Paedagogus (occupation)

• 1. Introduction

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  A single inscription from the second century, dedicated to the Roman emperor Caracalla, names twenty-four paedagogi in one list. Twenty-four people carried the same title inside very different households. In ancient Greece, the term named a slave assigned to watch over boys once they turned seven. Rome borrowed the word for its own purposes. In the Roman Republic, a paedagogus, also called paedagogi or paedagogiani in the plural, could be a slave or a freed former slave. That person taught a Roman citizen's sons to speak Greek. What did that same title come to mean once Rome built an empire around it, and what did the job actually demand day to day?

• 2. Teachers Without Schools

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  The early Roman Republic ran without a single public school, so families arranged reading and writing lessons on their own. Some parents taught their own sons directly. Others hired an educated paedagogus, usually a person of Greek origin, to teach a boy his letters.

  In some cases, the title of paedagogus stayed connected to private elite families. That domestic arrangement looked nothing like what Rome would later build inside the imperial household itself.

• 3. From Household Tutor To Director

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  By the period of the Roman Empire, the paedagogus had climbed from household tutor to director of the paedagogium. That single word now covered running the whole institution, not just tutoring in one household.

  On the Palatine, a graffito painted onto the walls of the paedagogium depicts a paedagogus. The image reflects his social and cultural background, marking him clearly as a slave.

  That single word, paedagogus, would go on to carry at least two more distinct meanings inside the imperial household. One of those meanings came with a separate Latin title of its own.

• 4. Three Faces Of One Title

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  Inside the imperial institution, paedagogus sometimes meant only a child's attendant or personal tutor, a duty distinct from teaching itself.

  A second sense of the title spanned three related duties tied to the children of the imperial family and the aristocracy. Disciplina meant handling a child's academic and moral instruction. Custodia meant acting as companion and protector. Decorum meant setting out the rules for proper public behavior.

  A third title appears in exactly three inscriptions and names the head of the paedagogium: the praeceptor. Whichever title applied, a paedagogus had to obey conduct and duty laws that came with the job.

  Reading a single inscription that names a paedagogus, then, means asking which of these three duties, attendant, protector, or director, that person actually held.