Cato the Elder (Marcus Porcius Cato) would not allow his son to be taught by a slave, and so he undertook the child's education himself.

As soon as the boy had reached the age of understanding, Cato took him over and began to teach him to read and write. As a matter of fact, Be did have a slave called Chilo who had taught plenty of children reading and writing, but, as he himself says, if his son was slow on the. uptake, he did not wart him to be told off or have his ear pulled by a slave, and he did not think it right for his son to be indebted to a slave for such important information.

Cornelius Tacitus wrote a biography of his father-in-law, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, a governor of Britain, in which he indicates...