Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds

Book excerpt: This book offers an assessment of the content, structures and significance of education in Greek and Roman society. Drawing on a wide range of evidence, including the first systematic comparison of literary sources with the papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt, Teresa Morgan shows how education developed from a loose repertoire of practices in classical Greece into a coherent system spanning the Hellenistic and Roman worlds. She examines the teaching of literature, grammar and rhetoric across a range of social groups and proposes a model of how the system was able both to maintain its coherence and to accommodate pupils' widely different backgrounds, needs and expectations. In addition Dr Morgan explores Hellenistic and Roman theories of cognitive development, showing how educationalists claimed to turn the raw material of humanity into good citizens and leaders of society.