From white class walls to wax on tablets: image of school in Late Antique educational texts

• Main Author: Vitaly Bezrogov
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hypothekai 2019-06-01
• Series: Hypothekai
• Subjects: ancient education; Late Antique educational texts
• Online Access: http://www.hypothekai.ru/images/223-249_Bezrogov-26.pdf
• ISSN: 2587-7127; 2587-7127

A considerable number of teachers known to historians of education from the times of ancient Greece and Rome were, in fact, almost homeless. This happened not only because random premises, places in town squares, porticoes and groves used to be adapted for educational practices. The few detailed descriptions of what was happening at schools and almost complete archaeological silence on this subject contribute to this problem. Late antique text sources and artifacts allow us to lift the veil that separates us from the “places of education” as they had been formed by the end of the great era. This article describes the image of the school, as drawn by the Greco-Roman educational phrasebooks that belonged to Hermeneumata pseudodositheana, a literary monument formed be-tween the 2nd and 6th centuries AD. On the basis of its six main versions, it was demonstrated how, in order to socialize a student, the structure of the school and the educational process were pre-sented. The phrasebooks refer mainly to the training at the grammatist’s and grammarian’s and do not reflect home schooling. The school is shown as permanent premises with a lobby, where children leave their outdoor clothes, and one or two rooms for study. Functioning of the school is determined by the activity of the mentor, who is occasionally assisted by hypodidaskaloi. The teaching process goes through patterns, repetitions, imitations, analyses, which lead to comprehending the social roles in the ancient society, mastering the vocabulary of concepts and phrases, acquiring skills of reproduction, communication and self-presentation. The texts from phrasebooks on school subjects are compared with other kinds of texts and archaeological data.It is shown that of the two main lines indicated by Pseudo-Plutarch (“De liberis educandis”) and Pseudo-Lucian (“Erotes”), the works of Pseudo-Dositheus follow the second line (with the emphasis on institutional training). Of the three variants of the archaeologically studied school buildings (the philosophical schools in Athens, the classrooms in Alexandria, the school in the Egyptian Dakhla Oasis), the latter is the closest one typologically to the image presented in the phrasebooks.