S. F. Bonner, Education in Ancient Rome:From the Elder Cato to the Younger Pliny, Methuen & Co. (London, 1977)

This review of S. F. Bonner’s Education in Ancient Rome: From the Elder Cato to the Younger Pliny (1977) appeared two years later. Bonner was well known for his standard work Roman Declamation, published in 1949 but still very useful. The book under review is ‘bigger but equally authoritative’, and the review praises its lucidity, reticent humour, and intriguing illustrations. The book falls into three parts: the first a historical survey; the second (‘in some ways the most interesting and original’) a reconstruction of the conditions under which Roman teachers worked; and the third a detailed description of what the Roman schoolboy learned and how he learned it. The review singles out for more detailed discussion the use of imaginary laws in the declamation school.