Originally Posted by
JeanDukeofAlecon
"Education" was not synonymous with "Greek" or "Classical" education; the vast majority of Roman administrators would posses the former, which included basic literacy, mathematics, history, essential knowledge, and some oration and rhetoric, but not the latter, which was concerned with extremely flowery writing, understanding of Homeric and attic Greek, classical literature, advanced oratory and rhetorical techniques, etc. This class preferred Cato, Cassius Dio, and Procopius to Homer, Herodotus, and Thucydides, and included the likes of Kekaumenos, Attaleiates, Leo the Deacon, and a million ghostwriters of the more utilitarian texts that have come down to us. Their writings do often have something of a classical feeling to them, but this air of antiquity is of a distinctly Roman, not Greek, variety, and stems from deeply rooted Roman values, not education; it's in the literature of the administrators that you find the most references to the Republic, the common good, the heroes of old Rome, and the good Emperors of the Principate.