Roman Schools for Kids - who went to school? what were Roman schools like? what did kids learn in Roman schools? did Roman kids like school?

Roman Schools

(This is the second page; click here for page one)

Iliad papyrus
A fragment of Homer's Iliad on papyrus

Only the richest and smartest Roman kids went on from elementary school to high school. Most towns didn't have a high school, so in order to go to high school you had to leave home and go live in a big city, without your family. You didn't live in a dormitory, the way kids at boarding school do today, but you had to find a room of your own, or maybe friends of your parents would let you stay at their house. Your parents had to pay the teacher, and also pay for your room and board. Augustine, for example, left his home town when he was fifteen to live in the big city of Carthage and go to school there.

Why did people want to punch Socrates?

Click here to find out!

Where did Egyptians bury your liver?

Click here to find out

How old are the Rocky Mountains?

Click here to find out

What does a half-timbered house look like?

Click here to find out

How do you spin wool?
(a project)

Click here to find out


In the high school, you learned more different kinds of subjects than in the elementary school. Many people learned to speak and read Greek in high school, practicing by memorizing hundreds of lines of Homer. The most important subject was rhetoric (REH-torr-ick), or speech-making. People also studied philosophy.

Roman elementary school

To find out more about Roman people, check out these books from Amazon.com or from your library:

Main people page
Main Roman page