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Article: Greek lessons: discovering the elements of ancient education. (Book Review).(Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt)(Book Review)
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- Education Next
- Article date:
- March 22, 2003
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Hoover Institution Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt
by Raffaella Cribiore
Princeton University Press, 2001, $39.50; 288 pages.
In Rome, toward the end of the 1st century C.E., Quintus Sulpicius Maximus, an 11-year-old boy, won honorable mention in a poetry contest by improvising some 43 verses in ancient Greek on a mythological theme. When shortly thereafter the talented boy succumbed to a disease, his devoted parents made sure that his verses were inscribed on a grave monument, which showed him in his toga holding a book-roll in his left hand. Too bad that Maximus, unlike his namesake the gladiator, will never be the subject ...