> In Rome, unlike, say, Sparta, there were no schools; teaching was all done in the home, I'm not sure that's true. Also when people think about Sparta they u

> In Rome, unlike, say, Sparta, there were no schools; teaching was all done in the home, I'm not sure that's true. Also when people think about Sparta they usually only consider about the upper class elite since almost the entire population of the region were second class freemen with limited civil rights or slaves/serf. In any case the Spartan Agoge (which again was only accessible to a small proportion of the population) wasn't necessarily similar to what we understand a 'school'. As far as we know Roman 'educational system' was similar to that which existed in normal Greek cities (so not Sparta). Upper classes hired private tutors/bough slaves, however there were public (privately funded) schools called 'Ludus' accessible to a significant proportion of the the population. > probably comparable to India a millennium earlier (inferred from the prevalence of public proclamations (e.g. Ashoka steele), Why do you think that was the case? Also didn't Ashoka live in the 3rd century BC (so contemporary to the Hellenistic age)? > monumental writing aimed more at fellow elite. I'm not sure that was generally the case in Ancient Rome or most Greek cities. Many of the public inscriptions were clearly aimed at the general population.