Ah, Yes! It was poor education and the lack of peasants!

While I generally respect Susan Wise Bauer and have learned much at her feet, I really have to wonder what she and other neo-classicists think trad classical is. Tuesday in her blog she quotes Norman F. Cantor.

Cantor basically says that all the education given during the Roman Empire was grammatical and stylistic. The one and only purpose was to create orators. He mentions Quintillian in the quote, but I have to wonder if he has ever read him. Cantor goes so far as to say that "There was no room for art or music within the system;" and "They ignored the sciences, studied almost no mathematics and little history." Evidently Quintillian was lying when he prescribed studying the Quadrivium. And, what exactly was their "language and literature" study using if not historical texts? I mean, wasn't that all they had? Sure, there may have been some contemporary speeches studied for oratory, but quite a bit of their instruction was on Homer. If you go out and read any reviews of this book you will see that I'm not the only one that thinks Cantor's expertise is fairly narrow, any his charactarization of Greek and Roman societies is greatly laking.

It seems to me that Mrs. Bauer is taking a quote that fits her notions about what modern Latin-Centered Classical is, and is using the quote to justify her beliefs about it, even though the quote is contradicted by her own writings. She goes on to say, "The Romans, after all, could no longer survive as a civilization when the aristocrats no longer had artisans, peasants, and mercenaries to whom they could issue their orders." What the heck does that mean? That society can't exist without a society? That in order to have ruling class you have to have a ruled class? In order to have an army you must have soldiers? It's an absurd thing to say in the context of education. I mean, it's a completely true statement, but it doesn't have any meaning in the context of the discussion. It's a complete non-sequitur.

The decay of the Roman Empire is a complex historical phenomenon. I'm pretty sure "lack of peasants" is not very high on the list, though.

[Update: Hubby would like to point out that the Empire didn't really have peasants persay. Slaves, yes, but not peasants in the way of a permant free underclass.]