Eight programmes on the background of the Roman world
8: Roman Education and Oratory by L. P. WILKINSON , Fellow of King's College, Cambridge
Roman education was by tradition based on apprenticeship, but in the later Republic primary and secondary schools spread, modelled on those of contemporary Greece. Educated Romans were bilingual, and higher education was mainly Greek, with rhetoric as the staple subject. But Latin found a champion in Cicero, and under the Empire Latin rhetorical schools overshadowed everything.
With readings by DENIS GOACHER
Produced by Adrian Johnson