Teachers and Subjects. In the early years both boys and girls were educated at home. Both learned how to read and write and perform basic mathematical functions under the guidance of a litterator, the equivalent to the present-day elementary schoolteacher. The litterator was either an educated slave who belonged to the family or a freedman who would find an area, often an outdoor and somewhat noisy space, where for a fee he would teach the children sent to him. In the third century B.C.E. is the first recorded instance of a litterator, the freedman Spurius Carvilius, setting up a school and charging a fee. Each morning a paedagogus, a slave whose job was to care for the children, would lead them from home to the school. Study with the litterator lasted five to six years. Next, if the family could...