Literacy & Education

W.V. Harris, Ancient Literacy (1989)
20-30% literate in large cities?

Indications of literacy
o Inscriptions & graffiti
o Evidence from art
o Papyri (e.g. texts from Oxyrhynchus)

Education
o Decentralized (no state involvement)
o Slaves, freedmen (often Greek)
o Ideal of Greek/Latin bilingualism

Curriculum
1) Grammar: ABC's -> reading of poets
2) Rhetoric: composition & delivery

Oratory
o Deliberative (political)
o Judicial (legal)
o Epideictic (for show)
  -> Second Sophistic (2nd c. AD)

Philosophy

Socrates (d. 399 BC)
o Emphasis on ethics (vs. science)
o Philosopher as moral exemplar

Plato/Aristotle (4th c. BC)
o Philosophical systems
o Schools (Academy, Lyceum)

Hellenistic Schools
o Stoicism
o Epicureanism
o Cynicism
o Skepticism

Cicero as translator/adaptor

Philosophy in Roman life
o Supplies ethical element religion lacks
o Philosophy as a way of life
o Aristocrats as converts, patrons
o Philosopher as emblematic figure

Stoicism

Zeno (335-263) & Chrysippus (c. 280-207)

Stoic < stoa (= colonnade where Stoics met)

Basic principles
o Individual as philosophic focus
o Virtue good: emotions bad
o Determinist universe: all events fated
 ... but allowing exercise of free-will.
o Cyclical destruction of world by fire

Stoicism in Rome
o Posidonius (c. 135-c. 51 BC)
o Seneca (c. 4 BC-65 AD)
o Marcus Aurelius (reigned 161-180 AD)

Influence on early Christianity

Epicureanism

Founded by Epicurus (341-270)

Sources
o Epicurus's own writings
o Inscription of Diogenes of Oenoanda
o Lucretius, De rerum natura ("On nature")
o Herculaneum papyri

Doctrines
o World = random atoms
o No life after death
o Gods exist, but do nothing
o Goal: Ataraxia ("Equanimity")
o Effort to minimize pain