Men's Life
Schooling

Education in schools in ancient Athens was at first limited to aristocratic boys. By the 4th century b.c. all 18-year-old males spent two years in a gymnasion, a state school devoted to the overall physical and intellectual development of a young man. More advanced education in philosophy, mathematics, logic and rhetoric was available to the aristocracy in highly select gymnasia like the Academy of Plato and the Lycaeum of Aristotle.

Although girls in ancient Greece received no formal education in the literary arts, many of them were taught to read and write informally, in the home.

Attic Red Figure Kylix ca. 480 b.c. By the Eucharides Painter Orvieto, Etruria MS 4842 A seated boy inscribing with a stylus on a five­part folding wax tablet. The tablet is typical of the sort used by schoolboys learning to write. The chest at the boy´s right may have been used for storing scrolls. H. 7.4; L. 27.5; Dia. 21.2 cm. Photo courtesy Mediterranean Section, Univ. of Pennsylvania Museum (99k)

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