Education in the classical Mediterranean world

Abstract

The following essays an examination of the nature of education in the 'World of Antiquity'. It attempts to answer how people experienced education, how they viewed it, 'supported it and were changed by it. It is well at the outset to establish limits for the inquiry. The World of Antiquity, a priori, includes the cultures and civilizations bordering the Mediterranean, particularly the Eastern where grew the most active civilizations, the cultures to which twentieth century societies trace their beginnings. The time span of 1000 B.'C. to the establishment of 'Christianity neatly brackets not only the glories of Athens and Rome, but also the changes wrought by religion, which ethic is held to be basic to Western European Civilization. The usual terms - culture, 'social agency, civilization, etc. are used according to usual scholarly protocols.Education, however, the central concern of this essay needs to be defined more carefully. Education is usually accepted as that collection of customs, duties, exercises, formal and informal arrangements by which members of a culture can be 'said to become assimilated. By historical, social and anthropological 'standards, education is the process, no matter how conducted, of acculturation.