Up to the age of six or seven, Roman boys and girls were taught by their mothers at home, where they learned to speak Latin with a good accent. This was an important thing to learn since some dialects in Italy would not have been understood at Rome. Children from wealthy families learned Greek too, often from a nurse or a tutor, because Greek literature was very important in Roman education. What do you suppose the expression "a Roman who has no Greek" might mean?

After age six or seven, children either went to a primary school (ludus) or remained at home to be taught by a private tutor. In a wealthy family, a slave, often a Greek, would be appointed to take a child to and from school. The paedagogus was expected to accompany the child out of doors on all occasions and to protect him or her from any physical or moral harm. At the primary school, the students were taught reading, writing, and arithmetic by a litterator. The school was often held under an awning outside some shop, and it was separated from the noisy street only by a screen of tent cloth. The furnishings were scanty: a chair for the teacher, benches or chairs for the students, some wax tablets, and counting boards (abaci). Schoolmasters were often harsh, and the fear of being beaten was a common motivation for students. The lessons were usually boring repetitions of the multiplication tables chanted aloud and endless practice of the alphabet copied on wax tablets. Lessons normally began at dawn and resumed after a midday break for lunch.

Around the age of eleven or twelve, boys went on to a secondary school (schola), but girls usually dropped out of education after primary school. The curriculum was not very broad, but geometry, music, and astronomy were taught as minor subjects. While the boys were learning grammar and literature from a grammaticus, the girls were learning sewing, dancing, singing, and lyre-playing at home.

At about age sixteen, boys from wealthy families moved on to a rhetor, who trained students in public speaking and arguing. It was a good preparation for a career in politics. Although medical schools existed in Greece, there was no scientific education in Italy at all.

The school year traditionally began on March 24th. During the year, there would be a holiday every ninth day (nundinum), short breaks in the winter and spring, and a very long holiday in the summer.