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The range of instruction and its value depended entirely upon the teacher.
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By Dr. Harold Whetstone Johnston
Late Professor of Latin
Indiana University
Legal Status
In the eyes of Roman law, were little better than the chattels of the Head of the House. It rested with the pater familias to grant them the right to live; all that they earned was his; they married at his bidding, and either remained under his potestās or passed under another no less severe. It has also been suggested that custom and pietās had made this condition less rigorous than it seems to us.
Susceptio
The power of the pater familiās was displayed immediately after the birth of the child. By invariable custom it was laid upon the ground at his feet. If he raised (tollere, suscipere) it in his arms, he acknowledged it as his own by the act (susceptiō) and admitted it to all the rights and privileges that membership in a Roman family implied. If he refused to do so, the child became an outcast, without family, without the protection of the spirits of the dead, utterly friendless and forsaken. The disposal of the child did not ordinarily call for any act of downright murder, such as was contemplated in the case of Romulus and Remus and was afterwards forbidden by Romulus the King. The child was simply “exposed” (expōnere), that is, taken by a slave from the house and left on the highway to live or to die. When we consider the slender chance for life that the newborn child has with even the tenderest care, the result of this exposure will not seem doubtful.
But there was a chance for life, and the mother, powerless to interpose in her infant’s behalf, often sent with it some trinkets or trifling articles of jewelry that would serve perhaps to identify it, if it should live. Even if the child was found in time by persons disposed to save its life, its fate might be worse than death. Slavery was the least of the evils to which it was exposed. Such foundlings often fell into the hands of those whose trade was beggary and who trained children for the same profession. In the time of the Empire, at least, they cruelly maimed and deformed their victims, in order to excite more readily the compassion of those to whom they appealed for alms. Such things are still done in southern Europe.
Dies Lustricus
The first eight days of the life of the acknowledged child were called prīmordia, and were the occasion of various religious ceremonies. During this time the child was called pūpus, although to weak and puny children the individual name might be given soon after birth. On the ninth day in the case of a boy, on the eighth in the case of a girl, the praenōmen was given with due solemnity. A sacrifice was offered and the ceremony of purification was performed, which gave the day its name, diēs lūstricus, although it was also called the diēs nōminum and nōminālia. These ceremonies seem to have been private; that is, it can not be shown that there was any taking of the child to a templum, as there was among the Jews, or any enrollment of the name upon an official list. In the case of the boy the registering of the name on the list of citizens may have occurred at the time of putting on the toga virīlis.
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The diēs lūstricus was, however, a time of rejoicing and congratulation among the relatives and friends, and these together with the household slaves presented the child with little metal toys or ornaments in the form of flowers, miniature axes and swords, and especially figures shaped like a half-moon (lūnulae), etc. These, called collectively crepundia, were strung together and worn around the neck and over the breast. They served in the first place as playthings to keep the child amused, hence the name “rattles,” from crepō. Besides, they were a protection against witchcraft or the evil eye (fascinātiō), especially the lūnulae. More than this, they were a means of identification in the case of lost or stolen children, and for this reason Terence calls them monumenta. Such were the trinkets sometimes left with an abandoned child, their value depending, of course, upon the material of which they were made.
The Bulla
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But of more significance than these was the bulla aurea, which the father hung around the child’s neck on this day, if he had not done so at the time of the susceptiō. It consisted of two concave pieces of gold, like a watch case, fastened together by a wide spring of the same metal and containing an amulet as a protection against fascinātiō. It was hung around the neck by a chain or cord and worn upon the breast. The bulla came originally from Etruria, and for a long time the children of patricians only were allowed to wear those of gold, the plebeians contenting themselves with an imitation made of leather, hung on a leathern thong. In the course of time the distinction ceased to be observed, as we have seen such distinctions die out in the use of names and in the marriage ceremonies, and by Cicero’s time the bulla aurea might be worn by the child of any freeborn citizen.
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The choice of material depended rather upon the wealth and generosity of the father than upon his social position. The girl wore her bulla until the eve of her wedding day, laying it aside with other childish things, as we have seen; the boy wore his until he assumed the toga virīlis, when it was dedicated to the Larēs of the house and carefully preserved. If the boy became a successful general and won the coveted honor of a triumph, he always wore his bulla in the triumphal procession as a protection against envy.
Nurses
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The mother was the child’s nurse not only in the days of the Republic but even into the Empire, the Romans having heeded the teachings of nature in this respect longer than any other civilized nation of the old world. Of course it was not always possible then, as it is not always possible now, for the mother to nurse her children, and then her place was taken by a slave (nūtrīx), to whom the name māter seems to have been given out of affection. In the ordinary care of the children, too, the mother was assisted, but only assisted, by slaves. Under the eye of the mother, slaves washed and dressed the child, told it stories, sang it lullabies, and rocked it to sleep on the arm or in a cradle. None of these nursery stories have come down to us, but Quintilian tells us that Aesop’s fables resembled them. For a picture of a cradle see Smith under the words cūnae and cūnābula; in Rich under cūnāria is a picture of a nurse giving a baby its bath. The place of the modern baby carriage was taken by a litter (lectīca), and a terra cotta figure has come down to us representing a child carried in such a litter by two men.
After the Punic wars it became customary for the well-to-do to select for the child’s nurse a Greek slave, that the child might acquire the Greek language as naturally as its own. In Latin literature are many passages that testify to the affection felt for each other by nurse and child, an affection that lasted on into manhood and womanhood. It was a common thing for the young wife to take with her into her new home, as her adviser and confidant, the nurse who had watched over her in infancy. Faithfulness on the part of such slaves was also frequently repaid by manumission.
Playthings
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But little is known of the playthings, pets, and games of Roman children, because as has been said domestic life was not a favorite theme of Roman writers and no books were then written especially for the young. Still there are scattered references in literature from which we can learn something, and more is known from monumental sources. This evidence shows that playthings were numerous and of very many kinds. The crepundia have been mentioned already, and these miniature tools and implements seem to have been very common. Dolls there were, too, and some of these have come down to us, though we can not always distinguish between statuettes and genuine playthings. Some were made of clay, others of wax, and even jointed arms and legs were not unknown.
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Little wagons and carts were also common (Schreiber, LXXXII, 10), and Horace speaks of hitching mice to toys of this sort. There are numerous pictures and descriptions of children spinning tops, making them revolve by blows of a whiplash, as in Europe nowadays. Hoops also were a favorite plaything, driven with a stick and having pieces of metal fastened to them to warn people of their approach. Boys walked on stilts and played with balls, too, but as men enjoyed this sport as well, it may be deferred until we reach the subject of amusements.
Pets and Games
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Pets were even more common then than now, and then as now the dog was easily first in the affections of children (Schreiber, LXXXII, 6). The cat, on the other hand, was hardly known until very late in the history of Greece and Rome. Birds were very commonly made pets, and besides the doves and pigeons which are familiar to us as well, we are told that ducks, crows, and quail were pets of children. So also were geese, odd as this seems to us, and the statue of a child struggling with a goose as large as himself is well known. Monkeys were known, but could not have been common. Mice have been mentioned already.
Games of many kinds were played by children, but we can only guess at the nature of most of them, as we have hardly any formal descriptions. There were games corresponding to our Odd or Even, Blindman’s Buff, Hide and Seek, Jackstones, and Seesaw (Schreiber, LXXIX and LXXX). Pebbles and nuts were used in games something like our marbles, and there were board-games also. To these may be added for boys riding, swimming, and wrestling, although these were taken too seriously, perhaps, to be called games and belonged rather to their training for the duties of citizenship.
Home Training
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The training of the children was conducted by the father and mother in person. More stress was laid upon the moral than upon the intellectual development: reverence for the gods, respect for the law, unquestioning and instant obedience to authority, truthfulness, and self-reliance were the most important lessons for the child to learn. Much of this came from the constant association of the children with their parents, which was the characteristic feature of the home training of the Romans as compared with that of other peoples of the time. The children sat at table with their elders or helped to serve the meals. Until the age of seven both boys and girls had their mother for their teacher. From her they learned to speak correctly their native tongue, and Latin rhetoricians tell us that the best Latin was spoken by the noble women of the great houses of Rome. The mother taught them the elements of reading and writing and as much of the simpler operations of arithmetic as children so young could learn.
From about the age of seven the boy passed under the care of regular teachers, but the girl remained her mother’s constant companion. Her schooling was necessarily cut short, because the Roman girl became a wife so young, and there were things to learn in the meantime that books do not teach. From her mother she learned to spin and weave and sew: even Augustus wore garments woven by his wife. By her mother she was initiated into all the mysteries of household economy and fitted to take her place as the mistress of a household of her own, to be a Roman mātrōna, the most dignified position to which a woman could aspire in the ancient world.
The boy, except during the hours of school, was equally his father’s companion. If the father was a farmer, as all Romans were in earlier times, the boy helped in the fields and learned to plow and plant and reap. If the father was a man of high position and lived in the capital, the boy stood by him in his hall as he received his guests, learned to know their faces, names, and rank, and acquired a practical knowledge of politics and affairs of state. If the father was a senator, the boy, in the earlier days only it is true, accompanied him to the senate house to hear the debates and listen to the great orators of the time; and the son could always go with him to the forum when he was an advocate or concerned in a public trial.
Then as every Roman was bred a soldier the father trained the son in the use of arms and in the various military exercises, as well as in the manly sports of riding, swimming, wrestling, and boxing. In these exercises strength and agility were kept in view, rather than the grace of movement and symmetrical development of form, on which the Greeks laid so much stress. On great occasions, too, when the cabinets in the atrium were opened and the wax busts of their ancestors displayed, the boy and girl of noble family were always present and learned the history of the family of which they were a part, and with it the history of Rome.
Schools
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The actual instruction given to the children by the father would vary with his own education and 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 a pater familiās 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 for the reason given in the girls had little time for studying more than their mothers could teach them, and those who did carry their studies further came usually of families who 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.
Subjects Taught in Elementary Schools
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In these elementary schools the only subjects taught were reading, writing, and arithmetic. In the first, great stress was laid upon the pronunciation: the sounds were easy enough but quantity was hard to master. The teacher pronounced first syllable by syllable, then the separate words, and finally the whole sentence, the pupils pronouncing after him at the tops of their voices. In the teaching of writing, wax tablets were employed, much as slates were a generation ago. The teacher first traced with a stilus the letters that served as a copy, then he guided the pupil’s hand with his own until the child had learned to form the letters independently. When some dexterity had been acquired, the pupil was taught to use the reed pen and write with ink upon papyrus. For practice, sheets were used that had had one side written upon already for more important purposes. If any books at all were used in these schools, the pupils must have made them for themselves by writing from the teacher’s dictation.
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In arithmetic mental calculation was emphasized, but the pupil was taught to use his fingers in a very elaborate way that is not now thoroughly understood, and harder sums were worked out with the help of the reckoning board (abacus). In addition to all this, attention was paid to the training of the memory, and the pupil was made to learn by heart all sorts of wise and pithy sayings and especially the Twelve Tables of the Law. These last became a regular fetich in the schools, and even when the language in which they were written had become obsolete pupils continued to learn and recite them. Cicero had learned them in his boyhood, but within his lifetime they were dropped from the schools.
Grammar Schools
Among the results of contact with other peoples that followed the Punic wars was the extension of education at Rome beyond these elementary and strictly utilitarian subjects. The Greek language came to be generally learned and Greek ideas of education were in some degree adopted. Schools were established in which the central thing was the study of the Greek poets, and these schools we may call Grammar Schools because the teacher was called grammaticus. Homer was long the universal text-book, and students were not only taught the language, but were instructed in the matters of geography, mythology, antiquities, history, and ethics suggested by the portions of the text which they read. The range of instruction and its value depended entirely upon the teacher, as does such instruction to-day, but it was at best fragmentary and disconnected. There was no systematic study of any of these subjects, not even of history, despite its interest and practical value to a world-ranging people like the Romans.
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The Latin language was soon made the subject of similar study, at first in separate schools. The lack of Latin poetry to work upon, for prose authors were not yet made text-books, led to the translation by a Greek slave, Livius Andronicus (3d century B.C.), of the Odyssey of Homer into Latin Saturnian verses. From this translation, rude as the surviving fragments show it to have been, dates the beginning of Latin literature, and it was not until this literature had furnished poets like Terence, Vergil, and Horace, that the rough Saturnians of Livius Andronicus disappeared from the schools.
In these Grammar Schools, Greek as well as Latin, great stress seems to have been laid upon elocution, a thing less surprising when we consider the importance of oratory under the Republic. The teacher had the pupils pronounce after him first the words, then the clauses, and finally the complete sentences. The elements of rhetoric were taught in some of these schools, but technical instruction in the subject was not given until the establishment at a much later period of special schools of rhetoric. In the Grammar Schools were also taught music and geometry, and these made complete the ordinary education of boyhood.
Schools of Rhetoric
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The Schools of Rhetoric were formed on Greek lines and conducted by Greek teachers. They were not a part of the regular system of education, but corresponded more nearly to our colleges, being frequented by persons beyond the age of boyhood and with rare exceptions, of the higher classes only. In these schools the study of prose authors was begun, but the main thing was the practice of composition.
This was begun in its simplest form, the narrative (nārrātiō), and continued step by step until the end in view was reached, the practice of public speaking (dēclāmātiō). One of the intermediate forms was the suāsōria, in which the students took sides on some disputed point of history and supported their views by argument. A favorite exercise also was the writing of a speech to be put in the mouth of some person famous in legend or history. How effective these could be made is seen in the speeches inserted in their histories by Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus.
Travel
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In the case of persons of the noblest and most wealthy families, or those whose talents in early manhood promised a brilliant future, the training of the schools was sure to be supplemented by a period of travel and residence abroad. Greece, Rhodes, and Asia Minor were the most frequently visited, whether the young Roman cared for the scenes of great historical events and the rich collections of works of literature and art, or merely enjoyed the natural charms and social splendors of the gay and luxurious capitals of the east.
For the purposes of serious study Athens offered the greatest attractions and might almost have been called the university of Rome, in this respect standing to Italy much as Germany now stands to the United States. It must be remembered, however, that the Roman who studied in Athens was as familiar with Greek as with his native Latin and for this reason was much better prepared to profit by the lectures he heard than is the average American who now studies on the continent.
Apprenticeship
There were certain matters, a knowledge of which was essential to a successful public life, for training in which no provision was made by the Roman system of education. Such matters were jurisprudence, administration and diplomacy, and war. It was customary, therefore, for the young citizen to attach himself for a time to some older man, eminent in these lines or in some one of them, in order to gain an opportunity for observation and practical experience in the performance of duties that would sooner or later devolve upon him. So Cicero learned the civil law under Quintus Mucius Scaevola, the most eminent jurist of the time, and in later years the young Marcus Coelius Rufus in turn served the same voluntary apprenticeship (tīrōcinium forī) under Cicero. This arrangement was not only very advantageous to the young men but was considered very honorable for those under whom they studied.
In the same way the governors of provinces and generals in the field were attended by a voluntary staff (cohors) of young men, whom they had invited to accompany them at state expense for personal or political reasons. These tīrōnēs became familiar in this way (tīrōcinium mīlitiae) with the practical side of administration and war, while at the same time they were relieved of many of the hardships and dangers suffered by those, less fortunate, who had to rise from the ranks. It was this staff of inexperienced young men who hid in their tents or went back to Rome when Caesar determined to meet Ariovistus in battle, although some of them, no doubt, made gallant soldiers and wise commanders afterward.
Remarks on the Schools
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Having considered the possibilities in the way of education and training within the reach of the more favored few, we may now go back to the Elementary and Grammar Schools to get an idea of the actual school life of the ordinary Roman boy. While these were not public schools in our sense of the word, that is, while they were not supported or supervised by the state, and while attendance was not compulsory, it is nevertheless true that the elements at least of education, a knowledge of the three R’s, were more generally diffused among the Romans than among any other people of the ancient world. The schools were distinctly democratic in this, that they were open to all classes, that the fees were little more than nominal, that so far as concerned discipline and the treatment of the pupils no distinction was made between the children of the humblest and of the most lordly families.
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The school was usually in a pergula, a shedlike attachment to a public building, roofed against the sun and rain, but open at the sides and furnished merely with rough benches without backs. The children were exposed, therefore, to all the distractions of the busy town life around them, and the people living near were in turn annoyed by the noisy recitations and even noisier punishments. A picture of a schoolroom from a wall painting in Herculaneum is shown above and an ancient caricature, by a schoolboy probably.
The Teacher
The teacher was originally a slave, perhaps usually a freedman. The position was not an honorable one, though this depended upon the character of the teacher himself, and while the pupils feared the master they seem to have had little respect for him. The pay he received was a mere pittance, varying from three dollars a year for the elementary teacher (litterātor, magister litterārum) to five or six times that sum for a grammaticus.
In addition to the fee, the pupils were expected to bring the master from time to time little presents, a custom persisting probably from the time when these presents were his only reward. The fees varied, however, with the qualifications of the master, and some whose reputations were established and whose schools were “fashionable” charged no fees at all, but left the amount to be paid (honōrārium) to the generosity of their patrons.
Schooldays and Holidays
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The schoolday began before sunrise, as did all the work at Rome on account of the heat in the middle of the day. The students brought candles by which to study until it became light, and the roof was soon black with the grime and smoke. The session lasted until time for the noonday luncheon and siesta, and was resumed in the afternoon. We do not know definitely that there was any fixed length for the school-year. We know that it regularly began on the 24th of March and that there were numerous holidays, notably the Saturnalia in December and the Quinquatria from the 19th to the 23rd of March. The great religious festivals, too, especially those celebrated with games, would naturally be observed by the schools, and apparently the market days (nūndinae) were also holidays.
It was until lately supposed that there was no school from the last of June until the first of November, but this view rested upon an incorrect interpretation of certain passages of Horace and Martial which are now otherwise explained. It is certain, however, that the children of wealthy parents would be absent from Rome during the hot season, and this would at least cut down the attendance in some of the schools and might perhaps close them altogether.
The Paedagogus
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The boy of good family was always attended by a trustworthy slave (paedagōgus), who accompanied him to school, remained with him during the sessions, and saw him safely home again when school was out. If the boy had wealthy parents, he might have, besides, one or more slaves (pedisequī) to carry his satchel and tablets. The paedagōgus was usually an elderly man, selected for his good character and expected to keep the boy out of all harm, moral as well as physical.
He was not a teacher, despite the meaning of the English derivative, except that after the learning of Greek became general a Greek slave was usually selected for the position in order that the boy might not forget what he had learned from his nurse. The scope of his regular duties is clearly shown by the Latin words used sometimes instead of paedagōgus: comes, custōs, monitor, and rēctor. He was addressed by his ward as dominus, and seems to have had the right to compel obedience by mild punishments. His duties ceased when the boy assumed the toga of manhood, but the same warm affection often continued between them as between the woman and her nurse.
Discipline
The discipline seems to have been really Roman in its severity, if we may judge from the picture of a school above referred to and by the grim references to the rod and ferule in Juvenal and Martial. Horace has given to his teacher, Orbilius, a deathless fame by the adjective plāgōsus. From Nepos we learn that then as now teachers might have appealed to the natural emulation between well-bred boys, and we know that prizes, too, were offered. Perhaps we may think the ferule well deserved when we read of the schoolboy’s trick immortalized by Persius. The passage (III, 44 f.) is worth quoting in full:
Saepe oculōs, meminī, tangēbam parvus olīvō,
Grandia sī nōllem moritūrī verba Cātōnis
Discere et īnsānō multum laudanda magistrō!
End of Childhood
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There was no special ceremony to mark the passing of girlhood into womanhood, but for the boy the attainment of his majority was marked by the laying aside of the crimson-bordered toga praetexta and the putting on of the pure white toga virīlis. There was no fixed year, corresponding to the twenty-first with us, in which the puer became iuvenis; something depended upon the physical and intellectual development of the boy himself, something upon the will or caprice of his pater familiās, more perhaps upon the time in which he lived. We may say generally, however, that the toga virīlis was assumed between the fourteenth and seventeenth years, the later age belonging to the earlier time when citizenship carried with it more responsibility than under the Empire and demanded a greater maturity.
For the classical period we may put the age required at sixteen, and if we add to this the tīrōcinium, which followed the donning of the garb of manhood, we shall have the seventeen years after the expiration of which the citizen had been liable in ancient times to military duty. The day was even less precisely fixed. We should expect the birthday at the beginning of the seventeenth year, but it seems to have been the more usual, but by no means invariable, custom to select for the ceremony the feast of Liber which happened to come nearest to the seventeenth birthday. This feast was celebrated on the 17th of March and was called the līberālia. No more appropriate time could have been selected to suggest the freer life of manhood upon which the boy was now about to enter.
The Liberalia
The festivities of the great day began in the early morning, when the boy laid before the Lares of his house the bulla and toga praetexta, called together the īnsignia pueritiae. A sacrifice was then offered, and the bulla was hung over the hearth, not to be taken down and worn again except on some occasion when the man who had worn it as a boy should be in danger of the envy of men and gods. The boy then dressed himself in the tunica rēcta, having one or two crimson stripes if he was the son of a senator or a knight, and over this was carefully draped the toga virīlis. This was also called in contrast to the gayer garb of boyhood the toga pūra, and with reference to the freedom of manhood the toga lībera.
Then began the procession to the forum. The father had gathered his slaves and freedmen and clients, had been careful to notify his relatives and friends, and had used all his personal and political influence to make the escort of his son as numerous and imposing as possible. If the ceremony took place on the līberālia, the forum was sure to be crowded with similar processions of rejoicing friends. Here were extended the formal congratulations, and the name of one more citizen was added to the official list. An offering was then made in the temple of Liber on the Capitoline Hill, and the day ended with a feast at the father’s house.
Chapter 3 from The Private Life of the Romans, by Harold Whetstone Johnston (1903), published by Project Gutenberg to the public domain.