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A Note on Ancient Methods of Learning to Write1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

J. V. Muir
J. V. Muir
Affiliation:
King's College, London
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Extract

There is still some confusion over the literary evidence for the methods by which children and others learnt to write in the ancient world. There are four main sources: the analogy between the methods of the grammatistes and the function of the laws in Plato, Protagoras 326c–d, three passages in Quintilian (1. 1. 27; 5. 14. 31; 10. 2. 2), a passage from one of Seneca's letters (Ep. 94. 51) and a short analogy in Maximus of Tyre (p. 20 Hobein, lines 13-16).

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , May 1984 , pp. 236 - 237
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1984

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References

2 To be found in varying degrees in Marrou, H.-I., A History of Education in Antiquity, trs. Lamb, G. (London, 1965), 156Google Scholar; Beck, F. A. G., Greek Education 450–350 B.C. (London, 1964), 115Google Scholar; Bowen, James, A History of Western Education i (London, 1972), 81Google Scholar.

3 Turner, E. G., BICS 12 (1965), 67–9Google Scholar.

4 The surviving archaeological evidence is nearly all late – see Zalateo, G., Aegyptus 41 (1961), 170–80Google Scholar.

5 See the pleasant set of poems from varying dates on the theme of an old scribe's retirement – AP 6. 62–7. For the ruler as part of the schoolboy's equipment, CGL iii. 639. 3, 638. 6; v. 383. 19. Mr Parsons has, however, drawn my attention to the odd fact that practised writers on papyrus do not appear to have ruled horizontal guidelines at any period. There is no evidence for Marrou's association of the κανών with the cross-shaped object depicted in educational scenes on many Greek vases or for his view that this object was used to rule squares for writing stoichedon – op. cit. 155 n. 9. See also The Greek Anthology: The Garland of Philip, ed. Gow, A. S. F. and Page, D. L. (Cambridge, 1968), ii. 337Google Scholar.

6 op. cit. 67.

7 Beudel, P. A., Qua ratione Graeci liberos docuerint … (Diss. Münster, 1911), 8Google Scholar.

8 Bonner, S. F., Education in Ancient Rome (London, 1977), 167–8Google Scholar. Quintilian nowhere implies that the incised alphabet-board was in regular use.

9 The precise meaning of ad praescriptum is uncertain. Was it perhaps a conventional technical term amongst teachers signifying simply the exercise of following a written example either by retracing pre-formed letters or by imitating model sentences? Cf. Ep. 94. 9; CGL iii. 646.

10 Some examples of copying exercises are in Studien zur Palaeographie und Papyruskunde, ed. Wessely, C. (Leipzig, 1902), pls. 2–5Google Scholar (the alphabet forwards and backwards, some favourite χαλινο and syllable-lists).