A Companion to Ancient Education

With rigorous instruction in topics ranging from grammar, music, and poetry to numeracy and religious ritual, formal systems of education developed for citizen classes during Greek and Roman antiquity still resonate in the twenty–first–century world. A Companion to Ancient Education presents the most up–to–date scholarship relating to the rise and spread of educational practices and theories in the Greek and Roman world from the seventh century BCE to the fifth century CE. Featuring contributions from leading international scholars in the field, essays trace the roots of classical education while utilizing the latest research findings and applying innovative historical syntheses to such topics as the development of educational institutions, citizen and non–citizen training, women s education, materials and methods for instruction, apprentice and craft learning, and more. Offering thought–provoking reassessments of the breadth and purposes of education in ancient society, readings also shed important new light on the complexity of the ancient phenomena of education in Greece and Rome while also revealing the debts and affinities of educational practice to those of other ancient civilizations. Rooted in the latest scholarship, A Companion to Ancient Education sets a new standard in our understanding and appreciation of teaching and learning in Greco–Roman society.

Notes on Contributors viii

Introduction 1
W. Martin Bloomer

PART I Literary and Moral Education in Archaic and Classical Greece 5

1 Origins and Relations to the Near East 7
Mark Griffith

2 The Earliest Greek Systems of Education 26
Mark Griffith

PART II Accounts of Systems 61

3 Sophistic Method and Practice 63
David Wolfsdorf

4 Socrates as Educator 77
David K. O Connor

5 Spartan Education 90
Anton Powell

6 Athens 112
David M. Pritchard

7 Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy 123
Gretchen Reydams ]Schils

PART III The Spread and Development of Greek Schooling in the Hellenistic Era 135

8 Learning to Read and Write 137
William A. Johnson

9 School Structures, Apparatus, and Materials 149
Raffaella Cribiore

10 The Progymnasmata and Progymnasmatic Theory in Imperial Greek Education 160
Robert J. Penella

11 The Ephebeia in the Hellenistic Period 172
Nigel M. Kennell

12 Corporal Punishment in the Ancient School 184
W. Martin Bloomer

PART IV The Roman Transformation 199

13 Etruscan and Italic Literacy and the Case of Rome 201
Daniele F. Maras

14 Schools, Teachers, and Patrons in Mid ]Republican Rome 226
Enrica Sciarrino

15 The Education of the Ciceros 240
Susan Treggiari

16 Late Antiquity and the Transmission of Educational Ideals and Methods: The Greek World 252
Elzbieta Szabat

17 Late Antiquity and the Transmission of Educational Ideals and Methods: The Western Empire 267
Ilaria L. E. Ramelli

PART V Theories and Themes of Education 279

18 The Persistence of Ancient Education 281
Robin Barrow

19 The Education of Women in Ancient Rome 292
Emily A. Hemelrijk

20 The Education of Women in Ancient Greece 305
Aleksander Wolicki

21 Isocrates 321
James R. Muir

22 Plutarch 335
Sophia A. Xenophontos

23 Quintilian on Education 347
W. Martin Bloomer

24 Challenges to Classical Education in Late Antiquity: The Case of Augustine of Hippo 358
Hildegund Müller

PART VI Non ]Literary and Non ]Elite Education 373

25 Education in the Visual Arts 375
J. J. Pollitt

26 Mathematics Education 387
Nathan Sidoli

27 Musical Education in Greece and Rome 401
Stefan Hagel and Tosca Lynch

28 Medicine 413
Herbert Bannert

29 Sport and Education in Ancient Greece and Rome 430
Sarah C. Murray

30 Roman Legal Education 444
Andrew M. Riggsby

31 Toys and Games 452
Leslie J. Shumka

32 Slaves 464
Kelly L. Wrenhaven

33 Masters and Apprentices 474
Christian Laes

34 Military Training 483
Preston Bannard

Index 496

W. Martin Bloomer is Professor of Classics and Director of the Ph.D. Program in Literature at the University of Notre Dame. His publications include Valerius Maximus and the Rhetoric of the New Nobility (1993), Latinity and Literary Society at Rome (1997), The Contest of Language (2005), and The School of Rome (2011).