Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-8r8nv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-08T22:00:21.962Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

LITERARY EVIDENCE FOR THE PRESENCE OF PLAY IN ANCIENT SCHOOLS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 February 2020

Christian Laes
Christian Laes*
Affiliation:
University of Manchester (UK)
*
christian.laes@manchester.ac.uk
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This paper deals with an apparently straightforward question: the degree to which ancient educators thought it necessary to introduce a playful element into the programmes of schools, and the way in which such ideas were put into practice.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 69 , Issue 2 , December 2019 , pp. 801 - 814
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2020

‘the value of teaching children to learn by play was fully accepted in both Greece and Rome’ (Bonner [n. 1 below], 166)

1. INTRODUCTION

This paper deals with an apparently straightforward question: the degree to which ancient educators thought it necessary to introduce a playful element into the programmes of schools, and the way in which such ideas were put into practice.Footnote 1

At first sight, this research question bears the traces of a western contemporary view on schools and education. Indeed, we have become accustomed to regard schools as institutions which, besides intellectual training, are first and foremost concerned with the well-being of their pupils. From the first day of a new school year, teachers and headmasters do their best to present ‘their’ school as a ‘nice place’, where children will discover as much about life as they will progress in their studies. Such a child-friendly approach, however, with play abundantly present, is a relatively new approach in the world of education and schooling.Footnote 2

On further inspection, some elements of the question need careful consideration before rushing to answers. I will restrict my discussion to what we would consider as ‘primary’ education and the way in which younger children were introduced to reading, writing and calculating. Including higher forms of education would mean looking at ways in which students playfully competed in rhetorical competitions such as declamations and controversies.Footnote 3 Yet, a focus on such intellectual playfulness and pleasure would lead us to the already well-studied subject of virtuosity in ancient rhetorical exercises.Footnote 4 One also needs to be careful when using the term ‘school’. Extensive literature on both the Greek and the Roman educational systems has warned against the anachronistic use of the word. The higher social classes often resorted to private education, with tutors providing the necessary teaching in the parental home, especially in the case of early education. We certainly do have evidence of occasional institutions which somehow resemble our notion of a school. More often, however, we should imagine ancient schools as simply the home of the teacher, or more-or-less public space hired by a teacher to offer his teaching. I here use ‘school’ for any literary and non-professional education that required children to leave their homes and that brought them into contact both with teachers who would spend only part of the day with them, and with fellow students who did not belong to their home environment.Footnote 5

The question of play at ancient schools can only be solved by a diversified approach that carefully distinguishes the different layers of the problem. First, we need to ask whether the apparent semantic link between school and leisure which exists in both Latin and Greek ever brought the ancient writers to explicit acknowledgements of the relation between the two, or, on the contrary, of the fundamental contradictions between both concepts. Second, it is worth looking at statements about the intrinsic value of play for the educational process, and to see whether such valuations were ever linked to schools and education in the classroom. Third, I scrutinize the fragments that possibly point to play and recreation or the absence of it in schools. In the conclusion, I fully take into account the broader context of schools in antiquity to come to a nuanced answer regarding the question.

In dealing with Graeco-Roman schools as a whole in a period from say 500 b.c.e. up to 500 c.e., I paint with broad strokes. However, all studies on the matter have pointed to a high degree of continuity in the way in which schools were organized and contents were offered—a continuity that was only slightly altered by the coming of Christianity. The persistence of the system is all the more remarkable given the absence of a strong urban or state-run school policy that was able to impose general rules.Footnote 6 This is not to say, however, that no local differences existed, and Jewish education is a remarkable example of an enduring tradition of its own in both Hellenistic and Roman times. This paper omits the Jewish evidence, though recent studies have at least raised the suggestion that conclusions on school and play could be very much the same.Footnote 7

2. SCHOOL MEANS PLAY

As is well known, Greek σχολή denotes both leisure and school. As such, the word is to be distinguished from πόνος: school was serious, but it was not the forced manual labour that age-peers of the students had to perform.Footnote 8 While σχολή initially meant ‘leisure’, it also referred to the highest form of leisure, namely philosophical learning. From this, the word came to denote a group of students attending lectures, and the activity of learning. Ludus initially connoted military exercise, imitating the battlefield. Starting from this signification, it came to denote other sorts or training, also the intellectual. From this, it is only a little step to the meaning of ‘school’.Footnote 9

Although they were fond of plays on words and antitheses, not a single Greek lexicographer notes a contradiction or opposition in the two meanings of σχολή. It is simply stated that the word denotes both leisure and the free time to indulge in an activity, mostly a philosophical and intellectual one. The connections with schools or classrooms is made only in the entries on σχολεῖον.Footnote 10

The Latin ludus was used for schools and teaching of all levels, from primary schools up to the instruction by rhetors.Footnote 11 Here, the double meaning of ludus seems to have attracted the attention of at least one lexicographer: Lucius Aelius Stilo Praeconius (fl. 100 b.c.e.), forerunner and illustrious example to the great antiquarian Terentius Varro. In a fragment in which he seems to have digressed on names coming from opposites, he cites the following examples (Gramm. Rom. Frag. 59 Funaioli; my translation):

lucus because of the fact that it shines (luceat) only a little, owing to the shadow, and ludus because this has really nothing to do with play (lusu), and Ditis because he is anything but rich (diues).Footnote 12

The example was bound to become popular with Latin grammarians.Footnote 13 It appears in the most elaborate form in Festus (De sign. verb. 470 Lindsay; my translation):

scholae are named as such not because they mean total leisure or free time but because of the fact that the students have to be free for the liberal arts, with omission of all other things in life. In the same way, we use the term ludi, for institutions in which there is no play at all. We do so because the pupils, because of a sad name, [would refrain from doing what they have to do].

While the text has been restored by the humanist Scaliger (1540–1609), it seems a most likely addition. In this case, the softening word ludus is interpreted as a euphemistic term to accommodate the pupils to the harsh and serious reality of school life.

To conclude this section: the double meaning of ‘school’ and ‘leisure’ was only seldom noticed by ancient writers. In none of the cases in which they elaborate on it do they take the opportunity of pointing to a playful element connected to schools. On the contrary, the Latin tradition points to an awareness of school being serious business, with no place for child's play.

3. PLAY AND THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS

Both Plato and Aristotle were well aware of the importance of a playful element in life, but with the latter we find a sort of typical aristocratic distinctive element, stressing that the leisure activities of the upper class could and should be different from the play of ordinary people.Footnote 14

As regards play and children, Plato reveals what has been called a ‘functionalist’ approach. He describes certain qualities of child's play. Such play helps to prepare for a role in later life, and to teach skills to the young.Footnote 15 Telling passages include the remarks that the man who is to make a good builder must play at building toy houses from his infancy; the future good farmer must play at tilling land.Footnote 16 While we do find statements on the spontaneous and natural character of child's play, such opinions are combined with an emphasis on discipline and rigidly enforced bodily codes.Footnote 17

Aristotle in no way denies the ‘usefulness’ of play as a tool for relaxation and even as medicine, but he also considers it as far too embodied to be the ideal of life of the educated male citizen.Footnote 18 Play provides relaxation and relief from work, but it is not the ultimate goal of it. Leisure, on the contrary, is the telos of work, and it gives the necessary free time for contemplative activity.Footnote 19

In sum, it is no exaggeration to say that the works of Plato and Aristotle are a goldmine for those interested in the history of education and childhood: play and games have an important role in their observations. Again, the absence of references to schools is striking.Footnote 20 We do find observations on schools and appropriate ages in Plato and Aristotle, but in such remarks on schools the element of play is virtually absent.Footnote 21 The closest we get are remarks insisting on the avoidance of coercion in teaching: what is learned under compulsion does not stick to the mind, hence the good teacher should teach with play, and not with violence.Footnote 22

4. QUINTILIAN: AN INNOVATIVE APPROACH TOWARDS PLAY AT SCHOOL

Quintilian is the first in ancient literature to devote two entire books to the education of the young who have to become perfect orators. According to Bloomer, Quintilian's ‘greatest contribution lies elsewhere. His thinking about the child's mind as a distinct, essential time and mode of learning is important and innovative’.Footnote 23

Quintilian insists that teaching a group of pupils is worth more than having a private home instructor for one single student (Inst. 2.1). His prescriptions are also much more concerned with the curriculum than with creating ideal relationships with parents or others who lived in proximity.Footnote 24 All this brings Quintilian much closer to the—admittedly still somehow problematic—concept of ‘school’.Footnote 25

At first sight, Quintilian seems very much in favour of games and relaxation in order to stimulate the learning process.Footnote 26 After his remarks on the necessity for the teacher to acknowledge the different temperaments of his young pupils, he continues (Quint. Inst. 1.3.8–9; transl. Russell):

However, everyone must be given some relaxation, not only because there is nothing that can stand perpetual strain—even things which are without sense or life need to be relaxed by periods of rest in order to preserve their strength—but also because study depends on the will to learn, and this cannot be forced. Thus renewed and refreshed, they will bring to their learning both more energy and that keener spirit which so often resists compulsion.

Quintilian explicitly values play as a sort of gradual introduction and compensation for the young for the ‘bitterness’ and ‘dryness’ of early studies.Footnote 27 Presenting studies as a game thus becomes a vehicle for communicating academic content.Footnote 28 Note that the presence of at least one other child (alius) presumes a sort of classroom context, and also a competitive elementFootnote 29 (Quint. Inst. 1.1.20; transl. Russell):

I am not so careless of age differences as to think that the very young should be forced on prematurely, and that set tasks should be demanded of them. For one of the first things to take care of is that the child, who is not yet able to love study, should not come to hate it and retain his fear of the bitter taste he has experienced even beyond his first years. Let it be a game (lusus hic sit); let him be questioned and praised and always feel glad that he has done something; sometimes, when he refuses a lesson, it should be given to another child, of whom he can be jealous (doceatur alius cui inuideat); sometimes he should compete, and more often than not think he is the winner; and finally, he should be encouraged by rewards (praemiis) suitable to his age.Footnote 30

Quintilian also accepts the fact that games do sharpen the boy's intellect. At least, they are morally useful and provide a sort of balance between work and playFootnote 31 (Quint. Inst. 1.3.10–13; transl. Russell):

I am not bothered by playfulness in the young (nec me offenderit lusus in pueris) (it too is a sign of a lively mind), nor would I ever expect a gloomy and perpetually depressed boy to show alertness in his work, lacking as he is also in the energy which is particularly natural at his age. But there must be moderation in holidays (modus tamen sit remissionibus): if we refuse them, the boys will hate their work; if there are too many, they will get used to being idle. There are even some games which are useful (non inutiles lusus) for sharpening the wits, for example competitions in which they ask one another all sorts of little questions. Character reveals itself too more naturally in games—but bear in mind that no age is too immature to learn straight away what is right and what is wrong, and that the best age for forming character is when they do not know how to pretend, but obey their teachers most readily. It is easier to break than to straighten anything which has hardened into a bad shape. There must be no delay, then, in warning the boy that he must not behave greedily, dishonestly, or without controlling himself. Let us always keep in mind the words of Vergil: ‘So strong is habit in the tender plant’ [G. 2.272].

In another passage too, Quintilian mentions games as a diagnostic and disciplinary tool. As such, riddles are not really considered for their intellectual value, but rather to develop a habit of life, in distinguishing the false from the true.Footnote 32

Finally, Quintilian is in line with a long tradition in the art of oratory, which stresses the importance of dance and music to form the body of the orator and to accustom him to virile postures and gestures.Footnote 33 He takes a conventional stance though by restricting dancing to childhood (a me tamen nec ultra puerilis annos retinebitur), and does not call it ‘a game’ but rather ‘an exercise’ (ex hac exercitatione puerili) (Inst. 1.11.18–19).

5. TRACES OF PLAYFUL APPROACHES

5.1. Softening the harshness of learning to read and write and calculate

One wonders how playfulness would have been achieved in the case of learning to read and write. Indeed, the Greek and Roman way of teaching these skills has time and again been described as a system not aimed at quick and easy learning.Footnote 34 The sequence in alphabet to extended syllable combinations in syllabaries, quite exotic word-lists (including a series of tongue twisters), moralistic reading material in the form of sentences or short stories, up to sudden initiation into highly literate texts written in a language far away from everyday use was ‘an industry of often orally rote drilling’, and a very time-consuming business. More often than not, teachers simply mimicked the methods they themselves had experienced as a child.Footnote 35 Only rarely do we read about attempts to make methods more digestible for young pupils. Some authors point to the necessity of instilling concrete form in the mind of young pupils. Consequently, when the alphabet was taught, it was deemed better to show the pupils the forms of the letters first.Footnote 36 How would they show these letters? Teachers could simply carve them on a wax tablet, name the letters and explain the sound of them.Footnote 37 Quintilian, however, points to a possible variation, playing with letters made out of ivory (Inst. 1.1.26; transl. Russell):

Nor do I rule out the well-known practiceFootnote 38 of giving ivory letter-shapes to play with (in lusum), so as to stimulate little children to learn—or indeed anything else one can think of to give them more pleasure, and which they enjoy handling, looking at, or naming.

Though Quintilian is the only author who explicitly points to the mentality of young pupils to justify the use of playing with letter shapes, there seems to have existed a tradition of playing with letters up to Christian times.Footnote 39 Jerome advised Laeta to teach her daughter Paula to learn to recognize and to chant the letters in the correct order, and finally to learn to single out each required letter when they were all jumbled up together, in wooden or ivory shapes.Footnote 40 In the second century c.e., we know of the rather exotic case of the education of Herodes Atticus’ and Regilla's son Bradua, born c.145. As a child, Bradua could not learn to read. He had been misrepresented to his father as foolish, bad at his letters, and of a dull memory. Herodes Atticus bought twenty-four slave boys to whom he gave names beginning with the letters of the alphabet so that he would be obliged to learn his letters at the same time as the names of the boys.Footnote 41 Despite his initial reading problem (was he what we would call a dyslexic?),Footnote 42 Bradua became a consul ordinarius in 185 and was awarded a proconsularship. One wonders whether Herodes Atticus’ solution was somehow inspired by a curious play, the Alphabet Show, by the comedian Kallias (fifth century b.c.e.), in whose chorus were women in pairs that kept rhythm together and sang in the following way: ‘Beta alpha ba, beta ei be, beta eta bȇ, etc.’.Footnote 43 The ‘slightly grotesque pantomime’ might have been Philostratus’ way to depict Herodes Atticus’ ostentatious display of wealth in his efforts to provide his son with basic education.Footnote 44

Finally, for playful variation in the early teaching of mathematics, a fragment from Plato's Laws deserves to be quoted in full, also because it seems to be unique in ancient literature (Pl. Leg. 819b–d; transl. Bury):

One ought to declare, then, that the free-born children should learn as much of these subjects as the innumerable crowd of children in Egypt learn along with their letters. First, as regards counting, lessons have been invented for the merest infants to learn, by way of play and fun, modes of dividing up apples and chaplets, so that the same totals are adjusted to larger and smaller groups, and modes of sorting out boxers and wrestlers, in airs, taking them alternately or consecutively, in their natural order. Moreover, by way of play, the teachers mix together bowls made of gold, bronze, silver and the like, and others distribute them, as I said, by groups of a single kind, adapting the rules of elementary arithmetic to play; and thus they are of service to the pupils for their future tasks of drilling, leading and marching armies, or of household management, and they render them both more helpful in every way to themselves and more alert. The next step of the teachers is to clear away, by lessons in weights and measures, a certain kind of ignorance, both absurd and disgraceful which is naturally inherent in all men touching lines, surfaces and solids.Footnote 45

5.2. Chanting sing-songs

Instilling material into the minds of the pupils was also achieved by drill in the form of chanting. From his own childhood years, Cicero remembers the harmonious concord of young voices, raised in a kind of sing-song, as they repeated together, the words of the XII Tables as they were uttered by their teacher. At the time Cicero was writing, no pupil learnt the laws of the XII Tables anymore.Footnote 46 Augustine mentions the hateful sing-song of arithmetic lessons.Footnote 47

At the beginning of his preface to Book 12 of the commentary on Isaiah, dated 408–410, Jerome complains that many people prefer the pleasure of Milesian tales to the difficulty of a sophisticated author such as Plato (Jer. Comm. in Isaeam 12, praef.; transl. Aubert [see n. 54 below]):

In short, Cicero himself, after translating the Timaeus which deals with the harmony of the universe and the course and numbers of stars, confesses that he does not understand its meaning, while hosts of rambunctious students chant the will of Grunnius Corocotta the piglet (decantant in scholis puerorum agmina cachinnantium).

In another passage from 401/2, Jerome pictures a mob of schoolboys who were chanting Milesian inventions in schools (Jer. Contra Rufinum 1.17; transl. Aubert [see n. 52 below]):

Classes of curly-haired boys are reciting Milesian tales in schools (quasi non cirratorum turba Milesiarum in scholis figmenta decantet) and the pig's will cracks them up, making them burst into Bessian laughter, as that kind of tomfoolery usually occurs during jesters’ banquets.

Both fragments refer to the so-called Testamentum Porcelli, the Will of the Piglet, a late antique ‘bestseller’ in which we read about the piglet M. Grunnius Corocotta who has made his will. Since he could not write with his own hand, he had dictated it. We then learn which parts of his meat, to be cut up by Magirus the cook, were meant from whom as a legacy.

For many reasons, the fragment in Jerome is interesting for the theme of this paper. First, this fragment was apparently chanted, with great amusement.Footnote 48 Schoolchildren gathered in classes were the enthusiastic performers of it.Footnote 49 The low quality of the work is also implied by the comparison or confusion with Milesian tales.Footnote 50 But what made this text so popular with pupils? Was the author a schoolmaster who somehow wrote it to entertain his students? Was the chanting of the Testamentum somehow encouraged by teachers, to the great dismay of Jerome? Or are we faced with a sort of counterculture, where we see schoolchildren enjoy the kind of texts their teachers actually dislike?Footnote 51 The surviving fragments do not allow for a definitive answer to these questions, but at least this text comes very close to the subject of entertainment in late antique schools.Footnote 52

5.4. Relaxation or recreation?

As noted above (p. 806), Quintilian understood the importance of breaks and possible holidays. This almost automatically raises the question of recreation time in Graeco-Roman schools, which would obviously provide the possibility of somehow institutionalized play. Here, the frank answer must be that we hardly know anything about it: neither about its organization, nor about the amount of time which was spent on it. That ‘the wise teacher will study his pupils on the playing-field as well as in the classroom’ may be a truism for contemporary school-practice, but it is certainly not the case for antiquity.Footnote 53 We have ample documentation in the school Colloquia at our disposal: when play by children is mentioned there, it never occurs in the context of the school but always at home or in the bath complexes.Footnote 54 I know of only two possible clues. During the Roman siege of the town in the early fourth century b.c.e., a Falerian schoolteacher led his group of pupils, all children of the elite, outside the city walls as though they were going for a walk. He then handed the children over to the Roman dictator Camillus, hoping for a reward. Livy describes the teacher's walk with his pupils as a usual habit (instituisset … nihil eo more per belli tempus intermisso), meant to distract them and exercise their bodies (lusus exercendique causa). Even the walk itself is described as full of entertainment and joyful conversations (lusu sermonibusque uariatis).Footnote 55 In the obviously Greek setting of gymnasia and palaestrae, Cicero mentions an audience which in his own days are no longer fond of hearing the philosophers’ discourses in the gymnasium. As soon as the bell rings to indicate the break, they leave the auditorium and start rubbing their bodies for the physical exercises.Footnote 56

This also brings up the question whether children in antiquity went to school in the afternoon. If they were not supposed to do so, this would make the time attributed to instruction short and restricted, thus not allowing much free time for play and recreation. The Colloquia tell remarkably little on this subject. We do encounter quite a few lunch-scenes in the Colloquia, but then pupils always go home, and only sometimes return to their teacher.Footnote 57 Dickey explains the absence of the mention of afternoon classes by the typical structure of the Colloquia, which often do not repeat scenes which have been described in detail before.Footnote 58 But one wonders whether it could also mean that the afternoons were mostly free form school. Obviously, there were social differences which caused differences in the use of time too. While lower-class children were best served by some hours of condensed primary education with the ludimagister, we may indeed imagine children of the more well-to-do attending different sorts of teachers, in addition to the grammaticus, and thus taking courses of music or even gymnastics at later times of the day.Footnote 59 However, I believe that in the case of the more privileged, the presence of a paedagogus as an educational figure points to the possibility that Graeco-Roman children prepared for school at home, for which the afternoon hours and the early evening were most obvious times.Footnote 60 Both the iconographical and the literary evidence testify of the pedagogue helping children with instruction.Footnote 61 The most explicit testimony concerning the use of time comes from an oration by Libanius. He is obviously speaking in the particular context of higher education with students in their teens who went to towns to hear ‘professors’, accompanied by their own pedagogues. But in his praise of the pedagogue, Libanius seems to be speaking in more general terms. We read that pedagogues offer so much more than teachers, whose tasks end at noon. While teachers take no further notice of their pupils, pedagogues further assist their ward during study.Footnote 62 Far from being conclusive evidence, this unique testimony points to the possibility of a large amount of time free from school, which could be filled in in other ways.

6. CONCLUSION

The evidence for play and entertainment in Graeco-Roman schools is all together rather meagre. On the everyday level, we find some indications of a playful approach to learning to read, write and count. Chanting sing-songs was a method which seems to have been in use. Evidence for organized entertainment or breaks is virtually absent. On the more theoretical side of the matter, we see Quintilian as an exceptional pedagogical thinker, who quite explicitly thought of the young pupil's nature that sometimes (though surely not always!) required a more relaxed approach by the teacher, or as a teacher of methods which were adapted to the young pupils’ minds. Snapshots from other authors indicate that Quintilian's thoughts did not come out of the blue. While Greek philosophers extensively thought about leisure, free time, playfulness and work, schools are virtually absent in such discussions. When lexicographers indicate the double meaning of words pointing to both school and leisure, they seem rather inclined to stress the antithesis: school is a place where one should by no means play. Also, the theme of play at school is remarkably absent in the extended iconographical evidence of children and education among both the Greeks and the Romans.Footnote 63

In my view, there are indeed two decisive arguments which show that no corroboratory evidence on the importance of play in ancient schools can or should ever be expected.

The first can be summarized with the simple word ‘time’. In all, it seems that the time reserved for school was rather condensed. Most visits to a teacher were restricted to some hours in the morning. It was a system based on the individual will of the parents, who made individual contracts with teachers, who in turn would not profit from a long and extended vacation to provide appropriate and necessary relaxation. Both parties, parents and teachers, benefited from a rather quick and condensed approach in which school provided only the knowledge it was supposed to provide. In such a context, there was little or no time to play. When we take into consideration that no long summer vacations were provided, we can imagine the task of primary educating being accomplished in a few years, with enough time still left for many hours free of school in the afternoons.Footnote 64

The second argument is based on the fact that ancient authors in general were not particularly interested in school entertainment, just as they neglected other issues concerning children. Most authors simply present a school as a place where one had to work hard (see p. 804 above).

However, arguing from the sources that play was almost non-existent might be giving disproportionate importance to the silence of the evidence. Now and then, attention was given to leisure and relaxation, and some play was present in the classroom, because children are children, as the continuity of human experience tells us.Footnote 65 For sure, people in antiquity were aware that pupils waited impatiently for free days and fun. But instead of an empathic approach, this rather led people to blame such students as ‘lazy’,Footnote 66 though some passages reveal understanding for the condition of childhood.Footnote 67 ‘The lazy student’ survived up to the Byzantine period though.Footnote 68 Furthermore, in the eyes of the parents, school had to be as efficient as possible. There is nothing positive in the assertion that ‘nowadays, children play at school’, as it is found in Petronius. On the contrary, in the Satyricon the rhetor Agamemnon complains about the schools of his days that had lost their efficiency and did not prepare their students at all to the real practice of the forum.Footnote 69

It would be wrong to deduce from all this that Graeco-Roman society was somehow averse to play, toys and games. Quite the contrary. Both the literary and the archaeological records amply attest the importance of play for a child to understand its place in the social order, and to acquire the necessary skills for the future.Footnote 70 But to put it in the words of Quintilian, who as an ‘innovative pedagogical thinker’ came up time and again in this paper, ‘a small time only is required to give purpose and direction to the day's work, and consequently individual instruction can be given to more than one pupil’.Footnote 71 Quintilian is admittedly talking about the possibility of having one pupil working, while the teacher is instructing another pupil in a classroom that consists of many students. But still, his sentence merits our attention. We may imagine Graeco-Roman youngsters returning home for lunch, with an amount of the day's work with them. Afternoon would give them plenty of time to deal with this, at least when the family was rich enough not to impose too many other tasks on the young shoulders. As a result, there would be enough time for play and pleasure, in an environment which did not know the stress and hassle of contemporary society. This was time to play. For the less well-off, hours free of school were filled with tasks and labour.

The quote by Stanley Bonner at the beginning of this article is probably too optimistic, as is concerned with teaching in the classroom, but remains true for many other aspects of education in antiquity. For ancient historians, there still is a lot to learn about the ways well-to-do young people would fill in their free time, which was plentiful compared to modern standards.Footnote 72 But school was a different and serious business. It certainly was not supposed to be a time to play—in quo minime luditur.

Footnotes

This publication took shape during a Visiting Professorship at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) by a grant of the Fonds National Suisse, program Scientific Exchange. I am very grateful to Véronique Dasen and the wonderful team of her ERC Advanced Grant project “Locus Ludi: The Cultural Fabric of Play and Games in Classical Antiquity” for a most inspiring research environment. This paper was presented at the conferences “Jeu et apprentissage” (University of Fribourg, 26–27 October 2017) and “Play and Games in Antiquity: Definition, Transmission, Reception” (Swiss Museum of Games, La-Tour-de-Peilz, 17–19 September 2018). I thank the participants for several valuable suggestions, which induced me to rethink or nuance some of my statements. Special thanks go to the anonymous referees of CQ, who improved my text in more than one way. Many thanks also go to Mark Golden (Winnipeg University), who kindly corrected my English text. All translations are from the Loeb Classical Library, unless indicated otherwise.

References

1 As the most important general surveys or handbooks on ancient education and schools, I mention: Marrou, H.I., Histoire de l’éducation dans l'antiquité, 2 vols. (Paris, 1948)Google Scholar; Bonner, S., Education in Ancient Rome (London, 1977)Google Scholar; Morgan, T., Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds (Cambridge, 1998)Google Scholar; Cribiore, R., Gymnastics of the Mind. Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton and Oxford, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bloomer, M.W. (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Education (Malden, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A playful attitude to adult life and culture was not unknown to the ancient writers. See Herter, H., ‘Das Leben ein Kinderspiel’, BJ 161 (1961), 73–84Google Scholar; Mitsis, P., ‘Life as play, life as a play. Montaigne and the Epicureans’, in Heyworth, S.J., Fowler, P.G., Harrison, S.J. (edd.), Classical Constructions. Papers in Memory of Don Fowler, Classicist and Epicurean (Oxford, 2007), 18–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Play and recreation in schools are treated only briefly in surveys as Becchi, E., Julia, D. (edd.), Storia dell' infanzia, vol. II. Dal Settecento a oggi (Rome, 1996)Google Scholar. Only Manson, M., Jouets de toujours (Paris, 2001)Google Scholar has paid considerable attention to subjects such as the importance of toys and play in the pedagogical projects of Comenius and John Locke (at 137–54), or to ‘puppets to learn Latin’ in the early eighteenth-century project by de Vallange (at 198–203).

3 Lucian, Ver. hist. 1 claims that students, after reading serious work, need to relax their minds, but he is obviously speaking about older students, versed in literature (τοῖς περὶ τοὺς λόγους ἐσπουδακόσιν).

4 Laes, C. and Strubbe, J., Youth in the Roman Empire. The Young and the Restless Years? (Cambridge, 2014), 86–7 and 157CrossRefGoogle Scholar have dealt with playful variations and even possible resistance by youths in controuersiae and suasoriae. See also Vesley, M.E., ‘Father-son relations in Roman declamation’, AHB 17 (2003), 159–80Google Scholar. Up to Late Antiquity and in early medieval schoolbooks, one finds attempts to enliven school practice by literary jokes. See e.g. Alberto, P. Farmhouse, ‘La scuola in versi: gli inventori degli alfabeti nella poesia scolastica della Spagna visigotica’, in Cristante, L., Mazzoli, T. (edd.), Il calamo della memoria, vol. V. Riusi di testi e mestiere letterario nella tarda antichità (Trieste, 2013), 267–84Google Scholar.

5 Joyal, M., McDougall, I., Yardley, J., Greek and Roman Education: A Sourcebook (London and New York), 179–83Google Scholar (early education with a schoolmaster away from home); 134–40 and 183–5 (notion of a public school). See also Bonner (n. 1), 115 and Cribiore (n. 1), 21–34 on education in the house of the teacher, or at least on a spot rented by him. The fact is also attested in the late antique Colloquia. See Dickey, E., The Colloquia of the Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 2012–15), 2.229CrossRefGoogle Scholar on Coll. Celtis 45a: ἔχω ἐπανελθεῖν εἰς οἶκον τοῦ διδασκάλου / habeo reuerti ad domum magistri.

6 See Vössing, K., ‘Staat und Schule in der Spätantike’, AncSoc 32 (2002), 243–62Google Scholar, with implications for the whole of Graeco-Roman antiquity.

7 Sivan, H., Jewish Childhood in the Roman World (Cambridge, 2018), 211–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar stresses that in synagogue education too children were made to realize that learning involved not pleasure but pain.

8 Even renowned classicists have confessed to a slight form of amazement when it comes to this double meaning. Chantraine, P., Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque (Paris, 2009²), 1082–3Google Scholar mentions ‘une évolution remarquable’. For ludus, Ernout, A., Meillet, A., André, J., Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine (Paris, 1979 4), 368Google Scholar point to ‘une litote ou une antiphrase comparable à celle du grec σχολή’. The double meaning seems to be quite unique for Latin and Greek. See Nuti, A., “Ludus” e “iocus”. Percorsi di lucidità nella lingua latina (Rome, 1998)Google Scholar; Nuti, A., ‘Sui termini indicanti “gioco” e “giocare” nelle lingue indoeuropee. Una panoramica’, in Lambrugo, C., Torre, C. (edd.), Il gioco e i giochi nel mondo antico. Tra cultura materiale e immateriale (Bari, 2013), 2–11Google Scholar.

9 See Wolff, C., L'éducation dans le monde romain (Paris, 2015), 196–7Google Scholar. On σχολή, see Cribiore (n. 1), 20. On ludus, see Bonner (n. 1), 57 and Corbeill, P., ‘Education in the Roman Republic: creating traditions’, in Too, Y.L. (ed.), Education in Greek and Roman Antiquity (Leiden, 2001), 261–87, at 277CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 The Etymologicum Magnum and Hesychius simply note the double meaning of non-activity and activity, and the former refers to the Attic usage: <σχολή>· οὐ μόνον τὸ μηδὲν δρᾶν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸ περί τι σχολάζειν (Hesychius, Lex. s.v., 3049.1 Schmidt); <σχολή>: Ἀττικοί· οὐ μόνον δὲ τὸ μηδὲν δρᾶν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸ περί τι σχολάζειν (Etym. Magn. 741.26 Gaisford).

11 Ps.-Asc. Div. in Caec. 199.19: omnem … scholam ludum dixere Romani, et magistri ludi dicuntur qui primas litteras docent. Grammarians: Suet. Gram. et rhet. 4.10 Kaster and Jer. In Hab. 3:14–16 line 1010. Rhetoricians: Suet. Gram. et rhet. 28.1 and 25 Kaster; Cic. Orat. 47. Note, however, that none of the Colloquia used ludus, while the word schola is currently in the texts of the colloquies. See Dickey (n. 5), 2.57.

12 Bonner (n. 1), 56 mentions how this derivation was still used by Sir Walter Scott, in the context of a schoolmaster.

13 Quint. Inst. 1.6.34 (from which Stilo's fragment stems). Another reference to Aelius Stilo in Festus, De sign. verb. 109 Lindsay.

14 Jouët-Pastré, E., Le jeu et le sérieux dans les Lois de Platon (Sankt-Augustin, 2006)Google Scholar; Russon, J., ‘Education in Plato's “Laws”’, in Recco, G.W., Sanday, E. (edd.), Plato's “Laws”: Force and Truth in Politics (Bloomington, 2013), 60–74Google Scholar; Kidd, S.E., ‘Play in Aristotle’, CPh 111 (2016), 353–71Google Scholar (at 363 on the distinctive element)—all these works include a considerable amount of earlier bibliography.

15 Golden, M., Children and Childhood in Classical Athens (Baltimore, 2015 2), 54–6Google Scholar. Key texts on the functional approach are Pl. Leg. 793e–794a and Arist. Pol. 1336a29–34.

16 Pl. Leg. 643b–d, in which it is said that it is the task of ‘the educator’ to provide such ‘initial toys’. See also Ar. Nub. 878–81 on making clay houses and carving boats by a young child.

17 Spontaneous and natural character of play and dance: Leg. 653d–e, 664e–665a, 671c, 672a–d, 673c–d. Harmony: Leg. 653e–654a. Importance of rules in games: Resp. 424e–425a; Leg. 797a–798c. Discipline and rigidly enforced bodily codes: Leg. 656d–e, 791c–792b, 793e (comparison with a slave), 808d–e (beating and comparison with animals and slaves). See particularly 667d–e, where play is defined as something that ‘does not do any harm or any benefit worthy of serious consideration’.

18 Play as useful medicine: Arist. Pol. 1337b35–1338a1. Also useful for slaves: Eth. Nic. 1177a6–11. Contrast with day-workers: Pol. 1341a28–32; see Kidd (n. 14), 362–3.

19 Kidd (n. 14), 356–8 confronts the Aristotelian view as expressed in Eth. Nic. 1177b4 with the mentality of playfulness as reflected in archaic Greek poetry and in Pl. Leg. 803d–e.

20 The absence of schools was also noted by Russon (n. 14), 67–9. See recent observations by Grahn-Wilder, M., ‘Roots of character and flowers of virtues: a philosophy of childhood in Plato's Republic’, in Aasgaard, R., Horn, C., Cojocaru, O. (edd.), Childhood in History. Perceptions of Children in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds (London and New York, 2018), 19–36Google Scholar and Fossheim, H.J., ‘Aristotle on children and childhood’, in Aasgaard, R., Horn, C., Cojocaru, O. (edd.), Childhood in History. Perceptions of Children in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds (London and New York, 2018), 37–55Google Scholar. For a striking example of observation of the importance of play for small children, see Dasen, V., ‘Le hochet d'Archytas: un jouet pour grandir’, in Dasen, V. and Gaillard-Seux, P. (edd.), Accueil et soin de l’enfant (Antiquité, Moyen âge), ABPO 124 (2017), 89–107Google Scholar.

21 Pl. Leg. 794c mentions initial formal and separate (girl-boy) instruction from age 6 on; Leg. 809e–810a seems to refer to a school system, with a discussion of the stages of the life course (10–13 years: study of language; 13–16 years: higher education including music and gymnastics), while Arist. Pol. 1336b36–1337a7 mentions ‘primary school’ from age 7 to age 14. See Laes, C., Children in the Roman Empire. Outsiders Within (Cambridge, 2011), 85Google Scholar; Fossheim (n. 20), 51–2.

22 Pl. Resp. 536e–537a.

23 Bloomer, W.M., ‘Quintilian on the child as a learning subject’, CW 105 (2011), 109–37, at 110Google Scholar. See also id., ‘Quintilian on education’, in id. (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Education (Malden, 2015), 347–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; id., ‘Roman conceptions of childhood. The modes of family commemoration and academic prescription’, in Aasgaard, R., Horn, C., Cojocaru, O. (edd.), Childhood in History. Perceptions of Children in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds (London and New York, 2018), 57–76Google Scholar. Less sophisticated, but useful to an extent, is Nieuwenhuizen, M. van, Brand, N., Claassen, J.-M., ‘Child psychology in the ancient world: Quintilian and Augustine on Kindergarten education (Quintilian Institutio Oratoria 1.1–3, 1.11–12 and 2.1.3 and Augustine Confessiones 1)’, Akroterion 39 (1994), 12–26Google Scholar.

24 Quintilian's approach differs from another first-century treatise on education, De liberis educandis by Ps.-Plutarch. See Bloomer, W.M., ‘The technology of child production: eugenics and eulogics in the “De liberis educandis”’, Arethusa 39 (2006), 71–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Given the fact that so much ancient literature has been lost, it remains difficult to know whether Quintilian was the first to take this stance. A fragment of Varro's Logistoricus, Catus De liberis educandis, points very much in the same direction of groups of pupils: et ut in grege opilio oues minus idoneas remouere solet, quas reiculas appellant: saepe enim unus puer petulans atque impurus inquinat gregem puerorum (fr. 29 ed. Riese). Müller, R., Varro's Logistoricus über Kindererziehung (Leipzig, 1938), 52–3Google Scholar links this fragment with Quint. Inst. 1.2 on the preference for groups above private instruction.

26 Varro, Logistoricus fr. 22 Riese: remotissimum ad discendum formido ac nimius timor et omnis perturbatio animi; contra delectatio protelat ad discendum. Müller (n. 25), 58–60 understands this fragment as a rejection of corporal punishment.

27 An obvious allusion to Lucr. 4.11–13: ac ueluti pueris absinthia taetra timentes. For this popular topos, see Bloomer (n. 23 [2011]), 125 and Ronnick, M.V., ‘“Honey sweet cups” in Lucretius, Jerome and Alan of Lille: Anticlaudianus 7.442f.’, Scholia 10 (2001), 92–3Google Scholar. The roots of the proverb on the bitter root of education go back to Isocrates. See Aphth. Prog. 4 Rabe. See also Hor. Sat. 1.1.24–7: percurram: quamquam ridentem dicere uerum | quid uetat? ut pueris olim dant crustula blandi | doctores, elementa uelint ut discere prima: | sed tamen amoto quaeramus seria ludo.

28 Bloomer (n. 23 [2011]), 125–6.

29 Competition is also suggested in Varro, Logistoricus fr. 23 Riese: non solum qui primus in alterutra re praestet alios, sed etiam qui secundus et tertius. Müller (n. 25), 67 refers to Quint. Inst. 1.2.23–4.

30 See also Inst. 1.2.23–4 on competition in the classroom and places in class being assigned according to the quality of rhetorical performance. The winner of the month was crowned. The use of the words praeceptor and puer again point to younger children.

31 Bloomer (n. 23 [2011]), 125–6; van Nieuwenhuizen, Brand, Claassen (n. 23), 24.

32 Bloomer (n. 23 [2011]), 126 on Inst. 1.10.39 mentioning riddles or pseudographiai popular with children (quibus pueri ludere solebamus). For pseudographiai, see Stob. Flor. 1.41 (p. 283 Wachsmuth). See also Plut. Quaest. conv. 673F, who states that children like stories better that involved riddles, and games that offer some complication or difficulty.

33 Cic. De or. 3.220 is a locus classicus on the topic. Again, music (singing and dance) as an educational tool seems to have been much valued by Varro, Logistoricus fr. 25 Riese: omnes enim qui locuntur habere debent quosdam melos, and fr. 26: melos alterum in cantibus est bipertitum, unum quod est in assa uoce, alterum quod uocant organicon. See Müller (n. 25), 43 and 55 for a connection with the teaching of music.

34 To the best of my knowledge, only August. Conf. 1.14.23 contrasted his spontaneous and playful language learning of Latin with the dull and harsh experience of learning Greek at school.

35 See Johnson, W.A., ‘Learning to read and write’, in Bloomer, W.M. (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Education (Malden, 2015), 137–48, at 144–5Google Scholar.

36 Hor. Ars P. 180–2 (general ‘visual’ principle, not applied to children); Manilius 2.755–6 (showing letter forms to children). However, Quint. Inst. 1.1.24–5 makes clear that not all teachers sticked to this visual principle.

37 Pl. Prt. 326d; Quint. Inst. 1.1.27 and 10.2.2; Sen. Ep. 64.51; Columella, Rust. 10.251–2. The method also appears on wax tablets and papyri, with tracing of letters lightly sketched by teachers. See Johnson (n. 35), 137–8.

38 In the previous sentence Quintilian had approved of the drill of learning by heart all possible syllable combinations without seeing the forms of all these syllables.

39 SHA Geta 5.7–8 on banquets, in which slaves served dishes in alphabetical order.

40 Jer. Ep. 107.4. See Katz, P.B., ‘Educating Paula: a proposed curriculum for raising a 4th-century Christian infant’, in Cohen, A. and Rutter, J.B. (edd.), Constructions of Childhood in Ancient Greece and Italy (Princeton, 2007), 115–27Google Scholar.

41 Philostr. V S 558. See Pomeroy, S.B., The Murder of Regilla. A Case of Domestic Violence in Antiquity (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 2007), 48–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 Problems in learning to read and write are also mentioned by August. Ep. 166.6.17. Here, we find no suggestion of accommodating the learning difficulty with playful means. See Laes, C., ‘Learning from silence. Disabled children in Roman antiquity’, Arctos 42 (2008), 85–122, at 111Google Scholar.

43 Johnson (n. 35), 139, referring to Ath. Deipn. 10.453c–e. See especially 453d–e.

44 Cribiore (n. 1), 165.

45 Strangely enough, the fragment is not discussed by Sidoli, N., ‘Mathematics education’, in Bloomer, W.M. (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Education (Malden, 2015), 387–400CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Egyptian children are mentioned because of the Egyptian science and knowledge of land mensuration.

46 Cic. Leg. 2.23.59: discebamus enim pueri XII ut carmen necessarium, quas iam nemo discit.

47 August. Conf. 1.13.22: uel potius ista oderam, illa amabam. iam uero unum et unum duo, duo et duo quattuor, odiosa cantio mihi erat.

48 On the combination fabulam decantare, with reference to schools and/or schoolchildren, see Sen. Ep. 24.6; Gell. NA praef. 15 and Macrob. Sat. 5.2.6. It probably refers to monotonous reciting, which could have been enhanced by a sort of rhythm. SHA Aurel. 6.4–6 mentions children (pueri) chanting military songs and dancing because of the emperor's slaying of victims.

49 cirrati pueri (‘curly-haired boys’) are by no means a dishonourable audience of slave pages, who would have been described as pueri capillati (‘long-haired boys’). See Vössing, K., ‘Why Roman pupils lacked a long vacation’, in Laes, C. and Vuolanto, V. (edd.), Children and Every Day Life in the Roman and Late Antique World (London and New York, 2017), 155–65, especially 159Google Scholar, against the assumption of Booth, A.D., ‘Persius’ cirrati and the schooling of slaves’, Emerita 53 (1985), 309–14 (on Pers. Sat. 1.29–30)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 SHA Alb. 11.8 describes Milesian tales presumably written by the emperor Clodius Albinus as mediocriter scriptae.

51 Golden (n. 15), 54–6 mentions a cup which depicts the mimetic action of three boys playing school: one, who sits and holds a rod, is the teacher. He refers to Chaga children, who parody their (white) teacher's obsession with time by placing a large sand clock in front of their make-believe school.

52 Champlin, E., ‘The Testament of the Piglet’, Phoenix 41 (1987), 174–83, at 183CrossRefGoogle Scholar suggests that for the unknown author ‘the most likely candidate is a humbler scholar, an anonymous schoolmaster of genius’. He surely was familiar with law, Latin of the uneducated, the Christian Bible and semi-barbarous soldiery. Aubert, J.-J., ‘“Du lard ou du cochon”? The Testamentum Porcelli as a Jewish anti-Christian pamphlet’, in Aubert, J.-J. and Varhelyi, Z. (edd.), A Tall Order. Writing the Social History of the Ancient World. Essays in Honor of William V. Harris (Munich, 2005), 107–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar believes that the author was a Jew who made up an anti-Christian pamphlet.

53 van Nieuwenhuizen, Brand, Claassen (n. 23), 24 try to read this in August. Conf. 1.9.5, but such a reading cannot be justified. The history of recreation time in school is an interesting chapter which still has to be written. Manson (n. 2), 54–6 on the ‘entrée discrète’ of play and games during recreation time, as witnessed from the colloquia scholastica from the sixteenth century on.

54 E.g. Coll. Mon.-Einsid. 10h–j (bath complex, wrestling and playing ball): Dickey (n. 5), 1.174; Coll. Harl. 8a–b (play at home): Dickey (n. 5), 2.57.

55 Livy 5.27.

56 Cic. De or. 2.5.21. I owe this reference to Michiel Meeusen (King's College, London).

57 Dickey (n. 5), 1.147–8, 1.167, 1.172 on lunch scenes; 2.124, 2.161 and 2.227–30. See e.g. Coll. Harl. 8a–g: pupil at noon was not at home, teacher has heard everything from the educator/paedagogus. In two cases, the pupil explicitly mentions that he has to return to the teacher: Coll. Leid. Steph. 7b–8c (Dickey [n. 5], 2.210–13) and Coll. Celtis 45a (Dickey [n. 5], 2.227–30).

58 Dickey (n. 5), 2.148.

59 Laes (n. 21), 122–31 on the audience and the profile of the ludimagister. On teachers of sports, music, archery and javelin, and even an hoplomachus, on an inscription from Teos from 200 b.c.e., see Marrou (n. 1), 172–3, 220–1.

60 Reading in darkness with artificial light was more difficult from a practical point of view. On studying at night, see Coll. Celtis 70e–f and Dickey (n. 5), 2.248–9.

61 Neils, J. and Oakley, J.H. (edd.), Coming of Age in Ancient Greece. Images of Childhood from the Classical Past (Hanover and New Haven, 2003), 249Google Scholar on the iconographical evidence. Literary mentions of the pedagogue helping with school work in Plaut. Bacch. 422–48 (Lydus is called both paedagogus and magister); August. Serm. 62.18 (pedagogue keeps children away from playing with mud and presents them with their textbooks). See Laes (n. 21), 113–22.

62 Lib. Or. 58.9. See Laes (n. 21), 121.

63 Beck, F., Album of Greek Education: the Greeks at School and at Play (Sidney, 1975)Google Scholar lists over 600 mainly Attic vases. The chapters on education do not show any playing children (at 14–37), while the chapter on games does not have a single depiction of schools. The same counts for the rich collection by Neils and Oakley (n. 61), which also includes statuettes and other art objects. For the Roman world, the many depictions of playing children do not ever pertain to the educational context of schools. See Huskinson, J., Roman Children Sarcophagi (Oxford, 1996)Google Scholar; Mander, J., Portraits of Children on Roman Funerary Monuments (Cambridge, 2012)Google Scholar. See particularly the remarkable late antique mosaics of Antioch: fifteen individual mosaic panels depict various scenes of the school life of a boy, but no playing is involved. See Marinescu, C.A., Cox, S.E., Wachter, R., ‘Paideia's children: childhood education on a group of late antique mosaics’, in Cohen, A. and Rutter, J.B. (edd.), Constructions of Childhood in Ancient Greece and Italy (Princeton, 2007), 101–14Google Scholar.

64 Vössing (n. 49) has convincingly denied the reading of Mart. Epigr. 10.62 as reference to a prolonged summer vacation.

65 SHA Aurel. 8.4, a letter of the emperor Valerian about his son Gallienus who was by nature inclined to playful activity (ut est natura pronus ad ludicra).

66 Vössing (n. 49), 158, referring to Varro, Sat. Men. fr. 279 = 278 Cèbe (7.1220 = Marcipor fr. X): utri magis sunt pueri? hi pusilli nigri qui exspectant nundinas ut magister dimittat lusum? and August. Serm. 62.18 (to the paedagogus, there is no time for play, and study prevails).

67 Note that Augustine (see n. 47 above) seems to be somehow sensible to the reaction of the children. See also August. Conf. 1.9.15 on the opposition between play and study in childhood years. Recently, Aasgaard, R., ‘Childhood in 400 c.e. Jerome, John Chrysostom, and Augustine on children and their formation’, in Aasgaard, R., Horn, C., Cojocaru, O. (edd.), Childhood in History. Perceptions of Children in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds (London and New York, 2018), 157–73Google Scholar has suggested that Augustine was open to childhood being a period of play. Again, the negative assessment by Augustine of his own years at school is evidence to the absence of playfulness in schools (van Nieuwenhuizen, Brand, Claassen [n. 23], 24: ‘play enhances communication, provides a change of activity, counteracting the usual loss of concentration which comes after a period of extensive study. Augustine knew this, but his masters apparently did not’).

68 Suet. Ner. 22 on the young Nero: ‘Once when he was lamenting with his fellow pupils the fate of a charioteer of the “Greens”, who was dragged by his horses, and his preceptor scolded him, he told a lie and pretended that he was talking of Hector’ (transl. Rolfe). In the tenth-century Anonymi Professoris Epistulae 69, a teacher complains about his students who prefer play and amusement to lessons: ‘Children like to pay attention to games, rather than to lessons, since they take into account the relaxed and the joyful aspect of the former and the laborious of the latter’; my translation.

69 Petron. Sat. 4: nunc pueri in scholis ludunt. See Néraudau, J.-P., Être enfant à Rome (Paris, 1984), 103Google Scholar; Cotrozzi, A., ‘I capitoli della scuola nel Satyricon’, in Bellandi, F., Ferri, R. (edd.), Aspetti della scuola nel mondo Romano. Atti del Convegno (Pisa, 5–6 dicembre 2006) (Amsterdam, 2008), 29–48Google Scholar.

70 From the extensive literature, I only mention Shumka, L.J., ‘Toys and games’, in Bloomer, W.M. (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Education (Malden, 2015), 452–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dolansky, F., ‘Roman girls and boys at play: realities and representations’, in Laes, C. and Vuolanto, V. (edd.), Children and Every Day Life in the Roman and Late Antique World (London and New York, 2017), 116–36Google Scholar; Dasen, V. (ed.), Veni, vidi, ludique. Le jeu de la vie (Nyon, 2014)Google Scholar; Dasen, V., Schädler, U. (edd.), Jeux et multiculturalité dans l'Antiquité. Games and Multiculturality in Antiquity (Rennes, 2018)Google Scholar.

71 Quint. Inst. 1.2.12.

72 Laes and Strubbe (n. 4), 228–32 stress the factor ‘free time’ for the study of Roman youth culture.