armies were all uneducated and unruly sots, the societal level of these recruits was very likely to have had less exposure to education than their earlier land owning counterparts. As the first generation of these professional soldiers began to gain wealth and privilege as members of the Roman military system, they were likely able to afford to offer education for their families... with each passing generation we should be able to conclude a gradual increase in the education level of the army from Marius through the middle imperial period.

[Melvadius]

I would tend to agree with the concensus of what has been posted already although I suspect that Formosus Viriust... is operating under a common modern misconception about the ease with which people can pick up literacy skills. In the 'modern' world we tend to be surrounded by the printed image with words and images often flashing up onto our television screens making the relationship easier to pick up.

 

However, there are still significant proportions of modern populations with only limited literacy despite years of usually mandatory education. Across Europe low levels of reading ability average about 10% of the population who can 'just about understands short texts with repeated language patterns on familiar topics' c/f: (http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/Policy/adultlevels.html).

 

There was not the same emphasis on learning literacy skills in most of the ancient world as the modern world requires. As I mentioned in a previous posting (copied above by Gaius Octavius) there is abundent evidence from Vindolanda and elsewhere amongst the Roman military of very variable levels of literacy.

 

Putting all this into an ancient world context, where even basic writing material could be hard to come by, the estimates quoted above of 30% literacy levels in Pompeii or even as low as 10% are not unreasonable.

 

Melvadius

Edited April 29, 2009 by Melvadius

[Kosmo]

The article below

http://www.cepr.org/meets/wkcn/1/1658/papers/Felice.pdf

has at page 15 a table that gives a rate of illiteracy for Southern Italy in the year 1871 of 84.10%.

Unlike their roman ancestors they had access to cheap paper, much cheaper books, a well organized church and a state that actively promoted mass education.

It is true that romans had a higher level of literacy then most pre-roman or post-roman populations, but I am convinced that it was a fairly low percentage of the population, somewhere below 10%.

[sylla]

- Previous to Thapsus, Caesar "made friendly overtures to the latter's (Scipio's) soldiers, and distributed among them pamphlets, in which he promised... the Roman that he would grant him pardon and the same prizes that he had offered to his followers. In this way he gained over a goodly number" (Dio 43,5).

 

- When facing Anthony at Brundisium, "the men whom Octavian had sent to tamper with the soldiers distributed the greatest possible number of handbills throughout the camp, reflecting on Antony's stinginess and cruelty, recalling the memory of the elder Caesar and urging them to share the service of the younger and his liberal gifts"...

Even more, "Antony tried to find these emissaries by means of rewards to informers and threats against those who abetted them, but as he caught no one he became angry, believing that the soldiers concealed them" (Appian, BC 3, 44).

 

- Previous to Philippi (II), Anthony and Octavius "managed in some way to cast pamphlets into his camp (Brutus'), urging his soldiers either to embrace their cause (and they made them certain promises) or to come to blows if they had the least particle of strength" (Dio 47,48).

 

All these references seem to imply that by the late Civil Wars period most of the regular Roman legionaries were expected to be literate.

[Primus Pilus]

- Previous to Thapsus, Caesar "made friendly overtures to the latter's (Scipio's) soldiers, and distributed among them pamphlets, in which he promised... the Roman that he would grant him pardon and the same prizes that he had offered to his followers. In this way he gained over a goodly number" (Dio 43,5).

 

- When facing Anthony at Brundisium, "the men whom Octavian had sent to tamper with the soldiers distributed the greatest possible number of handbills throughout the camp, reflecting on Antony's stinginess and cruelty, recalling the memory of the elder Caesar and urging them to share the service of the younger and his liberal gifts"...

Even more, "Antony tried to find these emissaries by means of rewards to informers and threats against those who abetted them, but as he caught no one he became angry, believing that the soldiers concealed them" (Appian, BC 3, 44).

 

- Previous to Philippi (II), Anthony and Octavius "managed in some way to cast pamphlets into his camp (Brutus'), urging his soldiers either to embrace their cause (and they made them certain promises) or to come to blows if they had the least particle of strength" (Dio 47,48).

 

All these references seem to imply that by the late Civil Wars period most of the regular Roman legionaries were expected to be literate.

 

Or expected the literate to read them to everyone else. You may be right of course, but taking into account the literacy of the entire population, I find it unlikely that the vast majority of civil war era soldiers were literate.

 

[EDIT] Granted, of course, that the literacy level of the Roman world citizenry is disputed in this conversation.

[sylla]

- Previous to Thapsus, Caesar "made friendly overtures to the latter's (Scipio's) soldiers, and distributed among them pamphlets, in which he promised... the Roman that he would grant him pardon and the same prizes that he had offered to his followers. In this way he gained over a goodly number" (Dio 43,5).

 

- When facing Anthony at Brundisium, "the men whom Octavian had sent to tamper with the soldiers distributed the greatest possible number of handbills throughout the camp, reflecting on Antony's stinginess and cruelty, recalling the memory of the elder Caesar and urging them to share the service of the younger and his liberal gifts"...

Even more, "Antony tried to find these emissaries by means of rewards to informers and threats against those who abetted them, but as he caught no one he became angry, believing that the soldiers concealed them" (Appian, BC 3, 44).

 

- Previous to Philippi (II), Anthony and Octavius "managed in some way to cast pamphlets into his camp (Brutus'), urging his soldiers either to embrace their cause (and they made them certain promises) or to come to blows if they had the least particle of strength" (Dio 47,48).

 

All these references seem to imply that by the late Civil Wars period most of the regular Roman legionaries were expected to be literate.

 

Or expected the literate to read them to everyone else. You may be right of course, but taking into account the literacy of the entire population, I find it unlikely that the vast majority of civil war era soldiers were literate.

 

[EDIT] Granted, of course, that the literacy level of the Roman world citizenry is disputed in this conversation.

I find it hard to believe Scipio, Anthony, Brutus or anyone else would have let their enemies' pamphlets be read aloud among their ranks while waiting for an imminent battle. Besides, if the pamphlet editors ought to rely on scanty potentially hostile readers to transmit their message, such expensive measure might have been useless or even counterproductive.

On the other hand, both Appian and Dio wrote in the late principate, so it may be reasonably inferred that the literacy levels of the Roman soldiers of their time was enough to allow individual political propaganda.

[Primus Pilus]

I find it hard to believe Scipio, Anthony, Brutus or anyone else would have let their enemies' pamphlets be read aloud among their ranks while waiting for an imminent battle. Besides, if the pamphlet editors ought to rely on scanty potentially hostile readers to transmit their message, such expensive measure might have been useless or even counterproductive.

On the other hand, both Appian and Dio wrote in the late principate, so it may be reasonably inferred that the literacy levels of the Roman soldiers of their time was enough to allow individual political propaganda.

 

And in retrospect, the popularity of Caesar's own de Bello Gallica among the masses might come into play. Though this isn't measurable as a statistic of literacy, and Caesar's exploits (or exploitation as the case may be) may very well have spread through word of mouth to the previously mentioned masses, it bears further thought.