Métodos de compromiso

Concerning girls’ participation in encyclical education, in one of his letters, Pliny the Younger (61–112CE), mentions his friend Fundanus who lost his daughter. Pliny says about her: ‘she loved her nurse (nutrices) and her teachers,75 each one for the service given her; she applied herself intelligently to her books and was moderate and restrained in her play’ (Ep. 5.16.3). It is safe to assume that the text does not address public teaching but private tuition at home. Anyway, it is difficult to draw far- reaching conclusions concerning girls and encyclical training on the basis of the scattered evidence.76 Cribiore refers to the existence of a few Hellenistic terracotta potsherds showing girls carrying books and tablets,

73 Basilius the Great mentions in his Adol. 5.3-4 the same dictum of Hesiod (see above), saying that it is on everybody’s lips, and gives it a relevance to Greek education in general. Ps.Plutarch De Libris Educandis speaks of education in terms of reaching towards virtue or happiness (Mor. 5C; 11E); hence those who climb to the top become tevleioi (Mor. 8A). Plato Protagorasraises the question whether virtue can be taught or not, or whether ‘becoming good’ is a matter of knowledge. This dialogue therefore confers information of relevance to ancient education. In the midst of the question whether human beings are good, or become so by means of education, reference is made to Hesiod Op. 289 which is paraphrased: ‘for Heaven hath set hard travail on the way to virtue; and when one reacheth the summit thereof, ’tis an easy thing to possess, though hard before’ (Prot. 340D).

74 Cribiore 2001: 1.

75 Pliny here has the word paedagogi (pl.), thus demonstrating the Greek roots of Roman schooling. The text probably testifies to the wider functions in primary instruction performed by this figure.

76 Suetonius Gramm. 16 mentions that Marcus Agrippa’s wife took classes, but that this occasioned charges of misconduct. Bonner 1977: 27–28 gives more examples from the upper strata of Roman society. Quintilian wants mothers to have received as much education as possible; thus they can contribute to the education of their sons. His examples are all taken from the upper strata of the Roman aristocracy (Inst. 1.1.6-7). Cribiore 2001: 4, 74–101 concludes likewise; women from affluent families participated. This material is, however, not quite unanimous; see Cribiore 1996: 17. Haines-Eitzen 2000: 41–52 gives evidence for female scribes in antiquity and in early Christianity. They worked for female owners in private homes.

obviously on their way to school.77The Christian writer Lactantius (260– 330CE), himself one of Constantine the Great’s teachers, suggests caution here. In his Divinae Institutiones, he emphasizes that the Christian message brings equality; his proof-text is Gal. 3.28 (Inst. 5.15-16).78This passage has some practical consequences, according to Lactantius. The way of the Lord is taught to both sexes, and to all nations on an equal basis. This is, according to Lactantius, in opposition to teachers who otherwise taught only boys and young men (Inst. 6.3). As shown above, there are examples of girls attending school, but it was hardly common. The fact that encyclical education was a starting-point for power, authority and influence implies that education was primarily a masculine affair.79This made education less accessible for women. Girls who nevertheless attended classes remained outside the public and political arena for which this education was, in fact, preparing the student. Another reason why girls seldom advanced beyond elementary education was that they married. Furthermore, men tended not to be fond of women or wives who were well educated.80

Musonius Rufus, the so-called ‘Roman Socrates’, was a Stoic philoso- pher living in Rome c. 30–100 CE. He was a teacher of Epictetus.

Musonius’ students preserved their notes from their teacher’s lessons, and some of these fragments have been preserved. Musonius addresses the question of girls and education, and he argues that girls should participate. He is, however, something of a lone and exciting voice in antiquity. The philosopher was once asked whether women should study philosophy. Chapter 3 provides some of his supporting arguments. Women as well as men have received from the gods both the gift of reason (lovgo") and senses (aijsqhvsei"). Men and women have a natural inclination (fuvsi") toward virtue (ajrethv), and to perform both good and just acts: ‘If it is true, by what reasoning would it ever be appropriate for men to search out and consider how they may lead good lives, which is exactly the study of philosophy, but inappropriate for women?’ Musonius’ logic is based on his understanding of the nature and aim of philosophy. Philosophy has a practical goal; the students should become good and just, and behave accordingly. As for women, they are thus enabled to take care of their household, to exercise self-control, and to be a great help to their husbands. Musonius is well aware that some women who associated

77 Cribiore 1996: 17.

78 An English translation is available in ANF Vol. 7; for the Greek text see the SC edition of Monat.

79 This is emphasized by Morgan 1998: 48, a viewpoint fundamentally supported by Ps. Lucian Am. 44–45. This is closely connected with the gender-specific roles in antiquity. While power which was accessed through public life was a male arena, women’s life was more or less confined to the domestic; for references and literature see Sandnes 2007.

with philosophers became arrogant, and that they became involved in the art of rhetoric and dialectic, rather than caring for their home. This might happen when philosophy’s aim is misunderstood and its proper mandate, namely to fit men and women to different tasks, is blurred.

In Chapter 4 the philosopher raises the question whether sons and daughters should be given the same paideia. The mention of children in this passage indicates that Musonius is here addressing the initial stage of encyclical studies. Those who prepare dogs and horses for racing make no difference between the sexes, he says. But Musonius still claims that men and women are given different tasks. Boys and girls should therefore be taught individually. Now he becomes very traditional. Women’s tasks are domestic, while men’s arena is the polis. But since virtues remain the same for both sexes, they must be given the same foundational paideia. The upbringing of boys and girls should have as the point of departure that virtues are developed on an equal basis; but boys and girls are still trained for different tasks:

Hence I hold it reasonable that the things which have reference to virtue [pro;" ajrethvn] ought to be taught to male and female alike; and furthermore that straight from infancy [ajrxavmeno" ajpo; nhpivwn] they ought to be taught that this is right [ajgaqovn] and that this is wrong [kakovn], and that it is the same for both alike; that this is helpful [wjfevlimon], that is harmful [blaberovn], that one must do this, one must not do that. From this training understanding [frovnhsi"] is developed in those who learn, boys and girls alike, with no difference.81

At the centre of Musonius’ view of what boys and girls ought to be taught equally is the ability to distinguish between good and bad, helpful and harmful. As we will see in full later, this corresponds to an ancient critical tradition on Homer, of which intellectual Christians took advantage in their confrontation with Greek education.

This chapter draws a background against which the argument among Christians on participation in ancient education can be considered historically reliable. We have seen that the tripartite literary instruction assumed by educational historians (the Marrou tradition) has yielded to a picture of diversity, with local, social, economic and circumstantial perspectives. Nonetheless, even if the distinctions between primary and secondary education, and between the teachers by whom students were taught, are far from clear, the progress in terms of difficulty and skills must have proceded from learning the letters and alphabet to writing and reading, and continued towards passages from the poets, among whom Homer is the most important. After learning their gravmmata, the students were exposed to the works of the poets; thus says Plato (Prot. 325E).

Quintilian states that students worked with the writings of the poets at different stages. On all levels he considered it helpful to read their stories, since they inspired the students to imitate the heroes. The non-literary evidence testifies to this as well.82About three centuries later, and almost 800 years after Plato, Augustine wrote his Confessions. He lived in a society about to be Christianized, but the pagan poets Homer and Virgil were still the core curriculum in school. Both content and teaching methods remained the same throughout the Roman Empire for almost a millennium.83This formed a continuous unity within ancient schooling – even when society was about to embrace the Christian faith. It is now necessary to look into the role given to Homer in all stages of Greek education. This formed a kind of lowest common denominator in ancient education, and the point of departure for the Christian approach as well. Secondary instruction taught by the grammarian was thus more uniform than what boys were taught in the initial stage of (primary) education.84

82 See Cribiore 1996: 46 for references. 83 Morgan 1998: 3–7.

T

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We have already seen how important Homer and some other classical texts were in ancient teaching, as testified in both literary and documen- tary sources. It was precisely the importance and authority of these texts which the Christians found so difficult to cope with. It is therefore necessary to give some more attention to the role occupied by Homer in particular.

Homer probably lived around 800 BCE.1 According to tradition, he

wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey; otherwise next to nothing is known about him. The Iliad is the poem about Ilium (Troy) or the war between the Greeks and the Trojans. This war was caused by Paris, son of King Priam of Troy, who stole Helen, the wife of Menelaus from Sparta. The Iliad presents fifty-one days of the tenth year of this war. A bitter conflict between Achilles, the brave hero of the Greeks, and their commander Agamemnon, caused the siege of Troy to drag on. In the end they succeeded in taking the city by cunning. They pretended to give up, and to set sail for home, but they left behind on the shore a huge wooden horse as a votive gift. The making of the horse was Odysseus’ idea, and in it were hidden soldiers. In spite of being warned not to do so the Trojans took the horse inside the city. During the night the soldiers came out and set Troy on fire. Aeneas was one of the few who escaped. The Odyssey portrays Odysseus’ homeward journey, as well as his homecoming. This lasts for about twenty years, and Odysseus faced a number of dangers, trials and temptations on his way home. At his home at Ithaca, his wife Penelope

1 For the question of history and fiction in Homer’s epics, see Andersen and Dickie 1995. The question of the historical reliability of Homer’s epics was an issue already in antiquity. Dio Chrysostom Or. 11 (The Trojan Discourse) maintains that the Iliad gives a deceptive picture of the events. He tells the true story behind Homer’s poems (e.g. 4, 17–18, 37, 87, 92, 104, 144–50). The Greeks are prone to giving their poets the licence to deceive as long as they entertain (41–43) and serve the cause of the Greeks (147–49). Dio presents a counter-story, representing the actual course of events, in which Helen was not carried away by Paris, but married him out of love. Troy was not destroyed, and Achilles actually died outside Troy. Dio Chrysostom takes the abrupt ending of the Iliad to be indicative of the deceptive nature of this epic: ‘The poet who set out to tell of the Trojan War, omitted the most glorious and important events and did not even give an account of the capture of the city’ (127).

was awaiting his return. When his return was delayed for years, suitors gathered to marry Penelope. Odysseus’ son Telemachos leaves home to search for his father. In the end, after many exhausting events, Odysseus arrived in Ithaca, disguised as an old traveller. Clothed like a beggar he enters his own house, which has been occupied by the suitors. He competes with them in making use of Odysseus’ bow. He defeats them and kills them all. Telemachos then returns and finds his father united with Penelope, his mother.

The Roman poet Virgil (70–19BCE) equalled Homer’s role among the

Romans due to his magnum opus the Aeneid, which is the poem about Aeneas. He was the hero of Troy during the fire that devastated the city. Aeneas left Troy, and in circumstances that bring to mind Odysseus’ journey he arrived in Italy. Aeneas became, according to Virgil’s epic, the ancestor of the Julian emperors, starting with Julius Caesar and Octavian Augustus.

In Plato’s Protagoras, the main character says to Socrates: ‘I consider, Socrates, that the greatest part of a man’s education is to be skilled in the matter of verses; that is to be able to apprehend, in the utterances of the poets [ta; uJpo; tw'n poihtw'n legovmena], what has been rightly and what wrongly composed, and to know how to distinguish them and account for them when questioned’ (Prot. 339A). This statement is given a special application to the topic of the dialogue, whether virtue can be taught or not. Protagoras here claims that knowing the writings of the poets leads to virtue. He thus says that virtue is teachable, a position he comes to question later in this dialogue (Prot. 360E–62A). He refers to the poets in general as having this educational role. The present chapter substantiates that Protagoras’ claim has relevance to Homer, the so-called ‘educator of Hellas’ (see below). In fact, Protagoras, having made the claim in 339A then makes a reference to Homer, citing the Iliad (Prot. 340A).

For practical as well as pedagogical reasons, students read, as we saw in Chapter 2, only selected texts. They learnt so-called gnomai, citations or maxims – some lines picked from the classical texts, or chreiai, which are concise statements or brief stories about well-known persons, apt for illustrating good or bad morals.2Standard anthologies were developed, often with scholia attached to them. Scholia are notes or comments of a critical, grammatical, explanatory or organizing nature, written in the text, between the lines or in the margin. Scholia indicate ways of paraphrasing, shortening or interpreting the text. Scholia to Homer’s Iliad demonstrate an enormous amount of interpretation, which is, of course, a sign of its importance to ancient education in general.3The practice of scholiadeveloped in the schools was later used also with biblical texts and

2 Malherbe 1986: 85–120; Kennedy 2003.

the literature of the Church. From minor scholia of less significance there developed a tradition of meta-texts on how a given text should be read and interpreted. The most elementary scholia are the so-called scholia minora, which probably originated in schools.4

In his treatise How the Young Man Should Study Poetry, Plutarch suggests that texts of interest to children should be selected, and also texts which enabled the students to identify in the literature what was useful (to; crhvsimon) and helpful (to; swthvrion) (Mor. 14E–F).5 These terms are informative as to the criteria used to distinguish the beneficial from the useless in the lessons of the grammatici. Plutarch thus mentions the urgent need for a critical perspective and interpretation on the reading of the classical texts.

Teresa Morgan draws a distinction between a stable core and a flexible periphery in the curriculum taught: ‘The core includes what most people learned, what they learned first and, in the case of reading, what they went on practising longest.’6Texts from Homer and Virgil made up this core. This is attested in both kinds of sources presented above, non-literary as well as literary. Other writers studied were Euripides, Menander, Demosthenes, Terence, Cicero and Horace; they belonged to the flexible periphery.7Lists of recommendations on texts, poets and authors suitable for teaching are many. Dio Chrysostom gives an example in his Or. 18. This speech demonstrates that the study of literature aimed at forming political leaders and public speakers. Dio says that Homer was not only the first author to be read, but also the middle and last (prw'to" kai; mevso" kai; u{stato") (Or. 18.8). By this he meant that Homer was suitable for boys, adults as well as old men. Homer was for every age because his depths were understood only gradually and progressively. In other words, Homer grew with the students; they never left or passed beyond his epics.8 Even in Roman school, Homer was an important text, together with Virgil’s ‘national epic’, the Aeneid, as second.9The uncontested position of Homer in encyclical education formed the basis for ancient pan- Hellenism, and Homer’s unique position in Greek education contributed considerably to the Greek character of the Roman Empire. The students never finished with or left Homer behind; they could always read more,

4 Cribiore 2001: 206–07.

5 Similar advice is given by Quintilian. According to Inst. 1.1.36 teachers should select passages of high moral standards. Passages selected should also entertain the students. The texts are to be arranged according to a canon of authors, in the manner of the grammatici of old (Inst. 1.4.3).

6 Morgan 1998: 71.

7 Morgan 1998: 313, 316–19 gives lists illustrating the distribution of classical authors in encyclical studies. See also Cribiore 2001: 197–201 and Cancik 2003 and Vardi 2003: 140.

8 See Hock 2001.

other parts of Homer’s epics, or work more intensively with them. Knowledge of classical literature in general, and Homer’s epics in particular is, therefore, a sign of participation in encyclical education.

The Iliad and the Odyssey were used when the boys were taught the letters, how to read and how to write. Homer’s epics introduced children to the history, identity and values of the culture. For Jews as well as Christians, this key role of Homer’s poems was considered a challenge. In their eyes, the classical stories supportive of language, identity and the morals of the culture were above all religious poems. Agamemnon’s deceptive dream is an example of a text which many, pagans and Christians alike, found hard to accept. According to Il. 2, Zeus sent a false dream to Agamemnon, and deceived him. The dream was, according to Homer, sent with an evil purpose; hence the dream is called ou\lo" o[neiro" (Il. 2.6, 8) which means a destructive or baneful10dream. The message of the dream was: ‘Bid him arm the long-haired Achaeans with all speed, since now he may take the broad-wayed city of the Trojans. For the immortals, that have homes upon Olympus, are no longer divided in counsel, since Hera hath bent the minds of all by her supplication, and over the Trojans hang woes’ (Il. 2.11-15).

The divinely approved promise that the destiny of Troy was fixed is