ABSTRACT
Pope Gregory was the scion of a wealthy, propertied and aristocratic family and although there is no evidence to link him with the oldest and most glorious patrician families, such as the Anicii and the Decii, it is likely that his family was one of the most distinguished left in Rome after the Gothic wars. The direct evidence we have about Gregory's education is Gregory of Tours' statement, taken up and fancifully elaborated by subsequent biographers, that Gregory 'was so skilled in grammar, dialectic and rhetoric that he was second to none in the entire city'. When Gregory abandoned the secular life and embraced a religious life, he also put his classical education behind him. Whether he was the best or not, Gregory certainly received the formal classical education of the ancient world in one of the Roman schools, and was probably among the last in Rome to do so, since the schools broke up soon after the Byzantine reconquest.
