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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zardnaar" data-source="post: 7339259" data-attributes="member: 6716779">Go back far enough the literate class was really small in a few cases though. We do not have exact figures for Rome for example but they have found a lot of graffiti by lower class Romans and prices aimes at lower class Romans which implies they could read at least to some extent. They headteachers on street corners giving public lectures as well.  Universal literacy know but it was not just the elites who could read and write. I think the authors of Linear B IIRC were a very small group while some of the Egyptians deliberately made their writing harder to decipher in order to keep it exclusive.  The sword is a sword thing is a bit of a myth, military tactics changed a huge amount over 1500 years, You went from unarmored masses to hoplites to legions to cataphracts and then to Knights and then things like Tercio and Landsknect.</blockquote>