The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius
sardonyx, hired for the occasion: and hence it was that Cossus' fees
were higher than those of Basilus. Eloquence is a rare quality in a
threadbare coat!
When is Basilus allowed to produce in court a weeping mother? Who could
endure Basilus, however well he were to plead? Let Gaul become your
home, or better still that foster-nurse of pleaders, Africa, if you are
determined to let your tongue for hire.
Do you teach declamation? Oh what a heart of steel must Vectius have,
when his numerous class kills cruel tyrants! For all that the boy has
just conned over at his seat, he will then stand up and spout--the
same stale theme in the same sing-song. It is the reproduction of the
cabbage[373] that wears out the master's life. What is the plea to be
urged: what the character of the cause; where the main point of the
case hinges; what shafts may issue from the opposing party;--this all
are anxious to know; but not one is anxious to pay! "_Pay_ do you
ask for? why, what do I know?" The blame, forsooth, is laid at the
teacher's door, because there is not a spark of energy in the breast
of this scion of Arcadia,[374] who dins his awful Hannibal into my
ears regularly every sixth day. Whatever the theme be that is to be
the subject of his deliberation; whether he shall march at once from
Cannæ on Rome; or whether, rendered circumspect after the storms and
thunderbolts, he shall lead his cohorts, drenched with the tempest, by
a circuitous route. Bargain[375] for any sum you please, and I will at
once place it in your hands, on condition that his father should hear
him his lesson as often as I have to do it! But six or more sophists
are all giving tongue at once; and, debating in good earnest, have
abandoned all fictitious declamations about the ravisher. No more is
heard of the poison infused, or the vile ungrateful husband,[376] or
the drugs that can restore the aged blind to youth. He therefore that
quits the shadowy conflicts of rhetoric for the arena of real debate,
will superannuate himself, if my advice has any weight with him, and
enter on a different path of life; that he may not lose even the paltry
sum that will purchase the miserable ticket[377] for corn. Since
this is the most splendid reward you can expect. Just inquire what
Chrysogonus receives, or Pollio, for teaching the sons of these fine
gentlemen, and going into all the details[378] of Theodorus' treatise.
The baths will cost six hundred sestertia, and the colonnade still
more, in which the great man rides whenever it rains. Is he to wait,
forsooth, for fair weather? or bespatter his horses with fresh mud?
Nay, far better here! for here the mule's hoof shines unsullied.[379]
On the other side must rise a spacious dining-room, supported on
stately columns of Numidian marble, and catch the cool[380] sun.
However much the house may have cost, he will have besides an artiste
who can arrange his table scientifically; another, who can season
made-dishes. Yet amid all this lavish expenditure, two poor sestertia
will be deemed an ample remuneration for Quintilian. Nothing will cost
a father less than his son's education.
"Then where did Quintilian get the money to pay for so many estates?"
Pass by the instances of good fortune that are but rare indeed. It is
good _luck_ that makes a man handsome and active; good luck that makes
him wise, and noble, and well-bred, and attaches the crescent[381] of
the senator to his black shoe. Good luck too that makes him the best of
orators and debaters, and, though he has a vile cold, sing well! For
it makes all the difference what planets welcome you when you first
begin to utter your infant cry, and are still red from your mother. If
fortune so wills it, you will become consul instead of rhetorician; or,
if she will, instead of rhetorician, consul! What was Ventidius[382]
or Tullius aught else than a lucky planet, and the strange potency
of hidden fate? Fate, that gives kingdoms to slaves, and triumphs to
captives. Yes! Quintilian was indeed lucky, but he is a greater rarity
even than a white crow. But many a man has repented of this fruitless
and barren employment, as the sad end of Thrasymachus[383] proves, and
that of Secundus Carrinas.[384] And you, too, Athens, were witness to
the poverty of him on whom you had the heart to bestow nothing save the
hemlock that chilled[385] his life-blood!
Light be the earth, ye gods![386] and void of weight, that presses
on our grandsires' shades, and round their urn bloom fragrant crocus
and eternal spring, who maintained that a tutor should hold the place
and honor of a revered parent. Achilles sang on his paternal hills,
in terror of the lash, though now grown up; and yet in whom even
then would not the tail of his master, the harper, provoke a smile?
But now Rufus[387] and others are beaten each by their own pupils;
Rufus! who so often called Cicero "the Allobrogian!" Who casts into
Enceladus'[388] lap, or that of the learned Palæmon,[389] as much as
their grammarian labors have merited! And yet even from the wretched
sum, however small (and it is smaller than the rhetorician's pay),
Acænonoëtus, his pupil's pedagogue, first takes his slice; and then the
steward who pays you deducts his fragment. Dispute it not, Palæmon!
and suffer some abatement to be made, just as the peddler does that
deals in winter rugs and snow-white sheetings.[390] Only let not all
be lost,[391] for which you have sat from the midnight hour, when no
smith would sit, nor even he that teaches how to draw out wool with
the oblique iron. Lose not your whole reward for having smelled as
many lamps as there were boys standing round you; while Horace was
altogether discolored, and the foul smut clave to the well-thumbed
Maro. Yet rare too is the pay that does not require enforcing by the
Tribune's court.[392]
But do you, parents, impose severe exactions on him that is to teach
your boys; that he be perfect in the rules of grammar for each
word--read all histories[393]--know all authors as well as his own
finger-ends; that if questioned at hazard, while on his way to the
Thermæ or the baths of Phœbus, he should be able to tell the name of
Anchises' nurse,[394] and the name and native land of the step-mother
of Anchemolus--tell off-hand how many years Acestes lived--how many
flagons of wine the Sicilian king gave to the Phrygians. Require of
him that he mould their youthful morals as one models a face in wax.
Require of him that he be the reverend father of the company, and check
every approach to immorality.
It is no light task to keep watch over so many boyish hands, so many
little twinkling eyes. "This," says the father, "be the object of your
care!"--and when the year comes round again, Receive for your pay as
much gold[395] as the people demand for the victorious Charioteer!
FOOTNOTES:
[329] _Ratio studiorum._ Cf. Tac., Ann., xi., 7, "Sublatis studiorum
pretiis etiam studia peritura."
[330] _Cæsare._ Which Cæsar is intended is a matter of discussion among
the commentators; whether Nero, Titus, Trajan, Hadrian, Nerva, or
Domitian. Probably the last is meant: as in the beginning of his reign
he affected the character of a patron of literature.
[331] _Respexit._ "To view with favor or pity," as a deity: so Virg.,
Ecl., i., 28, "Libertas, quæ sera tamen respexit inertem."
[332] _Atria._ Either "the antechambers of rich patrons," or to "the
Licinian and other courts," near the forum, where auctions were held;
the _atria auctionaria_ of Cicero: cf. pro Quint., 12, 25, i. in Rull.,
7.
[333] _Machæra_, a famous _Præco_ of his time. Lubin.
[334] _Commissa._ Either from the goods being "intrusted" to the
auctioneer by the owner or the magistrate; or from the parties that
bid being as it were "pitted," _commissi_, against each other, like
gladiators.
[335] _Vidi._ So xvi., 29, "Audeat ille Nescio quis, pugnos qui vidit,
dicere vidi."
[336] _Asiani._ "Jam equites, olim servi Asiatici." Lub. The next line
is in all probability interpolated, being only a gloss. Heinrich.
[337] _Nudo talo._ Vid. ad i., 111. Or, it may be "barefooted" simply.
Galatia in Asia Minor, so called from the colony of Gauls who settled
there, A.D. 278, at the invitation of Nicomedes. Liv., xxxviii., 16.
Cf. Paus., Phoc., xxiii. Cramer's Asia Minor, ii., 79. Clinton, Fast.
Hell. in an.
"Sent from Bithynia's realms with shoeless feet." Badham.
[338] _Laurumque momordit._ So δαφνηφάγοι. The chewing of the bay, as
being sacred to Apollo, was supposed to convey divine inspiration.
Grang. Cf. Lycoph., 6.
[339]
_Indulgentia._ "Lo! the imperial eye
Looks round attentive on each rising bard,
For worth to praise, for genius to reward." Gifford.
[340] _Croceæ._ Because parchment is always yellow on the side where
the hair grew. Others think the parchment itself was dyed yellow. Cf.
Pers., iii., 10.
[341] _Veneris marito_, a burlesque phrase for "the fire."
[342] _Tinea._ Cf. Hor., Ep., I., xx., 12, "Tineas pasces taciturnus
inertes."
[343] _Cellâ._ So Ben Jonson:
"I that spend half my nights and half my days
Here in a cell, to get a dark pale face,
To come forth worth the ivy or the bays,
And in this age can hope no other grace."
[344] _Junonis avem._
"To praise and _only_ praise the high-wrought strain.
As boys the bird of Juno's glittering train." Gifford.
[345] _Facunda et unda._
"Till gray-haired, helpless, humbled genius see
Its fault too late, and curse Terpsichore." Badham.
[346] _Comitum voces._ Cf. xiii., 32, "Vocalis sportula."
[347] _Anabathra_, the seats rising one above another in the form of a
theatre. _Subsellia_, those in the body of the room. _Orchestra_, the
hired chairs in front of all, for his knightly guests. Holyday quaintly
says no patron cared
"What the orchestra cost raised for chief friends,
And chairs recarried when the reading ends."
[348] _Laqueo._
"And would we quit at length th' ambitious ill,
The noose of habit implicates us still." Badham.
[349] _Vatem egregium._ Cf. Hor., i., Sat. iv., 43, "Ingenium cui
sit, cui mens divinior, atque os magna sonaturum, des nominis hujus
honorem." How immeasurably finer of the two is Juvenal's description of
a poet!
"But he, the bard of every age and clime,
Of genius fruitful, and of soul sublime,
Who from the glowing mint of fancy pours
No spurious metal, fused from common ores,
But gold to matchless purity refined,
And stamp'd with all the godhead in his mind:
He whom I feel, but want the power to paint,
Must boast a soul impatient of restraint,
And free from every care--a soul that loves
The Muses' haunts, clear springs and shady groves." Gifford.
Of this passage, Hodgson says, Gifford has drawn the prize in the
lottery of translation, all others must be blanks after it.
[350] _Evoe!_ Vid. Hor., ii., Od. xix., 5. Cf. Milman's Life.
[351] _Feruntur._
"Be hurried with resistless force along
By the two kindred powers of wine and song." Gifford.
[352] _Duas._
"Nor wrestlings with the world will Genius own,
Destined to strive with song, and song alone." Badham.
[353] _Erinnys._ The splendid passage in the seventh Æneid, 445,
_seq._, "Talibus Alecto dictis exarsit in iras. At juveni oranti
subitus tremor occupat artus: Deriguere oculi: tot Erinnys sibilat
hydris, Tantaque se facies aperit." Cf. Æn., ii., 602, _seq._; xii.,
326.
[354] _Atreus._ Some take Atreus to be the person who lends the money.
Grangæus interprets it, "Qui dum componit tragædiam de Atreo, ut vitam
sustentare possit pignori opponit alveolos."
"Who writes his Atreus, as his friends allege,
With half his household goods and cloak in pledge." Badham.