The School of Rome: Latin Studies and the Origins of Liberal Education

by W. Martin Bloomer

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520296183
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	10/31/2017
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	294
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

W. Martin Bloomer is Professor of Classics at University of Notre Dame.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Three Vignettes

1. In Search of the Roman School
2. First Stories of School
3. The School of Impudence
4. The Manual and the Child
5. The Child an Open Book
6. Grammar and the Unity of Curriculum
7. The Moral Sentence
8. Rhetorical Habitus

Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Bloomer has composed a compelling, insightful work. . . . [This] text deserves a wide audience."—Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Bmcr)

"A clever and sophisticated reading of [Roman] society."—London Review of Books

Editorial Reviews

Bloomer has composed a compelling, insightful work. . . . [This] text deserves a wide audience.

Bryn Mawr Classical Review (BMCR) - Zara M. Torlone

A clever and sophisticated reading of [Roman] society.

London Review Of Books - Tim Whitmarsh

Adventurous. . . . An entertaining reconstruction of the difficulties encountered by early schools of rhetoric at Rome.

Jrnl Of Roman Stds/Jrnl Of Hellenic Stds - Teresa Morgan

"Bloomer has composed a compelling, insightful work. . . . [This] text deserves a wide audience."—Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Bmcr)

"A clever and sophisticated reading of [Roman] society."—London Review of Books

"Adventurous. . . . An entertaining reconstruction of the difficulties encountered by early schools of rhetoric at Rome."—Jrnl of Roman Stds/Jrnl of Hellenic Stds

From the Publisher