Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

more generally. By the later part of the Republic (if not much before), the formal education of the Roman upper classes had become fairly standardized. We are speaking here not only of the minute group of perhaps a few thousand families whose sons might possibly have had a political career in Rome, but also about the merely well-to-do. This group is much larger – several percent of the population – and defined almost entirely by wealth rather than by status or connections. There were no state schools; instruction was provided either by freelance instructors who scheduled classes whenever and wherever they were able or, for the wealthiest, by private tutors owned or hired for the purpose. Though a few elementary mathemati cal skills and the like were taught in the early years, secondary and post-secondary instruction was almost entirely devoted to literacy and to literary skills, such as reading, analyzing, and sometimes composing various kinds of literary texts. Those who went on with their schooling followed up with instruc tion in the art of public speaking. This standard curriculum ran until the late teens. Afterward, there were several differ ent training options for the well-to-do young man. Military service (with rank dependent on status) was a prerequisite for a political career. Advanced instruction in rhetoric, as well as in more specialized subjects such as philosophy, was avail able in Greece and, increasingly, from Greeks who had come to Rome. Most importantly, the sons of the well connected would be informally apprenticed to the most prominent figures who were agreeable. This practice, not unlike a modern intern ship, was sometimes referred to as the tirocinium fori (roughly,

58