Roman life in the days of Cicero | Page 6

said of the teachers, into whose hands the
boys of Rome were committed. We have a little book, of not more than
twoscore pages in all, which gives us "lives of illustrious
schoolmasters;" and from which we may glean a few facts. The first
business of a schoolmaster was to teach grammar, and grammar Rome
owed, as she owed most of her knowledge, to a Greek, a certain Crates,
who coming as ambassador from one of the kings of Asia Minor, broke
his leg while walking in the ill-paved streets of Rome, and occupied his
leisure by giving lectures at his house. Most of the early teachers were
Greeks. Catulus bought a Greek slave for somewhat more than fifteen
hundred pounds, and giving him his freedom set him up as a
schoolmaster; another of the same nation received a salary of between
three and four hundred pounds, his patron taking and probably making
a considerable profit out of the pupils' fees. Orbilius, the man of blows,
was probably of Greek descent. He had been first a beadle, then a
trumpeter, then a trooper in his youth, and came to Rome in the year in
which Cicero was consul. He seems to have been as severe on the
parents of his pupils as he was in another way on the lads themselves,

for he wrote a book in which he exposed their meanness and ingratitude.
His troubles, however, did not prevent him living to the great age of
one hundred and three. The author of the little book about
schoolmasters had seen his statue in his native town. It was a marble
figure, in a sitting posture, with two writing desks beside it. The
favorite authors of Orbilius, who was of the old-fashioned school, were,
as has been said, the early dramatists. Caecilius, a younger man, to
whom Atticus the friend and correspondent of Cicero gave his freedom,
lectured on Virgil, with whom, as he was intimate with one of Virgil's
associates, he probably had some acquaintance. A certain Flaccus had
the credit of having first invented prizes. He used to pit lads of equal
age against each other, supplying not only a subject on which to write,
but a prize for the victor. This was commonly some handsome or rare
old book. Augustus made him tutor to his grandsons, giving him a
salary of eight hundred pounds per annum. Twenty years later, a
fashionable schoolmaster is said to have made between three and four
thousands.
These schoolmasters were also sometimes teachers of eloquence,
lecturing to men. One Gnipho, for instance, is mentioned among them,
as having held his classes in the house of Julius Caesar (Caesar was left
an orphan at fifteen); and afterwards, when his distinguished pupil was
grown up, in his own. But Cicero, when he was praetor, and at the very
height of his fame, is said to have attended his lectures. This was the
year in which he delivered the very finest of his non-political speeches,
his defence of Cluentius. He must have been a very clever teacher from
whom so great an orator hoped to learn something.
These teachers of eloquence were what we may call the "Professors" of
Rome. A lad had commonly "finished his education" when he put on
the "man's gown;" but if he thought of political life, of becoming a
statesman, and taking office in the commonwealth, he had much yet to
learn. He had to make himself a lawyer and an orator. Law he learned
by attaching himself, by becoming the pupil, as we should say, of some
great man that was famed for his knowledge. Cicero relates to us his
own experience: "My father introduced me to the Augur Scaevola; and
the result was that, as far as possible and permissible, I never left the

old man's side. Thus I committed to memory many a learned argument
of his, many a terse and clever maxim, while I sought to add to my own
knowledge from his stores of special learning. When the Augur died I
betook myself to the Pontiff of the same name and family." Elsewhere
we have a picture of this second Scaevola and his pupils. "Though he
did not undertake to give instruction to any one, yet he practically
taught those who were anxious to listen to him by allowing them to
hear his answers to those who consulted him." These consultations took
place either in the Forum or at his own house. In the Forum the great
lawyer indicated that clients were at liberty to approach by walking
across the open space from corner to corner. The train of young
Romans would then follow his steps, just as the students follow the
physician or the surgeon through the wards of a hospital. When he gave
audience at