great attention, keeping shops for the sale of ready made clothing and cultivating his fields with such care that it is common talk that a vine which he grafted himself yielded three hundred and sixty bunches of grapes. But he was especially notorious for acts of licentiousness with women, which he carried to the pitch of shameful indecency; and they say that he was held up to scorn by the witty remark of a man who met him in a crowd and being unable to escape his kiss, although he tried to avoid it, cried: "Master, do you wish to mouth everyone whom you see in a hurry?” XXIV. Marcus Valerius Probus of Berytus for a long time sought an appointment as centurion, finally grew tired of waiting, and devoted himself to study. He had read some early writers with an elementary teacher in one of the provinces; for the memory of those writers still lingers there and is not wholly lost, as it is in Rome. When he took these up again with greater care, and sought to extend his acquaintance to others of the same period, although he perceived that they were all held in contempt and brought rather reproach to those who read them than honour and profit, he nevertheless persisted in his purpose. After getting together a large number of copies, he gave his attention to correcting and punctuating them, and furnishing them with critical notes, devoting himself to this branch of grammar to the exclusion of all others. He had a few followers, rather than pupils; for he never taught in such a way as to assume the rôle of a master. He used to receive one or two, or at most three or four, in the afternoon hours, when he would lie upon a couch inter longos ac vulgares sermones legere quaedam, idque perraro. Nimis pauca et exigua de quibusdam minutis quaestiunculis edidit. Reliquit autem non mediocrem "Silvam Observationum Sermonis Antiqui." and in the course of long and general conversations a would read some few things, though very rarely. He published a few slight works on divers minute points, and also left a good sized "Grove of Observations on our Early Language." a Naturally, on literary and grammatical topics. VOL. II. F F DE RHETORIBUS I. RHETORICA quoque apud nos perinde atque grammatica fere 1 recepta est, paululo 2 etiam difficilius, quippe quam constet nonnunquam etiam prohibitam exerceri. Quod ne cui dubium sit, vetus S. C.3 item censorium edictum subiciam: "C.4 Fannio Strabone M. Valerio Messala coss. M. Pomponius praetor senatum consuluit. Quod verba facta sunt de philosophis et rhetoribus, de ea re ita censuerunt, ut M. Pomponius praetor animadverteret curaretque, ut ei e re p. fideque sua videretur, uti Romae ne essent." De eisdem interiecto tempore Cn. Domitius Aenobarbus, L. Licinius Crassus censores ita edixerunt: "Renuntiatum est nobis, esse homines qui novum genus disciplinae instituerunt, ad quos iuventus in ludum conveniat; eos sibi nomen imposuisse Latinos rhetoras; ibi homines adolescentulos dies totos desidere. Maiores nostri, quae liberos suos 1 fere, VLNGI; sero, O, Beroaldus. 2 paululo, VLGO; paullo, I; paulo, N. S. C., omitted by the mss.; inserted by Stephanus after, and by Lachmann before, item; O omits item also, marking a lacuna. 4C. added by Stephanus from Gell. 15. 11. 1. 5 ut ei, OW (see Ihm, Rh. Mus. 61. 552 and cf. Gell. 15. 11. 1); ut si ei, edd. I. THE study of rhetoric was introduced into our country in about the same way as that of grammar, but with somewhat greater difficulty, since, as is well known, its practice was at times actually prohibited. To remove any doubt on this point, I shall append an ancient decree of the senate, as well as an edict of the censors: As the "In the consulship of Gaius Fannius Strabo and 161 B.C Marcus Valerius Messala the praetor Marcus Pomponius laid a proposition before the senate. result of a discussion about philosophers and rhetoricians, the senate decreed that Marcus Pomponius, the praetor, should take heed and provide, in whatever way seemed in accord with the interests of the State and his oath of office, that they be not allowed to live in Rome." Some time afterward the censors Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Lucius Licinius 92 B.C. Crassus issued the following edict about the same class of men : "It has been reported to us that there be men who have introduced a new kind of training, and that our young men frequent their schools; that these men have assumed the title of Latin rhetoricians, and that young men spend whole days with them in idleness. Our forefathers a This word, like grammaticus, had a different force from that of the corresponding English word; it meant a teacher of declamation and oratory. F F 2 |