PAEDAGO´GUS
PAEDAGO´GUS (
παιδαγωγός), a slave, to whose care in an Athenian family the sons
of the house were committed when they reached the age of six. His duty was
rather to guard them from evil, both physical and moral, than to instruct
them, though it is probable that before they went to school he gave some
home instruction, as did the paedagogi at Rome: this is indicated by
Plutarch, when he calls Phoenix the paedagogus of Achilles (
de Educat. Puer. 7). His chief duty, however, was to
accompany them to and from the school, the gymnasium, and out of doors
generally: he was responsible for their safety and for their avoidance of
bad company (see Plato,
Lysis, p. 223; Aeschin.
c. Timarch. § 10). It is probable that he sat
with them in the schools; and though it is not certain, it is on the whole
most likely that the seated figures with sticks in the Duris vase (shown on
page 96) are paedagogi (see Blümner,
Privatleben, p.
221). Usually they are represented as wearing a short-sleeved chiton, and a
small rough himation, bearded, and holding a walking-stick with a crook.
(See woodcut under
FUNUS Vol. I.
p. 886.) Further account of their duties is given under
LUDUS LITTERARIUS p.
95. We gather from Plutarch (
l.c.) that in most, or
at least in many, households those slaves who were no use for anything else
were employed as paedagogi; a carelessness of which he disapproves as much
as Tacitus does of something similar at Rome (
Dial. 29). This
was, however, perhaps a bad fashion of later times. We should gather from
Plato's manner of speaking about them that they were trustworthy; and it
seems best to assume that, in the better age and in well-ordered houses,
they were trusted servants (cf.
Hdt. 8.75), who
were sometimes retained when they grew old as faithful attendants on the
ladies of the family. This view is given especially by Euripides, who (as
Mr. Verrall remarks on
Med. 49) assigns a
[p. 2.308]more conspicuous and honourable part to slaves.
(See the plays
Medea, Phoenissae, Ion, and the
Bacchides of Plautus, and notice especially
the expressions in
Ion, 853 ff.) Being slaves,
they were of course foreigners, Thracian (Plato,
Alcib. i. p.
122 B) or Asiatic, and therefore speaking Greek with a foreign accent
(
ὑποβαρβαρίζοντες, Plato,
Lysis, l.c.).
At Rome the custom of having a paedagogus, instead of only a
custos, was borrowed from Greece towards the end of
the Republic, when it became common to teach children to speak Greek. For
his duties, see
LUDUS
LITTERARIUS p. 97
b. An early
instance of this custom is seen in the Greek Gorgias, who is called
pedisequus puerorum (Auct.
ad Herenn.
4.52, 65). Antonius has an attendant called
παιδαγωγὸς in
D. C. 46.5, and
under the Empire the office was common in all houses which could afford it.
The care of the paedagogus lasted till the
toga
virilis was assumed (
Stat. Silv.
5.2,
68). The feminine paedagoga
occurs in inscriptions (
C. I. L. 6.6631, 9758; 8.1506), and
was (like the Greek
ancilla of
Tac. Dial. 29) a teacher of Greek to the very
young children, and perhaps an attendant upon the daughters afterwards.
A different meaning attached to the name in the further development of the
slave household in imperial times. Young slaves, whether born in the house
or purchased as boys, were trained up under slave instructors. Something of
the same sort existed of course in earlier times; e. g. we hear of the elder
Cato having the slave boys taught useful arts in order that they might be
sold at a profit (Plut.
Cat. 21): but the term
paedagogus as applied to the teaching of slave boys
belongs to a later time than Cato's, and denotes especially the trainer of
the ornamental attendant boys, cupbearers at banquets, &c., in rich
houses, under the Empire or shortly before: the earlier date may be deduced
from
Cic. pro Rosc. Am. 41,
120;
pro Mil. 10, 28. Such page boys, who are sometimes
called
capillati (
Mart.
3.58,
29), lived together in a page's
room or hall called
paedagogium, having over
them
paedagogi, subpaedagogi, and
decani (see Spartian.
Hadr. 2, and numerous
inscriptions cited by Marquardt,
Privatl. 158): hence they
were called
pueri paedagogiani (
Amm. Marc. 26.6, 15;
29.3, 3).
The name of the place in which they were taught was transferred to the boys
themselves, and we often find slave boys of this class themselves called
paedagogia (Senec.
de Vit.
beat. 17;
Ep. 123;
Plin. Nat.
17.
H. N. 33.40;
Dig. 33,
7,
12), whence it is
easy to see the development of the mediaeval
page (see Littré, s. v.). (Becker-Göll,
Charikles, 2.46;
Gallus,
2.80, 146; Marquardt,
Privatl. 112.)
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