[Sidenote: Spread through Alexander and Roman conquests.]
=The Absorption of Greek Culture.=--There was a gradual infiltration of Greek culture into Rome from very early days. This received a great impulse through the conquests of Alexander (334-323 B. C.) and the absorption of Macedon by Rome (168 B. C.), but it was not until about half a century after Greece itself had become a Roman province (146 B. C.), that the Greek educational ideals and institutions can be said to have been completely absorbed by Rome. This new type of education was thus well established early in the first century B. C. It may be said to have remained almost unmodified until toward the end of the second century A. D., when political conditions at Rome became most unstable and the period of degeneracy set in. During these three centuries of Hellenized Roman education, three grades of schools resulted from the amalgamation. They were the (1) _ludus_ or school of the _litterator_, as the lowest school was called; (2) the ‘grammar’ school, taught by a _grammaticus_ or _litteratus_; and (3) the schools of rhetoric and oratory, which furnished a somewhat higher education.
=The Ludus.=--The ludus, or lowest school, may possibly have existed before the process of Hellenization even began, but if it did, it must have been intended simply to supplement the more informal training of the home. Whenever originated, it probably taught at first only reading, writing, and rudimentary calculation, as in the family, through the medium of historical anecdotes, ballads, religious songs, and the _Twelve Tables_. But as the Greek influence crept in more and more, the literary content was somewhat extended. About the middle of the third century B. C., Livius Andronicus translated the _Odyssey_ into Latin; and a number of epics, dramas, and epigrams were soon composed after Greek models. These works, in whole or part, were introduced into the curricula of the _ludi_ and by the beginning of the first century B. C., the _Twelve Tables_ had been displaced by the Latinized _Odyssey_ of Andronicus. The methods of instruction were _memoriter_ and imitative. The names and alphabetic order of the letters were first taught without any indication of their significance or even shape, and all possible combinations of syllables were committed before any words were learned. Reading and writing were then taught by dictation, and, in tracing the letters on wax-tablets with the stylus (Fig. 5), the hand of the pupil was at first guided by the teacher. Calculation was learned by counting on the fingers, by means of pebbles, or upon the abacus, and eventually sums were worked upon the tablets.