Education as Acquisition of Knowledge in the Ancient Greek World: Some Remarks on its Agents and Features

Considering the tradition and legacy of ancient Greek culture, addressing the topic of Bildung in the ancient Greek world may appear like a Sisyphean task: it would result in an endless search for data across a fragmented geographical space and over constantly changing times, looking also for its reception in later periods as well as for various possible historical interpretations. The scope of this chapter is less ambitious and more limited. Firstly, given the complex semantics of the German term Bildung, it essential to specify in what sense I am using it in what follows. Here it will serve as a starting point to reflect on processes leading to the acquisition of knowledge and elements of culture, and on those processes that mostly took place through the interaction between teachers and pupils. Consequently, this chapter intends to provide the readers of this interdisciplinary volume with an introduction to the specifics of Greek pedagogical strategies, showing some of their social dynamics.