Science Education in the Early Roman Empire

By: Richard Carrier

Narrated by: Richard Carrier

Length: 4 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

Throughout the Roman Empire cities held public speeches and lectures, had libraries, and teachers and professors in the sciences and the humanities, some subsidized by the state. There even existed something equivalent to universities, and medical and engineering schools. What were they like? What did they teach? Who got to attend them? In the first treatment of this subject ever published, Dr. Richard Carrier answers all these questions and more, describing the entire education system of the early Roman Empire, with a unique emphasis on the quality and quantity of its science content. He also compares pagan attitudes toward the Roman system of education with the very different attitudes of ancient Jews and Christians, finding stark contrasts that would set the stage for the coming Dark Ages.

©2016 Richard Carrier (P)2016 Pitchstone Publishing

Enjoyable and educational

Excellent on all counts... Carrier is a wonderful narrator and his book is a treasure trove of information. In addition to being educational and informative it is also very enjoyable.

Interesting read

Great book and narration, easy to follow and well argued. Educational, interesting and not too long

Interesting

I like the perspectives and arguments presented, and supported, here by the author. I did need to stop the audio to look up some words, the flow of the book was good.

Illuminating Education in the Ancient World

I enjoyed this work. When used in conjunction with the written text, this inspection is as detailed and academically credible as many current works on the subject.

Great, but short.

Can't wait for his next book. This was a very nice introduction to the subject.

Just wish it were longer.

Carrier is awesome and thorough. I just want more! I can hardly wait for the second part.

Rapid pace, sometimes self-contradictory.

I had a higher opinion of the work until I reached chapter 9. Carrier makes the surprising claim in Chapter 9, in a slight digression from his topic of science education in the Roman Empire, that the Christian Apostles Peter and John were likely to be highly-educated rabbis rather than illiterate commoners. That is far-out-of-step with most secular, and many religious, scholars of both history and theology. Further, Carrier goes on in the rest of chapter 9 to describe Early Christians as anti-education to the extreme of believing that literacy was unnecessary to achieve salvation. How exactly Carrier would arrive at the conclusion contrary to his own idea of what early Christians were like is quite the mystery. He offers no evidence to support his claim that Peter and John were highly educated rabbis.

That calls into question just how often Carrier does that sort of thing in the rest of his work which was on the topic of Science Education in the Roman Empire. I had noted earlier on in the book that he spent a great deal of time downplaying the number of educated philosophers were in the Roman Empire, only to later in the book inform us that in the 200s AD Emperor Pius set a standardized amount of such people eligible for imperial benefits in every city. His work might require some scholarly scrutiny from others in his field.

Finally, Carrier must have really big lungs. His narration is very fast without many breaths, and if you’re taking notes you’ll have to pause him often to catch up. The clusters of facts he rapidly narrates makes this a dense lecture for the casual listener, and likely impossible to follow without taking notes. When he digresses momentarily as is natural, only someone who took notes would be able to detect he had digressed, and then be able to tell when he got back on topic as well.

There are many good facts and quotations, and the listener can walk away knowing more than before they listened. So though I question his conclusions, this is a good source for those serious about improving their knowledge. Just be ready to take notes, and hit pause a lot.