This fascinating cultural and intellectual history focuses on education as practiced by the imperial age Romans, looking at what they considered the value of education and its effect on children. W. Martin Bloomer details the processes, exercises, claims, and contexts of liberal education from the late first century b.c.e. to the third century c.e., the epoch of rhetorical education. He examines the adaptation of Greek institutions, methods, and texts by the Romans and traces the Romans’ own history of education. Bloomer argues that whereas Rome’s enduring educational legacy includes the seven liberal arts and a canon of school texts, its practice of competitive displays of reading, writing, and reciting were intended to instill in the young social as well as intellectual ideas.
W. Martin Bloomer is Professor of Classics at University of Notre Dame.
“With its copious notes and extensive bibliography, this text is useful for any student of classical pedagogy as well as those interested in the evolution of education through the ages. Bloomer has composed a compelling, insightful work that clearly moves our understanding of this vital aspect of Roman culture into greater lucidity. . . . [This] text deserves a wide audience.”—Bryn Mawr Classical Review
“A clever and sophisticated reading of [Roman] society.”—London Review of Books
294 pp.6 x 9
9780520255760$85.00|£71.00Hardcover
Apr 2011