This is a fantastic question, but we do not really have a complete picture of the answer. The historical record is full of gaps that obscure the early lives of many famous figures. Fortunately, we can piece together the education of aristocratic Ptolemaic women based on a variety of sources. This obviously includes biographical accounts, but even more important are literary accounts of Hellenistic pedagogy, school exercises or teaching materials (often written of flakes of limestone, discarded potsherds, or tablets), the Hermeneumata (school handbooks), and other remnants of the educational system. The structure and culture of the Hellenistic royal court will also be explored.
Although this answer does focus on Egypt, many points hold true for other Hellenistic royal courts, particularly that of the Seleucid Empire, and I will try to distinguish between Ptolemaic and broader Hellenistic trends.
#Part 1: Hellenistic Education in Ptolemaic Egypt
To begin with we should get an idea of what education typically looked like for the Greek elite of Egypt during the reign of the Ptolemids.
The first instructor of any kind that the Ptolemaic queens would have had were their pedagogues, just like other elite men and women. These pedagogues taught and cared for young children of the elite, reading to them and teaching them basic knowledge. We can imagine these figures as equal parts caretaker and teacher. As children grew older, they eventually outgrew their pedagogues and went onto more formal educations.
Formal education in the Hellenistic world had no enforced academic standards or accreditations that ensured uniformity of quality and curriculum. The educational goals and methods of the classroom were under the control of the teacher who in turn, had to have the trust and cooperation of the parents. However, there were long standing pedagogical traditions which dictated the standards and ideals of teachers. This included the transmission of a canon of literature and knowledge which had become established as the basis of a cultured individual’s education.
Unlike a modern education which is aimed at providing students with a basic level of aptitude in the sciences and mathematics, Greek education was mainly concerned with more theoretical, literary, and rhetorical forms of education. This meant that a student might hope to achieve a high degree of mastery in the area of rhetoric and argument, and a comprehensive familiarity with the great works of literature, but they would have a relatively basic level of numeracy. If a youth did study the body or mathemetical theory in any depth, it was usually because they were training to be a physician or mathematician. In the Hellenistic period, philosophy was less important than it had been in the Classical period. Of course, there were exceptions to this rule and I will discuss these further down, namely Cleopatra VII’s reputation and its implications for royal pedagogy.
Raffaella Criboire in Gymnastics of the Mind cautions against imagining the ancient school as more orderly and modern than it actually was. Criboire compares the unstandardized, often mixed classroom of the ancient Mediterranean to the one-room schoolhouses of the 19th Century US in their variable quality and effectiveness. These classrooms were usually not found in deducated school buildings but were set up by teachers on temple grounds, private homes, and often enough in the open air (even street corners!)
The education of the upper echelons of the elite was much more private and focused than these however, and involved personal tutors in the home. This was deemed necessary because of the need to train children for their eventual roles and to provide them with the cultured background which was expected of the civilized elite. More advanced students attended the classes and discussions of famous teachers in Alexandria which was the capital of Greek intellectualism for much of the Ptolemaic period.
The symbols of the Hellenistic teacher, their chair and rod, demonstrate the relationship between pupil and instructor. Various scenes from the Mediterranean portray male or female teachers sitting and working while their pupils either stand before them, recite, or present them with their work. The rod was for exactly what you might have assumed as corporal punishment was readily employed by teachers as a means to discipline their students.
Hellenistic education was typically structured by three somewhat porous stages of learning:
• The primary level of education where students mastered literacy, this typically began around age 7. Papyrological evidence has shown that it was at the primary level that the majority of female teachers taught, with female teachers at higher levels being more rare but also making a bigger impression in the historical record.
• Grammatical education where students studied poetry, and in the case of the Alexandrian aristocracy, this was taught by individuals who had experience composing poetry. The famous names of Greek poetry such as Homer, Sappho, Pindar, Theognis, and Anacreon were studied, as were more contemporary authors such as Callimachus and Theocritus. This required students to accurately read, deconstruct, and critique poetry, and if this all seems very bourgeois, that was exactly the point.
• Rhetorical education, where students mastered oration and argument, generally began around age 14-15. This was not merely debate club, rhetoric was one of the essential components of a Greek education. The majority of students who studied at this level intended to pursue careers as politicians or lawyers, and as such this was necessary vocational training.
Children in Ptolemaic Egypt did not advance to all stages of education the way that children in school are expected to complete their education today. In fact, most students did not continue on to the secondary level, and fewer still continued on to achieve what was considered a complete education. The distinction between students’ level of mastery had little to do with merit, and was primarily dictated by their social background and their prospects. The advanced education provided to the aristocracy was a way to reinforce their own prestige and to provide them with the know-how to hold positions of power later in life.
It is important to note that even the most basic level of education was available only to a select few, the children of the elite. For girls especially, non-vocational education was accessible only those who came from elite backgrounds. Girls were also less likely to study grammar because there were fewer incentives and pressures that might motivate their parents to provide them with that, and more pressures for them to marry at a young age and turn to the domestic sphere. Rhetoric was almost exclusively studied by a very small slice of aristocratic male youths who were going into the arena of politics or the law.
These generalizations do not necessarily always apply to the royal family or the cream of the aristocracy for various reasons but I will get to that further down.
Alongside, grammar and rhetoric, boys and girls studied music and dancing. The playing of instruments as well as the recitation of songs and lyric poetry was an important social event, and youths participated in competitions as well as socializing through the practice of music. Dancing and athleticism also went hand in hand, as the Greeks idealised the flexible and lean body, with the smooth movements of dancing being a good form of exercise. Other athletic events, such as running, were participated in by boys and girls alike.
The gymnasium was another important centre of physical and intellectual education in the Ptolemaic period. These gymnasia were patronized by the elite, and the Ptolemaic family personally patronized the Alexandrian gymnasium which Strabo described as a monumental building. While it is clear that many girls in Ptolemaic Egypt were enrolled in the gymnasium by their parents, it is unclear to what extent they would have participated in the activities of the gymnasium.
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