RBPH - Educators in Rome - Num - 94 - 1 - 8879 PDF

Revue belge de philologie et
d'histoire
Educators in the Late Ancient City of Rome (300 - 700 CE)

Christian Laes
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Laes Christian. Educators in the Late Ancient City of Rome (300 - 700 CE). In: Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire,
tome 94, fasc. 1, 2016. Antiquité – Ouheid. pp. 183-207;
doi : https://doi.org/10.3406/rbph.2016.8879
https://www.persee.fr/doc/rbph_0035-0818_2016_num_94_1_8879
Fichier pdf généré le 31/10/2018

Abstract
In this contribution, I attempt to bring a thorough compilation of both the literary and the epigraphic
sources on educators in Late Antiquity. For the latter sources, the focus will be on the rich
inscriptional evidence from the City of Rome. Professional, usually servile, educators were
common in elite and (upper)-middle class households of the Principate. This changed in Late
Antiquity when households instead relied mainly on family members as educators. However, this
fundamental change in hierarchical values of the honourable Roman society is never attested
explicitly in the ancient records. There are some indications in the works of literary writers, but the
inscriptions cannot be used to prove this change statistically. Still, the change must have been
profound : educational tasks, which were in the mind-set of a Roman family members so much
linked with servile labour, became more entrusted to other family members. It is only by looking at
the wider context that we can catch a glimpse of how fundamentally things might have changed for
educators and the families which made use of their services. Ideas of social hierarchy still existed
in Late Antiquity, and so there still were slave educators. However, by the late sixth century, all this
was embedded in a society which would have been hardly recognisable by those who lived there
two centuries before.
Résumé
Educateurs à Rome dans l'Antiquité Tardive (300-700 après J.-C.).
Dans cet article, je propose une compilation approfondie des sources littéraires et épigraphiques
concernant les éducateurs dans l’Antiquité tardive. Pour l’épigraphie, je me concentre sur les
nombreuses inscriptions provenant de la ville de Rome. Les éducateurs professionnels, la plupart
d ´ origine servile, étaient fréquents dans les ménages riches et aristocratiques de l’époque
impériale. Dans l’Antiquité tardive, les ménages comptaient surtout sur les membres de famille. Ce
changement fondamental dans les valeurs hiérarchiques de la société romaine – toujours
soucieuse de l ´ honneur – n` apparaît pas explicitement dans les sources. Il y a des indications
dans la littérature, mais les inscriptions ne peuvent pas être utilisées pour prouver ce changement
de façon statistique. Cependant, il était profond : les tâches éducatives qui dans la mentalité de la
classe supérieure romaine avaient été tellement liées à la main-d’oeuvre servile, étaient
désormais confiées à d’autres membres de familles. Ce changement fondamental s’aperçoit
seulement si tenons compte du contexte général,. Bien sûr, les conceptions concernant la
hiérarchie sociale étaient encore fortes à la fin de l’antiquité, et les esclaves éducateurs existaient
encore. Mais à la fin du sixième siècle, tout cela était maintenant intégré dans une société qui était
à peine reconnaissable pour ceux qui avaient vécu deux siècles plus tôt.
Christian Laes, Opvoeders in het laat-antieke Rome (300 – 700 n. C.).

In deze bijdrage bied ik een grondige compilatie van zowel de literaire als de epigrafische bronnen
over opvoeders in de late oudheid. Voor epigrafie zal de focus liggen op het rijke bronnenmateriaal
van de stad Rome. Professionele opvoeders, meestal slaven, waren gebruikelijk in aristocratische
en gegoede huishoudens in de keizertijd. Dit veranderde in de late oudheid : huishoudens
vertrouwden dan vooral op familieleden als opvoeders. Deze fundamentele verandering in de
hiërarchische waarden van de eerbare Romeinse samenleving blijkt niet expliciet uit de bronnen.
Er zijn aanwijzingen in literaire teksten, maar de inscripties kunnen niet worden gebruikt om deze
verandering statistisch te bewijzen. Toch was de verandering diepgaand : opvoedende taken, die
in de mentaliteit van de Romeinse upper-class sterk verbonden waren met slaafse arbeid, werden
nu eerder toevertrouwd aan andere familieleden. Alleen door de bredere context in beschouwing
te nemen, kan men een glimp opvangen van deze fundamentele verandering. Opvattingen over
sociale hiërarchie waren nog sterk aanwezig in de late oudheid, en slaaf-opvoeders bestonden
nog. Maar naar het einde van de zesde eeuw was dit alles ingebed in een maatschappij die
nauwelijks herkenbaar was voor mensen die er twee eeuwen eerder leefden.
Educators in the Late Ancient City of Rome
(300 - 700 CE)
Christian Laes
University of Antwerp, University of Tampere
Educators in the Roman Empire
Educit enim obstetrix, educat nutrix, instituit paedagogus, docet

magister (1) — thus the fourth century lexicographer Nonius Marcellus in
his chronological list presenting the series of educators of a child. Nonius’
interest was obviously and almost exclusively lexicographical (the right Latin
verb to denote “to instruct, to educate” for various phases of life), but the
fact that he links midwives, wet-nurses, pedagogues and schoolmaster is
interesting and revealing for several reasons. Apart from their not belonging
(directly) to the biological family of the child in their care, they seem to have
little in common. While schoolmasters normally taught pupils in classrooms
outside their homes, the others were mostly active within the household. (2)
Chronology was not always as strict as Nonius suggests. The roles of
midwives and nurses could be combined. (3) Nurses became nannies and took
care of their pupils for many years, even into adulthood: the wet-nurse could
become a dry nurse (nutrix assa). (4) Husbands of these nannies might also be
involved in the educational process. They were usually named nutritores or
nutricii (although there is also the term educator which might be somehow
synonymous with paedagogus). (5) Pedagogues or home teachers took over the
(*) I owe many thanks to Koen Verboven for thoughtful comments and to Kasey Reed
for correcting the English ; all remaining errors are, of course, mine.
(1) Nonius Marcellus, De compendiosa doctrina p. 718 ed. Lindsay.
(2) Or not? Sometimes wet-nurses took the babies to their own houses. This situation,
however, is seldom attested for Antiquity, though it is commonly attested for other cultures
and other historical periods. See Fildes, 1988 for a general history of wet-nursing. See Sene-
ca Rhetor, Contr. IV, 6; Cod. Theod. IX, 31, 1 on wet-nurses taking babies to their own houses.
(3) Thus Treggiari, 1976, p. 86. Referring to the text in Nonius Marcellus, E
ichenauer,
1988, p. 217 points out that ancient writers were aware of the difference between midwives
and wet-nurses at least on a theoretical level. Pentti, 2015, p. 113 unlike many studies on
Roman childhood largely disregards midwives, arguing that their task was essentially to
ensure the survival of the new-born child, and that they were not present in the child´s further
personal course of life. Cf. infra note 36 for Ambrose equating midwives and nutrices.
(4) Bradley, 1991a; Pentti, 2015, p. 119 and 121 on hierarchy of the nursing staff,
based on age and experience.
(5) Bradley, 1991b, p. 49-51 suggests that the nutricius should not be understood as a
foster-father. Therefore, it could be synonymous with the nutritor, who could be understood
as a male nurse. See also Pentti, 2015, p. 120-121.
Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire / Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie en Geschiedenis, 94, 2016, p. 183-207
184 Chr. Laes
role of schoolmaster, especially in the case of children of the higher classes

who did not attend the sometimes tumultuous classes of the schoolteacher
who dealt with large and socially very diverse groups. (6)
Nevertheless, a wide range of ancient literary sources and legal
regulations confirms the educators mentioned by Nonius Marcellus as being
responsible for the subsequent steps in the educational process of middle
class and aristocratic children in both East and West of the Roman Empire. (7)
Iconographical material, not least the depictions on sarcophagi and a
considerable series of statuettes, confirms this picture. The relative absence
of nutrices and paedagogi from portrait monuments has been explained by
various factors. The cost of the medium implied that few educators had the
necessary resources. The overwhelming family focus of the epitaphs, with
children being presented alone or in the company of adults belonging to
the same household, militated against the presence of educators. (8) Detailed
research on the inscriptional evidence left by these educators has revealed
their low social status: largely servile or freed in the case of midwives, nurses
and pedagogues; modest (to say the least) for schoolmasters. (9)
In the wake of the current tendency to write ‘history from below’ and
considering the importance attached to social status in Roman society, ancient
historians have recently focused both on the way these educators became
signifiers for their own professional identity and on how the members of
the upper class dealt with the paradoxical fact that the care of their beloved
children was entrusted to social inferiors and slaves. (10) These studies are
(6) Booth, 1979 rightly questions the value of the three-grade-system (ludimagister-
grammaticus-rhetor) for children of the higher classes.
(7) Cf. the chapter divisions, based on ancient authors, in the prolific scholarly literature
on history of education in Antiquity, of which I only mention some important handbooks:
Marrou, 1964; Bonner, 1977; Morgan, 1998; Christes, Klein and Lüth, 2006; Joyal,
McDougall and Yardley, 2009; Wolff, 2015. The same classification (midwife, wet-
nurse, pedagogue, schoolmaster) appears in the mainly papyrological records from Greco-
Roman Egypt. See Cribiore, 2001; Laes, 2011a, p. 57-64; 69-77 and 113-131 uses the same
phases in his description of Roman childhood.
(8) Amedick, 1991; Dimas, 1998 ; Mander, 2012, p. 137-143 ranges educators among
the ‘absent adults’ in iconographical commemoration. For the city of Rome, he cites one nu-
tritor Eunus from the Flavian period (CIL VI, 27365; Mander 2012, p. 138-139 and 166-167,
no. 35) and one paedagogus Soterichus (Mander, 2012, p. 141-142 and 184, no. 110). On
iconographical grounds (two round cut-outs around the breasts), Beerden and Naerebout,
2011 have claimed the presence of a wet-nurse in a funerary altar from the Museo Archeo-
logico Nazionale, Florence (inv. nr. 13831).
(9) Surveys of all known inscriptions mentioning these educators have long been a de-
sideratum. See now on midwives: Laes, 2010 (Latin) and Laes, 2011b (Greek). On nurses
Crespo Ortiz de Zárate, 2005 and 2006. On pedagogues: Laes, 2009a (Latin inscriptions)
and Laes, 2009b (Greek inscriptions). Schoolmasters: Laes, 2007 (Latin). The papyrological
material can easily be found by using Cribiore, 1996.
(10) Such research was stimulated by the work of Joshel and Murnaghan, 1998.
Since then Laurence, 2008 and Katajala-Peltomaa and Vuolanto, 2011 have focused
on agency and socialisation in Roman education. Apart from the articles by Laes mentioned
in the previous footnote Laes, 2004 has focused on this particular aspect as far as pedagogues
are concerned. Laes, 2011, p. 73-77 deals with the ‘upgrading’ of Roman wet-nurses.
Educators in the Late Ancient City of Rome (300 - 700 CE) 185
highly welcome, since educators as a group have largely been left out in
surveys on labour in the past. (11)
In this contribution, I focus on midwives, nurses, male educators and peda-
gogues in Late Antiquity, roughly from 300 to 700 ce. First, I focus on mate-
rial facts about income and wages, as they appear in the late ancient sources.
After this, I carefully consider the late ancient literary attestations, in which
I observe a decrease towards the sixth century for all categories of educa-
tors. In the following section, I collect for the first time all the epigraphic
attestations from the ICUR which relate to midwives, wet-nurses, pedagogues
and educators. Here, we can look at aspects such as the possible shift in the
meaning of the different terms, the overall tendency to mention professions
and the epigraphic habits of the educators who chose to represent themselves
as such. In the conclusion, I tentatively try to sketch the changed context of
working as an educator in the late ancient city of Rome, thereby drawing
on the seminal work by Kyle Harper about the gradual disappearance of
the Roman ‘honourable society’. Though the available inscriptions cannot be
used to prove the disappearance of servile educators statistically, they at least
point to some scenarios which could have played a part in deciding who was
to educate whom under which circumstances.
For various reasons, I have chosen to focus this research on the city
of Rome. From the fourth century onwards, military, political and socio-
economic conditions varied considerably between the western provinces – not
to mention the different evolution in the East. A local approach thus seems
appropriate, since surely the epigraphic habit must have been subject to local
custom and fashion. Moreover, the late ancient city of Rome is exceptionally
well documented. A comparison with the equally rich material from imperial
Rome thus seems appropriate. Thanks to generations of Vatican scholarship,
we now have a collection of about 34,000 Christian inscriptions (mainly
from the catacombs). Early Christian art as it appears on sarcophagi, wall
paintings and other artefacts, has been catalogued and studied in depth. Both
the literary and the archaeological material offers us revealing clues on the
demography of Rome – a city which over a period of 400 years (from the
4th to the 7th c. CE) evolved from about one million inhabitants to a mere
70 or 80,000.
The choice of the city of Rome, however, excludes the dossier of the
schoolmasters or ludimagistri. Since there are no examples of inscriptions
for these schoolteachers dating to the pre-Christian period, any comparison
with the Christian material (only two examples), seems out of place. The
exclusion of ludimagistri makes sense also because– as mentioned above –
they were the only category on Nonius Marcellus’ list consistently operating
outside the household. (12)
(11) They are hardly mentioned in the excellent survey by Lis and Soly, 2012.
(12) A list of magistri from Rome can be found in Riess, 2001, p. 204-205. But most
of them were undoubtedly teachers of crafts. See Frasca, 1997, p. 129 and p. 149-158 for
such magistri. The Christian inscriptions for schoolteachers include ICUR II, 5020; CIL VI,
9529; ILCV 717: [Locus --- m]agistri ludi litt[erarii]/ [No]n(as) Feb(ruarias) con(sulatu)
Fl(avi) Petri v(iri) c(larissimi); ICUR II, 5129; CIL VI, 9530; ILCV 718: ---]magistri ludi/
[---]magister/ [---d]epositus/ [---] cons(ulibus). The exclusion of schoolmasters relieves us
186 Chr. Laes
Prices, Wages and Social Status: What Do We Really Know?
Being involved in the successive stages of educating children, however,

does not imply that all these educators felt that they belonged together in
the same social class. Individual economic and material conditions could
vary significantly, and so could the circumstances that compelled people who
were not affluent to resort to professional educators. In different conditions,
we might imagine children being entrusted to other family members such
as, for instance, aunts or uncles. There was no such a thing as a professional
educators’ guild. Recently, Cameron Hawkins has pointed to a significant
difference in investment. The training of a midwife took considerable effort.
It would not only require an apprenticeship period with an experienced
practitioner, but there was also an economic investment needed to buy the
necessary tools and medical instruments. Midwifery could become a family
business, with knowledge and tools passed from one generation to the other.
Midwives were an exception to the rule that jobs for women outside the
household paid poorly relative to those that were normally held by men. More
than other educators, they might have enjoyed some prestige. Contrary to
many artisans’ wives, they worked outside the household. (13) Their working
conditions were very different from the tasks of educators attending to infants
or of pedagogues. These required no specific training and could, according
to the ancient authors, be performed by almost everyone – particularly those
who were unfit for anything else. Elementary teaching or accompanying
children to school was just one of the miscellaneous tasks they performed. It
is doubtful though whether such individuals would be gratefully or proudly
commemorated as educators on an inscription. (14) From the ancients’ point
of view, most of the educational tasks within the household did not require
technical skills: they could thus be entrusted to non-specialist slaves, whereas
the shortage of skilled labour force did not permit people with specific skills
to invest too much in childcare tasks.
The evidence for wages asked and earned by these educators is admit-
tedly sparse, and is fragmented over various periods and different source. (15)
Midwives were surely not inexpensive. In Plautus’ Miles Gloriosus,
Periplectomenus complains that women always ask for more money — even
the midwife, who did not agree with the sum Periplectomenus had sent
from having to discuss the connection between the educational system and literacy in the
ancient world. Harris, 1989 estimates the level of literacy in the Empire as between 10 and
15%. The literary quotes (mainly Virgil) in Roman graffiti, however, suggest that familiarity
with literature was mostly a privilege of the rich. The majority of the population could only
pretend a basic level of literacy by copying well known fragments on the walls. Hedrick,
2012 is illuminating; he links literacy with book production and state interest in literature,
which started only in the Early Modern Age.
(13) Hawkins, 2006, p. 192-194.
(14) See the traditional laments on good-for-nothings being relied upon for child care,
e.g.: Ps. Plutarch, De lib. educ. 4a-d; Tacitus, Dial. or. 29, 1. See Laes, 2011, p. 116-117. On
miscellaneous tasks, see Plutarch, Vit. aere al. 830b and Epictetus, Diss. III, 26.
(15) Apart from the almost obligatory references to Pliny, Ep. VII, 18 and IV, 13 (on the
costs for establishing a school in Comum), educators are absent in the authoritative survey by
Duncan-Jones, 1982.
to her. (16) Soranus admonishes midwives not to be greedy for money. (17)

A marriage contract from Oxyrhynchus in Egypt (mid third century CE)
suggests about forty drachmas for the expenses of delivery in case of separa-
tion. A substantial portion no doubt was to be used for the midwife’s serv-
ices. (18) The following table lists the Roman legal evidence concerning the
value of midwives.
Table 1 (19)
Source Year Value Additional information

Dig. IX, 2, 9, 1 ca. 200 — Midwives put on a par with doctors;
(Ulpian) Lex Aquilia (concerning liability
for damages) applies to them when
administering medicines.
Dig. L, 13, 1, 2 ca. 200 — Like doctors, midwives have access to
(Ulpian) provincial governor for legal complaints
concerning fees.
Cod. Iust. VI, 43, 3 531 60 solidi Slave medici and obstetrices left to
legatees have equal value.
Cod. Iust. VII, 7, 1, 5 530 60 solidi Maximum price for ‘female doctor’.(19)
For wet-nurses, the most consistent evidence is the forty wet-nursing

contracts surviving on papyri from Hellenistic and Roman Egypt. The cost
of a wet-nurse lay between five and sixteen drachmae a month. The average
nursing period was between two and three years. In some cases this sum is
mentioned as compensation for the use of a slave wet-nurse, in others it is a
salary for a hired nurse. (20)
No evidence survives for wages of pedagogues who hired themselves
out. Services of the paedagogus are mentioned in Diocletian’s Price Edict.
Both for pedagogues and schoolmasters (magistro institutori litterarum), the
maximum price amounts to fifty denarii per pupil per month — considerably
less than for grammatici Graeci or Latini (200 denarii) or teachers in the arts
of arithmetic, stenography or calligraphy (calculatores, notarii and librarii),
and somewhat comparable to the prices for skilled manual labourers. (21)
(16) Plautus, Mil. 697.

(17) Soranus, Gyn. I, 2, 4.
(18) P. Oxy. 1273, ll. 33-34. French, 1986, p. 83, n. 34 compares with other wages from
the same period and region. Stewards earned approximately 40 drachmae a month (P. Lond.
1226; P. Flor. 321; 322); ox drivers between 34 and 48 drachmae (P. Flor. 321); common
labourers 4 to 8 drachmae (P. Flor. 322); estate managers received between sixty and 128
drachmae a month (P. Oxy. 1577-78).
(19) As Herrmann-Otto, 1994, p. 330, I understand the reference to medicus sive mas-
culus sive femina as a reference to a midwife, see Laes, 2008, p. 244.
(20) Manca Masciadri and Montevecchi, 1984, p. 25-27 (duration and compensa-
tion); p. 32-35 (tables).
(21) Ed. de Pretiis 7, 67-73 (contains prices for educators; the pupils are mostly called
pueri, but for grammatici and oratores/sophistae the term discipuli is used). Ed. de Pretiis 7,
1-66 lists prices for skilled workers (50 denarii for a stoneworker, 50 for a carpenter, 60 for a
mosaic worker, 70 for a wall painter).
188 Chr. Laes
Inscriptions dedicated to or by these educators provide information on

their social status, but the use of epitaphs is not without problems. Who
received or was included in a stone monument or decided to resort to this
medium? It is very well possible that many hired educators were never
recorded, and that those serving a wealthy family for a long time are
overrepresented in large columbaria built by these families. Sometimes the
inscriptions inform us about familial relationships or contain expressions of
affection: allowing for some historical empathy, such case stories can be of
significant value. But bringing together the epigraphic material has revealed
something about social status. Not a single midwife is mentioned in a Latin
inscription who was undoubtedly of freeborn status. 42% were freedwomen,
29% slaves; 29% freeborn or freed. (22) For nurses throughout the Roman
Empire, numbers are fairly similar: 47% were freed, 27% slaves and 15%
were freeborn (the remaining percentage consisted of nurses of uncertain
status). (23) As to pedagogues in Latin inscriptions, the numbers amount to
33% slaves, 37% freedmen, 23% freeborn or free, and again not a single
undoubtedly freeborn person. (24) The difficulties for assessing legal status
on the basis of onomastic evidence are well known. As many as two-thirds
of the funerary epitaphs from the city of Rome show names that merely
identify the bearers as free persons, without clarifying whether they were
freeborn (ingenuus/-a) or freed (libertus/-a). (25) Yet, even taking these figures
into account, the number of educators with a servile background remains
impressive. The Greek dossiers are somewhat different, with 54% freeborn
and 23% slaves for midwives, and 65% slaves, 30% freeborn for pedagogues
(for both categories, the remaining percentages are of uncertain status).
Here we are faced with another tradition, as well as with the fact that more
material from the Hellenistic period survives. (26) The link with a servile
background is thus crystal-clear, and corroborated by the literary sources. (27)
Also in the papyrological record, slave wet-nurses appear. Here, the number
of slaves might be underrepresented, since masters who used their own slaves
as nurses did not need a contract to validate the employment. (28)
Searching for Educators in Late Antiquity
It should not come as a surprise that paedagogi and nutrices often appear
in the patristic writings, since they are mentioned in some biblical passages
that are commented upon over and over again. Christ and faith are compared
to a paedagogus. Before faith came, people were guarded by the law of
(22) Laes, 2010, p. 271-272.

(23) Crespo Ortiz de Zárate, 2006, p. 137-162, spec. 144.
(24) Laes, 2009a, p. 308.
(25) Taylor, 1961, p. 119 (who claims that most must have been freed, eager to display
their success in epitaphs); Hawkins, 2006, p. 160-167 (on the difficulties of assessing legal
status).
(26) Laes, 2011b, p. 156-168 (midwives); Laes, 2009b, p. 116-117 (pedagogues).
(27) Laes, 2011b, p. 154 (midwives); Laes, 2009b, p. 111-114 (pedagogues).
(28) Half of the contracts concern enslaved women. See Manca Masciadri and Mon-
tevecchi, 1984.
the Old Testament. While the Corinthian Christians might have a thousand
educators in Christ, Paul describes himself as being their only father, since
he had begotten Christ for them through the Gospel. (29) Also, Paul describes
himself as a gentle nurse, nourishing his children in faith. (30)
Midwives or obstetrices, as well, were still very present in the Church
Fathers’ writings from the third till the early fifth century. They appear among
other educators, and are sometimes equated with medical doctors. (31) Of
course, their services were needed as much as they were in pre-Christian
times. If all women were to be virgins, then the human race would perish,
and midwives would be unemployed — as Jerome claims. (32) Their vital
role in the first days of the baby is acknowledged. (33) As with the pagan
authors, their superstition is denounced. (34) In the context of virginity, they
often appear as inspectors of the female body. (35) A famous instance is the
consecrated virgin Indicia, who was accused of breaking the vow of chastity
as well as abortion by her brother-in-law Marcellus. Ambrose defended her
case with Syagrius, the praesul of Verona. In this, a freeborn midwife was
one of his main witnesses. Ambrose strongly emphasises that the social status
of this woman contributed to the credibility of her testimony. (36) But as years
go by, one gets the impression that actual references to midwives somehow
disappear from the record. Of course, obstetrices were still known. With the
sixth-century bishop Leander of Seville, the poverty of the Holy Virgin is
illustrated by the fact that she was not assisted by a midwife (an argument
that was already used by Jerome). In the appendices to Isidorus of Seville’s
glossary, obstetrices are equated with doctors. And when the Venerable Bede
(29) Galat. 3, 23-25 (Prius autem quam veniret fides sub lege custodiebamur conclusi
in eam fidem quae revelanda erat. Itaque lex pedagogus noster fuit in Christo ut ex fide ius-
tificemur. At ubi venit fides iam non sumus sub pedagogo); 1 Cor. 4, 15: nam si decem milia
pedagogorum habeatis in Christo sed non multos patres nam in Christo Iesu per evangelium
ego vos genui. See Tite, 2009.
(30) 1 Thess. 2, 7: cum possimus oneri esse ut Christi apostoli sed facti sumus lenes in
medio vestrum tamquam si nutrix foveat filios suos.
(31) Augustine, De utilitate cred. 12, 26 (PL XLII, 84) (obstetricibus, nutricibus, fa-
mulis); De peccatorum meritis 1.28.55 (PL XLIV, 141) (obstetrix ... litterarum magister);
Tertullian, De carne Christi 20 (PL II, 786-787) (obstetrices, medici et physici).
(32) Jerome, Contra Vigilantium 15 (PL XXIII, 351).
(33) Ambrose, Hex. IV, 14 (PL XIV, 194); Eustathius, In Hex. S. Basilii Latina metaph-
rasis 6, 5 (PL LIII, 926) (link with astrologers); Augustine, In Psalmum V Enarratio 7 (PL
XXXVI, 85) (referring to Ex. 1, 19 on the killing of the Jewish infants in Egypt).
(34) Tertullian, De anima 39 (PL II, 718).
(35) Tertullian, De pudicitia 5 (PL II, 989); Cyprian, Epist. 62, 3 (PL IV, 367); Ambrose,
De viduis 26 (PL XVI, 242); Jerome, Epist. 107, 8 (PL XXII, 788); Augustine, De civ. Dei I,
18; De haeresibus ad Quodvultdeum 46 (PL XLII, 36). In the reverse sense: Victor Vittensis,
Hist. persecutionis Africae provinciae 2, 7 (PL LVIII, 290) (Vandals coming with their mid-
wives to violate consecrated virgins).
(36) The story is told in Vita S. Ambrosii 45 (PL XIV, 81-82). See Ambrose, Epist. 5 (PL
XVI, 891-898) on this case, particularly at 5, 23 (PL XVI, 898): Nutricem quoque liberae
conditionis interrogavimus, cui et status haudquaquam degeneri servitio obnoxius libertatem
vera fatendi daret, et fides atque aetas ad veritatem astipularetur, et officium nutricis ad cog-
nitionem secreti. Ea quoque nihil se indecorum vidisse, nihil sibi quasi parenti commissum
a virgine aliqua dignum reprehensione. Note that, although the letter shows that Ambrose
resorted to a midwife, the term nutrix is used (cf. note 3).
190 Chr. Laes
mentions the standard aspects of child delivery, the services of midwives are
still mentioned. (37) Yet, by then, the midwife had become like an image of
a distant past— and no actual cases are mentioned by writers such as Pope
Leo or Gregorius Magnus.
While breastfeeding was an essential task of the wet-nurse, she was also
in charge of raising the child during the first years of infancy. But also in
later years, and certainly in the case of daughters, nurses were prominent
in the continued service of their wards. “A child in Late Antiquity had
three functional authority figures: father, mother and nurse”. (38) The overall
impression is that most of these nurses belonged to the group of household
slaves, although a constitution by Constantine I confirms the existence of
nurses of free status too. (39) It was considered a distinctive mark of “the rich”
not to breastfeed their own child, but to give it out to a servant. Only “poor
women” became mother and nurse. “To rear your own child made you a little
like a slave”. It was a bit like sewage work, another typically servile task. (40)
Early patristic writers mention wet-nurses in passing, as a given reality
in their social circles. They are mentioned in succession to midwives, (41)
and together with pedagogues and male educators. (42) Tertullian, Cyprian,
Jerome and Augustine refer to nutrices as a very common fact of life — the
later even had several nurses during his childhood. (43) These authors even
mention a richness of detail one searches in vain with the non-Christian
writers: the suffocating of a baby by the nurse, the use of baby-language
when approaching a little child, the rubbing of the breasts with bitter taste, in
order to get the nursling out of the habit of sucking the breast. (44) The self-
(37) Poverty of Virgin Mary: Jerome, De perpetua virg. S. Mariae 8 (PL XXIII, 214) and
Leander, Regula sive Liber de institutione virginum 14 (PL LXXII, 888). Ad S. Isidori His-
palensis Opera Appendices. Liber Glossarum col. 473 (PL LXXXIII, 1358): maia, medi[c]a,
obstetrix. Beda Venerabilis, Serm. 87 (PL XCIV, 487): Viscera matris, partus dolorem, laetas
mammas, cunas nutricis, lavacra obstetricis, fascias temporales, quibus olim infantia nutrivit.
(38) Harper, 2011, p. 110, referring to Augustine, Conf. IX, 8, 17 and John Chrysos-
tom, In I Cor. 12, 7 (PG LXI, 106). Evidence for nurses in Late Antiquity is collected by
Harper 2011, p. 109-112. See also Vuolanto, 2013 and Pentti, 2015.
(39) Jerome, Iov. 1, 47 (PL XXIII, 289) on household slaves; John Chrysostom, In Mt.
83, 5 (PG LVIII, 744); John Chrysostom, In Coloss. 4, 4 (PG LXII, 330) on slave nurses. See
Cod. Theod. IX, 24, 1, 1 (from the year 326) on free nurses.
(40) Harper, 2011, p. 111 and 332, referring to Pseudo-John Chrysostom, In Psalm. 50
(PG LV, 572).
(41) Augustine, De utilitate cred. 12, 26 (PL XLII, 84): sed obstetricibus, nutricibus,
famulis.
(42) Cf. infra notes 55 and 56.
(43) Tertullian, Ad Marc. 3, 13 (PL II, 337) (link with gerula); Tertullian, Adversus Val-
entinianos 1, 3 (PL II, 545) (story-telling by nurses); Tertullian, De anima 19 (PL II, 682)
(about a baby: Exinde et matrem spiritu probat, et nutricem spiritu exanimat, et gerulam
spiritu agnoscit); Cyprian, De lapsis 25 (PL IV, 485) on a child left with its nurses and sub-
jected to pagan ritual; Jerome, Epist. 107, 4 (PL XXII, 872) (classical passage on the duties of
the nutrix, nutricius and gerula in the education of young Paula); Jerome, Liber Numerorum
11 (PL XXVIII, 363) (sicut portare solet nutrix infantulum). Augustine uses the plural when
mentioning the wet-nurses of his own childhood: Conf. I, 6, 7 (nutrices meae); 7, 11 (mater et
nutrices); 14, 23 (inter etiam blanditamenta nutricum).
(44) Augustine, Epist. 194, 32 (PL XXXIII, 886) (suffocating by mother or nutrix); Au-
gustine, In Joann. ev. tractatus 7, 23 (PL XXXV, 1449-1450) (on baby language); Augustine,
evidence of the presence of wet-nurses with Jerome and Augustine does not
come as a surprise. About the same time, Ausonius finds it noteworthy that
his beloved girl Bissula never had a nutrix. In his Protrepticon ad Nepotem,
he mentions the “wrinkled face of the wet-nurse” (rugas nutricis). (45)
By the middle of the fifth century, actual references to nutrices seem to
diminish. In Sidonius Apollinaris’ correspondence, reflecting the concerns
of his Gaulish aristocratic circle, we find two interesting cases. In a letter
from 461-467 (?), Sidonius Apollinaris humbly mentions his east side portico
with a view on the lake — a cryptoporticus “and here when we keep open
festival, the whole chattering chorus of nurses and dependants (clientarum
sive nutricum loquacissimus chorus) sounds a halt when the family retires for
the siesta”. (46) One gets the impression that Sidonius is discussing a group of
former educators/nannies, perhaps freed, but still dependent on his generosity.
In a letter from the year 472, he describes the case of the kidnapping of the
daughter of his nurse by the son of the nurse of his correspondent Pudicus.
Since the young woman had already been freed, Sidonius Apollinaris urges
Pudicus to promote also the ravisher from his original servile state. As such,
the young woman could become her kidnapper’s lawful wife, instead of his
concubine. (47) For sixth-century Italy, the massive correspondence of Gregory
the Great refers once to his own nurse, who apparently was in need of some
aid, which he could not offer at the present moment. In all likelihood, she
was a free woman. (48) Of course, rich families still resorted to wet-nurses,
witness the famous story on the broken sieve of Benedict’s nutrix, as narrated
by the same Gregory the Great. (49) Also for sixth-century Merovingian Gaul,
we read about nurses in the case of rich families, or in other social circle
when the mother was not able to provide sufficient milk. (50) Nutrices never
disappear entirely from the historical record. They are mentioned in Isidorus’
of Seville etymological encyclopaedia. (51) When Boniface in the eighth
century mentions a mater familias called Silvia, he does not hesitate to use
nutrix as a synonym for this mother of Livinus. (52)
It is important to note that a certain ambivalence in the use of the term
nutrix has always existed in Latin. As such, Augustine is eager to stress that
the biblical phrase tanquam nutrix fovens filios suos (1 Thess. 2, 7) refers
Enarratio in psalmum XXX, 2, 2 (PL XXXVI, 246) and Serm. 311, 17, 14 (PL XXXVIII,
1419) (rubbing of the breasts).
(45) Ausonius, Biss. 4, 5 (nutricis egens); Ausonius, Protr. 17-19 (rugas nutricis).
(46) Sidonius Apollinaris, Epist. II, 2, 10 (transl. O. M. Dalton).
(47) Sidonius Apollinaris, Epist. V, 19.
(48) Gregorius Magnus, Epist. 46 (PL LXXVII, 720): Domnam vero illam nutricem
meam, quam mihi per litteras commendatis, omnino diligo, et gravari in nullo volo.
(49) Gregorius Magnus, Dial. II, 1, 1-2.
(50) Gregory of Tours, Hist. Franc. IX, 38 (nutrix Septimia at the royal court); Gregory
of Tours, De vita patrum 6 (rich family); Gregory of Tours, De vita et mir. S. Martini 2, 43:
Puer genitus, lacte materno deficiente, nutrici ad alendum datur.
(51) Isidorus of Seville, Etym. X, 112 (PL LXXXII, 378): Fugitivus nemo recte dicitur,
nisi qui dominum fugit; nam si parvulus puer a nutrice, vel a schola discesserit, fugitivus
non est. See also Ad S. Isidori opera appendices. Appendix 22, Liber Ruth 418 (PL LXXXII,
1312): Gerulae: nutricis vel comportatricis.
(52) Boniface, Vita Sancti Livini episcopi et martyris 9 (PL LXXXVII, 332): Quaedam
mater familias Silvia nomine, nutrix venerabilis pueri Livinii.
192 Chr. Laes
to mothers. According to his exegetical commentary, Saint Paul did not

write mater because many mothers were known not to nourish their children
themselves. But, by the addition filios suos, he made clear that he was not
thinking of hired nurses who took care of a child that was not their own. (53)
In the same way, Maximus of Turin calls Elisabeth and the Virgin Mary both
matres and nutrices. (54)
Pedagogues are still very much present in fourth century texts, where
they are mentioned together with nutrices. (55) Their succession by the school-
master is also acknowledged. (56) Augustine seems to have had one pedagogue
himself. (57) They were both tutors and guardians; their role in moral upbringing
was explicitly acknowledged. (58) They were employed to teach the rudiments
of learning to the young, and later to reinforce the lessons when their boys
attended the lessons of higher-status grammarians or rhetoricians. (59) Their
wards were both smaller boys and adolescents. (60) As such, they became an
extension of the family. Sometimes, they could become emotionally very
close to their ward. As such, Jerome did not hesitate to place a male educator
second in line of pietas, outranked only by the pater familias himself. (61)
(53) Augustine, Enarratio in psalmum IL, 27 (PL XXXVI, 582) Mater vobis fui: quo-
modo dicitur alio loco: Factus sum parvulus in medio vestrum, tamquam nutrix fovens filios
suos (I Thess. II, 7). Non nutrix nutriens filios alienos, sed nutrix fovens filios suos. Sunt enim
matres quae cum pepererint, dant nutricibus: illae quae pepererunt, non fovent filios suos,
quia nutriendos dederunt; illae autem quae fovent, non suos fovent, sed alienos: iste vero
ipse pepererat, ipse fovebat, nulli nutrici quem pepererat committebat; dixerat enim: Quos
iterum parturio, donec Christus formetur in vobis (Gal 4, 19). The same argument in Augus-
tine, Sermo 4/A (PL XXXIX, 1732): Factus sum parvulus in medio vestrum, tanquam nutrix
fovens filios suos (I Thess. II, 7). Ideo non dixit, Mater, quia aliquando matres vel delicatiores
sunt, vel minus amantes filios suos, cum pepererint tradunt aliis nutriendos. Rursum si solum
dixisset, Tanquam nutrix fovens; et non addidisset, filios suos: tanquam alia pariente nutrien-
dos accepisse videretur. Et nutricem se dixit, quia alebat; et filios suos, quos ipse pepererat;
Augustine, Sermo 23, 3 (PL XXXVIII, 156).
(54) Maximus of Turin, Sermo 59 (PL LVII, 560): O quam beatissimae matres beatissi-
morum parvulorum sanctissimae nutrices.
(55) Tertullian, Ad nat. 1, 16 (PL I, 582); Jerome, Epist. 107, 4 (PL XXII, 872) (also
gerula and nutricius are mentioned, the term paedagogus is used in connection with Leonidas,
the pedagogue of Alexander the Great).
(56) Augustine, Sermo 156, 3, 3 (PL XXXVIII, 851): paedagogus puerum non ducit ad
se ipsum sed ad magistrum, sed cum puer bene institutus iam creverit, sub paedagogo non
erit; Augustine, De diversis quaestionibus 53, 4 (PL XL, 37); Augustine, De civ. Dei XXII,
22; Cassiodorus, Ep. 37 (PL LXIX, 848).
(57) Augustine, Conf. I, 19, 30: Nam in illis iam quid me foedius fuit, ubi etiam talibus
displicebam, fallendo innumerabilibus mendaciis et paedagogum, et magistros, et parentes
amore ludendi, studio spectandi nugatoria, et imitandi ludicra inquietudine.
(58) Jerome, Comm. in Galat. 2, vv. 24-26 (PL XXVI, 443-444)- a classic text on what
the supposed task of the pedagogue actually was; Augustine, Sermo 62, 12, 18 (PL XXVIII,
23) on small kids playing with mud and being reproached by their pedagogue (Et tamen pueri
evadunt ab oculis paedagogi, et redeunt ad lutum furtim; et quando inveniuntur, abscondunt
manus, ne videantur); Cassianus, Coll. VIII, 23 (PL IL, 671).
(59) John Chrysostom, Ad pop. Ant. 16, 4 (PG IL, 168).
(60) Jerome, Adv. Iov. 2, 10 (PL XXIII, 299): Igitur nisi vitia adolescentis et pueri pru-
dentia paedagogi rexerit (...). Compare with Jerome, In Epistul. ad Galatas 3 (PL XXX, 814):
Perfectae aetatis discipuli non indigent paedagogo.
(61) Jerome, Epist. 14, 3 (PL XXII, 349): nutricius, secundus post naturalem pietatem
Nevertheless, pedagogues were feared and loathed by their children for their
severe regime and coercion by means of physical force. (62) At the same time,
masters did not find it unusual to treat those who were set over their children
violently by thrashing, throttling and torturing. (63) As their pagan counter-
parts, the patristic writers were very much aware of the ambiguous situation
of entrusting one’s children to ‘wicked slaves’. (64) This was indeed a society
where social differences were strained by violence: young men were instilled
with a sense of pride that would make them into masters. (65)
But again, we see the same evolution taking place. By the sixth century,
paedagogi have become virtually absent in the sources. Cassiodorus still
mentions them twice, but one mention is in a translation of Sozomenus’
Church History about the Emperor Julian. (66) In eighth-century Spain, the
word is used to denote a schoolmaster; in ninth-century France, a steward at
court is meant. (67) The word still appears in Isidorus’ Etymologicum, possibly
as an echo of the past, a term to be found in the ancient texts. (68)
Searching for Educators in the ICUR-Collection
Thanks to the searchable Epigraphic Database Bari (EDB), much

progress has been made in the study of the Christian inscriptions from the
city of Rome, for the period of 300 to 700. The Inscriptiones Christianae
Urbis Romae (ICUR) consists of ten volumes, that currently contain 27,688
entries and 34,251 inscriptions — the major part Latin (some 15% Greek).
Using the EDB, it is now possible to search for all inscriptions in ICUR
pater.
(62) Jerome, Ruf. 1, 24; Libanius, Or. 9, 11. References to fear of severe pedagogues are
abundant with the Latin Church Fathers. I only cite some examples: Tertullian, Adv. Marc. 1,
8 (PL II, 254); Jerome, Comm. in Zach. proph. 1 vv. 14 (PL XXV, 787); Ambrose, Hex. VI,
6, 38 (PL XIV, 255); Augustine, Serm. 156, 12, 13 (PL XXXVIII, 851) (on the molestissimus
paedagogus); Serm. 161, 8 (PL XXXVIII, 882); De civ. Dei XXII, 22; Cassianus, Coll. VIII,
23 (PL IL, 761).
(63) Libanius, Prog. III, 2, 8-9. This and other examples in Harper, 2011, p. 114.
(64) Augustine, Psalm. 117, 13 (saepe filios paterfamilias per nequissimos servos emen-
dari iubet, cum illis hereditatem, illis compedes praeparet).
(65) Harper, 2011, p. 344, referring to a remarkable passage in the Corpus Glossari-
orum Latinorum: Colloq. Harl. 18 (CGL III, 642).
(66) Cassiodorus, Ep. 37 (PL LXIX, 848); Hist. Eccl. VI, 1 (PL LXIX, 1029: habebat
paedagogum eunuchum, nomine Mardonium, grammaticum Nicoclem Laconensem. Rhetori-
cam vero legebat apud Eubolum).
(67) Paulus Emeritanus, De vita patrum Emeritensium 2 (PL LXXX, 125): quem ut
viderunt pueri parvuli (qui sub paedagogorum disciplina in scholis litteris studebant). Er-
hambert, Breviarium regum Francorum et majorum domus (PL LXXI, 1353): et in majorem
domus ac paedagogum constituens.
(68) Isidorus of Seville, Etym. X, 207 (PL LXXXII, 389): Paedagogus est qui parvulis
adsignatur. Graecum nomen est, et est compositum ab eo quod pueros agat, id est, ductet, et
lascivientem refrenet aetatem; X, 264 (PL LXXXII, 395): Tutor, qui pupillum tuetur, hoc est,
intuetur, de quo in consuetudine vulgari dicitur: “Quid me mones? Et tutorem et paedagogum
olim obrui”; Liber Glossarum. Appendix 24, 443 (PL LXXXIII, 1365): Pappas: paedagogus,
qui sequitur studentes.
194 Chr. Laes
containing a job-indication. (69) This paper draws on such an intensive search

for inscriptions with job titles. (70)
Another serious problem is dating this enormous amount of material. For
the present article, I had access to the database that is being developed by
Thomas Goessens at the University of Kent. Of a sample of 4376 inscriptions,
59% are registered as ‘undateable’, 32% as fourth century, and only 0.01% as
after 530. While there is still enough for the period 411-460, any statistical
dataset for later periods is problematic (though the large bulk of undateable
inscriptions always needs to be held in mind). (71)
Where have all the educators gone? This might have been an apt subtitle
for the present paragraph. First, the midwives. While non-Christian Rome
has seventeen inscriptions for obstetrices, there is only one possible example
to be found in the ICUR. (72) There are also no Roman inscriptions for maiae,
the Greek equivalent of obstetrices. The difference is even more striking for
paedagogi. CIL VI has no less than 46 instances of pedagogues who were
not connected to an institute such as the paedagogium. (73) The ICUR has not
a single example. (74) Again for the pagan city of Rome, 108 instances of
nutrices are known. (75) The thirteen cases in the ICUR are in contrast with
this. As for the male educators — nutritores and educatores, respectively
29 and six instances from pagan Rome (76) — are matched by fourteen and
zero instances in the Christian material. So researchers of early Christian
Rome are left with some instances of nutritores and nutrices, but only a
small amount compared to the evidence from pagan Rome.
Possibly, other words might refer to the function of a nutrix. Could nonna
mean nutrix in Christian epigraphy? There are two instances of the use of
this word for the pagan city of Rome, and three Christian ones. (77) Nonnus
for nutritor? Again, there are only three examples from Christian Rome. (78)
(69) The details of the material included and not yet included are on http://www.edb.
uniba.it. Note that the EDB now also contains inscriptions from the neighbourhood of Rome,
and inscriptions found after ICUR 10. As such, the new total equals to 38, 667 inscriptions.
(70) Laes, 2015 uses the data for the subject of children at work.
(71) See also Harper, 2015.
(72) Laes, 2010, p. 280-282. ICUR I, 3843; CIL VI, 9724 ---]antiu[--- V]aleriae Syre
/ [---] qu(a)e vixit annis XXXI / [--- cum coniuge s]uo fecit annos VIIII et / [--- de]posita
pri(die) Idus Novem(bres) / [---]a filia obs(t)etricis. The marble stone, from the S. Sisto Vec-
chio, is now lost, and it is difficult to find out whether it really was a Christian inscription. See
Bisconti, 2000, p. 237.
(73) Laes, 2009a.
(74) ICUR I, 2762; CIL VI, 8984; ILCV 3802 may not be a Christian inscription, and it
is set up by Niceratus Augustorum n(ostrorum) ser(vus) / paedagogus a caput Africae - so it
certainly belongs to a pedagogue of a paedagogium.
(75) Crespo Ortiz de Zárate, 2006, p. 290-295.
(76) Bradley, 1991, p. 69-71 only cites the instances in which male educators are men-
tioned together with a female; as such, only thirteen nutritores/nutricii and five educatores
are listed.
(77) ICUR IV, 11794: Ag]ape qu(a)e vixit an(nos) XXIIII m(enses) X d(ies) XI d[ep(osita)
---] / [Ian]uaria [filiae] su(a)e Nonn[ae(?)] v(i)rgin[i(?) ---] / fecit; ICUR VIII, 23167:
Fl(aviae) Eutychia[nae] / nonnae [d]ulci[---; ICUR VII, 20339 Φλαβίῳ ᾿Αντ[ι]οχιανῷ τὸ
δ´ [καὶ Βι]/ρίῳ ᾿Ορφίτῳ [ὑ]πατοῖς π[ρό --- εἰ]δῶν αὐγούστων / Κύριλλα [ν]όννα μου.
(78) ICUR VIII, 22671: Donata nuno suo / Tertullo cun filia / mea in iace; ICUR IX,
24692: Apra Galume/[di dulci n]onno; ICUR IV, 10027 [Ma]rtyra qu(a)e vics[it] / [su]per
In the seventh century, Isidorus of Seville suggests tutor as a synonym

for paedagogus. But here also, only one epigraphic example for the city
of Rome is known. (79) Pappas, as well, is mentioned as an equivalent for
paedagogus (cf. supra note 68). In Appendix table 1, nos. 10 and 14 provide
a certain identification of papas with nutritor. In Appendix table 2, no. 10
uses mamma as an equivalent for nutrix. Eleven ICUR inscriptions in total
mention a mamma, tata or papas, but it is highly questionable whether we
should understand all these as referring to nannies and male educators. (80)
Also in the Christian iconographical evidence, there are hardly any traces of
educators. While the medical and veterinarian professions make up 3.47% of
the Christian material, there is no specific depiction of midwifery. (81) There
are no depictions of pedagogues or educators in the category ‘culture and
writing’ (4.11% of the material). (82)
What do the inscriptions tell us? In the evidence for nutritores (Appendix
table 1) we find five examples of these educators dedicating an inscription.
The dedication by Dativus to the house-bred slave alumna Vitalia, fits in the
ancient slave household context (no. 3). (83) In two cases, several nutritores
seem to have taken care of one pupil (nos. 1 and 5). In one inscription,
both parents dedicate an inscription for their deceased daughter together
with her nutritor (no. 9). Also, we have a dedication to a girl by a nutritor
(no. 8). Among the cases of nutritores being honoured by their ward, the
inscription for Maecilius Hylas (no. 13) is remarkable. Deceased at age 75,
he is remembered by his daughter Maecilia Rogata, who mentions her father’s
profession in the service of a senatorial household. Also in the fourth century,
97-year old Maius is remembered by both his grandsons and possibly his
son (no. 7). However, both Maius and his son Calligonus were fossores or
grave-diggers. As they both had the same profession, it is very well possible
that nutritor is synonymous with pater, and not referring to an educator.
This might also be the case for Iovianus, who is called papas et nutritor of
three brothers (no. 14). An attachment between educator and ward certainly
appears from the epitaph for the educator Leo. While the burial space was
nun(n)um(?) suum m(enses) III / [de]cessit annorum IIX.

(79) ICUR VI, 17298 (from the year 372): [---] / Popilius Marcus q[ui vixit] / annos LIII
dep(ositus) IIII ka[lendas] / maias Modesto et Arrọ[ntheo] / consulibus quem locụ[m sibi] /
conparavit tutor Er[meros] / eius. See Isidorus from Seville X, 264 (PL LXXXII, 395).
(80) Jerome, Epist. 14, 3 lists almost every servant in connection with a child, mention-
ing the vernae, a gerula, a nutricius, a mamma, and the grammatici. In all likelihood, he
substituted mamma for nutrix. See Pentti, 2015, p. 120. Contrary to Stawoska-Jundziłł, I
do not read every mention of papas, tatas or mamma as referring to servant educators; not
included in my list, but mentioned by Stawoska-Jundziłł, 2002, p. 498-500 are: ICUR IV,
11935 (mater et mamma); VII, 19642 (mammulae piissime); VIII, 21168b (mamma); II, 4188;
III, 8924 (tata); VII, 19844 (Τάτα μήτηρ); I, 364; 770 (papa); III, 9177 (tatia). For these
cases, one needs to take into account Nonius Marcellus, De compendiosa doctrina, p. 81 (ed.
Lindsay): cum parvuli ... vocent ... matrem mammam, patrem tatam.
(81) Bisconti, 2000, p. 234-237.
(82) Bisconti, 2000, p. 247-251. Neither are there examples of pedagogues in the cat-
egory ‘wards and guardians’, which makes up 1.28% of the total. See Bisconti, 2000, p.
251-253.
(83) Janssens, 1981, p. 187 points out that this is the only example of a link between
nutritor and alumnus.
196 Chr. Laes
meant for Heliodora Pascasa, it was donated to her nutritor Leo (no. 4).
Valens, who remembered his 28-year old educator Gerontius and explicitly
stated that the man, who was a peregrinus (in all likelihood, not coming from
the city of Rome) must have been young himself (no. 6). (84) In other cases,
the link between the charge and the nutritor cannot be established further
(nos. 2, 11 and 12). 70-year-old Antimio surely enjoyed prestige in the family
that he served, as is evidenced by the somewhat literary epitaph he received
(no. 10).
Contrary to the evidence for nutritores, there are no clear instances of
nutrices who appear as dedicators in the inscriptions (though the fragmentary
nos. 4 and 8 might be examples of dedicating wet-nurses). Neither are there
inscriptions that mention more than one nutrix for a single child (again, a
possible exception might be the fragmentary text no. 7). The nurse Agape
belonged to a senatorial family (no. 6). In the case of Agape and Pribatus
dedicating to the nurse Neraidis, we might suspect a couple rendering thanks
to their offspring’s nurse. No. 2 is remarkable for its late date, and thus
proves the existence of nurses as late as the year 558. In three instances,
nutrix may be a synonym for mater. (85) Halicia Severa is called matri et
nutrici (no. 9). Trofimene appears as mamme nutrice (no. 10). (86) Also the
words genetrix / familiae nutrix (no. 5) might point in the same direction.
In these three cases, it is equally possible that we are dealing with mothers
who also performed the profession of nurse. (87) Although no nurse’s name
is mentioned, the inscription of a father who claims to have raised his nine-
year-old boy without his mother’s milk (sine matre nutrivit) implies the use
of a wet-nurse. (88)
In Search for an Explanation. Learning from Silence?

In the literary record, mentions of educators diminish considerably from
the sixth century on. Some job titles also disappear from the epigraphic
documents. Are such tendencies indicative of a change which took place in
Roman society during this period? Or are our sources on the contrary rather
silent on fundamental changes which might have occurred in Late Antiquity?
The epigraphic habit immediately comes to the mind. Could it be the
case that Christians bothered less about mentioning professions? CIL VI
(84) Janssens, 1981, p. 183 for the interpretation of peregrinus as “straniero”, not as
cognomen.
(85) Janssens, 1981, p. 182. Cf. supra notes 52 and 53.
(86) Stawoska-Jundziłł, 2002, p. 498 leaves open two possible explanations (mother
or nurse).
(87) Janssens, 1981, p. 133 interprets no. 5 as a mother. An undoubtable instance of
nutrix as mother is the case of the senatorial woman Turtura CIL VI, 32049; CLE 702; ICUR
I, 3250: Hic requiescit in pace Turtura c(larissima) f(emina) dulcis Petroni coniu(n)x / deo
serviens unice fidei amica pacis castis moribus ornata / communis fidelibus amicis familiae
grata nutrix natorum (...).
(88) ICUR VII, 17431; CLE 658: Hic titulus pueri casos describit iniquos. / Dalmatium
querit pater quem sine matre nutri(v)it / dulcis infans obiit modica(m)q(ue) vita(m) peregit /
novennem puerum eripuit cum mensib(us) octo / et die(bu)s XVI quib(us) superfuisse videtur
/ dep(ositus) XII Kal(endas) Iul(ias) Amantio.
yields 1470 inscriptions containing at least one job title, approximating

0.04% of the total inscriptional evidence for the City. (89) For the ICUR, I
collected 232 inscriptions with job titles, which makes 0.006% (90) There
is still some statistical relevance in this: among those who receive or set
up an inscription, the group who chooses to mention their profession or the
profession of the person receiving the (mostly funerary) inscription becomes
significantly smaller (that is 6.4 times smaller). (91) So Christians do seem to
be less inclined to mention professions.
What if we apply these statistics to the mentioning of the educators’
profession? Table 2 summarizes the evidence.
Table 2 Attestation of the word in the ICUR material
CIL VI ICUR expected number in ICUR

extrapolated from CIL VI
(error margin 6.5 for
confidence interval = 95%)
Total number of inscriptions 36,750 38,667
Inscription mentioning profession 1470 232 Estimate min max
Nutrices 108 13 17 11 24
Paedagogi 46 0 7 1 14
nutritores 29 14 5 0 (-2) 11
educatores 6 0 1 0 (-6) 7
paedagogi + nutritores + educatores 81 14 13 6 19
Obviously, obstetrices and paedagogi are underrepresented, as they

disappear in the Christian material. Also nutrices are slightly less attested than
expected (although still within a reasonable margin of error). However, the
nutritores are significantly more often represented. If we consider paedagogi,
nutritores and educatores as a single category (that is assuming a shift in the
specialised meanings of the words), the fourteen attested cases in ICUR are
almost exactly what you would expect (13 +/- 6.5). So this would suggest a
relative status quo for educators tending to children, within the fraction of the
population that chooses to mention professions.
Could the reputation of certain jobs have changed, so that other names for
it were preferred? One may think of the tendency to equate midwives with
female doctors (see above table 1 on Cod. Iust. VII, 7, 1, 5). There is however
not a single reference to a medica in the ICUR — so this explanation makes
no sense. The disappearance of the term paedagogus in epigraphy from Late
(89) Joshel, 1992, p. 69.

(90) Laes, 2015, p.87.
(91) The number of inscriptions is low, but not so low to be per se statistically insignifi-
cant. For a ‘population’ of c. 40,000 we need 226 results to provide a statistically representa-
tive sample with a 95% confidence level and 6.5 confidence interval (i.e. the distribution of
the results has a likelihood of 95% percent to reflect the distribution within the entire popula-
tion correctly, with a margin of error of 6.5 points above and below). (cf. http://www.survey-
system.com/sscalc.htm). Obviously, qualitative criteria are a different matter.
198 Chr. Laes
Antiquity could be linked with an evolution of the word to the meaning of

‘teacher’ (denoting an instructor of Christian ethics — as in the letters to
the Galatians and the Corinthians mentioned above, notes 29 and 30). In
the light of such an evolution, other words as nutritor, tata or papas turned
out to be more appropriate to specify the educational tasks of caring for and
accompanying children. (92) Possibly, nutritor could have taken over as a term
to signify this profession: hence the significantly higher attestation of the
word in the ICUR material.
Other explanations come to the mind. Paedagogi attached to large house-
holds are more present in the columbaria, where people of servile back-
ground obviously dominate. These mentions of paedagogi disappear in the
catacombs. But in the non-Christian material, 14 out of 46 dedications to
private pedagogues belong to columbaria, so that the total disappearance of
the term cannot be explained by this factor alone. (93)
It is well known that Christian inscriptions tend to stress the nuclear
family above extended family ties. Sigismund Nielsen has argued for a
gradual increase of interest by early Christians in what we would call the
conjugal family unit. The ideal of the natural and biological parents and
children unit became established and cherished in early Christian literature.
Far from being a definite proof, the relative absence of certain educators
external to the family may point in the same direction. (94) For the pagan
evidence, almost 60% of the nutrices inscriptions are for wet-nurses who are
mentioned within a family not their own (95) — for the Christian material,
4 out of 13 equals to roughly 30%. For paedagogi, about 32% of the cases
of Rome are mentioned in a context outside their own family. (96) So, the
stressing of the nuclear family ties might only be a partial explanation, since
it does not explain why the many educators who are mentioned within their
own family have disappeared.
Still, for Roman families and households the fifth and sixth century must
have meant a turning point which is hardly equalled by any changes that
happened before. In the same way as the demographic drop for the city of
Rome, the decline of the institution of slavery has its origin in the fourth
century. Unstable conditions of the late fifth and the early sixth century in
all probability enhanced the difficulty of sufficient slave supply (massive
amounts of captives of war were hardly controllable and in all likelihood
caused a collapse of the market prices). Though they were by no means
interested in socio-economic history, ancient writers dealing with this period
add to the picture by illustrating the decline of the institution of slavery and
(92) To my knowledge, this suggestion only occurs with Schuppe, 1942, c. 2385.
Stawoska-Jundziłl, 2002 does not go into the issue of the disappearance of the term paeda-
gogus.
(93) Laes, 2009a for the lists; Taylor, 1961, p. 129 on people from servile background
in the columbaria (see CIL VI, 3926-8397).
(94) Sigismund Nielsen, 1996 ; 1998; Laes, 2003; on the almost complete absence of
delicia children in Christian epigraphy. Alumni do not disappear in Christian epigraphy, but
house-bred slaves might be considered more as ‘children’ belonging to the household. See
Stawoska, 1993 and Janssens, 1981, p. 133 and 181-184.
(95) Crespo Ortiz de Zárate, 2006, p. 241-248.
(96) Laes, 2009a, p. 306-307.
extreme circumstances caused by war, famine, plague and natural disaster.

Their emphatic descriptions of free people becoming reduced to slave-like
conditions, might be more than a dramatic metaphor: they reflect the reaction
of the traditional honourable Roman society with its subsequent division of
labour tasks which were by then fundamentally and drastically overturned.
By the end of the sixth century, the institution of slavery still existed, but
it was merely an echo of its classical Roman predecessor. In the same way,
aristocrats still cherished the idea of social hierarchy. (97) So, slave educators
still existed, but they became much rarer, and linked to the very rich. For
most families, educational tasks, which were in the ancient mentality and
honourable society linked with servile labour, were now entrusted to other
family members (or to free educators. The extent of this, however, is difficult
to assess, since free educators are largely absent both in the pagan and the
Christian sources, though they must have existed). This was an important
and fundamental change in the socio-cultural environment of children and
their families As usual, ancient writers seldom elaborate on the story of such
changes. Given the number of undateable cases, the inscriptions from Rome
cannot be used to prove such a change statistically and unambiguously. It is
only by looking at the wider context that one can catch a glimpse of how
fundamentally things might have changed for educators and the families
which made use of their services. Ideas of social hierarchy still existed in
Late Antiquity, but all this was embedded in a society which by the end of
the sixth century would have been hardly recognisable by those who lived
there two centuries before.
Bibliography
Amedick, 1991 = R. Amedick, Die Sarkophage mit Dartsellungen aus dem

Menschenleben. T. 4, Vita Privata, Berlin, 1991.
Beerden and Naerebout, 2011 = K. Beerden and F. Naerebout, Roman
Breastfeeding? Some Thoughts on a Funerary Altar in Florence, in CQ, 61, 2011,
p. 761-767.
Bisconti, 2000 = F. Bisconti, Mestieri nelle catacombe romane. Appunti sul declino
dell’iconografia del reale nei cimetieri cristiani a Roma, Vatican, 2000.
Bonner, 1977 = S. Bonner, Education in Ancient Rome, London, 1977.
Booth, 1979 = A. Booth, Elementary and Secondary Education in the Roman
Empire in Florilegium, 1, 1979, p. 1-14.
Bradley, 1991a = K. Bradley, The Social Role of the Nurse in the Roman World
in K. Bradley, Discovering the Roman Family, Oxford, 1991, p. 13-36.
Bradley, 1991b = K. Bradley, Child Care at Rome: the Role of Men in K.
Bradley, Discovering the Roman Family, Oxford, 1991, p. 37-75.
Christes, Klein and Lüth, 2006 = J. Christes, R. Klein and Chr. Lüth, Handbuch
der Erziehung und Bildung in der Antike, Darmstadt, 2006
Crespo Ortiz de Zárate, 2005 = S. Crespo Ortiz de Zárate, “Nutrices” en el
Imperio romano. 1. Estudio de las fuentes y prosopografia, Valladolid, 2005.
(97) Harper, 2011, p. 326-348; Laes, 2015, p. 97-102.

200 Chr. Laes
Crespo Ortiz de Zárate, 2006 = S. Crespo Ortiz de Zárate, “Nutrices” en el

Imperio romano. 2. Estudio social, Valladolid, 2006.
Cribiore, 2001 = R. Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind. Greek Education in
Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, Princeton, 2001.
Cribiore,1996 = R. Cribiore, Writing, Teachers and Students in Graeco-Roman
Egypt, Atlanta, 1996.
Dimas, 1998 = S. Dimas, Untersuchungen zur Themenwahl und Bildgestaltung auf
römischen Kindersarkophagen, Münster, 1998.
Duncan-Jones, 1982 = R.P. Duncan-Jones, The Economy of the Roman Empire.
Quantitative Studies, Cambridge, 1982, 2nd ed.
Eichenauer, 1988 = M. Eichenauer, Untersuchungen zur Arbeitswelt der Frau in
der römischen Antike, Frankfurt-am-Main e.a., 1988.
Fildes, 1988 = V. Fildes, Wet Nursing: a History from Antiquity to Present, Oxford,
New York, 1988.
Frasca, 1997 = R. Frasca, Il profilo sociale e professionale del maestro di scuola
e del maestro d’arte tra reppublica e alto impero, in G. Firpo and G. Zecchini
(eds.), Magister: aspetti culturali e istituzionali. Atti del convegno, Chieti 13-14
novembre 1997, Alessandria, p. 129-158.
French, 1986 = V. French, Midwives and Maternity Care in the Roman World, in
Helios, 13, 1986, p. 69-84.
Harper, 2011 = K. Harper, Slavery in the Roman World, AD 275-425, Cambridge,
2011.
Harper, 2015 = K. Harper, A Time to Die: Preliminary Notes on Seasonal Mortality
in Late Antique Rome, in Chr. Laes, K. Mustakallio and V. Vuolanto (eds.)
Children and Family in Late Antiquity. Life, Death and Interaction, Leuven, 2015,
p. 14-33.
Harris, 1989 = W. V. Harris, Ancient Literacy, Cambridge Mass., 1989.
Hawkins, 2006 = C. Hawkins, Work in the City: Roman Artisans and the Urban
Economy, Chicago, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, 2006.
Hedrick, 2012 = C. W. Hedrick jr., Literature and Communication, in M. Peachin
(ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Social Relations in the Roman World, Oxford,
2012, p. 167-190.
Herrmann-Otto, 1994 = E. Herrmann-Otto, Ex ancilla natus. Untersuchungen
zu den “Hausgeborenen” Sklaven und Sklavinnen im Westen des römischen
Kaiserreiches, Stuttgart, 1994.
Janssens, 1981 = J. Janssens, Vita e morte del cristiano negli epitaffi di Roma
anteriori al sec. VII, Rome, 1981.
Joshel and Murnaghan, 1998 = S. R. Joshel and S. Murnaghan (ed.), Women
and Slaves in Greco-Roman Culture: Differential Equations, London and New
York, 1998.
Joshel, 1992 = S. Joshel, Work, Identity and Legal Status at Rome. A Study of
Occupational Inscriptions, London, 1992.
Joyal, McDougall and Yardley, 2009 = M. Joyal, I. McDougall and J. C.
Yardley, Greek and Roman Education. A Sourcebook, London, 2009.
Kajanto, 1965 = I. Kajanto, The Latin Cognomina, Helsinki, 1965.
Katajala-Peltomaa and Vuolanto, 2011 = S. Katajala-Peltomaa and V.
Vuolanto, Children and Agency: Religion as Socialisation in Late Antiquity and
the Late Medieval West, in Childhood in the Past 4, 2011, p. 79-99.
Laes, 2003 = Chr. Laes, Desperately Different? Delicia Children in the Roman
Household, in D. Balch and C. Osiek (eds.), Early Christian Families in Context.
An Interdisciplinary Dialogue, Grand Rapids, 2003, p. 298-326.
Laes, 2004 = Chr. Laes, Romeinse ‘paedagogi’ tussen minachting en waardering.
Een voorbeeld van “differential equations”, in Handelingen van de Koninklijke
Zuid-Nederlandse Maatschappij voor Taal-en Letterkunde en Geschiedenis, 58,
2004, p. 161-180.
Laes, 2007 = Chr. Laes, School-Teachers in the Roman Empire: a Survey of the
Epigraphical Evidence, in AC, 50, 2007, p. 109-127.
Laes, 2008 = Chr. Laes, Child Slaves at Work in Roman Antiquity, in AncSoc, 38,
2008, p. 235-283.
Laes, 2009a = Chr. Laes, Pedagogues in Latin Inscriptions, in Epigraphica, 71,
2009, p. 303-325.
Laes, 2009b = Chr. Laes, Pedagogues in Greek inscriptions in Hellenistic and
Roman Antiquity’, in ZPE, 171, 2009, p. 113-122.
Laes, 2010 = Chr. Laes, The Educated Midwife in the Roman Empire. An Example
of Differential Equations, in H. F. J. Horstmanshoff (ed.), Hippocrates and
Medical Education. Selected Papers Read at the XIIth International Hippocrates
Colloquium, Universiteit Leiden, 24-26 August 2005, Leiden, 2010, p. 261-286.
Laes, 2011a = Chr. Laes, Children in the Roman Empire. Outsiders Within,
Cambridge, 2011.
Laes, 2011b = Chr. Laes, Midwives in Greek Inscriptions in Hellenistic and Roman
Antiquity, in ZPE, 176, 2011, p. 154-162.
Laes, 2015 = Chr. Laes, Children and their Occupations in the city of Rome (300-
700 CE)’, in Chr. Laes, K. Mustakallio and V. Vuolanto (eds.) Children and
Family in Late Antiquity. Life, Death and Interaction, Leuven, 2015, p. 79-109.
Laurence, 2008 = R. Laurence, The Longue Durée of Childhood?, in JRA 21,
2008, p. 410-415.
Lis and Soly, 2012 = C. Lis and H. Soly, Worthy Efforts: Attitudes to Work and
Workers in Pre-Industrial Europe, Leiden and Boston, 2012.
Manca Masciadri and Montevecchi, 1984 = M. Manca Masciadri and O.
Montevecchi, I contratti di baliatico, Milan, 1984.
Marrou, 1964 = H. I. Marrou, Histoire de l’éducation dans l’antiquité. 2 vol.,
Paris, 1964, 2nd ed.
Morgan, 1998 = T. Morgan, Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman
Worlds, Cambridge, 1998.
Pentti, 2015 = M. Pentti, The Role of Servants in the Upbringing of the Roman
Elite Girls, in K. Mustakallio and J. Hanska (eds.), Agents and Objects.
Children in Pre-Modern Europe, Rome, 2015, p. 113-131.
Riess, 2001 = W. Riess, Stadtrömische Lehrer zwischen Anpassung und Nonkonfor-
mismus: Überlegungen zu einer epigraphischen Ambivalenz, in G. Alföldy and
S. Panciera (eds.), Inschriftliche Denkmäler als Medien der Selbstdarstellung in
der römischen Welt, Stuttgart, 2001, p. 163-207.
Schuppe, 1942 = W. Schuppe, art Paidagogos, in RE XVIII, 2, 1942, c. 2375-2385.
Sigismund Nielsen, 1996 = H. Sigismund Nielsen, The Physical Context of Roman
Epitaphs and the Structure of the “Roman Family”, in ARID, 23, 1996, p. 35-60.
Sigismund Nielsen, 1998 = H. Sigismund Nielsen, Roman Children at Mealtimes,
in I. Nielsen and H. Sigismund Nielsen (ed.), The Roman Family at Dinner.
202 Chr. Laes
Aspects of the communal Meal in the Hellenistic and Roman World, Aarhus,
1998, p. 56-66.
Solin and Salomies, 1994 = H. Solin and O. Salomies, Repertorium nominum
gentilium et cognominum Latinorum, Hildesheim, 1994.
Solin, 2003 = H. Solin, Die Griechische Personennamen in Rom. Ein Namenbuch
(3 vol.), Berlin and New York, 2003, 2nd ed.
Stawoska, 1993 = B. Stawoska, Alumni w inskrypcjach chreścijańskich rzymu,
in J. Jundziłła (ed.), Rodzina w starożytnym rzymie. Materiałz konferencji
naukowej Zacisze 20-21.05.1991 r. zorganizowanej przez Katedrę Historii
Wychowania WSP w Bydgoszczy, Bydgoszcz, 1993, p. 235-256.
Stawoska-Jundziłł, 2002 = B. Stawoska-Jundziłł, Mamma, tata i papas w
łacińskich inskrypcjach chrześcijańskich z Rzymu III-VI wieku, in Vox Patrum,
22, 2002, p. 487-500.
Taylor, 1961 = L. R. Taylor, Freedmen and Freeborn in the Epitaphs of Imperial
Rome, in AJPh, 82, 1961, p. 113-132.
Tite, 2009 = P. L. Tite, Nurslings, Milk and Moral Development in the Graeco-
Roman Context: a Reappraisal of the Paraenetic Utilization of Metaphor in 1
Peter 2.1-3, in Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 31, 2009, p. 371-400.
Treggiari, 1976 = S. Treggiari, Jobs for Women, in AJAH, 1, 1976, p. 76-104.
Vuolanto, 2013 = V. Vuolanto, Family Relations and the Socialisation of
Children in the Autobiographical Narratives of Late Antiquity, in L. Brubaker
and S. Tougher (ed.), Approaches to the Byzantine Family, Birmingham, 2013,
p. 47-74.
Wolff, 2015 = C. Wolff, L’éducation dans le monde Romain, Paris, 2015.
Appendix. Educators in Christian inscriptions from Rome
1. Nutritores
REFERENCE Educator’s NAME AGE STATUS DEDICATORS DATE TEXT

1) I, 2416 --- -- s (?) ipsi 4/ 5 c. Sutiridi / bene meren/ti nutrito/ris ei{ee}us / fecerum / in
pace / [---
2) II, 4328 Eutichianus ? s (?) ? 4/ 5 c. Eutichiano nutritori [---] / fecit depositus idibus [---] /
dece[mbr---]
3) III, 9246 Dativus -- s (?) ipse Vitaliae alumnae karissimae / Dativus nutritor.
4) IV, 11334 Leo ? s (?) ward Locus est Heli[odorae] / Pascasae cuiu[s nutri]/tor Leo
defuntus eis su[b die ---] / [---aug]ustas ann[orum---]
5) V, 14282 -- -- ? ipsi 4 c. Florentio / nutritores.
6) VII, 18862 Gerontius 28 y. ing (?)/ l (?) ward 4/ 5 c. Gerontio peregrino / benemerito dulcissimo / nutritori
Valens qui vixit / in pace annos XXVIII decessit / III
kal(endas) decen(bres) die Beneris.
7) VIII, 21167 Maius 97 y. s (?) nepotes et filius 4 c. (2nd half) Maio fossori nepotes et bono nutritor[i] / Proclus qui
vixit annis XCVII et dormi[vit] / VI idus maias in pace et
fossor[---] / Calligonus fossor patri [---]
8) VIII, 22513 Iscantius F[--- -- ing (?)/ l (?) ipse 270-330 Iuliae Marcellinae e[---] / filiae C(aius) Iscantius F[---] /
nutritor eius dulci [---]
9) VIII, 23256 Syllectio et Eunoea -- s (?) ipsi (cum patre) 4 c. Dulcissimae filiae Publici(ae) / Maximinus pater et
Syllecti(o et) / Eunoea nutritores.
10) VIII, 23429 Antimio 70 y. s (?) ? 392 Perpetuam sedem nutritor possides ipse. / Sic meritus
finem magnis defuncte periclis. / Hic requiem felix sumis
cogentibus annis. / Hic positus papas Antimio qui vixit
annis LXX / depositus domino nostro Arcadio II et Fl(avio)
Rufino / vv(iro) cc(lari)ss(imo) nonas nobemb(e)r.
11) IX, 23781 Agatheodorsus -- s (?) ward (?) 4 c. D(is) M(anibus) / Cresces nu/tritori Aga/theodorso be(ne)
me(renti).
12) IX, 23951 ? ? ? ? [---]us[---] / [---]vis[---] / [--- caris?]simae c[---] / [---]i
nut[ritoris ---] / [---]s et Fortuna[--‑]
Educators in the Late Ancient City of Rome (300 - 700 CE)
13) IX, 25339 Maecilius Hylas 75 y. 10 l (?) daughter 4 c. Maecilio Hylati du/lcissimo nutritori Cae/ioniorum
m. Fusciane c(larissimae) f(eminae) / et Cameni c(larissimi)
v(iri) qui vixit a{a}n(nos) / LXXV men(ses) X fecit Mae/
cilia Rogata domino pa/tri dulcissimo mellito / amatori /
bono qui om/nes suos am/abit caris/simo.
203
14) X, 27332 Iovianus 40 (p.m.) s (?) -- 404 Hic iacet Iovianus nutritor et papas trium / fratrum
depositus pridie idus augustas / Honorio aug(usto) VI
benemerenti in pace vixit / [a]nnos p(lus) m(inus) XL.
2. Nutrices
204
REFERENCE Educator’s NAME AGE STATUS DEDICATORS DATE TEXT

1) I, 446 Urbana Iuliana -- ing (?)/ l (?) ward Pro merito Urbane / Fl(avius) Pastor / nutrici / fecit /
Iuliane / in pace.
2) I, 3257 Norica ? s (?) ? 558 [Hic requies]cit in pace Norica nutrix [---] / [---]pii pii
secsiri sec(un)<s>(i)c<i>ri(?) quae vixit p(lus) m(inus)
[ann(os) ---] / [--- deposi]ta III Id(us) Aug(ustas) anno
XVII p(ost) c(onsulatum) Basili v(iri) c(larissimi).
3) II, 3677 Nerais -- s (?) ward 4 c. (2nd half) Agape Neraidi nutrici de(functae?) / et Pribatus sue in
pace / in Domino nostro d(e)c(essi)t.
4) II, 5585 ? 53 y. (?) ? ? M ficit sibi et suis / ea nutris bona miseris / --- di]gna qui
bisit annus LIII NON [---
5) II, 5586 ? ? ? ? Genetrix pia cu[m ---/ Deo devota sem[per ---] / familiae
nutrix / nec quicquam / laetentur a / dep(osita) XV
kal(endis).
6) V, 13990 Agape ? s (?) ward 3/ 4 c. Sanc[tissimae ---] Agapen[i] / que bixi[t---] / nutrici
ca[rissimae] / Anti[---]a c(larissima) f(emina) dep[---] /
[--- feci]t.
Chr. Laes
7) V, 14744 Zopyra (?) + 20 y. ? ? 3/ 4 c. [---] memoriae Fl[---]--ru[---] / [--- reli]giosissimae

Zopyra[e cum q]ua in se [---] / [--- san]ctissimae nutr[ici
--- a]nn(os?) [--- san]ctissimae nutr[ici --- a]nn(is) XX [--
-]/tissimo sene q[uerella]
8) VI, 17395 Bonose -- s (?) ipsa [locus ---]s et Bonose n(u)t(rix?).
9) IX, 23968 Halicia Severa -- ing (?)/ l (?) ? 290-325 Haliciae Se/verae matri / et nutrici / dulcissimae / feminae
b(ene)m(erenti).
10) IX, 24768 Trofime -- s (?) ward 4 c. (2nd half) Trofimeni C[---] L[---] F[---] / mamme nutrici / sue fecit
/b(ene)d(ictae).
11) IX, 24892 ? ? ing (?)/ l (?) ? 3 c. (2nd half) Aelia R[---] / nutrici be[ne]/meren[ti] / [---]
12) IX, 25648 ? ? ? ? 4 c. [---] / [--- i]ncompa[rabili ---] / [--- nu]trix et m[ater? ---]
/1[---]eria1 Pr[---] / [---]
13) X, 26866 ? ? ? ? 4 c. (2nd half) [---] / m[---] / fecit [---] / nutrici r[---]
Commentary on the Prosopographical List

For this commentary Solin, 2003 has been essential. For the dates, I have followed
the recent suggestions made in EDB.
Nutritores
1. Solin, 2003, p. 457 mentions the form Sutiridi as the dative of a variant of the
well-attested name Soteris (cf. ICUR I, 1503: Suteres). He mentions it as the name
of either a slave or a freedwoman.
2. Solin, 2003, p. 874 mentions the form Eutichiano as the dative of a variant of
the well-attested name Eutychianus. He mentions it as the name of either a slave or
a freedman.
6. Solin, 2003, p. 1022 also considers peregrino as an indication for the foreign
status of the educator (cf. supra note 84). He mentions Gerontius’ status as uncertain
(incerti). Cf. CIL VI, 10008; ICUR X, 27035: Flavius Sabinianus / Aurelio Gerontio
mag/istro suo benemerenti fecit / t(e) in p(a)c(e).
7. According to the ICUR-editors, the third line contained the number of years
Maius had served as a fossor. They also refer to ICUR VIII, 21904, where a certain
Proclus appears as a grandchild dedicating to his grandfather Maximinanus: Ioanes
Lucilli[anus] et Proclus nepotes Maximiano a(v)o <b=V>(e)n(e) m(erenti) in pace /
pater et <f=E>ilia et cognatus ipso me(n)se VII Kal(endas) Mai(as).
8. For the very rare nomen gentilicium Iscantius, see Solin and Salomies 1994, p.
98. Only this inscription and AE 1948, 31 (Ostia, 205 or 208 CE) are known.
9. Solin, 2003, p. 1363 only mentions this example for the name Syllectio. Eunoea
is mentioned as variant for Eunia in Solin, 2003, p. 1310. He mentions both women
as incertae of status.
10. Solin, 2003, p. 1161 mentions Antimio as the only known variant of the name
Anthimio. The ICUR-editors refute some elder theories which wanted to interpret
papas as “pope”: putauit hinc Paoli Felicem papam II hoc titulo commemorari, quam
opinionem acriter refutauit Marini et alii ... papas idem est quod u. 1 dicitur nutritor.
11. Both the ICUR-editors and Solin, 2003, p. 8 suggests that this might have been
a variant form for the name Agathodorus (cf. ICUR II, 3975 for a Greek inscription
with this name). Solin fixes a third century date, and mentions the status as incertus.
13. This inscription also exists as CIL VI, 21787. Solin, 2003, p. 568 ranks Maecilius
Hylas as probably freed. Caeionius Camenius, praefectus urbi in the year 343 is
known. See also Solin in Arctos 28 (1994) 112 = Anal. Epigr. 379.
14. Iovianus is known as a cognomen. See Kajanto 1965, p. 58 and 212.
Nutrices
3. The text should be understood as if Agape and Pribatus were dedicating this
inscription for the deceased nurse Nerais. Solin, 2003, p. 428 mentions Nerais
as a variant for the name Nereis. He ranks this name as belonging to a slave or
a freedwoman, while he understands Agape as a name indicating uncertain status
(Solin, 2003, p. 1278). Of course, the names may all refer to a slave context, where
a couple gratefully acknowledges their former nutrix, or the nutrix of their children.
6. The ICUR-editors propose Antistia or Anthusa as the name of the femina clarissima.
Solin, 2003, p. 1277 mentions Agapeni as a dative for the name Agape.
7. Solin, 2003, p. 1209 understands Zopyra as the name of the commemorated nutrix.
206 Chr. Laes
8. As indicated by the ICUR-editors, the reading of nutrix is uncertain: In fine est

nota ut nutrix vel neptis, nisi forte quadratarius plura omisit. Solin and Salomies
1994, p. 303 for the name Bonosia.
9. Both Halicia and Alicia are well attested as nomina gentilicia. See Solin and
Salomies 1994, p. 12 and 90.
10. Solin, 2003, p. 1054 for Trofimeni as the dative variant of the very well attested
name Trophime. Solin proposes a date as early as the first half of the third century,
and lists this instances among the incertae of status. It seems most likely that the
letters C, L and F belonged to the tria nomina of the dedicator. See also the comment
by the ICUR-editors: mamma est vox infantium pro mater.
11. The ICUR-editors mention that Rossi understood nutrix as synonymous with
patrona. This was obviously connected with the fact that nutrix was understood in a
servile context, while the name of the commemorated woman indicates free status.
However, it may as well be the case that Aelia R[--- was in fact the dedicator.
12. See the ICUR-commentary ad locum: [---nu]trix, sed potuit esse nomen ut Viatrix.
Summary
In this contribution, I attempt to bring a thorough compilation of both the literary

and the epigraphic sources on educators in Late Antiquity. For the latter sources, the
focus will be on the rich inscriptional evidence from the City of Rome. Professional,
usually servile, educators were common in elite and (upper)-middle class households
of the Principate. This changed in Late Antiquity when households instead relied
mainly on family members as educators. However, this fundamental change in
hierarchical values of the honourable Roman society is never attested explicitly in the
ancient records. There are some indications in the works of literary writers, but the
inscriptions cannot be used to prove this change statistically. Still, the change must
have been profound: educational tasks, which were in the mind-set of a Roman family
members so much linked with servile labour, became more entrusted to other family
members. It is only by looking at the wider context that we can catch a glimpse of
how fundamentally things might have changed for educators and the families which
made use of their services. Ideas of social hierarchy still existed in Late Antiquity,
and so there still were slave educators. However, by the late sixth century, all this
was embedded in a society which would have been hardly recognisable by those who
lived there two centuries before.
Christian epigraphy - educators - Rome
samenvatting
Christian Laes, Opvoeders in het laat-antieke Rome (300 – 700 n. C.)

In deze bijdrage bied ik een grondige compilatie van zowel de literaire als de
epigrafische bronnen over opvoeders in de late oudheid. Voor epigrafie zal de focus
liggen op het rijke bronnenmateriaal van de stad Rome. Professionele opvoeders,
meestal slaven, waren gebruikelijk in aristocratische en gegoede huishoudens in de
keizertijd. Dit veranderde in de late oudheid: huishoudens vertrouwden dan vooral
op familieleden als opvoeders. Deze fundamentele verandering in de hiërarchische
waarden van de eerbare Romeinse samenleving blijkt niet expliciet uit de bronnen.
Er zijn aanwijzingen in literaire teksten, maar de inscripties kunnen niet worden
gebruikt om deze verandering statistisch te bewijzen. Toch was de verandering
diepgaand: opvoedende taken, die in de mentaliteit van de Romeinse upper-class
sterk verbonden waren met slaafse arbeid, werden nu eerder toevertrouwd aan andere
familieleden. Alleen door de bredere context in beschouwing te nemen, kan men
een glimp opvangen van deze fundamentele verandering. Opvattingen over sociale
hiërarchie waren nog sterk aanwezig in de late oudheid, en slaaf-opvoeders bestonden
nog. Maar naar het einde van de zesde eeuw was dit alles ingebed in een maatschappij
die nauwelijks herkenbaar was voor mensen die er twee eeuwen eerder leefden.
christelijke epigrafie - opvoeders - Rome
résumé
Christian Laes, Educateurs à Rome dans lÁntiquité Tardive (300-700 après J.-C.)
Dans cet article, je propose une compilation approfondie des sources littéraires et
épigraphiques concernant les éducateurs dans l’Antiquité tardive. Pour l’épigraphie,
je me concentre sur les nombreuses inscriptions provenant de la ville de Rome. Les
éducateurs professionnels, la plupart dórigine servile, étaient fréquents dans les
ménages riches et aristocratiques de l’époque impériale. Dans l’Antiquité tardive, les
ménages comptaient surtout sur les membres de famille. Ce changement fondamental
dans les valeurs hiérarchiques de la société romaine – toujours soucieuse de
l´honneur – nàpparaît pas explicitement dans les sources. Il y a des indications
dans la littérature, mais les inscriptions ne peuvent pas être utilisées pour prouver ce
changement de façon statistique. Cependant, il était profond: les tâches éducatives
qui dans la mentalité de la classe supérieure romaine avaient été tellement liées à la
main-d’œuvre servile, étaient désormais confiées à d’autres membres de familles. Ce
changement fondamental s’aperçoit seulement si tenons compte du contexte géneral,.
Bien sûr, les conceptions concernant la hiérarchie sociale étaient encore fortes à
la fin de l’antiquité, et les esclaves éducateurs existaient encore. Mais à la fin du
sixième siècle, tout cela était maintenant intégré dans une société qui était à peine
reconnaissable pour ceux qui avaient vécu deux siècles plus tôt.
épigraphie chrétienne - éducateurs – Rome

RBPH - Educators in Rome - Num - 94 - 1 - 8879 PDF

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originaltitel

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

RBPH - Educators in Rome - Num - 94 - 1 - 8879 PDF

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Revue belge de philologie et

Educators in the Late Ancient City of Rome (300 - 700 CE)

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

Fichier pdf généré le 31/10/2018

Christian Laes, Opvoeders in het laat-antieke Rome (300 – 700 n. C.).

Educators in the Roman Empire

Educit enim obstetrix, educat nutrix, instituit paedagogus, docet

role of schoolmaster, especially in the case of children of the higher classes

Prices, Wages and Social Status: What Do We Really Know?

Being involved in the successive stages of educating children, however,

to her. (16) Soranus admonishes midwives not to be greedy for money. (17)

Source Year Value Additional information

For wet-nurses, the most consistent evidence is the forty wet-nursing

(16) Plautus, Mil. 697.

Inscriptions dedicated to or by these educators provide information on

Searching for Educators in Late Antiquity

(22) Laes, 2010, p. 271-272.

to mothers. According to his exegetical commentary, Saint Paul did not

Searching for Educators in the ICUR-Collection

Thanks to the searchable Epigraphic Database Bari (EDB), much

containing a job-indication. (69) This paper draws on such an intensive search

In the seventh century, Isidorus of Seville suggests tutor as a synonym

nun(n)um(?) suum m(enses) III / [de]cessit annorum IIX.

In Search for an Explanation. Learning from Silence?

yields 1470 inscriptions containing at least one job title, approximating

Table 2 Attestation of the word in the ICUR material

CIL VI ICUR expected number in ICUR

Obviously, obstetrices and paedagogi are underrepresented, as they

(89) Joshel, 1992, p. 69.

Antiquity could be linked with an evolution of the word to the meaning of

extreme circumstances caused by war, famine, plague and natural disaster.

Amedick, 1991 = R. Amedick, Die Sarkophage mit Dartsellungen aus dem

(97) Harper, 2011, p. 326-348; Laes, 2015, p. 97-102.

Crespo Ortiz de Zárate, 2006 = S. Crespo Ortiz de Zárate, “Nutrices” en el

REFERENCE Educator’s NAME AGE STATUS DEDICATORS DATE TEXT

REFERENCE Educator’s NAME AGE STATUS DEDICATORS DATE TEXT

7) V, 14744 Zopyra (?) + 20 y. ? ? 3/ 4 c. [---] memoriae Fl[---]--ru[---] / [--- reli]giosissimae

Commentary on the Prosopographical List

8. As indicated by the ICUR-editors, the reading of nutrix is uncertain: In fine est

In this contribution, I attempt to bring a thorough compilation of both the literary

Christian Laes, Opvoeders in het laat-antieke Rome (300 – 700 n. C.)

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen