Schools and Paideia
Education (paideia) was central to the development of what is now called the Second Sophistic, but surprisingly little attention was paid to the subject in the contemporary texts. This omission may have been deliberate, a way of implying that the status of pepaideumenos or educated man was acquired through sociability rather than by tuition. This chapter outlines what we know about the teaching of grammar and rhetoric in the schools of the imperial period from witnesses, like Philostratus, Lucian, and Aelius Aristides, and from the surviving manuals. Emphasis is placed on the relationship between this teaching and its methods and the performances and writings of the sophists. Its role in the creation of a common culture shared by its recipients is also discussed.