School-Teachers in the Roman Empire: A Survey of the Epigraphical Evidence‪.‬

ABSTRACT This article serves a double purpose. It aims at offering the most complete collection of epigraphial evidence concerning schoolmasters in the Roman empire, both in the Latin West and the Greek East. It also tackles the issue of the low social status of these educators. Both the Roman system of schooling, which did not draw too narrow a line between the various stages of education, as strategies of self-representation and the concept of 'differential equations' offered possibilities to schoolmasters to somehow escape the stigma of low birth and to proudly present themselves as self-sufficient members of the plebs media.