Serapis hello studious minds and welcome
back to pagan philosophy the channel
where we strive to further our
understanding of what it truly means to
love knowledge that's a mouthful today
we're going to be discussing education
in antiquity specifically ancient Greece
now as I've said in other videos it's
difficult to mash all the Greek
city-states together seeing is how
different some of them may have been but
today we're going to be singing out
three specific Greek city-states Athens
Alexandria and Sparta now of course
Alexandria was in ancient Egypt but
we're gonna be talking about his
educational system under Greek and later
Roman rule so out of the video we'll
begin by establishing the ancient pagan
view of knowledge in the majority of
cities we're gonna be talking about
education was for the privileged if you
were born you simply were not educated
the same if at all
so education specifically for the Greeks
and the later Egyptians would come to be
associated with the gods Egyptians have
multiple gods associated with academia
specifically in the god Thoth yes guys
Thoth aspirated try not to throw Thoth
too frequently and the Greeks would also
have gods associated with learning and
knowledge some of which were Hermes and
even Athena and academia was combined
with studies that we don't learn anymore
in our modern date universities you
would learn astronomy alongside
astrology because for the ancients they
were one in the same and in the Athenian
academies you would learned that the
absolute properties of numbers were
divine the later neoplatonist would
actually come to recognize the
traditional gods of homework as
mathematical relationships so academia
as was practiced by pagan intellectuals
would come to be associated with pagan
religious ideas naturally Christians
were not looked too kindly on
education in these cultures because they
did have overtly religious ideas
sprinkled throughout them ancient
universities would have doubled as
temples they were places where the gods
resided now let's get into specifics
let's start with Alexandria the big one
during the time of Alexander the Great
he would Commission those under his
control to pursue knowledge after his
death told me the first would
commissioned demetrius of phalerum an
Aristotelian philosopher with the duty
of developing what would later become
the Library of Alexandria the goal was
to establish a place where the knowledge
of all different cultures would be
combined into one so over all was put
into order that any ships that docked at
Alexandria would be detained until they
could be searched for books if any were
found the crew members were obligated to
stay until copies of those books could
be made for installation into the
library to get back to the religious
side of things the Sara pian would be
built and would later be called the
daughter of the Library of Alexandria
the Serb Kim was devoted to the Greco
Egyptian god Serapis a combination of
Greek and Egyptian gods
this temple would house a portion of the
literary works of the library and
students from the library would frequent
this temple in worship so the blatantly
pagan nature of Education in Alexandria
would play a role and the Christian that
arrives that would later destroy this
era p.m. moving on to Sparta around the
mid fifth century BC education athletics
and warfare would be inextricably
combined in Sparta academia was to raise
good soldiers and students were required
to perform athletic feats during their
schooling this would become commonplace
amongst the Greek city-states
interestingly though Sparta became open
to educating females of course their
lessons focused on different things and
their beatings and physical demands were
far less severe Sparta would also come
to adhere to a pure gene
those born genetically mutated or even
sickly would be discarded at a very
young age this was seemingly in an
attempt to raise a strong and capable
Society and in addition such births
would have been seen as a curse from the
gods children would be raised by women
until the age of seven and then would go
on to study and train until around the
age of 20 in order to accustom them to
an uncomfortable life students were
required to sleep on the floor
steel for their food and were barely fed
boys would even compete in front of
spectators to see who could take the
worst beating sometimes resulting in the
boys dead now
Athens Athens would come to appreciate a
less brutal lifestyle and would be the
first to separate the military and
education but unlike Spartan girls
Athenian girls would not be educated
nearly as much likewise foreigners and
slaves would be excluded from academic
pursuits instead of using papyrus the
ancient Greek equivalent to our paper
students were write with a stylus and a
wooden tablet covered with wax and they
could scratch into Athenian education
would have also improved physical
activity and students would train at
gymnasiums that would double as
classrooms basic students would learn
letters and numbers but studying the
poets and the historians was reserved
for the upper upper class teachers were
not only required to teach the students
the subjects themselves they were also
required to nurture the students ethical
low be Athenian moral Good Standing
revolved around one being wise and good
later on Athens would see an educational
reformation under Socrates Plato and the
Sophists education would become
politically minded it was to prepare one
to make a point and to win any argument
that they were in Socrates would argue
that one studies should not be aimed at
becoming more dominant and powerful but
she'd be aimed at pursuing the knowledge
itself this idea would completely
altered the way the Athenians viewed
education and that's our video on
education in ancient Greece if you like
this video please feel free to subscribe
and let us know if you're interested in
hearing about the educational systems of
other cultures eventually I would like
to put out videos where I can explain
some of these academic ideas in more
depth I would give many lessons on some
of the studies as they were viewing back
then like math astronomy music let me
know if you guys have an interest in
learning more about these disciplines
but until next time friends stage duties