intimate friend. The Romans at first seem to have used only the one name, then two were given; and later we have the familiar three-fold name, representing the

Names

individual, the clan, and the family.1

AN ATHENIAN SCHOOL

Royal Museum, Berlin

A painting by Duris on a drinking-cup, or cylix. The picture is divided by the two handles. In the upper half, beginning at the left: a youth playing the double flute as a lesson to the boy before him; a teacher holding a tablet and stylus and correcting a composition; a slave (pædagogus), who accompanied the children to and from school. In the lower half: a master teaching his pupil to play the lyre; a teacher holding a half-opened roll, listening to a recitation by the student before him; a bearded pædagogus. The inner picture, badly damaged, represents a youth in a bath.

Greek education

Greek education consisted of three main branches, known as gymnastics, music, and grammar. By gymnastics the Greeks meant the physical training in the palestra, an open stretch of ground on the outskirts of the city.

1 In "Marcus Tullius Cicero," "Marcus," the prænomen, corresponds to our "given" name; "Tullius," the nomen, marks the clan, or gens; "Cicero," the cognomen, indicates the family.

Here a private teacher gave instruction in the various athletic sports which were so popular at the national games. The training in music was intended to improve the moral nature of young men and to fit them for pleasant social intercourse. They were taught to play a stringed intrument, called the lyre, and at the same time to sing to their own accompaniment. Grammar, the third branch of education, included instruction in writing

A ROMAN SCHOOL SCENE

Wall painting, Herculaneum

and the reading of the national literature. After a boy had learned to write and to read, the schoolmaster took up with him the works of the epic poets, especially Homer, besides Esop's Fables and other popular compositions. The student learned by heart much of the poetry and at so early an age that he always remembered it. Not a few Athenians, it is said, could recite the entire Iliad and Odyssey.

A Roman boy began his school days at about the age of seven. He learned to read, to write with a stylus on wax tablets, and to cipher by means of the reckoning Roman board, or abacus. He received a little instruction education in singing and memorized all sorts of proverbs and maxims, besides the laws of the Twelve Tables. His studying went on under the watchful eyes of a harsh schoolmaster, who did not

1 See pages 151, 206.

hesitate to use the rod. After Rome began to come into close contact with Greece, the curriculum was enlarged by the study of literature. The Romans were the first people who made the learning of a foreign tongue an essential part of education.

Schools now arose in which the Greek language and literature formed the chief subject of instruction. As Latin literature came into being, its productions, especially the orations of Cicero and the poems of Vergil and Horace, were also used as texts for study.

Persons of wealth or noble birth might follow their school training by Travel and a university course at a study abroad Greek city, such as Athens, Alexandria, or Rhodes. Here the Roman youth would listen to lectures on philosophy, delivered by the deep thinkers whom Greece still produced, and would profit by the treasures of art and science preserved in these ancient capitals. Many famous Romans thus passed several years abroad in graduate study. During the imperial age, as we have already seen, schools of grammar and rhetoric arose in the West, particularly in Gaul and Spain, and attracted students from all parts of the empire.

Relief on a sarcophagus The papyrus roll was sometimes very long. The entire Iliad or Odyssey might be contained in a single manuscript measuring one hundred and fifty feet in length. In the third century A.D. the unwieldy roll began to give way to the tablet, composed of a number of leaves held together by a ring. About this time, also, the use of vellum, or parchment made of sheepskin, became common.

1

90. Marriage and the Position of Women

A young man in Athens or in Rome did not, as a rule, marry immediately on coming of age. He might remain a bachelor for several years, sometimes till he was thirty or Engagements over. The young man's father had most to do with the selection of a wife. He tried to secure for his son some

1 See page 218.

daughter of a friend who possessed rank and property equal to his own. The parents of the two parties would then enter into a contract which, among other things, usually stated how large a dowry the bride's father was to settle on his daughter. An engagement was usually very little a matter of romance and very much a matter of business.

The wedding customs of the Greeks and Romans presented many likenesses. Marriage, among both peoples, was a religious ceremony. On the appointed day the prin- Wedding cipals and their guests, dressed in holiday attire, customs met at the house of the bride. In the case of a Roman wedding the auspices were then taken, and the words of the nuptial contract were pronounced in the presence of witnesses. After a solemn sacrifice to the gods of marriage, the guests partook of the wedding banquet. When night came on, the husband brought his wife to her new abode, escorted by a procession of torchbearers, musicians, and friends, who sang the happy wedding song.

An Athenian wife, during her younger years, always remained more or less a prisoner. She could not go out except by permission. She took no part in the banquets and Position of entertainments which her husband gave. She women lived a life of confinement in that quarter of the house assigned to the women for their special abode. Married women at Rome enjoyed a far more honorable position. Although early custom placed the wife, together with her children, in the power of the husband,2 still she possessed many privileges. She did not remain all the time at home, but mingled freely in society. She was the friend and confidante of her husband, as well as his housekeeper. During the great days of Roman history the women showed themselves virtuous and dignified, loving wives and excellent companions.

91. The Home and Private Life

There were no great differences between the dress of the two classical peoples. Both wore the long, loosely flowing robes

1 See page 148.

2 See page 144.

that contrast so sharply with our tight-fitting garments.1 Athenian male attire consisted of but two articles, Clothing the tunic and the mantle. The tunic was an undergarment of wool or linen, without sleeves. Over this was thrown a large woolen mantle, so wrapped about the figure as to leave free only the right shoulder and head. In the house a

HOUSE OF THE VETTII AT POMPEII (RESTORED)

Notice the large area of blank wall both on the front and on the side. The front windows are very small and evidently of less importance for admitting light than the openings of the two atria. At the back is seen the large, well-lighted peristyle.

man wore only his tunic; out of doors and on the street he usually wore the mantle over it. Very similar to the two main articles of Greek clothing were the Roman tunica and toga.2

On a journey or out in the country broad-brimmed hats were used to shield the head from the sun. In rainy weather the Coverings for mantle, pulled up over the head, furnished protecthe head and tion. Sandals, merely flat soles of wood or leather feet fastened by thongs, were worn indoors, but even these were laid aside at a dinner party. Outside the house leather shoes of various shapes and colors were used. They

1 See the illustrations, pages 117, 271.

2 The corresponding names of women's garments were stola and palla.