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6. Roman Society

Slavery in Rome 1 2 3

  • Most literature comes from free persons, as there is no literature written by slaves.
  • Slaves were seen as non-fully humans, and they were considered property.
  • Greeks called slaves “Doulos,” which means “one who is bound”.
  • Roman slaves were classified into urban and rural slaves.

Position of Women 4 5 6

  • In the early Roman Republic in the 5th century BC, women were able to own land, represent themselves in legal matters, and sign official documents.
  • Women were not allowed to vote or hold public office.
  • Vestal Virgins were the only public role a woman could hold.
  • The was no favoritism towards sons as opposed to daughters; both were equally important, and daughters were proudly presented to guests.

Education System 7 8 9

  • The literacy rate in ancient Rome was astronomically higher than in surrounding areas outside of Roman influence, which had an incalculable effect on labor efficiency.
  • This decentralized institution where a father is left to educate children himself, or simply decide not to do so, obviously had the effect of providing very different education levels for different children.
  • In the 3rd century BC, Rome would begin to conquer Greek areas of the Italian peninsula and then engage Carthage in the First Punic War. Both of these events had the effect of heavily exposing Rome to Greek culture and influence on a large scale for the very first time.
  • One of these was the practice of public education by professional tutors and in academies, along with the accompanying social expectation that all children receive some form of formal education (a Greek idea that remains popular worldwide to this day).
  • Alongside simple arithmetic, reading, and writing, complex Greek subjects such as philosophy, logic, ethics, poetry, astronomy, geometry, and political science entered the Roman world for the first time. However, Roman society saw the fields of music and athletics, which were very important to the Greeks, as unworthy of study.
  • Before long, Rome had a great number of these academies with tiered courses of study, where advancement was more dependent on ability rather than age. Furthermore, education became expected, though never mandatory, for all male children.
  • The topics of a woman’s education would vary from those given to men because of the different roles that women had to play in society. Girls were given lessons that would help them efficiently run a household as adults. This would include traditional domestic tasks like home maintenance and food preparation but also include what we would call financial and business training, like investment and labor management.
  • The first primary school that young boys attended at or around age six was called a Ludus Literarius, where they would be given instruction by a teacher whose job it was to do so. The focus of this stage of education was the essential skills for functioning in Roman society, such as reading, writing, basic arithmetic, and measurements.
  • Between the ages of nine and twelve, gifted Roman boys from esteemed families would go to study with a Grammaticus. Grammatici were teachers with more training, who would hone the skills that the students had learned in the earlier Ludus school.
  • At age fourteen or fifteen, the most gifted students would graduate from their grammaticus and go to study with another level of teacher called a Rhetor. This was the final stage of the formal Roman education system, and very few boys would ever reach it. It focused on public speaking and further mastery of Latin and Greek meant to prepare students for careers as politicians or lawyers.

References

  1. Basta, H. (2017). Slaves, Coloni, and status confusion in the late Roman Empire. Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council, 18(1). https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1544&context=nchcjournal ↩

  2. Urbs and Polis. (2021, November 27). Greco-Roman slavery [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/_npTG2Uxqc8 ↩

  3. Weird History. (2019, September 1). What it was like to be a Roman slave [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/1Kx_2Sh7iz0 ↩

  4. Aldrete, G.S. (2020, December 29). The Role of Women in Ancient Rome—piecing together a historical picture. WondriumDaily. https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/1849581/mod_book/chapter/501548/The%20role%20of%20women%20in%20Ancient%20Rome%E2%80%94piecing%20together%20a%20historical%20picture..pdf?time=1703319072634 ↩

  5. Roman Women. (n.d.). UNRV Roman History.https://www.unrv.com/culture/roman-women.php ↩

  6. World History Encyclopedia. (2022, July 5). The lives of ancient Roman women [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/1H0XArjGpkE ↩

  7. Britannica. (n.d.). Roman Adoption of Hellenistic Education. In Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/education/Roman-adoption-of-Hellenistic-education ↩

  8. Education in ancient Rome. (n.d.). United Nations of Roma Victrix Roman History. https://www.unrv.com/culture/education.php ↩

  9. Invicta. (2019, August 31). How they did it – growing up Roman [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/7w38PL4kg4A ↩