Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

education in the roman empire 875
studies Virgil and Roman law with the help of a slave tutor. Poets and
orators follow classical models. 58 Inscriptions are set up in public places,
and city officials draw up documents in traditional form. But this elegant
society, so conscious of being Roman, was living on an inherited stock of
cultural capital which it could not replace. In the late sixth century Gregory
of Tours (539–95), though belonging to an ancient Gallo-Roman family,
was unable because of the early death of his parents to learn grammar,
something which he deeply regretted. Later in life he read Virgil. But his
History of the Franks and his Lives of saints are written in unpolished and
sometimes awkward Latin, and his perception of the world about him is
almost exclusively a religious one. 59 Desiderius, bishop of Vienne (died
607), scion of an aristocratic family, learnt grammar in Vienne, where there
were still teachers in the early sixth century. 60 But when he became bishop
towards the end of the century there was no longer any teacher in the city.
So the bishop himself set about teaching grammar to a circle of young
men, for which he was sternly rebuked by pope Gregory the Great. 61 Yet
he was only trying to deal with the problem of educating possible future
clergy, a problem which became progressively more urgent during the sixth
century throughout the barbarian world. In south-east Gaul there were still
men who had not entirely forgotten the literary culture of their forefathers.
The biographer(s) of Caesarius of Arles, writing about 550, feared the criticism
of their Latinity by the scholastici of Provence. 62 Caprasius, a seventhcentury
monk from Lérins, was horrified to find that Provençal clergy
‘studied books of the pagans, fables of poets, comedies and songs’. 63 The
Provençal priest Florentius, composed a Life of St Rusticula in elegant and
correct Latin in the mid seventh century. 64 But by his time the traditional
literary culture had become difficult to adapt to the new world of the early
Middle Ages.
Though, as we have seen, events took a slightly different course in each
of the Germanic kingdoms which were established in former Roman territory,
in the end three features appeared in all of them, which sharply distinguished
education and culture in the west from that in the east. The first
is the loss of the knowledge of Greek. Boethius in Rome could contemplate
translating Plato and Aristotle into Latin. Sidonius Apollinaris in
Auvergne could still read Menander with his son – presumably because he
could not find a teacher of Greek grammar. Isidore of Seville, polymath
though he was, in all probability knew no Greek. This loss of contact with
Greek language, literature and culture was part of a larger change, the
break-up of the unity of the Mediterranean Graeco-Roman world, which
affected trade, ecclesiastical relations and much else besides. We must
58 Chadwick (1955). 59 Convegno Todi (1977); Goffart (1988). 60 Riché (1972) 233–6.
61 Greg. Mag. Ep. 11.34. 62 Morin (1942) 297. 63 Vita Caprasii, AASS 1 June, 78.
64 Riché (1954) 369–77.
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