The expansion of liberal arts education in the Roman society

We hear this term very much in ancient works and even in primary sources.

Essentially, this was an education for free people, not those in servitude Liberalis meaning worthy of those who are liberated, that is to say, free men.

Cicero in his De Oratorio describes these studies as being

• Geometry
• Poetry
• Literature
• Music
• Natural Science
• Civics

And Seneca says to Lucilius, (Letter 88)

Hence you see why "liberal studies" are so called; it is because they are studies worthy of a free-born gentleman. But there is only one really liberal study, - that which gives a man his liberty.  It is the study of wisdom, and that is lofty, brave, and great-souled.

Now, this translation is a bit sloppy, but overall, you get the point.

But he also says that sometimes liberal education can be pointless because it doesn't make everybody virtuous and he also says that the Quirites of old weren't so keen on liberal arts.

More or less, this comes to fruition when? We already see Polybius talking about Scipio's interest in Cyrus and other Greek writers and we recall how Africanus was fond of tinkering with Greek culture.

In the Valentinian age, we have Capella's De Nuptiis Philologae et Mercurii which becomes a standard basis for the Seven Liberal Arts. Which are divided in two parts

Trivium: Rhetoric, Grammar, Dialectic

Quadrivium: Music, Geometry, Arithmetic, Astronomy.

Which eventually become the main university curriculum in the Medieval Europe.