CHAPTER III

THE EDUCATION AND WORK OF ROME

THE Readings in this chapter trace the education of a Roman boy from the earlier times, when the training given was simple and very practical, through the change in national ideals to the later period, when oratory had become the chief aim of Roman educational effort.

The principal early schoolbook was the Laws of the Twelve Tables. These have been lost in their original form, but the digest (12) gives an idea as to their nature, while Cicero tells us (13) of their importance in the education of youth. The Roman farmer's calendar (14) shows the farmer's duties and sacrifices, and from it one gets some idea of the simple rural life of the early Romans. The extracts from Polybius (15) and Mommsen (16) give us good pictures of the Roman citizen of the old school. The epitaph for a Roman matron (17) describes briefly the education of a girl in this same earlier period.

After Rome had expanded and had come to embrace all the Italian peninsula, and the State was being brought into increasing contact with the Hellenic world to the eastward, the need became manifest for a more extended education and a broader culture than the old education had afforded. Within two centuries the transition was accomplished, and the old educational training had been superseded by new types of schooling. At first Hellenic schools were set up, and the Hellenic school system was adopted at Rome; later a Roman modification of these schools was worked out, as better adapted to Roman life and more expressive of Roman character. That the change was resisted by the older and more conservative members of Roman society might naturally be supposed. Not only was much written against the new and in praise of the old education, of which the extracts from Marcus Aurelius (18) and Tacitus (19) were among the more temperate, but it was even attempted to prohibit the introduction of Greek teachers and schools by official edicts (20 a-b). Horace (22) gives a good picture of the solicitude of his father, in the transition period, to secure the best teachers of the time for his son.

The position of a schoolmaster at Rome, as in Greece, was that of a menial, and Martial (23 a-b) gives no very attractive picture: of a Roman primary school. Teaching, unenlivened by any ideas as to psychological procedure, was one long grind. Both the teacher and the boy had a hard time. The difficulties a boy faced in learning to read Latin, as had been the case with the Greek boy/ as well, are shown in the page reproduced from Vergil (21). Cicero (24) and Quintilian (25) set forth the aim of the new education as finally evolved - oratory. Though the position of the primary teacher always remained low, the teachers in the higher schools, under the later Empire, came to occupy an important social position, as is shown by the grant of privileges to physicians and teachers by Constantine (26).

The Roman system of instruction as finally evolved spread to all the provincial cities, and passed over to the Middle Ages as the basis for the Christian schools which later arose in the cathedral cities. The Seven Liberal Arts of the Middle Ages were a direct descendant of the instruction in the Roman secondary schools.

12. The Laws of the Twelve Tables

What the laws of Moses were to the early Hebrews, the laws of Lycurgus to Sparta, the laws of Solon and the Homeric poems to Attica, the Laws of the Twelve Tables were to the early Romans. These were adopted in 451 and 450 B.C., being in part a codification of previous practices, and made in part as a concession to the plebes. The first ten were adopted in 451, and the last two in 450. For several centuries these Laws formed the basis of instruction in reading and writing, and every boy was expected to know them and be able to explain their meaning. They express both the

spirit and the ideals of the old life and education at Rome. The following is an analysis of their contents, as reconstructed by scholars, the originals being lost.

I. Related to the Summons before a Magistrate.

II. Described Judicial Proceedings.

III. Execution, following Confession or Judgment.
IV. The Rights of a Father.

V. Related to Inheritance and Tutelage.
VI. Related to Dominion and Possession.

VII. The Law Concerning Real Property.

VIII. The Law of Wrongs and Injuries (Torts).

IX. Public Law.

X. Sacred Law.

XI. Supplement to Tables I-V. Prohibiting inter-
marriage of the two classes of citizens.

XII. Supplement to Tables VI-X. Various matters.

To illustrate further the nature of these Laws, the main subdivisions of Table IV are given.

TABLE IV. THE RIGHTS OF A FATHER.

1. Provisions as to the immediate destruction of monstrous and deformed children.

2. Relating to the control of a father over his children, the right being given him, during their whole life, to scourge them, imprison, keep rustic labor in chains, or sell or slay, even though they may hold high office.

3. Three consecutive sales of a son by a father finally releases him from his father's control.

4. Providing that no child born more than ten months after the death of his reputed father to be held as a legitimate child.

13. Importance of the Twelve Tables in Education

(Cicero, De Oratore, book 1, chap. XLIV)

Cicero, in his book on education for oratory, gives the following comment on the importance of a knowledge of the Laws of the Twelve Tables for those who would understand Roman law and institutions. De Oratore was written in 55 B.C.

Though all the world exclaim against me, I will say what I think: that single little book of the Twelve Tables, if any one look at the fountains and sources of laws, seems to me, assuredly, to surpass the libraries of all the philosophers, both in weight of authority, and in plenitude of utility. And if our country has our love, as it ought to have in the highest degree, our country, I say, of which the force and natural attraction is so strong, that one of the wisest of mankind preferred his Ithaca, fixed, like a little nest, among the roughest of rocks, to immortality itself, with what affection ought we to be warmed toward such a country as ours, which, preeminently above all other countries, is the seat of virtue, empire, and dignity? Its spirit, customs, and discipline ought to be our first objects of study, both because our country is the parent of us all, and because as much wisdom must be thought to have been employed in framing such laws, as in establishing so vast and powerful an empire. You will receive also this pleasure and delight from the study of the law, that you will then most readily comprehend how far our ancestors excelled other nations

in wisdom, if you compare our laws with those of their Lycurgus, Draco, and Solon. It is indeed incredible how undigested and almost ridiculous is all civil law, except our own; on which subject I am accustomed to say much in my daily conversation, when I am praising the wisdom of our countrymen above that of all other men, and especially of the Greeks. For these reasons have I declared, Scævola, that the knowledge of the civil law is indispensable to those who would become accomplished orators.

14. A Roman Farmer's Calendar

(Schreiber, Atlas of Classical Antiquities, Plate 62, Fig. 3)

A marble cube, two feet high and a foot square, of about 31-29 B.C. The translation of the space for May reveals the agricultural character of the Roman landowner,

FIG. 3. A MARBLE CALENDAR

15. The Roman Character

(Polybius, book 1, chap. 37)

The following extract, taken from the historical writings of the Greek Polybius, who lived between 204 and 122 (?) B.C., and who spent much time in Rome, is a good description of the Roman point of view.

But it is a peculiarity of the Roman people as a whole to treat everything as a question of strength; to consider that they must of course accomplish whatever they have proposed to themselves; and that nothing is impossible that they have once determined upon. The result of such self-confidence is that in many things they do succeed, while in some few they conspicuously fail, and especially at sea. land it is against men only and their works that they have to direct their efforts: and as the forces against which they exert their strength

do not differ intrinsically from their own, as a general rule they succeed; while their failures are exceptional and rare.

16. The Grave and Severe Character of the Life of the Earlier

Roman

(Mommsen, C. M. T., History of Rome, vol. II, pp. 4, 8)

The following passage from the German historian Mommsen gives a good picture of the life of a Roman citizen under the Republic.

Life in the case of the Roman was spent under conditions of austere restraint, and the nobler he was the less was he a free man. All-powerful custom restricted him to a narrow range of thought and action; and to have led a serious and strict life, or, to use a Latin expression, a grave and severe life, was his glory. Nothing more or less was expected of him than that he should keep his household in good order, and unflinchingly bear his part of counsel and action in public affairs. But while the individual had neither the wish nor the power to be aught else than a member of the community, the glory and the might of that community were felt by every individual burgess as a personal possession to be transmitted along with his name and his homestead to posterity; and thus, as one generation after another was laid in the tomb and each in succession added its fresh contribution to the stock of ancient honours, the collective sense of dignity in the noble families of Rome swelled into that mighty pride of Roman citizenship to which the earth has never, perhaps, witnessed a parallel, and the traces of which strange as they are grand seem to us whenever we meet them to belong, as it were, to another world. It was one of the characteristic peculiarities of this mighty pride of citizenship that, while not suppressed, it was yet compelled by the rigid simplicity and equality that prevailed among the citizens to remain locked up in the breast during life, and was only allowed to find expression after death; but it was displayed in the funeral of the man of distinction so intensely and so conspicuously that this ceremonial is better fitted than any other phenomenon of Roman life to give us who live in other times a glimpse of the wonderful spirit of the Romans.

17. The Education of Girls

(An ancient epitaph)

Women in Rome occupied a position of dignity and importance, but their place was in the home. For this they were carefully educated by their mothers, though many, in later times, also obtained some literary training. The following epitaph describes the simple history of one worthy matron.