Abstract
Porphyrio’s expositions on Horace’s poems provide an excellent case study for the impact of school commentaries on the education of the Roman élites. Being the earliest surviving example of its kind it allows rare insights into the classroom of the grammaticus of the time before the political crisis of the 3rd century. By analyzing this commentary we learn how the future members of the Roman ruling classes - school children, especially boys, aged about 11 to 16 years - were trained not only to read and understand classical authors but also to acquire the basic linguistic skills essential for their rhetoric careers and to develop a certain mindset, which enabled them to fit in with the educational habitus of the upper classes, into which they were born or, more rarely, were supposed to ascend. Fulfilling the function of a fundamental school-book it helped shape the worldview of the Roman empire and thus fulfilled an important cultural as well as social function.
