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Title: Schools of Gaul in the last century of the Western Empire : A study of pagan and Christian education in the last century of the Western empire
Author: Haarhoff, Theodore Johannes
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Schools of Gaul in the last century of the Western Empire : A study of pagan and Christian education in the last century of the Western empire" ***
CENTURY OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE ***
SCHOOLS OF GAUL
IN THE LAST CENTURY OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW NEW YORK
TORONTO MELBOURNE CAPE TOWN BOMBAY
HUMPHREY MILFORD
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY
SCHOOLS OF GAUL
A STUDY
OF
PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN
EDUCATION
IN THE LAST CENTURY
OF THE
WESTERN EMPIRE
BY
THEODORE HAARHOFF
LECTURER IN LATIN AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
HUMPHREY MILFORD
1920
MATRI MEAE
CVIVS VITA
SCHOLASTICAE LICET DOCTRINAE EXPERS
VERIOR TAMEN MIHI EDVCATIO
QVAM PRAECEPTA PROFESSORVM OMNIA
HOC OPVSCVLVM REVERENTER
DICAVI
PREFACE
Education in Gaul during the fourth and fifth centuries after Christ
has curiously escaped the makers of books. Yet it has more than one
claim to notice. It was an age, like our own, of transition, and we
see education passing through the last stage of official paganism in
the Western Empire, and entering into the Christian era. Movements and
counter-movements (which have a considerable measure of modern interest)
pass before our eyes. For behind the shifting scenes of Roman and
Barbarian, Pagan and Christian, there is a continuity which reaches to
the present day. That continuity is the immense fabric of Roman Education
which passed through the Church into the Middle Ages, and shaped the
thought and culture of modern nations.
Gaul raises the problem of complex nationality. The old Celtic
population, overlaid with Roman civilization, penetrated by Germanic
tribes—Goths, Franks, Burgundians—is about to enter on a new period
of history, and the blending of these elements has an influence on
education which is interesting. Nations, when they become great, are
prone to emphasize the purity of their race and language. They exclude
foreign words and customs whenever they can, they raise the boast of a
pure and unique culture. It is an empty boast. Thousands of ‘foreign’
elements have mingled to make them what they are, and unconsciously
they daily absorb fresh elements that are ‘foreign’. But so far do they
forget this, that sometimes pride, and the ignorance that is born of
exclusiveness, lead them to impose their culture on others by force.
Complex nationality, while it is in the making, means friction; but once
that stage is passed the result is almost always a richer and better
culture. So it was with Gaul. Her position as leader of the Roman Empire
in education was undoubtedly due largely to her complexity.
At the same time, there is the problem of recognition. The elements of
the complex whole cannot be kept from discord unless there is recognition
of their individuality. Not till then will they make their positive
contribution to enrich the State. How far the Romans recognized the
individuality of those whom they governed, and with what results, is a
question of interest for modern political thought. And the effect of such
recognition (or the lack thereof) on the school curriculum, for example,
in the teaching of history, is a pertinent problem for those who live in
countries where there is a dual nationality.
It has been borne in upon us that the teaching of history is
all-important. Everybody is seeking to find the ultimate causes of the
war, and one of the most far-reaching answers that can be given is that
history has been wrongly taught. The fireworks of history have been
displayed to us, but the permanent forces behind events, the thought and
psychology of nations, the human interest of character, in fine, all that
truly makes for understanding and progress has been neglected. It was
neglected in the Roman Empire, and it is instructive to note the results.
To a South African the situation in Gaul at this time is particularly
illuminating. After all the troubles (still fresh in our memory)
attaching to the solution of the language question, it is almost
startling to note a similar situation in Roman Gaul. There the question
of teaching Greek and Latin was not so acute as in South Africa, for
Greek was dying out, and had no racial background, but the effects
of a wrong handling of ‘the second language’ are as unmistakable and
instructive. It is not time or place or circumstance that matters in
educational method so much as psychology—a study that is only beginning
to come into its heritage—and the psychology of the child is the same
yesterday as to-day.
To us the language question in Gaul is interesting from another point
of view too. The Romans did the world a great service by keeping their
language uniform. This they did chiefly by means of their law, which
was understood throughout the Roman world, and by means of their
professors, who, like the Panegyrists in Gaul during the fourth century
A.D., handed down a language which remained for centuries very similar
to that of Cicero. But a time came when this attempt failed. When
Christian teaching became strong and widespread, it was found that to
the bulk of the people the polished rhetoric of the schools had become
strange. In order to touch the understanding of their flock, the bishops
were constrained (with sore travail, for at heart they were proud of
their pagan education) to discard the style of speech in which they
had been trained, and to come closer to the idiom of the masses. So
in South Africa it has been officially recognized that the language
of Holland has become strange to the school-child, and that in order
to reach his intelligence we must use the offspring of Holland Dutch,
Afrikaans—moulded, since 1652, to a vastly different climate, scenery,
and national character. How this attempt is to be made, and what its
danger is in the direction of formlessness—these are questions for
which something may be gleaned from a consideration of the Latin of the
Fathers. Art is needed and scientific interest. For lack of these the
vivid language of Tertullian and the early Fathers degenerated later
into formlessness. And our problem to-day is to watch over the form that
is taking shape, make clear its scientific basis, and beautify it by
spreading an interest in Art.
Finally, the Gauls witnessed the breaking up of governments and its
consequent disorders. They were faced, as we are, by the problem of
‘Bolshevism’, though in their case it merely took the shape of the
marauding Vargi and the Bagaudae. The influence of a disordered society
on education was felt then as now. With us there are some who, like
Avitus of Vienne, _in malis ferventibus_, despair of any end to the
troubles which throng around them, while the wiser sort will rather urge
with the author of the _De Providentia Dei_ that, despite disappointments,
‘Invictum deceat studiis servare vigorem’.
* * * * *
This study has been based, as far as possible, directly on original
authorities, who have been neglected largely because they fall in a
period which the pedant has called ‘unclassical’ and which is yet not
definitely ‘modern’. I have found many statements in modern books
relating to this period which need modification or correcting, and I
feel sure that this essay has merely touched a field that deserves more
attention than it has hitherto received.
* * * * *
Among those to whom my gratitude is due, I wish to mention particularly
my tutor, Professor E. W. Watson of Christ Church, Professor J. A. Smith
of Magdalen, Professor Percy Gardner, who read the archaeological part,
Professor Gilbert Murray, whose suggestions were helpful and inspiring,
and the examiners of this essay when it was put forward as a thesis
at Oxford. Professor Haverfield and Mr. R. L. Poole, through whose
influence it was accepted for publication. Since then the material has
been considerably revised and amplified. For help in the dreary work of
reading the proofs, I must record my thanks to my old and trusted guide,
Professor William Ritchie, of the University of Cape Town, and to my
wife. And there is one whose memory I must always cherish, in this as in
other spheres, with the deepest affection and gratitude—my former tutor,
the late Mr. H. J. Cunningham of Worcester. His encouragement and counsel
were invaluable, and his readiness to assist one of the pleasantest
memories of my work.
I wish to acknowledge the courtesy of the Rhodes Trustees in allowing me
to use part of my scholarship to defray the expenses of publication; and
I must not fail also to put on record the financial assistance given me
by the Government Research Grant Board of the Union of South Africa. Such
assistance is not inappropriate for a book that deals so largely with
State support of education, and it is the more pleasing in view of the
growing interest of the Government in research.
Finally, I must mention the uniform courtesy and attention that I have
received from the Clarendon Press authorities. To Mr. C. E. Freeman I owe
a particular debt of gratitude for many interesting suggestions.
THEODORE HAARHOFF.
_University of Cape Town. October 23, 1919._
CONTENTS
PAGE
PART I. INTRODUCTORY
1. The Limits of the Period 1
2. Greek Influence 4
3. Celtic Influence 10
4. Germanic Influence 19
5. Romanization of Gaul 26
6. Roman Education in Gaul before the Fourth Century A.D. 33
PART II. PAGAN EDUCATION
A. The General Prosperity of the Schools in the Fourth and
Fifth Centuries 39
B. _Inside the School_ 52
(i) The Substance and Methods of Primary Education 52
(ii) The Substance and Methods of Secondary Education 68
(iii) Control and Arrangement of the School 93
(_a_) Discipline in Primary and Secondary Schools 93
(_b_) Play 97
(_c_) Organization 102
C. _Outside the School_ 119
(i) Administrative and Social Conditions 119
(ii) Class Distinction and Education 124
(iii) The Teacher in Society 132
(iv) Imperial Protection 135
PART III. CHRISTIAN EDUCATION
1. Introductory: Church and State 151
2. The Persistence of Rhetoric: Tradition and Reaction 157
3. The Rise of Christian Schools in Gaul 175
4. The Practice of Christian Education 180
PART IV. CERTAIN EDUCATIONAL IDEAS AND INFLUENCES
1. Moral Education 198
2. History 209
3. The Position of Greek 220
4. Art 231
PART V. THE DECLINE OF EDUCATION
1. Gallic Students Abroad 240
2. The Invaders 243
3. Ideals 249
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 262
INDEX 265
PART I
INTRODUCTORY
1. THE LIMITS OF THE PERIOD
In considering the extent of the last phase of Gallo-Roman education one
is met by the obvious difficulty of limits. For the main traditions of
the Roman schools were formed before Julius Caesar, and go on through the
Middle Ages up to the present day.
It is difficult to find a starting-point. The fifth century, the
transition period between ‘ancient’ and ‘modern’ history,[1] forms a
general terminus, but it is not so easy to find a particular one. To say
that the year 476 was the end of things Roman in Gaul is to be guilty
of a generalization which many scholars have attacked.[2] This year,
‘so dear to the compiler and the crammer’, is not of any special moment
for Gaul. If we must fix a boundary, it seems better to connect it with
the Franks. It is often nationality which produces great changes in
civilization. It was the coming of the Romans which shaped the education
of Gaul, and it was the coming of the Franks which most modified that
shape and gave rise to the French nation. The defeat of the Franks by
Julian in 358 meant the continuation of Roman culture in Gaul. He came
as the saviour of a despairing Gaul.[3] The Salian Franks were allowed
to settle in Toxandria in the North as members of the Empire, to which,
for a long time, they remained loyal. It is true that Arbogast the Frank
set up the usurper Eugenius in 392. On the other hand, one of Gratian’s
wisest and most faithful adherents was the Frankish Merobaudes,[4] and
when the great invasions of 406 and the following years began the Franks
allied themselves with Stilicho and defeated the Vandals. Even as late as
451 we find that only a part of the Franks join Attila in his invasion of
Gaul, in spite of the growing weakness of the Empire which had left Gaul
exposed to the barbarians in 406.
Such was the effect of Julian’s victory, though as a military achievement
it was not very remarkable. Not merely was it of political importance,
but its significance for education was enormous. Mamertinus expresses[5]
the gratitude of a provincial for the order which Julian restored. ‘Shall
I’, says he, ‘tell the tale of the Gallic provinces, now rewon by thy
valour, of the rout of barbarism, as though it were some new and unheard
of thing? Such exploits as the voice of fame has so lavishly bruited
abroad....’
Julian has been constant in his care for Gaul, and on the list of his
good deeds the orator would record his diligence:
‘Ita illi anni spatia divisa sunt ut aut barbaros domitet aut civibus
iura restituat, perpetuum professus aut contra hostem aut contra vitia
certamen.’ A great cause of joy is the repulse of _barbaria_. Julian
has spared no trouble ‘to restore peace to the loyal provinces and to
banish, at the same time, all barbaric elements’.[6] He attended to right
living and to justice, ‘emendatio morum iudiciorumque correctio....’[7]
Most important of all, studies have revived under his fostering care,
and the orator becomes eloquent with an enthusiasm which is not entirely
exaggerated.
‘Thou, O mightiest of emperors, thou, I proclaim, hast rekindled the
dead fires of literature; thou hast not only freed philosophy from
prosecution, suspected as she was until recently, but hast clothed her
in purple and bound on her head gold and gems, and seated her on a regal
throne.’[8]
If the subjugation of the Franks thus supplies a sort of starting-point,
their rise under Chlodowig gives us a terminus. The Roman connexion with
Gaul officially ceased when Romulus Augustulus was deposed in 476, and
Gaul was no longer Roman when Euric captured Arles and Marseilles in
480. But the culmination of Germanic influence in Gaul was the coming
of the Franks in 486, when Chlodowig drove Syagrius, ‘the last of the
Romans’,[9] from his kingdom of Soissons and moved southward. The Roman
schools, which had flourished under Theodoric of Toulouse, disappeared
when the Franks came.[10] Not that the Franks swamped the Gallo-Romans
or proved the predominant element. Their invasion was in some ways like
the Norman invasion of England:[11] the conqueror was captured by the
conquered, and Gallo-Roman influence, especially in education, prevailed.
Yet the fact remains that the Frankish invasion brought factors to bear
on Gaul which modified its national life and coloured its civilization
more deeply than had previously been the case, and that it represents
the high-water mark of the Germanic tide which had been steadily rising
during the two previous centuries.
2. GREEK INFLUENCE
Nothing struck the imagination of ancient writers on early Gallic culture
more than the part played by Massilia. Daughter of the Greeks, and friend
of the Romans long before Gaul became part of the Empire, she stood forth
as a light of civilization in the midst of barbaric darkness. With such a
tradition and such a friendship it is no wonder that we find so much said
in her praise.
Ammianus,[12] following the Greek Timagenes, gives the traditional
account of the coming of the Phocaeans to Massilia in the sixth century
B.C. Whether they really fled from the persecution of the Persian
Harpalus—a motive unknown to Herodotus—or whether, as Athenaeus quoting
Aristotle says, their object was merely trade,[13] need not be discussed
here. Nor need we go into the confusion in ancient writers between
Phocaea and Phocis[14] in regard to the origin of Massilia; the point
is that it was of Greek origin, as all the authorities agree.[15] From
Greece culture came to Gaul, and once more (as Norden remarks in another
connexion) ‘it is the East that gives and the West that receives’.
The coins of Massilia bear testimony to her influence on Gaul. The
early specimens of her drachms, bearing the head of Artemis with sprigs
of olive in her hair, show a high artistic development. Their beauty
diminishes as time goes on, partly because of the large numbers in which
they were produced, since for a long time they were the chief currency
for Southern Gaul as far as Lyons and for the whole valley of the Po. So
frequently were they copied by the Celtic tribes that the imitations are
far commoner than the originals.[16]
It is probable, moreover, that Massilia’s artistic contribution did not
stop here. We possess a torso in sixth-century style of Aphrodite with a
dove on her right hand, which Prof. Percy Gardner believes to be the work
of Phocaean Greeks at Massilia. Sculpture of this kind must have been a
new ray of light for the civilization (or the lack thereof) in Celtic
Gaul.
Her friendship with Rome is well attested. Cicero mentions[17] the
support given to Rome by the Massilians at the time of the Gallic
campaigns. When Fonteius, who had been governor of Gallia Narbonensis,
was impeached for extortion, Massilia came up in his defence. Strabo
regards the connexion as a well-known fact.[18] Ammianus, too, knew of
this traditional friendship: ‘Massilia ... cuius societate et viribus in
discriminibus arduis fultam aliquotiens legimus Romam.’[19]
It is well known that at the time of the second Punic war Massilia
gave faithful and effective support to her ally.[20] Yet such was the
independence of Massilia’s Greek spirit, that when Caesar, in the Civil
war,[21] sent Domitius to take her, she alone of all the Gallic cities
refused him admittance. Her citizens replied with a dignity and a
self-consciousness that argue a high level of development, that they were
indeed allies of the Roman people, but that they would not and could not
decide between the two parties: if they were approached in a friendly
spirit they would listen to both sides; if in a hostile way they would
listen to neither. Caesar’s siege of the town was at first unsuccessful,
and he had to depart leaving the operations in the hands of others.
When, at length, Massilia capitulated, he deprived her of her material
resources, but (as was fitting) left her liberty unviolated.[22]
But the connexion with Rome was not political only. It is probable that
the Massilians traded with Italy in early times[23] and that their
city, once the rival of Carthage,[24] grew to renewed importance as a
commercial centre for Rome after the Punic wars. The Massilians were
early Rome’s agents for the products of Gaul.[25] In order to make bronze
to send to Rome they obtained tin from Cornwall[26] to blend with their
own copper. Theophrastus[27] speaks of their export to Rome of precious
stones, and the Romans knew the value of their corn trade.[28] ‘Frumenti
praecipue ac pabuli ferax (Gallia).’[29]
Yet the chief connexion with Rome, the bond most frequently mentioned by
Roman writers, was along the line of Massilia’s culture. Cicero speaks
with enthusiasm[30] of the city which possessed a statue of Minerva, and
it is well known that the Romans regularly sent their sons there,[31]
rather than to Athens,[32] to study Greek. The young Agricola looked
on it as his Alma Mater.[33] The climate was milder and healthier than
that of Athens and its morals had a better reputation. Plautus uses the
phrase ‘mores Massilienses’ in the sense of irreproachable character.[34]
Valerius Maximus speaks of the city as ‘severitatis custos acerrima’.
They prohibited pantomimes on moral grounds;[35] sumptuary laws limited
personal expense; and women were not allowed to drink wine.[36] Such was
the moral austerity (at any rate in early times[37]) of the Massilians,
and this reputation no doubt enhanced its popularity—with parents at any
rate—as an educational centre.
Massilia stood for a very long time far above any other Gallic city in
culture. The Rhodians in Livy[38] are made to say that the Massilians
would long ago have been barbarized by the uncivilized tribes around
(_tot indomitae circumfusae gentes_) had it not been for their sheltered
situation; and Pomponius Mela[39] speaks of Massilia as ‘olim inter
asperas posita’, and remarks that the Massilians nevertheless retained
their individuality after the civilization of the rest. They had their
own constitution, and it was prominent enough for Aristotle to notice.[40]
Many writers tell us how the Massilians spread their Greek civilization
among the Gauls.[41] Strabo speaks of Massilia as the School of Gaul,
which so hellenized the barbarians that they drew up their contracts in
Greek.[42] So Ammianus[43] says that after the foundation of Massilia
‘men gradually became civilized in these parts, and the pursuit of
praiseworthy branches of knowledge, begun by the bards and the Celtic
philosophers (_euhages_ and _drasidae_), grew and prospered’. The
bards sang in heroic verse, to the accompaniment of tuneful music,
the deeds of the valiant. The _euhages_ were natural philosophers who
investigated the secrets of the physical world, ‘scrutantes seriem et
sublimia naturae pandere conabantur’. And, according to Pythagoras, the
_drasidae_, who were of loftier spirit and lived in exclusive clubs and
colleges, investigated and pronounced on occult metaphysical questions.
So effectively did Greek influence spread, ‘ut non Graecia in Galliam
emigrasse, sed Gallia in Graeciam translata videretur’.[44]
To a certain extent Massilia must have been influenced by her
surroundings. ‘Massilia’, says the consul in Livy,[45] ‘inter Gallos
sita traxit aliquantum ab accolis animorum’. Her inhabitants must have
learned much of the physical features and culture of the land from the
barbarians. But the overwhelming strength of influence was on their side.
The fact that they were not swamped is in itself a striking testimony.
It meant that they possessed a culture which was destined not only to
hold its own, but to win increasingly as time went on. It was owing to
them that the Gauls appointed professors and doctors,[46] and many of
their teachers are mentioned in ancient literature. Telon and Gyareus
are called by Lucan[47] ‘gemini fratres, fecundae gloria matris’, and
together with Lydanus, Pytheas, Eratosthenes, Eudimenes, are famous for
mathematics and astronomy[48] in the early days of Massilia. Seneca
mentions a rhetorician Moschus, who had been found guilty of poisoning
and taught at Massilia,[49] and notices also Agroitas as a rhetorician
of distinction.[50] Natural philosophy was not neglected. Plutarch[51]
mentions Euthymenes of Massilia, whose opinion he quotes on the
overflowing of the Nile, and refers to the famous Pytheas on the causes
of the tides. Of the eight recensions of Homer, which were known before
Zenodotus, one was the famous διόρθωσις Μασσαλιωτική[52] to which Wolf
assigns an honourable place.[53]
As for their proficiency in languages, it is well known that they were
called _trilingues_,[54] speaking Greek and Latin and Celtic. The Greek
of Massilia left its mark on the French language after a lapse of many
centuries, especially on the proper names of Aquitaine,[55] and Christian
times afford many instances in literature and inscriptions of this
influence. To name two only, the Acta Martyrum were written in Greek,
the language of Irenaeus (second century), by the order of the Churches
of Vienne and Lyons,[56] and as late as the sixth century Caesarius[57]
could make the people of his congregation at Arles sing in Greek. As late
as the Middle Ages the territory around Massilia was called Graecia, and
its sea Mare Graecum.[58]
Such was the great part played by Massilia. Tradition tells how the
leaders of the Phocaeans, Protis and Simos, when they landed in Gaul,
went to the local King Nannus for help. They were invited to attend a
ceremony at which the daughter of the king extended a cup of water to
the suitor whom she favoured. She bestowed the token on Protis, who thus
married a daughter of the soil on which he was to establish Massilia.[59]
So Massilia ruled the household of Gaul and set in order its culture. In
imperial times there was a decline,[60] and the Massilians found their
pre-eminence shaken and their trade ruined by the colony which Caesar
sent to Arles (destined to develop into a commercial centre) under
Tiberius, father of the Emperor.[61] Under Marcus Aurelius they had to
give up their ancient constitution and fall into line with the other
imperial cities.[62] But their work was accomplished. They kept the torch
of civilization burning until they could pass it on to Romanized Gaul.
Even then they retained their culture, and retained it longer than the
other towns. The capture of Massilia in 477 by the Goths completed the
separation of Gaul from Rome and prepared the way for the Gallo-Frankish
state.
As she had given the impetus to letters, so, in later times, she proved
their salvation. At the time of the great invasions at the beginning of
the fifth century, and at its end when the Visigoths were encroaching
more and more, Massilia was a refuge for Christian monks to whose labours
literature owes so much. The Monastery of St. Victor ranked with Lérins
as a centre of Christian education, and many famous men found a refuge
there during the menace of troublous times. Victorinus, Prosper of
Aquitaine, Gennadius, Musaeus, Salvian, were among those who sought its
peace.[63]
Justinus tells of the Celtic chief Catumandus who was chosen by the
neighbouring tribes to lead an army against the prosperous Massilia.
Being terrified, however, by the figure of a fierce-looking woman whom
he saw in a dream, he made peace with the Massilians and begged to be
allowed to enter their city and worship their gods. In the portico of
the temple he saw the statue of Minerva and exclaimed that that was the
figure of his dream.[64]
Thus it was that the goddess of culture saved Massilia, and through
Massilia, Gaul.
3. CELTIC INFLUENCE
Bouquet[65] refers to a legendary account given by one Pezronius to
explain the rise of culture among the Gauls. On the death of Pluto,
Jupiter gave to Mercury the Empire of the West and he, by his wit and
eloquence, civilized the people. ‘Populorum sibi subditorum ferocitatem
emollivit, leges statuit, artes adinvenit, commercia inter Occidentales
populos instituit’. For this service the Celts of Gaul were so thankful
that for two thousand years they worshipped Mercury with the greatest
veneration.
This story is a fable and an afterthought, but it is significant of the
sort of culture that later people conceived of as having existed among
the ancient Gauls. Long before the days of Roman rule the elder Cato
had testified to the trend of their genius in the well-known words:
‘Pleraque Gallia duas res industriosissima persequitur, rem militarem
et argute loqui’,[66] and it is quite certain that Mercury (and before
the Romans his Celtic counterpart) was actually and almost universally
worshipped in Gaul. ‘Galli’, says Caesar,[67] ‘Deum maxime Mercurium
colunt’, a statement which is abundantly supported by the inscriptions.
An inscription at Chalon-sur-Saône shows the figure of Mercury with his
three favourite animals, a cock, a tortoise, a goat, and the words ‘Deo
Mercurio Augu ... Sacro’,[68] while at Lyons there were three altars
with the words ‘Mercurio Augusto et Maiae Augustae’. An inscription of
Poitiers, which is as late as the third century, is dedicated to ‘the
god Mercurius’.[69] Even in the barbarous North there is a large number
of inscriptions referring to Mercury, especially around Trèves.[70] The
worship of Minerva, too, is established by many inscriptions, e.g. the
twenty on bowls and cups found at Andecavi in Lugdunensis.[71]
Thus the Gauls singled out for special worship the subtlest and cleverest
of the gods,[72] and the fact may be connected with their undoubted
culture in early times. Out of the darkness in which pre-Roman Gaul
is shrouded we gather hints here and there concerning the first known
teachers of the Gallic Celts, the Druids. One or two points may be
noticed.
The warlike nature of the Celts is a subject of frequent comment.
Aristotle refers to it,[73] and Aelian says Ἀνθρώπων ἐγὼ ἀκούω
φιλοκινδυνοτάτους εἶναι τοὺς Κέλτους.[74] Pausanias considered them
very barbarous. Their equipment for war, in which they were supposed
to excel, was primitive: they had no defensive armour except shields.
Of scientific warfare they knew nothing, and when they charged it was
without order, like a troop of wild animals.[75] In these accounts a
margin must be left for prejudice and lack of understanding on the
part of the narrator. For we hear a good deal about education from
various sources. Three classes of skilled men were held in particular
honour among the Celts:[76] the βάρδοι, who chanted hymns in honour of
the valiant; τῶν μὲν ᾀσμάτων ὑποθέσεις ποιοῦνται τοὺς ἀνθρώπους τοὺς
ἀποθανόντας ἐν τῷ πολέμῳ καλῶς:[77] the Οὐάτεις (Vates), who performed
sacrifice and studied natural science; and the Δρυΐδαι, who studied
science and ethics and theology. The bards also were the representatives
of that eloquent temperament which is associated with Gaul from the
earliest times, and which enabled subsequent Gallic writers and orators
to assimilate classical rhetoric. They sing public panegyrics (μετ’
ᾠδῆς ἐπαίνους λέγοντες) and are taken with the army to eulogize the
heroes of war.[78] They are called ποιηταὶ μελῶν by Diodorus,[79] who
is constrained to remark οὕτω καὶπαρὰ τοῖς ἀγριωτάτοις βαρβάροις ὁ
θυμὸς εἴκει τῇ σοφίᾳ καὶ ὁ Ἄρης αἰδεῖται τὰς Μούσας, a somewhat unusual
admission, for a Greek, of culture among ‘barbarians’. It must be clearly
understood, however, that they had not elaborated a system of rhetoric
or studied scientifically the art of speaking. All we can say is that
they had a kind of imagination and a quick enthusiasm which gave them a
rough natural oratory, and made them apt students of the rhetoric which
the Greeks and Romans brought. The richness and pomposity of subsequent
Gallic orators was due rather to the advent of the rhetorical system
and, perhaps, to the influence of Roman character, than to native Celtic
qualities. Caesar does not mention the Bardi and the Vates, but only
the Druids, who belonged to the upper classes, and were held in high
honour as the teachers and priests of the nation. ‘They administer divine
rites, attend to public and private sacrifice, and expound theology:
to them a large number of youths resort for training, and great is the
honour in which they are held.’[80] It is said that there were girls’
schools kept by the wives of the Druids,[81] a statement which seems
to be supported by the frequent mention of female Druids, Drysidae, in
later times. Their learning was thought to be derived from Britain,
whither students went from Gaul.[82] Freedom from military service and
public duties was granted them—a curious anticipation of the concessions
granted to teachers in imperial times. Hence there were many candidates
for the office, and large numbers were sent by their parents to undergo
the training which sometimes lasted twenty years.[83] The students learnt
by heart a great many verses, which were not written down, for this
they did not consider right (_fas_), though for secular purposes they
used Greek letters. Examples of this writing have been preserved.[84]
The Druids taught the doctrine of immortality and the transmigration of
souls.[85] Astronomy, physical science, and theology also formed part of
their training.[86] Science was still studied by the Druids in Cicero’s
time. ‘In Gaul too’ (he says), ‘there are Druids (and I had personal
acquaintance with one of them, the Aeduan Divitiacus) who professed a
knowledge of natural science, which the Greeks call φυσιολογία.’[87]
This education, however, was purely one of class and profession. ‘Docent
multa nobilissimos gentis’, says Mela.[88] Lucan apostrophizes the
Druids, as those who alone had the privilege of knowing or not knowing
the gods, dwelling in the sequestered glades of deep forests.[89]
Knowledge, thus monopolized, must have grown unhealthy, and we hear of
the riddling speech and obscure phrases with which the Druids worked on
the superstitions of the people.[90] Monnard observes that the darkness
of this Celtic philosophy was dispelled by the light of Massilia.[91]
Yet the Celts had made their contribution. For we must remember that
in the centuries just preceding the Christian era it was the Celts who
gave the lead to the Teutonic peoples in culture. Towards the end of the
fifth century B.C. Celtic civilization flourished exceedingly. The ‘La
Tène Civilization’—as the archaeologists call it—shows artistic products
of fine taste and technical perfection. The centre of this civilization
was perhaps in Southern France, whence it spread throughout Europe along
the Rhine, the Rhone, the Danube, until it was succeeded by Graeco-Roman
culture. And it was only between 100-70 B.C. that the Celts were expelled
from lower Germany.[92]
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that it took so long for the Druids
to disappear from the scene, representing as they did so ancient a
culture. We should expect the warders of a national religion and
tradition to be conservative, and we find that they even played a
political part. In the confusion of the year A.D. 70, when the Capitol
was burnt down, they circulated a rumour among the Celts that the event
portended the passing of the power from the Romans to the Gauls,[93]
seeing that the Capitol had once proved to be the only obstacle to
Brennus’s victorious march. It was natural, then, that the Roman
imperial policy should aim at the removal of an element which fostered
the national sentiment.[94] Augustus later followed this tendency when
he forbade the Druid’s worship to Roman citizens in Gaul, and Claudius
(we are told by Suetonius) abolished once for all their monstrous
practices.[95] So Aurelius Victor[96] attributes the complete suppression
of the Druids to Claudius. Accordingly, when we find Pliny[97] saying
that it was Tiberius who suppressed the Druids, there is a suspicion that
he is guilty of a confusion: Claudius’s first name having been Tiberius.
It is clear that definite attempts were made to wipe out Druidism and
the Celtic element. But they showed a remarkable tenacity in spite of
laws and edicts. The elder Pliny refers to them as surviving in his
time,[98] and Flavius Vopiscus (third century) tells of certain ‘wise
women’ who called themselves Dryades (_mulier dryas_, _drysada_) and
were, by a strange irony, consulted (if we may believe the fanciful
_Scriptores Historiae Augustae_), even by persons in high imperial
authority. Aurelianus was said to have consulted them about the future of
his imperial office,[99] and a Druid prophesied the throne to Diocletian
‘cum aprum occideris’.[100] The prophetic influence seems in these later
times to have passed from the men to the women, who become recognized
semi-officially, and form, on a small scale, a sort of Delphic oracle.
Nothing is more difficult than to make a people forget its language, as
Fauriel[101] has remarked, especially a people that largely lives on the
land. This dictum, which history has so often illustrated, is instanced
also by the tenacity of Celtic in Gaul. It penetrates right into the
fourth and fifth centuries, and, since language and education hang so
closely together, it is worth while to look into the evidence. More
than 10,000 inscriptions have been found in Gaul, and of these a large
number relate to the lower classes. Yet we find that scarcely twenty
are in Celtic, and these probably are not later than the first century
A.D.[102] This does not mean that Celtic died out then; it was never much
of a written language, for the Druids had a distinct prejudice against
writing, and recorded only secular matters.[103]
Strabo[104] says that the people in Narbonne began to accept Latin only
in the reign of Tiberius, and it is in Narbonne that the most and best
Latin inscriptions are found. Irenaeus, writing from Lyons in the second
century, begs to be excused from rhetorical polish, seeing that he
lives among the Celts—περὶ βάρβαρον διάλεκτον τὸ πλεῖστον ἀσχολουμενων
(ἡμῶν).[105] In the following century we find Alexander Severus, in
preparing his last expedition, being met by a female Druid who prophesied
his death in Celtic (_Gallico sermone_)[106]—though the reference may
have been inserted merely to adorn a tale, and _Gallicus sermo_ may
stand for Gallic Latin. At any rate, Celtic was not entirely forgotten
in Ausonius’s day (fourth century), who refers to Patera, rhetor at
Bordeaux, as ‘stirpe Druidarum satus’, while Phoebicius similarly is
‘stirpe satus Druidum’,[107] and is, moreover, the ‘temple-warder of
Belenus’,[108] the Celtic Apollo, just as the race of Patera comes
‘Beleni ... e templo’. In satirizing the pedantic trifling of the
grammarian, Ausonius gives ‘al’ and ‘tau’ as Celtic letters.[109] Even
Sidonius in the fifth century has to notice it, in spite of his Roman
disdain. It was owing to the zeal of Ecdicius, he says,[110] that the
nobility of Gaul became cultured—‘sermonis Celtici squamam depositura’,
a statement which shows that the old language was still to be reckoned
with. It is rather an irony of fate that the style of Sidonius—the one
point on which he prided himself—undoubtedly owes its exotic character
in order, rhythm, and vocabulary[111] to Celtic and Gothic influence. His
elaborate scorn for what is foreign recoils on his own head.
One final instance of the survival of Celtic must be mentioned for the
controversy which it has evoked. Jerome says that the Galatians in his
day had practically the same native language as the Treveri.[112] Was
this language Celtic? Freeman[113] thinks that Jerome’s word may be
doubted, as he was not a philologist. This would seem to rule out all
the witnesses, for philology is an entirely modern development; and it
would hardly have been indispensable for forming so simple a judgement.
Jerome, moreover, is a considerable authority, the most learned of
the Fathers. Lavisse[114] has recently accepted his statement. He
mentions the objection of Perrot,[115] who maintains that Celtic had
long vanished from Asia Minor, and of Fustel de Coulanges,[116] who
says that the language of the Treveri was German, and answers: (1) that
Celtic survived in the speech if not in the documents of Asia Minor,
and (2) that Coulanges is wrong; the names of the Treveri are Celtic.
This being granted, it would seem that Celtic survived well into the
fifth century, and this conclusion appears to be reinforced in extent
and significance by Freeman’s statement that there was a survival of the
Celtic language and sentiment in Brittany during the fifth century.[117]
But this statement is misleading. It is generally admitted that Gallic
had entirely gone out of use in Armorica, when the fugitives from Great
Britain settled in the country and introduced their insular speech from
the fifth century onwards. And Breton is more closely allied to Welsh
and Old Cornish than to Gallic. On the whole we must say that the
evidence of modern philology points to a less considerable influence of
the Celtic element than we should expect. Celtic was overshadowed by
German, and especially, of course, Latin. Hitherto modern philology has
found traces of Celtic loan-words in the following spheres: agriculture,
carriage-building, the names of animals, trees, and plants, the parts of
the body, items of clothing, weapons, and geographical terms.[118] The
inscriptions in Gaul show words like _cantalon_,[119] a kind of building,
and _cantuna_ (canteen) which the philologists pronounce to be of Celtic
origin.[120] We must conclude, therefore, that while sporadic traces of
Celtic are undoubtedly found in the fifth century (as in the case of the
Treviri, who in their secluded valley would naturally retain the ancient
language longer than the people around them), the language had, in the
main, disappeared by that time.
All this shows us that in dealing with education in Gaul we cannot
attempt a thorough and systematic study. Romanization lies over the
country and its institutions like a veil. Roman authors give us scattered
pictures of what went on beneath that veil, but they give it from
the Roman point of view. Roman rule was so mighty, and its methods
so far-reaching, that everything is reduced to Roman form. The ruler
did not see the native genius or native ways, or if he saw them did
not understand or sympathize. It was his task to rule, and he knew,
in general, only one method: the rule of force—‘parcere subiectis et
debellare superbos’—though diplomacy plays a large part in the later
Empire. Moreover, the mass of the people were too uneducated to give
expression to their individuality, or did not know Latin sufficiently
well to do so. All our evidence comes from Greek or Roman pens. As soon
as the Empire is withdrawn from Gaul natural differences find expression
and variety of individuality is at once displayed. Jung[121] notices
that the inscriptions of Arles and Trèves are an illustration of this.
While the Empire is there we catch only dim glimpses of the sort of
education that (fraught with the traditions of a mighty past) may have
lingered on among the mass of the people even as late as the fourth
century. When we deal with the schools of Gaul, therefore, it must be
with those of the Gallo-Romans who were more Roman than Gallic. But there
is another element which operated, as it were, under the surface of
Romanization in Gaul.
4. GERMANIC INFLUENCE
In trying to form an idea, of the influence of the Germanic races on the
culture of Gaul during the later Empire, we must again be satisfied with
only a few stray references in the contemporary authorities. Philologists
think that as early as the first century A.D. the German races must
have influenced the Romans. They establish indisputable cases, but it
is admitted that the whole question is difficult and complicated in the
extreme.[122]
The question of German influence may be looked at from two opposite
points of view—from the constructive and the destructive. The latter is
by far the more prominent and will be dealt with at a later stage. The
former is far the more difficult, and nothing is attempted here except
to set down in bare outline one or two of its aspects. It would be far
easier to describe the influence of Roman civilization on the barbarians.
Yet there is something to be said. If the Roman generals prescribed a
Roman form of government for the barbarians, as Corbulo did for the
Frisians in A.D. 47, German fashions intruded into the Roman world and
the Roman ladies wore barbarian costume and coiffure.[123] On the Rhine
frontier these barbarians developed to such an extent and so many towns
sprang up—Cologne the prosperous, Bonn, Coblentz, Strassburg—which
grew out of the Roman camps but drew their life from the neighbouring
tribes, that the law forbade the selling of certain commodities to
barbarians.[124] On the other hand, the Empire needed them as cultivators
and soldiers, and the _Panegyrici Latini_ show us that it was part of
the imperial policy to make them settle in the provinces.[125] Social
history shows that the Germanic peoples stood on a fairly high level
of culture even in the first centuries of our era. They possessed a
traditional religious cult which promoted the noblest virtues—conjugal
love, friendship, hospitality—a body of legends about gods and heroes,
an ancestral poetry, in which clan and family feeling plays a large
part.[126] In these respects they were capable of influencing the Romans,
who admired their courage and feared their strength.
Besides the casual intermingling of people for various reasons, there
were three main sources of intercourse: the army, the administration,
and trade. The first need not be dwelt on, nor the well-known question
be raised how far the German element in it was responsible for the fall
of the Empire. Of the second we may mention as an instance Pliny’s
picture of Trajan dispensing justice in Germany—sometimes without an
interpreter—while the influence of the trade in furs, wine, and fish in
introducing Germanic words into Latin has been amply established.[127]
Turning to Gaul in particular, we find many avenues of Germanic
influence; for, besides the big invasions of the third and fifth
centuries, we find the Goths officially settled in Aquitaine in A.D. 419,
and the Burgundians about the same time, in the north and north-eastern
parts. It is not surprising, therefore, to catch from Ausonius glimpses
of fairly familiar intercourse between German and Gallo-Roman in
the fourth century. His enthusiastic praise of Bissula, the Suebian
maid who was captured beyond the Rhine[128]—‘Barbara, sed quae Latias
vincis alumna pupas’—is an indication of this. Now there is a law of
Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian, given in A.D. 370, forbidding all
intermarriage. ‘Nulli provincialium’, it says, ‘cuiuscumque ordinis
aut loci fuerit, cum barbara sit uxore coniugium: nec ulli gentilium
(foreigners, i.e. not Roman) provincialis foemina copuletur. Quod si
quae inter provinciales atque Gentiles adfinitates ex huiusmodi nuptiis
exstiterint, quod in his suspectum vel noxium detegitur, capitaliter
expietur.’[129] This law, however, as Lavisse remarks,[130] does not
seem to have had much effect. Such laws very rarely have. We may assume,
therefore, that there was considerable intercourse even before the
Visigoths were settled in Aquitaine.
Not only had points of contact been multiplied, but the standard of
civilization among the invaders had risen. Orosius notes that the
Burgundians were mild and modest enough to treat their Gallic subjects
as brothers,[131] and their laws dating from the sixth century show a
considerable culture. Roman civilization and Christian morality had
raised them to this level, but they still had their own contribution to
make. For they still had their own national character and traditions
and language, and these produced blends and combinations in the already
richly blended Aquitaine which have played their part in the shaping
of the whole. Such influences cannot be reduced to specific items, but
it is plain that they were there. They left their mark (all the more
effectively because the Goths welcomed Roman culture with open arms)
on the character of the people, on their literature, and on their
language.[132] Even in Cicero’s day Gallic Latin had a distinctive
flavour. To Brutus he says that when he comes to Gaul he will hear words
not used at Rome, though the differences are not fundamental.[133]
By the time of Sidonius Germanic influences have accentuated these
differences. To such an extent, says this lover of Rome to his friends,
had the host of idle and careless people increased, that they would soon
have to weep for the extinction of the Latin language, were it not for
the tiny band of scholars who might save the purity of the Roman tongue
from the rust of undignified barbarisms.[134] To Arbogast Sidonius
declares[135] that Latin has perished from Belgium and the Rhine; and
though this may be a rhetorical preparation for the antithesis ‘in te
resedit’, we cannot fail to hear in it and in the phrase ‘our vanishing
culture’ the tramp of the approaching barbarians.
The contribution of Germanic to the peculiar character of Gallic Latin
is traced by modern philology to the following spheres: proper nouns,
weapons and military terms, administration and jurisdiction, animals and
plants, terms of domestic economy, and, what is more, certain abstract
names (_affre_, _hâte_, _guise_, _orgueil_, &c.), and a good number of
adjectives and verbs.[136]
Looking at this Germanic influence from the point of view of French,
the decadence of Gallic in the fifth century and the preponderance of
Germanic, to omit Latin for the moment, are accomplished facts. But from
the point of view of the fourth and fifth centuries, what we find is that
philologists have never clearly distinguished between those Germanic
words which came in after the third-century invasions and those which
were imported in the fifth century. The fact that most of the Germanic
words recognized in French are Frankish seems to point to the conclusion
that the most important German influence came with Chlodowig—i.e.
after our period. Here, then, is a point which we would recommend for
philological research: an estimation of the relative importance of
Germanic influence in Gaul, after the third-century invasions and after
those of the fifth.
Sidonius has given us a few glimpses of Gothic life in Gaul towards the
end of the fifth century. Theodoric, whose ‘civilitas’ he commends,[137]
does not load his table with tasteless profusion: ‘maximum tunc pondus
in verbis est’. And it is to his credit that in his case, ‘cibi arte,
non pretio placent’.[138] A wise balance is kept: ‘videas ibi elegantiam
Graecam, abundantiam Gallicanam, celeritatem Italam.’ He does not go
in for those cheap amusements which were all too common as meal-time
entertainments: there is no hydraulic organ, no choir, no flute, or lyre
or performing girl.[139] If we take this with Salvian’s panegyrics on the
morals of the Goths, it may not perhaps be unjustifiable to conclude that
the Gothic element gave some stability to the moral education of Southern
Gaul.
Intellectually, too, they stood high. It is not without significance
that Arbogast (391-2) made his nominee for the Empire a former teacher
of rhetoric. Seronatus speaks of ‘literature among the Goths’,[140]
and Sidonius praises Arbogast, who, though ‘potor Mosellae’ is famous
for his Roman eloquence and commits no barbarism, in spite of living
among barbarians.[141] The greater part of the nobility understood
Latin well, though Gothic was probably spoken in ordinary intercourse.
The lower classes among the Goths understood Latin very imperfectly.
At the collapse of the conspiracy vaguely mentioned by Sidonius[142]
an interpreter is used. The persons concerned were clearly Goths. And
Ennodius speaks of an interpreter at an interview between Euric and
Epiphanius, when the latter made a speech in Latin.[143] But Latin was
preponderant. It was the language of diplomacy[144] and legislation;
it was the language of a mighty civilization, and of Placidia, the wife
of Ataulf. Theodoric II was trained by Avitus in Latin literature, and
Euric encourages the teaching of classical literature. Lampridius sang
in praise of the Gothic kings at Bordeaux, and Leo, Euric’s minister,
was famous as a rhetorician. In fact, the Visigothic court became the
last refuge of Roman letters.[145] Nor did the activity of the Goths end
with literature. In 484, feeling the complexity and difficulty of the
Theodosian code, they called a conference of lawyers and ecclesiastics
who produced an abridged form, with interpretations, which was
destined[146] to replace the older code throughout the country occupied
by the Goths. That there were schools of jurisprudence in this part,
notably at Arles, we gather from Sidonius.[147] Fauriel thinks this
revised form, published A.D. 506, bore traces of the Germanic spirit and
tradition, and was, in comparison with the Roman code, ‘plus concise et
mieux rédigée’.
There is no doubt that a large number of people in Gaul welcomed the
government of the Goths, whose influence was thereby extended to the
classes whose interest did not reach to books and codes. For the poor,
crushed by the cast-iron imperial system, looked to the Goths as their
deliverers, and the middle classes, oppressed with taxation, welcomed
any change, while many eagerly sought the service of the Gothic
government.[148] ‘Sed Gothicam fateor pacem me esse secutum’, says
Paulinus of Pella,[149] who, though a nobleman, preferred Gothic rule,
because he felt how uncertain imperial protection was becoming. He also
mentions the ‘summa humanitas’ which the Goths showed in shielding the
people on whom they were billeted.[150] Generally speaking, he was
satisfied with Gothic rule: it was quite profitable, in spite of his many
and great sufferings.[151]
Under these circumstances it was easy to forget Rome. ‘Rome était si loin
de Bordeaux’, remarks Rocafort.[152] And so Gallo-Romans very often came
to treat their Gothic neighbours on terms of friendliness and equality.
But among the upper classes of the Gallo-Romans generally Roman pride was
still very strong. They held high offices at the court of the barbarians,
for whom they cherished a secret contempt, or else retired to their great
châteaux[153] (ruins of which are still to be seen[154]) and bewailed
to one another the encroachment of the Goths, who retained, to a large
extent, their lawless and roving instinct. There is a feeling that
literature and religion (in both of which we see, though in different
degrees, the growth of a ceremonious externalism) are the only things
left. Sidonius asks Basilius to see to it that the bishops obtain the
right of ordination in those parts which the Goths have taken, so that
there may be, at any rate, a religious if not a political bond.[155] And
both in religion and literature they despised the Goths. For the Goths
were Arians, and their jargon was barbarous. The well-known epigram of
the Latin Anthology[156] expresses the attitude of mind:
Inter _hails_ goticum, _scap jah matjan jah drigkan_
non audet quisquam dignos educere versus.
How can one write poetry, exclaims Sidonius, among people who put rancid
oil on their hair? ‘The Muse of the six-foot metre has scorned her task,
since the appearance of patrons seven feet high.’[157] And to Philagrius
he confesses: ‘barbaros vitas quia mali putentur: ego etiamsi boni’.[158]
How sensitive men of Sidonius’s class were to the charge of barbarism we
may see from Avitus’s letter to Viventiolus.[159] Rumour whispers that
in one of his sermons he has slipped into a ‘barbarism’, and his friends
are openly criticizing. ‘I confess’, says the bishop with wounded pride,
‘that such a thing may have happened to me. Any learning I may have had
in more youthful years is now the spoil of age, “omnia fert aetas”’—a
Virgilian quotation to indicate that, in spite of his profession to his
friend, his ‘studia litterarum’ still remain to mark his culture. The
barbarism at issue is the quantity of the middle syllable of ‘potitur’,
to which he devotes most of the letter.
Thus to the nobleman of the fifth century, even if he was a churchman
and might, therefore, be expected to take the wider Christian view,
culture meant something essentially Roman. By the side of this Roman
culture Germanic influence must seem small, and yet, when we remember the
attitude of men like Paulinus of Pella to the Goths, and allow a margin
for Sidonius’s prejudice, it cannot seem unimportant in the civilization
of Gaul.
5. ROMANIZATION OF GAUL
Having glanced at the negative side of Gallic Romanization, it is
important to look a little closer at the positive side, in order to form
an idea of the extent of Gallo-Roman education.
How mighty the Roman impress was is seen in the many Roman roads,
the amphitheatres, the inscriptions where Gauls very often appear as
priests of Rome and Augustus, in the famous altar at Lyons, mentioned by
Juvenal,[160] on which the sixty peoples of Gallia Comata inscribed their
names after the pacification of the country by Drusus in 12 B.C., and
which formed the common sanctuary for the province, and was the scene of
regular rhetorical contests in Latin and in Greek.[161] And the speech of
Claudius to the Senate[162] shows how eager the emperors were to speed on
the rapidly advancing Romanization of Gaul.
Traditionally, Aquitaine was the first to be Romanized. Ammianus remarks
that the shores of the Aquitanians were easily accessible to merchants,
and that their characters were soon degraded to effeminacy, so that
they easily passed under Roman domination.[163] But Lyons was the real
centre of systematic Romanization. Thence Latin spread widely among the
Gauls, who have left us no record of their Gallic Latin.[164] By the
fifth century the victory of Latin was complete. It was the language of
civilization, of government, of society. Slaves brought from all parts of
the world made a common language between master and servant a necessity.
Soldiers settled in Gaul spread its influence. Finally, it was the
official language of the Church and (a fact which was most important for
its propagation) of the School.[165]
It is a tribute to the thoroughness of Caesar’s work that when Classicus
rebelled in A.D. 70[166] his associates were two Julii, one of whom
tried to pass himself off as a descendant of the Dictator, while the
other assumed the insignia of the Roman Emperor. So mighty was the
Roman name that even its enemies in attacking it desired a part of its
glory. ‘Between Classicus and the first Buonaparte’, says Freeman,[167]
‘no man again dreamed of an Empire of the Gauls.’ And Strabo had some
justification when he spoke of the Gauls as δεδουλωμένοι καὶ ζῶντες κατὰ
τὰ προστάγματα τῶν ἑλόντων αὐτοὺς Ῥωμαίων.[168]
Not that the feeling against Rome entirely disappeared. The Gauls
objected to the luxury of the Roman emperors,[169] and we have such
incidents as the Treveri shutting their gates to Decentius, brother
of Magnentius.[170] Lampridius speaks of ‘Gallicanae mentes ... durae
ac pertorridae, et saepe imperatoribus graves’.[171] Zosimus tells
us that after the fall of the usurper Constantine[172] in A.D. 411
the whole of the Armorican land cast out its Roman rulers. But in the
main the Roman machine worked efficiently enough by keeping the border
tribes busy with feuds among themselves, and the mass of the people
with oppressive exactions. There are many references to the loyalty of
Gaul, from the exulting cry of Cicero in the _Philippics_[173] to the
enthusiasm of Rutilius Namatianus. Pliny[174] calls Narbonensis ‘Italia
verius quam provincia’. Claudian represents the whole of Gaul as fighting
for Stilicho,[175] Gaul which supplies the Empire with soldiers.[176]
Before him the panegyrists of the emperors—the majority of whom were
Gauls—had been loud in their testimonies of Gaul’s loyalty. The orator
of Autun[177] boasts (A.D. 311) that his city, rejoicing then in the
imperial title of ‘Flavia Aeduorum’, had been the only one to join the
Romans of its own free will—though Caesar records the subjugation of the
Aedui in much the same way as that of the other tribes. Of purer fidelity
than Massilia or Saguntum, the Aedui are ‘ingenua et simplici caritate
fratres populi Romani’. The hollowness of the speaker’s rhetoric deceives
no one; but it shows that there was at least a large part of Gaul which
considered such speeches ‘the correct thing’, and that confidence in
Rome’s destiny was widely felt: the fate-appointed eternal city,
whose menacing enemies had all been rooted out.[178] Much more genuine
is Rutilius. He feels that Gaul is his native country,[179] but the
enthusiasm he shows for Rome is more than the mere official utterance of
a Praefect of the City. There is real inspiration in his lines, in spite
of Gibbon’s opinion that he was only an ‘ingenious traveller’.[180]
Te canimus semperque, sinent dum fata, canemus:
sospes nemo potest immemor esse tui,
obruerint citius scelerata oblivia solem,
quam tuus ex nostro corde recedat honos.[181]
Even if conquered peoples chafe under the yoke of Rome at first, Rutilius
is confident that it is all for their good:
Profuit invitis, te dominante, capi.
The great achievement of the Empire is that it made a city of the world:
‘urbem fecisti quod prius orbis erat’. Rome, he maintains, is greater
than her deeds: ‘Quod regnas minus est quam quod regnare mereris’. And as
her buildings dazzle his sight, he exclaims in admiration:
Ipsos crediderim sic habitare deos.[182]
The whole of Gaul was not equally loyal. While the South remained
predominantly Roman to the end, the North, ‘audax Germania’, Claudian
calls it,[183] was less friendly, and its hostility increased as time
went on.
The Aeduan panegyrist, who implores help for the future from the Emperor
Constantine, while he thanks him for the benefits of the past, shows
the bearing of physical features upon this difference between North
and South.[184] In contrast with the cultivated fields of the South,
its ‘viae faciles’, its ‘navigera flumina’, we find in Belgica ‘vasta
omnia, inculta squalentia, multa tenebrosa, etiam militaris vias ita
confragosas et alternis montibus arduas atque praecipites, ut vix
semiplena carpenta, interdum vacua, transmittant’. The roads are very bad
(_regionum nostrarum aditum atque aspectum tam foedum tamque asperum_),
and even an ardent panegyrist must admit that loyalty is damped, when,
in addition to an exiguous harvest, you must experience difficulties of
transport. It is remarkable how important a part the road plays in the
Roman Empire, one way or another. Here, barbarism on the one hand and bad
roads on the other proved a formidable combination against civilization.
It is not surprising to find, therefore, that as we go north traces of
Gallo-Roman schools become fewer, inscriptions bearing on education
almost non-existent, and Greek almost unknown.
But the testimony of literature to the Romanization of Gaul is far
less eloquent than that of the extant remains. The modern traveller in
Provence might well be tempted to exclaim with Pliny ‘Italia verius quam
provincia’. The theatres and amphitheatres at Fréjus and Arles, the arch
and theatre at Orange, the temple of Augustus and Livia at Vienne, and
above all the Maison Carrée, the Porta Augusta and the Thermae at Nîmes,
and the neighbouring Pont du Gard, challenge comparison with the great
buildings of Italy and even of Rome herself. And these are but the most
notable examples of evidence which may be found in less degree in almost
every village of Provence.
Outside the ‘old province’, though the evidence is naturally less
impressive in bulk and less widely spread in area, yet the walls and
gates of Autun, the amphitheatre at Paris, the Porte de Mars at Reims,
the arch at Langres, the Porte Noire and amphitheatre at Besançon, and
the theatre at remote Lillebonne, tell the tale of Roman influence on the
Tres Galliae; and to these must be added the great buildings of Trèves
which, as an imperial capital, occupies a place apart.
And what is writ large on these great monuments is written no less
unmistakably in the contents of the French museums. That of the
world-famous statues of Venus three come from Narbonensis is significant
of the taste of Gallic connoisseurs. These great masterpieces were of
course imported, but the discoveries at Martres Tolosanes attest the
existence of local schools of sculpture.[185] Even if the reliefs of
Gallic tombstones in the north and centre diverge somewhat sharply from
the Roman convention in preferring the naturalistic to the allegorical
in their choice of subject, yet the form is predominantly classical. And
the readiness of Gaul to learn the industrial arts of Italy is strikingly
proved by its pottery. The manufacture of the red ‘Arretine’ ware or
‘terra sigillata’ was already flourishing among the Ruteni in the first
century A.D., and met with such success that it was actually exported to
Italy, and finally displaced the home product.[186] In this useful if
humble art, Gaul, like Greece, took captive her captor.
The causes of this all but complete Romanization are not far to seek.
The sword of Caesar was mighty and its argument efficient. Part of this
argument the Romans always retained, but as time went on they mingled
diplomacy with their militarism. The altar at Lyons had its persuasive
side, though the spirit that moved the orator’s tongue was no doubt
quickened by the scourge and the river in the background. Yet imperial
policy is as clearly seen here as in the utterances of the panegyrists,
who are regularly employed to publish the prince’s praises. Caracalla’s
extension of the citizenship to provincials is part of the same policy
(A.D. 212).
Not to exterminate the barbarian tribes, but to bring them within
the Empire as cultivators and soldiers, was the aim of the later
emperors[187]—an aim which they sometimes followed with ruthless
cruelty.[188] Of Constantine the panegyrist says that he entirely cleared
Batavia of the Franks who had occupied it, and made them live among
Romans, so that they might lose not only their arms but also their savage
temper.[189] He brought the barbarous Franks from their original homes
in the distant North to till the soil and to fill the armies of the Roman
Empire.[190]
Moreover, as Glover[191] remarks, the schoolmaster of the West was the
ally of the Empire. The elaborate system of imperial protection in the
schools had in view the important object of Romanizing the growing
generation. Besides, by increasing lines of communication, by rendering
news and books accessible, by making intercourse secure, the emperors
helped forward Roman influence. The security which the provincial felt in
the protection of the Eternal City was one of the strongest pillars of
loyalty. The effect of Alaric’s success upon minds like those of Jerome
and Augustine, critical as they were of Pagan Rome, is some measure of
the confidence which people felt in her power. Yet even after Rome had
deserted the Gauls in the great invasions of the fifth century, we have
the picture of Sidonius’s passionate ardour for the Roman name and his
bitter grief when he ceased to be a Roman citizen in 475.
‘Birth in the Gallic provinces during the fourth century brought with
it no sense of provincial inferiority. Society was thoroughly Roman,
and education and literature more vigorous, so far as we can judge,
than in any other part of the West.’[192] While we agree with this in
the main, it may be questioned whether the Roman did not sometimes tend
to look on the Gaul as a mere provincial. In the first century we find
Pliny saying that he is pleased to hear that his books are being sold
at Lyons, where he evidently does not expect so civilized a thing as
a book-shop.[193] Symmachus, in the fourth century, writes[194] to a
friend in Gaul ‘rusticari te asseris ... non hoc litterae tuae sapiunt’,
and adds sarcastically ‘nisi forte Gallia tua dedux Heliconis’. And
Cassiodorus (sixth century) implies that there were some who thought
that Latin literature should be confined to Rome. ‘You have found Roman
eloquence’ he writes to a friend, ‘not in its native place, and you have
learned oratory from your Cicero in the country of the Celts. What are
we to think of those who maintain that Latin must be learnt at Rome and
Rome only? Liguria too sends forth her Ciceros.’[195] A protest of this
kind as late as the sixth century suggests that the idea of provincialism
was pretty strong. One of the panegyrists,[196] a Gaul[197] of uncertain
name,[198] illustrates this same tendency. And though his words are
probably as insincere as his praise of the Emperor, yet they imply a
tradition which he found it expedient to recognize.
‘Full well I know how much we provincials lack of Roman intelligence.
For, indeed, to speak correctly and eloquently is the Roman’s birthright
... our speech must ever flow from their fountain.’[199]
6. ROMAN EDUCATION IN GAUL BEFORE THE FOURTH CENTURY A.D.
The extent of Romanization in Gaul gives us a general idea of the
influence of Roman civilization in that country; for wherever the Roman
went he spread his culture. It remains to investigate very briefly the
traces of actual schools and teachers in the times that lead up to the
fourth and fifth centuries.
As early as the first century B.C. we hear of Gaul in connexion
with education. ‘In provincias quoque’, says Suetonius, ‘Grammatica
penetraverat, ac nonnulli de notissimis doctoribus peregre docuerunt,
maxime in Gallia Togata.’[200] Tacitus made all the speakers in his
dialogue on Famous Orators Gauls,[201] except Vipstanus Messalla, and
Suetonius tells of many Gallic teachers: Marcus Antonius Gnipho, who
taught in the house of Julius Caesar and is said to have had Cicero among
his pupils;[202] Valerius Cato (first century B.C.), a Gallic freedman,
known as ‘the Latin siren’, who wrote a book called _Indignatio_, and
taught many youths of high rank, being especially famous as a teacher of
poetry;[203] and Claudius Quirinalis of Arles,[204] who taught with great
success in the first century A.D.
Schools were widely spread. ‘Il n’y a pas lieu de douter’, says
Bouquet,[205] ‘qu’il n’y eût dès lors (first century A.D.) autant
d’écoles publiques qu’il y avait de villes principales.’ Narbonne,
stirred by the culture of the neighbouring Massilia,[206] Arles, Vienne,
Toulouse, Autun, Lyons, the scene of Caligula’s famous rhetorical
contests and the imperial seat before Trèves and Arles, Trèves, Nîmes,
Bordeaux, and a large number of other towns, ‘cultivated learning
and produced great men’. Jullian thinks that Bourges was probably a
scholastic centre of some importance.[207] Claudius, the Emperor,
remarked: ‘insignes viros e Gallia Narbonensi transivisse’.[208]
Tradition says that Toulouse was called Palladia on account of its love
of letters,[209] and Martial rejoices that his poems are so widely
read at Vienne.[210] It may not be mere rhetoric when Tacitus says
that Roman education came to Britain from Gaul, and that Agricola, in
his attempt to Romanize the Britanni, took a particular interest in
their education.[211] ‘Iam vero principum filios liberalibus artibus
erudire, et ingenia Britannorum studiis Gallorum anteferre,[212] ut qui
modo linguam Romanam abnuebant, eloquentiam concupiscerent.’ Thus the
educational influence of Gaul was early great.
During the second century education continued to flourish. Lucian[213]
introduces a Gaul οὐκ ἀπαίδευτος τὰ ἡμέτερα ... ἀκριβῶς Ἑλλάδα φωνὴν
ἀφιείς, φιλόσοφος, ὡς οἶμαι, τὰ ἐπιχώρια, who discourses in learned
fashion on the question whether Mercury or Hercules should be the patron
god of the art of speaking. It was the time of the wandering rhetor—‘die
zweite Sophistik’—and Greek flourished under the patronage of the
philhellenic Hadrian. Aulus Gellius has left us a picture of the pupils
escorting the sophist from place to place. ‘Nos ergo familiares eius
circumfusi undique eum prosequebamur domum’;[214] and in the case of
Favorinus at Rome they went about with him ‘spellbound, as it were, by
his eloquence’.[215] Intercourse was quite free and easy and not always
serious: ‘in litteris amoenioribus et in voluptatibus pudicis honestisque
agitabamus.’[216] These literary clubs set the fashion for the rhetorical
schools and perpetuated the distinctive methods of the Greek- and
Latin-speaking sophist-rhetorician—‘rhetoricus sophista, utriusque
linguae callens’.[217]
Almost all records of the Gallic rhetors during this interesting period
have been lost. The letters of Valerius Paulinus, of Geminus, of
Trebonius Rufinus to the younger Pliny, the orations of the lawyers,
the books of the famous philosopher Favorinus, the poems of Sentius
Augurinus, have all perished. Only the work of L. Annaeus Florus has come
down to us.[218] Yet the general trend of education may be discerned.
If one great feature of this century was the wandering sophist, another
was the power of the Christian religion, whose influence went forth
from Lyons in particular, where Irenaeus was predominant. ‘Christi
religio novam admovit oratorum ingenio facem.’[219] This influence has
been exaggerated, especially by eighteenth-century writers. One of them
lays stress on the revival of the finer accomplishments as a result of
this influence, and on the dignity and polish of language in which the
Christian writers agreed with the ancients.[220] This is manifestly an
overstatement: the Church on the whole had neither the time nor the
inclination to pay much attention to ‘elegantiora studia’; its attention
was directed to the search for truth and it is hence that its real
inspiration to education came.
We find imperial interest in education during this period beginning to
take a more definite form. Antoninus Pius gives teachers’ salaries and
honours,[221] and fixes the number of rhetors in each town. No doubt the
influence of M. Cornelius Fronto, the famous tutor of Marcus Aurelius,
the model of succeeding generations of orators, told in this direction.
In a fragment of this teacher we have a reference which seems to point
to schools in the North during the second century. He speaks of Reims
(_Durocortorum_) as ‘illae vestrae Athenae’[222], and it would not be
surprising if the imperial policy had selected this important frontier
town as a centre of Romanization, just as it afterwards patronized Trèves
for the same purpose.
In the third century a large number of churches sprang up, whose
educational value among the people must have been important.[223] Pagan
letters, on the other hand, had been showing signs of decline since
the end of the second century. Under Caracalla, who in his hatred for
literature put to death many men of education,[224] culture sank still
lower. It is true that Alexander Severus was a patron of literature[225]
and founded schools[226] and fixed salaries, but the general trend of
education was one of decline. Barbarian invasions and civil unrest
increased this tendency.[227] And so Gaul was disorganized, and amid her
disorder education grew feeble. But when in 292 Gaul passed under the
government of Constantius Chlorus, interest in culture revived and grew
strong. Constantius fixed his abode at Trèves and actively set himself to
aid the cause of education. The school of Massilia was declining, but,
on the whole, Gallic education grew and gained individuality. Eumenius
has told us at length how much the Gallic youth owed to his interest and
protection (_incredibilem erga iuventutem Galliarum suarum sollicitudinem
atque indulgentiam_), and how thankful he is to the Emperor who
transferred him ‘from the secrets of the imperial chambers (he had been
Magister Memoriae) to the private shrines of the Muses’.[228]
Autun is mentioned by Tacitus[229] as a centre of education in the time
of Tiberius: ‘nobilissimam Galliarum subolem, liberalibus studiis ibi
operatam’. It flourished until the last quarter of the third century,
when it was destroyed by the plundering Bagaudae.[230] Eumenius
pleads earnestly with the Emperor for the restoration of the famous
Maeniana,[231] ‘vetustissima post Massiliam bonarum artium sedes,’[232]
the university of the North even, perhaps, in pre-Roman[233] days, just
as Massilia was of the South—the Latin university of Gaul as Massilia was
the Greek. Of all the Gallic towns, except Lyons, Autun was the soonest
Romanized, though no Roman colony had been sent there.[234] It had the
Aeduan tradition of voluntary friendship with Rome. Its Gallic nobles had
renounced Celtic connexions in favour of Roman civilization. There was a
current legend that Autun had been founded by Hercules; like the Romans,
the Aeduans wanted to establish an ancestry for themselves which did not
smack of barbarism. If Lyons in these days was the political centre, the
intellectual centre was certainly Autun.[235]
PART II
PAGAN EDUCATION
A. THE GENERAL PROSPERITY OF THE SCHOOLS IN THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CENTURIES
‘Gaul’, says Norden in his monumental work,[236] ‘was destined to be, in
a higher measure than the actual mother-country, Italy, the support of
the ancient culture during the time of the Roman Empire and throughout
the Middle Ages. Flooded with barbarians, sown with cloisters, she held
aloft the banner of the traditional education to the glory of herself and
the service of mankind.’
This is true more particularly of the fourth and fifth centuries. For
the impulse given to education at the end of the third century continued
to gather momentum during the fourth. It was a time of peace and quiet
in contrast to the preceding and the succeeding centuries.[237] For
more than a hundred years Aquitaine enjoyed respite from barbarian
invasions. We catch a note of this restfulness in the pages of Ausonius.
‘I kept clear of party-strife and conspiracies: unmarred by them was
the sincerity of my friendships’, is the happy testimony which he puts
into his father’s mouth,[238] and the phrase ‘otium magis foventes quam
studentes gloriae’[239] reflects the placid life of a Bordeaux professor.
Gaul had been reorganized by Maximian and Constantine, and this period
of peace gave splendid opportunities for the development of the imperial
policy and the latinization of Gaul. The Emperors consistently supported
the schools and encouraged literature, which gained such strength that
it overcame even the barbarians. The Visigoths accepted its influence
and attended its schools. Jullian goes so far as to say that it was only
in the fourth century that the victory of Latin letters in Gaul was
complete.[240]
Mamertinus, in his _Gratiarum Actio_ to Julian, contrasts his own time
(A.D. 362) with that of the Republic, of which he says ‘nullum iam
erat bonarum artium studium’. Military labours and the study of law
were despised, in spite of the fact that there were men like Manlius
and Scaevola. Moreover, ‘the study of oratory was despised by the big
men of the time as being too laborious and unpractical a matter’.[241]
But _now_, under Julian, all this is different and the age of gold has
returned.
The orator is working up to a rhetorical climax, and the first part of
his picture is consequently grossly warped and exaggerated. But the
central fact of the advancement of studies is clear and incontestable.
Were it not true the rhetorician would not have dared to use such
language to a man like Julian.
Moreover, it was the age of the ‘ecclesia triumphans’, and this meant
fresh ideals and the access of energy (not always wisely spent) that
comes from such inspiration. In the fourth century, and more particularly
in the fifth, there was an intellectual activity in theological and
philosophical subjects which produced a new interest in education and
built up the rampart that saved culture from entire barbarization during
the darkness of the succeeding centuries. The Church, while it rejoiced
in the overthrow of paganism, and with its enmity to paganism often
joined a hostility to pagan letters, was nevertheless the instrument of
saving the literature and the culture which it opposed. And so, when we
hear Jerome’s exultant cry at the triumph of Christianity, we hear also
the victory shout of Roman civilization.
‘All the Roman temples’, says Jerome, ‘are covered with soot and cobwebs.
They who once were the gods of nations are left in desolation with the
owls and night-birds on the house-tops.... Now has even the Egyptian
Serapis become Christian ... from India and Persia and Ethiopia we daily
receive multitudes of monks; the Armenian has laid aside his quivers, the
Huns learn the Psalms, the cold of Scythia is warm with the glow of our
Faith.’[242] The Roman nobles, who set the fashion in education, were
coming over to the Church in great numbers. ‘Gracchus, an urban prefect,
whose name boasts his patrician rank, has received baptism.’[243]
Paulinus of Nola, Honoratus of Lérins, Salvian, Eucherius, Sidonius,
all leaders of Christianity, were all of noble rank. Even Ausonius
professed[244] to be a Christian.
In these circumstances it is not surprising to find many indications of
flourishing studies in Gaul during this period. Roman Gaul, enriched by
its background of Greek, of Celtic, of Germanic influence, became at
length greater than Rome itself. Eumenius is ready to spend his salary on
the rebuilding of the Maeniana at Autun.[245] In Ausonius’s family there
is much interest in education. His father gives the impression of having
been a cultured physician,[246] and his grandfather, Arborius, was a
student of astrology.
Tu caeli numeros et conscia sidera fati
callebas, studium dissimulanter agens.
non ignota tibi nostrae quoque formula vitae,
signatis quam tu condideras tabulis.[247]
His aunt Aemilia lived a single life devoted to the study of
medicine.[248] Herculanus, his nephew, was a teacher at Bordeaux, though
he wandered from the straight path,[249] while the fame of his uncle
Arborius, the rhetorician, reached as far as Constantinople.[250] In 398
Claudian could use _doctus_ as a conventional epithet of the citizens of
Gaul.[251] It had long been the custom of the Romans to employ Gallic
teachers, and it is a striking testimony to the pre-eminence of the
schools of Gaul that Symmachus, the crusty old patrician, conservative
of the pagan conservatives, should desire to have a Gallic tutor for his
son at Rome.[252] He is not ashamed to confess his debt to Gaul. ‘I must
confess that I miss the fountain of Gallic eloquence. All my skill (and
I know its limitations) I owe to Gaul.’[253] If Rome had retained her
former importance as an educational centre, if there had been the least
chance of backing her against Gaul, this ardent lover of the Eternal
City would certainly have done so. But Gaul at this time was rather
like Scotland from Hume to Scott: a junior partner, but with a literary
culture of her own that imparted to her a superior excellence.
Turning to Christian writers, we find the same testimony to the
prosperity of Gallic studies. Now this prosperity had two aspects.
There was the height to which men like Paulinus and Sidonius rose in
the attainment of knowledge, and there was the width to which the
interest in reading the pamphlets of the Church Fathers extended. But
that there was a great and increasing interest in education cannot be
denied. Neither conservative haughtiness towards the provinces (as far
as it survived) nor the hatred of religious zeal could ignore the fact.
More than once Jerome in his _Chronicle_ uses the word _florentissime_
in this connexion,[254] and to Rusticus he writes that he has heard of
his education at Rome, ‘post studia Galliarum quae vel florentissima
sunt’.[255] Paulinus of Pella and his namesake of Nola, whom Ausonius
taught, together with men like Prosper of Aquitaine,[256] leaders in the
Christian world, all owed their early training to the flourishing pagan
schools of Gaul.
Among the nobility letters were highly prized. Sidonius reminds Syagrius
of his descent from a poet to whom letters would certainly have given
statues.[257] He admires the learning of the praefectorian Paul, the
subtleties he propounds, his elaborate figures, the polish of his verses,
the cunning of his fingers.[258] In him he sees ‘studiorum omnium
culmen’. At a dinner given on the occasion of the games, the Emperor
Severus engaged in a literary conversation with an ex-consul.[259]
Even Seronatus aspires to literary culture and talks about ‘Literature
among the Goths’.[260] In fact, owing largely to the zeal of Ecdicius,
the nobility was now becoming familiar with oratorical and poetical
style.[261] Thus, in spite of the invasions, the schools of the fifth
century prosper and cultivate all the branches of learning prescribed by
the rhetorical tradition.[262]
Three tendencies have been distinguished among the Christian schools
of this period[263]: that of Sidonius which is ‘essentially heathen
with a veneer of churchmanship’; that of men like Paulinus of Nola, who
‘jealously guards his pupils from contamination by the Gentile classics’;
and that of ‘the wiser and more catholic teachers’ such as Hilary of
Poitiers and Sulpicius Severus (in his _Chronicon_), who are liberal
enough to imitate and benefit by the older pagan literature.[264]
All these sides of Christian education show an activity which corresponds
to that of the pagan schools and outlives it. Sidonius’s letters present
an interest in literature which is very often shallow, but never slack.
He is continually sending round specimens of his literary efforts
to his friends, and is assiduous in writing polished epitaphs[265]
or inscriptions that will live on the plate if not in the memory of
men.[266] There is one thing that his friends must never neglect, the
reading of many books: ‘opus est ut sine dissimulatione lectites, sine
fine lecturias’.[267]
Even among the stricter Christians there was generally an interest
in learning outside theology. ‘In the East and in the West’, says
Montalembert,[268] ‘literary culture, without being by right inseparably
attached to the religious profession, became in fact a constant habit
and a special distinction of the greater number of monasteries.’ In
every monastery there was established, as time went on, a library, a
studio for copying manuscripts and a school. The monasteries, in fact,
became schools where science and profane learning were taught, as well
as theology, and where Latin was studied at the same time with Hebrew
and Greek.[269] This teaching was sometimes primitive and defective, and
the picture is not so glowing as Montalembert suggests; but there were,
at any rate, the beginnings of better things, the interest in education,
and the means of protecting a valuable culture. The letters of Jerome to
the Gallic women who ask him questions about the scriptures,[270] and
his letters to Laeta on the education of her daughter Paula,[271] are
indications of a similar activity, no less than Caesarius’s exhortations
to reading and study,[272] the Christian pamphlets on difficult points
which passed from hand to hand,[273] and Eucherius’s list of answers to
the questions of his son Salonius.[274] The pedagogic significance of
such works of exposition is apparent.[275]
The tendencies to exclude and to imitate pagan literature sometimes merge
into each other in the same writer. It was difficult for the Christian
teachers to make up their minds definitely about pagan literature,
placed as they were, in a time of extreme partisanship, between the
attractiveness of pagan letters and the repulsiveness of pagan faith
and practice. But if we are to distinguish a class of moderate men and
take Sulpicius Severus as a type (though outside the _Chronicon_ his
opposition to pagan literature is aggressively stated[276]) we may
maintain that the middle party, too, was interested in culture and not
cooled in its ardour by the moderation it displayed. Sulpicius makes
Postumianus describe how widely the _Life of Martin_ was read. Taken from
Gaul to Rome, it travelled thence to Carthage, Alexandria, Nitria, the
Thebaid, Memphis. Even in the middle of the African desert an old man was
found reading it.[277] The Church, therefore, had its share in Gaul’s
widespread interest in education during this time.[278]
The evidence of the inscriptions is disappointing. With such a general
interest in culture we should have expected more frequent references to
teachers and their activities. As it is, we find only a few inscriptions,
and those in Southern Gaul, that bear on the subject. There is the
epitaph of a grammarian at Vienne,[279] and the lament of a woman for her
foster-son, whom she had educated, in the same town.[280]
‘(Infel)icissima (qu)ae ... quem vice fili educavit et studiis
liberalibus produxit, sed [iniqua stella et genesis mala!]
qui se (i.e. vita matura) non est frunitus, nec quod illi
destinatum erat; sed quod potuit mulier infelix et sibi viva
cum eo posuit et sub ascia dedic(avit).’
At Lyons there has been discovered a reference to the _martyrium_, the
famous Church or Church-school dedicated to Irenaeus. ‘In hoc tomolo
requiiscit bone (= bonae) memoriae Domenicus (= Dominicus) innocens qui
vixsit in pace annus (= annos) quinqui (= quinque) et in martirio (=
martyrio) annus septe(m) obiit quinto decemo Kalendas Mar. indic(tio)
decema.’[281] Dominicus studied here for seven years. Boissieu suggests
that he may have been one of the ‘caterva scholasticorum’ at the feast of
St. Just described by Sidonius.[282]
If Gaul as a whole was so famous for education, it is worth while
inquiring which the particular centres of Gallic culture were.
It is evident that Aquitaine was the most distinguished of the provinces.
We have seen that Jerome expressly mentions its teachers;[283] and
Sulpicius Severus makes the Gaul in his _Dialogues_ apologize for the
rusticity which Aquitanians must needs find in his speech.[284] Aquitaine
was the focus of Roman culture, the marrow of Gaul, as Salvian calls
it.[285] Symmachus mentions a certain Dusarius, a professor of medicine
in Aquitaine,[286] and many of Ausonius’s professors taught there:
Staphylius at Auch,[287] Tetradius in Angoulême,[288] Anastasius[289] and
Rufus[290] at Poitiers, and Arborius at Toulouse, on the border.[291]
But the most famous city of Aquitaine, the intellectual capital of
Gaul during the fourth century, was Bordeaux. There had been a gradual
evolution of schools to the West.[292] Massilia, with the schools of the
South-East, which were largely dependent on her influence, was declining,
and her power passed to the West, and, in a lesser degree, to the North.
Bordeaux had been a great commercial centre[293] in the three previous
centuries. It was the point at which goods were transhipped for the
river traffic to the Mediterranean.[294] It had a flourishing trade with
Spain and Britain, and many visitors came from Germany and the East.
This traffic brought riches and the bustle of commerce. Buildings and
monuments sprang up. But there comes a change. Towards the middle of the
third century, when the emperors were weak and military discipline slack,
the Barbarians renewed their attacks. For some twenty years Gaul defended
herself; but the imperial protection grew feebler, and in 273 she was
abandoned to the invaders. They arrived in Aquitaine in 276 or 277, and
Bordeaux shared in the general devastation. The ruin was terrible; though
not described by the historians, its traces remain to the present day.
‘L’œuvre de trois siècles disparut en quelques jours.’[295]
From the ruins a new Bordeaux rose. Her previous activities were
suspended; her commerce failed. The desire for money was changed into a
desire for knowledge, and there was no loss of intensity. Jullian[296]
remarks on the frequency of such a transformation among the great cities
of history. Carthage, Antioch, Alexandria, Athens, Massilia passed
through similar changes. The school was the last phase of their life. And
so Bordeaux from being an ‘emporium’ became an ‘auditorium’.
There is no doubt that the school of Bordeaux (about which we naturally
know more than about all the rest together) became famous in the
fourth century, but when exactly it was founded we cannot tell. There
must have been many elementary schools previously, though no trace
is left. Funeral monuments show children carrying the rolls of the
grammarian’s school; but they may be representations of slave-teachers
attached to the household. Probably the school of Bordeaux was founded
by Maximian and Constantius at the beginning of the fourth century.
For then, particularly, after the failure of imperial protection,
it was a necessary part of imperial policy to revive the confidence
and goodwill of the Gauls. It may be noted, too, that the professors
whom Ausonius commemorates had mostly died during his lifetime; which
seems to show that the professorial régime at Bordeaux belonged to
the fourth century;[297] for Ausonius in the Preface and the Epilogue
to his _Commemoratio_ certainly gives the impression that he is going
through the whole list of the ‘professores Burdigalenses’ as a duty
(_officium_[298]) which is inspired by ‘carae relligio patriae’.[299]
Thus it was that Aquitaine became ‘le dernier refuge des lettres
antiques’.[300]
If Bordeaux was the intellectual, Trèves (and afterwards, Arles) was the
political capital of Gaul during this period; and the presence of the
emperors in those cities naturally fostered education, for education
(as has been pointed out) was part of the imperial programme. As the
fourth century went on Trèves eclipsed Autun ‘sedem illam liberalium
artium’,[301] which had flourished exceedingly under Eumenius at the
beginning of the century, but seems to have declined after his death. The
imperial decrees were particularly partial to Trèves. It is as though the
emperors felt the need of an intellectual as well as a military outpost
on the German frontier. But in spite of every favour and facility, in
spite of a brilliant court and fine buildings, this object was never
accomplished. Owing to its mixed and fluctuating population and its
position on the border, it remained a predominantly military town.[302]
Nevertheless its schools were famous, and Ausonius associates it with
Roman rhetoric:
Aemula te Latiae decorat facundia linguae.[303]
* * * * *
It is curious to find that at the beginning of our period, in which we
have tried to demonstrate the supremacy of the Gallic schools, there was
a tradition that the Gauls were dull and slow of understanding, and that
this opinion persists in the writings of Jerome.
The case of the ‘advocatus diaboli’ may be briefly put. Julian, in his
satire on the citizens of Antioch, constantly speaks of the boorishness
of the Gauls, whom he calls[304] Κελτοί or Γαλάται. To Alypius, the
brother of Caesarius, he writes of the barbarous Muse of Gaul (ταῦτά σοι
Γαλλικὴ καὶ βάρβαρος Μοῦσα προσπαίζει), and in the _Misopogon_ the Celts
(and he is thinking of the Gauls among whom he had lived) are classed
with Syrians, Arabs, Thracians, Paeonians, and Mysians—a stock which is
utterly lacking in culture—ἄγροικον, αὐστηρόν, ἀδέξιον ... ἂ δὴ πάντα
ἐστὶ δείγματα δεινῆς ἀγροικίας.[305] Referring to his residence among the
barbarous Celts like a hunter surrounded by wild beasts,[306] he says he
is ἀγριώτρος than Cato in proportion as the Celts are more uncivilized
than the Romans; and the Antiochean is represented as flinging the
taunt into Julian’s face: ταῦτα ἐνόμισας Θρᾳξὶ νομοθετεῖν ... ἤ τοῖς
ἀναισθήτοις Γαλάταις.[307]
Now all these references are sarcastic: ‘the boorish Gauls could put
up with my eccentricities, but Antioch, forsooth, was too polished and
cultured to tolerate them!’ The satire does not deny the barbarism of
the Gauls; it merely establishes the vanity of the Antiocheans. But the
passages quoted show the ἄγροίκοι is accepted as the current estimation
of the Gauls; and even if Julian did not really believe it, obviously
there was a body of opinion which did. Nor is it mere ἀγροικία, lack
of culture, which may be due to lack of opportunity, that is imputed
to them: it is also ἀναισθησία, dullness, with which they are charged.
This part of the tradition finds support elsewhere. Martial had called
Bordeaux ‘crassa’,[308] and Gallic credulity was proverbial.[309] Jerome
says in his commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians[310] that it was
no wonder they were so stupid, seeing that their ancestors, the Gauls,
had that reputation—‘cum _et_ Hilarius Latinae eloquentiae Rhodanus,
Gallus ipse et Pictavis genitus, in Hymnorum carmine Gallos indociles
vocet’. The _et_ is significant, and also seems to imply a tradition
to the effect that the Gauls were stupid. It is interesting to find
that a French scholar and patriot, who has studied the schools of Gaul
with care, is inclined to accept Martial’s judgement for the smaller
towns.[311]
In estimating the worth of this opinion, we must first of all discount
a good deal of what Julian says. His mind was saturated with Hellenic
philosophy and Hellas was the passion of his life. Hence he naturally
despised Roman culture, and still more the Gauls whom the Romans
contemned. The Greek idea of βάρβαροι would be strong in a mind like
Julian’s. He did not mingle with the provincials; by the liberality of
Eusebia, he says,[312] he was constantly surrounded by Greek books, so
that Gaul and Germany became for him a Μουσεῖον Ἑλληνικόν. He would
therefore be distinctly prejudiced, and incapable of appreciating the
qualities or the culture of the Gallic mind.
Moreover, there is another and an opposite tradition. Caesar distinctly
testifies to their exceptional cleverness: ‘est summae genus sollertiae
atque ad omnia imitanda atque efficienda, quae a quoque traduntur,
aptissimum’,[313] and Diodorus is as clear: ταῖς δὲ διανοίαις ὀξεῖς καὶ
πρὸς μάθησιν οὐκ ἀφυεῖς.[314] Clement of Alexandria, in his attempt
to show that the Greeks by no means had the monopoly of philosophy,
even went so far as to say, with manifest exaggeration, that the
Gauls preceded and instructed the Greeks in philosophy,[315] and
Claudian, disagreeing at any rate with the charge of dullness, in so
far as slowness of spirit is suggested, applied to Gaul the adjective
_animosa_.[316]
Caesar tells us that the Gallic liveliness of spirit manifested itself in
a curiosity about distant lands, an eagerness to learn from travellers,
whom they detained, even against their will, plying them with many
questions on every subject. In the towns a crowd would gather around some
newly arrived merchant and compel him to describe the countries of his
travel and their affairs.[317]
This is the kind of curiosity that makes for knowledge and science,
and it is hard to reconcile with the characteristics of dullness and
stupidity. The width and general soundness of Caesar’s observation gives
to his testimony a value which the other statements lack, for they are
mostly founded on hearsay or particular cases. With regard to Hilary’s
statement, Jung points out that the Pictavi seem from Ausonius to have
been very backward in letters. Eight epigrams are directed against Rufus,
rhetor at Poitiers, jibing at his lack of culture,[318] while another
Pictavian teacher, Anastasius, was not much of a success.[319] ‘Can we
wonder’, he concludes, ‘that Hilary calls the Gauls unteachable in the
singing of hymns, when he himself was born at Poitiers?’[320]
But a tradition applied to a whole nation, and dating from the early
days of the Empire, cannot be explained by a few particular cases.
The motives that prompted particular writers to accept the tradition
may be particular, but its origin must be sought in some more general
principle. It was an attitude of mind, an habitual way of looking at
things that was responsible. It was the ingrained pagan idea of ‘barbari’
(increased, perhaps, in the case of the Gauls by their reputation for
warlike impetuosity),[321] the idea which Christian writers like Paul
and Clement of Alexandria set themselves to combat, the idea of a chosen
people and a chosen culture. It was a habit of mind which did not imply
enmity or hatred: sometimes it did not even imply contempt. It was just
the tradition of superiority (largely true), grown customary in the minds
of a ruling people whose customs and language other nations accepted.
But just because it had an element of truth in it, there was a danger
of its being made universal, a chance that it might blind the ruler to
the individuality of the subject and preclude a sympathetic study of the
provincial. It is this attitude, and its attendant misunderstanding,
together with the general impression which the large number of country
people would make on the dweller in the metropolis, that are responsible
for such judgements as Martial’s _crassa_. But there can be no doubt that
during our period this surprising opinion must have been less commonly
held and less generally applied, in view of Gaul’s growing importance as
a teacher of the Empire.
B. INSIDE THE SCHOOL
(i) THE SUBSTANCE AND METHODS OF PRIMARY EDUCATION
The tradition of the Roman schools was so old, and had been so
whole-heartedly accepted by the Gauls, that we find only scattered
references to the actual details of instruction, and those of a
superficial, allusive kind. For even when we have a man like Ausonius who
deals directly with education, the assumption always is that the reader
is thoroughly familiar with the practical facts of the schools, and the
aim is generally to impress by style or rhetorical device, and never to
give a serious exposition. We must be content, therefore, to fill in the
account with the known facts of Roman education.
We have no lively picture of the Gallic boy going to school, such as
Lucian gives us in the case of Greece. But in our period we possess
something similar in the orations of Libanius, the sophist of Antioch.
He describes how the boy began his day’s work at Antioch in the
fourth century. Having rubbed the sleep from his eyes (ἀφυπνίσας) the
paedagogus wakes the boy and leads him to his studies (ὑπάγει τῷ λύχνῳ).
A great deal depends on these paedagogi, and respect is due to them
(οὕς αἰδεῖσθαι νόμος ἦν). They are next to the teachers in honour (ἐν
τιμαῖς οὗτοι μετὰ τοὺς διδασκάλους), and in some ways their work is
more important; for, whereas the teacher sees the pupil only during
school-hours, the paedagogue is always with him, protecting him from
evil influences (φρουροὶ τῆς ἀνθούσης ἡλικίας ... ἀπελαύοντες τοὺς κακῶς
ἐρῶντας), sharing his labours and taking the father’s place when the
latter has to be away on business for the whole day. He repeats the boy’s
lessons with him, shouts at him, shows him the rod, shakes the strap, and
reminds him by his efforts of the lesson which the master has taught him
(reading ληφθέν). When his charge is ill, he acts as nurse (μικρὸν γὰρ
ἐἰπεῖν τροφούς), sits by the bedside and supplies his wants. The grief of
the paedagogi at the death of their charges is described, and we hear of
memorials erected by them in honour of their wards.[322]
How far exactly all this applied to the Western Empire in general, and to
Gaul in particular, it is impossible to say. But the general similarity
of educational methods throughout the Empire makes a supposition that
something of the kind was found in Gaul in our period almost certain.
Much less vivid and intimate is the picture in Ausonius’s epistle to
his grandson, for it is almost entirely concerned with stereotyped
things—like discipline and school-subjects. Sidonius gives an epitome of
a typical education, in the schools of the Gallic aristocrats. He marks
the literary and poetic home-atmosphere of the cultured noble. Writing
to Constantius he says with rhetorical and unintentionally humorous
exaggeration: ‘And you the Muses took squealing from your mother and
dipped into the glassy waters of Hippocrene. There, beneath the babbling
stream, you then drank liberally letters—not water.’[323] Then came
the actual school: ‘all the training of the grammarian, and all the
instructions of the rhetorician.’ The crown of imperial service was
set upon this training: ‘the court of the prince brought the young man
into prominence.’[324] And, finally, fame was sought in military duties.
Comfort and the charm of delicate and varied delights smiled upon the
boy. Sidonius is enthusiastic about the stories at the dinner-table, the
lampoons and the gaiety of this social atmosphere, the mingled wit and
serious talk[325] which filled the home, and he rejoices in the games
with which it abounded—ball, and hoop and rattling dice:
Hic promens teretes pilas, trochosque,
hic talos crepitantibus fritillis.[326]
The home influence of the Gallic nobleman in creating a literary
interest in his son was probably considerable, in view of the general
honour in which letters were held. Sidonius taught his son comic metres
from Terence and Menander, and apparently the resulting enjoyment was
mutual.[327] When Paulinus of Pella expresses his debt to his parents for
their skill and zeal in educating him, his references are touched with
genuine emotion.[328]
The eager love of parents dear, who knew
To temper study ever with delights
Of relaxation, care that understood
To make me good without severity,
And give advancement to my untrained thought.[329]
The constant discussion of literary topics such as we find in Ausonius
and Sidonius must have made the homes of their class as much of a _ludus
litterarum_ as the schoolroom, just as among the Christians of lower
social standing the lively interest in theological discussion must have
given an impetus in many cases to the thought of the child. Heredity,
too, must have played a part. Families in which the rhetorical education
had become traditional produced children whose minds were naturally
inclined to take an interest in study.
For the sons, therefore, of these noblemen (and in dealing with the
Gallic schools it is with the nobility, chiefly, that we have to do)
home circumstances were an incentive to the activities of the school.
But what, precisely, were these activities? Paulinus of Pella gives a
general description.[330] From his earliest years (_ipsius alphabeti
inter prope prima elementa_[331]) he was taught the meaning and the value
of culture, the ten special marks which distinguish the uneducated,
and all the faults of unsocial or uncultured boorishness (_vitia_
ἀκοινονόητα).[332] He was trained in the classic education of Rome
(_Roma_ ... _servata vetustas_) and found pleasure in it as an old man,
though his age witnessed its decline.[333] He went to school (the school
of Bordeaux made famous by Ausonius) in his sixth year, and was made to
read ‘dogmata Socratus (Σωκράτους) et bellica plasmata Homeri’ together
with the wanderings of Ulysses. Then he passed on to Vergil, which he
found difficult because he had been accustomed to speak his native Greek
to the servants of the house.
Unde labor puero, fateor, fuit hic mihi maior
eloquium librorum ignotae apprehendere linguae.[334]
At fifteen[335] we find him still at the school of the grammarian:
Argolico pariter Latioque instante magistro.[336]
It was just about the age at which he should have passed on to the
rhetorical school, but a fever laid him low, and left him so weak that
the doctor ordered a complete rest.
Such is the general impression that the primary education of the day
made on an ordinary boy; and we may verify his account by comparing with
it the statement of a teacher. After the foundation subjects of the
elementary school comes the faculty of ‘Grammar’. ‘Grammatikê’ is the art
which deals with ‘grammata’ or letters. These mankind invented, ‘trying
to escape from his mortality’, and seeking to get beyond the tyranny of
the passing present. ‘Instead of being content with his spoken words,
ἔπεα πτερόεντα, which fly as a bird flies and are past, he struck out the
plan of making marks on wood or stone or bone or leather or some other
material, significant marks, which should somehow last on charged with
meaning, in place of the word that had perished.’[337] The injunction
of Ausonius to his grandson[338] ‘perlege quodcumque est memorabile’ is
the motto of this faculty. Almost any subject could fall under it, but
the chief emphasis was laid on the poets and on the orators. Ausonius
recommends starting with Homer[339] and Menander,[340] with Horace,
Vergil, and Terence to follow.[341] A study of the kind of authors read
in the schools shows that the poets were more frequently used than the
prose writers. Mythology, accordingly, loomed so large that Tertullian
made its excessive study one of the chief charges against the pagan
schools.[342] Vergil is the influence which permeates the style of
everybody, the mainstay of the grammarian, the genius of the schoolroom.
Commentators have exhausted themselves in piling up the Vergilian
references in Ausonius, Paulinus of Pella,[343] Sidonius, Macrobius, and
in every writer of note during this time, pagan as well as Christian.
Indeed, it would not be unfair to say that Vergil, with Homer and Varro,
ruled the school. Sidonius refers particularly to Terence,[344] whom he
loves to quote, while Horace,[345] Plautus,[346] Menander,[347] and a
host of others are mentioned as familiar friends.
The poets, then, in a broad sense, form one big division of ‘Grammar’:
Ausonius further recommends History, ‘res et tempora Romae’.[348] He
evidently considered these two divisions important, for at the end of
the Commemoratio Professorum[349] he again mentions ‘historia’ and
‘poeticus stilus’ at the head of a list of subjects in which the teachers
of Bordeaux attained renown. It seems strange, at first sight, that
the orators are not mentioned[350] in Ausonius’s scheme. But Ausonius
meant them to be included under ‘historia’ (how could they read the
Catilinarian conspiracy without Cicero?), and it is apparent from the
frequent and familiar references to Cicero in Sidonius and Ausonius (not
to mention Jerome), and the direct imitation of him in the Panegyrists,
that ‘Tully’ as well as Demosthenes was extensively studied. Philosophy
came in as a make-weight in the midst of this literary atmosphere.[351]
Thus the concurrence of a master and a pupil of Bordeaux gives us an
idea of the _general_ scope of primary education. When we try to look a
little closer, we find it difficult to get a detailed view. In elementary
education especially there is a general reticence, an assumption that the
things that existed before continued to exist, and who is ignorant of the
order which the Roman tradition prescribes? In this order the school of
the _litterator_ or elementary master came first, then the school of the
grammaticus, and, finally, that of the rhetor.[352]
Quintilian was the last great Roman writer on pedagogy, and his influence
may be traced on pagan and Christian masters alike. He was regarded as
the model of school-eloquence. Ausonius addresses the most famous of the
Bordeaux professors, Minervius, as
Alter rhetoricae Quintiliane togae;[353]
and he speaks of the distinguished sons of Gaul as having been students
under Quintilian’s system of education:
Quos praetextati celebris facundia ludi
contulit ad veteris praeconia Quintiliani.[354]
Even Jerome said that he owed part of his education to Quintilian,[355]
and the affected Ennodius thought so much of him that he called him
‘eloquentissimum virum’, and thought that though against lesser men one
might argue a fictitious case, it was still a question whether it was
right to do so against Quintilian.[356] As an authority on style he
was evidently much respected. Sidonius means to pay the very highest
compliment when he says of the rhetor Severianus:
Et sic scribere non minus valentem
Marcus Quintilianus ut solebat;[357]
and Jerome tells us that Hilary of Poitiers imitated the style and the
number of Quintilian’s twelve books.[358]
This being the position of Quintilian in the educational world of
Gaul, we are not surprised to find traces of his influence everywhere.
According to his precept,[359] the master still held the hand of the
little one as he traced the letters on wax,[360] and afterwards on
papyrus or parchment.[361] The children still went to school, no doubt,
as Horace tells, carrying their tablets in their satchels (_loculi_,
_capsae_), which were borne, in the case of wealthy parents, by a
_capsarius_.[362]
There were special masters (_librarii_) to teach book-copying. A
marble tablet found at Auch[363] bears an inscription to one Afranius
Graphicus (skilled in writing), a teacher, and in particular a teacher
of copying, who numbered among his accomplishments proficiency in the
game of draughts, and Marquardt[364] quotes a number of instances from
the _Corpus_. Very important among the various forms of writing for
the fourth and fifth centuries—the age of bureaucratic officialdom—was
stenography. Here, too, there were special masters (_notarii_) who at
the same time practised it as their vocation. Again, the _Corpus_ has
frequent references.[365] Ausonius composed a poem on his shorthand
writer, whose skill was evidently great,[366] and when Sidonius made his
epigram on the towel there was a scribe at hand (apparently a _notarius_)
who took down his words.[367] As far as the method of reading was
concerned, Quintilian’s counsel no doubt still held good. He had advised
learning the sound and the form of the letters simultaneously,[368] and
the use of the synthetic method, passing from the letter to the syllable,
from the syllable to the word, from the word to the sentence.
The last subject of the elementary school was Arithmetic, a favourite
subject with the hard-headed Romans. Counting on the fingers was common
in olden times, and as late as the seventh century we find Bede writing
a work ‘de loquela per gestum digitorum et temporum ratione’,[369] which
points to an elaborate system of computation on the fingers. There
were special teachers (_calculatores_) for advanced pupils, and the
instruments used were the _abacus_ or _tabula_, a board marked with lines
which signified tens, hundreds, thousands, &c., according as the counters
(_calculi_) were put on them. Figures were sometimes drawn on a board
sprinkled with sand.
When the boy had got beyond this elementary training, he entered upon the
studies of the grammaticus. Now the school-training as a whole after the
fourth century is said to have been based on the seven liberal arts of
Martianus Capella, described in his marriage of Mercury and Philologia.
This work had for its foundation Varro’s ‘IX libri disciplinarum’, and
had an influence which went down through the Middle Ages. But in the
department of the grammarian there were no neatly divided compartments
for Grammar, Rhetoric, Dialectic, Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy,
and Music, each with its special master. Grammarians specialized
in one branch or another (as Victorius at Bordeaux in antiquarian
research[370]), and the edicts of the emperors speak of special masters
in shorthand, book-copying, arithmetic, architecture.[371] But there
is no ground for thinking that these were to be found in the ordinary
school: it is much more likely that they existed to train slaves or
specialists for particular posts in the imperial offices. It is hardly
conceivable that Ausonius should have dealt with some thirty Bordeaux
teachers (of whom several were grammarians) without indicating such a
division, had it existed.
The actual method of conducting the lesson is indicated by Eumenius.
‘Ibi’ (in the new schools of Autun) ‘adulescentes optimi discant, nobis
quasi sollemne carmen praefantibus.’[372] The teacher would select a
passage and read it out slowly to his pupils with proper attention to
punctuation, pronunciation, expression, and metre.[373] Clearness and
effectiveness of intonation were specially practised with a view to the
later rhetorical declamations. But the reason for the universal stress
on elocution in antiquity went deeper than the exigencies of practical
life. The written words had a soul which the grammaticus by reading
strove to revive. ‘The office of the art “Grammatikê” is so to deal with
the Grammata as to recover from them all that can be recovered of that
which they have saved from oblivion, to reinstate as far as possible the
spoken word in its first impressiveness and musicalness.’[374] Such, as
Professor Murray points out, is the doctrine of the official teachers.
Dionysius Thrax (who was the first to write a τέχνη γραμματική), in
enumerating the six parts of Grammatikê, mentions as the most essential
reading aloud κατὰ προσῳδίαν, ‘with just the accent, the cadences, the
expression, with which the words were originally spoken, before they
were turned from λόγοι to γράμματα, from winged words to permanent
letters’.[375] Ausonius makes a special point of it to his grandson:
Do you with varied intonation read
A host of verses; let your words succeed
Each other with the accent and the stress
Your master taught you. Slurring will repress
The sense of what you’re reading; and a pause
Adds vigour to an overburdened clause.[376]
This was the framework of every lesson.
The reading was followed by the exposition (_enarratio_), grammatical,
historical, philosophical, scientific, artistic, or literary. The master
would tell his class the substance of the passage, and require them to
turn verse into prose.[377] Books were not always forthcoming, and then
dictation (practised also for its own sake) would be resorted to. At
this time it was, perhaps, less common than in Horace’s day[378] owing
to the multiplication of books. Learning by heart and writing exercises
(_sententiae_, _chriae_) such as were practised in the rhetor’s school
were among the obvious methods employed.
Philology, of course, was in its infancy. It was based on Varro who had
propounded such theories as ‘testamentum a testatione mentis’, ‘lucus
a non lucendo’. There were two tendencies: that of the Romanists, who
wished to derive everything from the Italian languages, and that of the
Hellenists, who sought to prove that the origin of all words was Greek.
There were also the ‘Anomalists’, who believed in the principle of
change, and, like Horace, referred everything to custom, the controller
and corrupter of words, and the ‘Analogists’, who believed in the
principle of immobility, and proposed to subjugate custom to a fixed
law of reason which operated by analogy.[379] How much in the dark even
the best and soberest of grammarians were on the subject may be judged
from Servius’s commentary on Vergil: on _Georg._ i. 17 ‘Maenala, mons
Arcadiae, dictus ἀπὸ τῶν μήλων, id est ab ovibus’; on _Georg._ i. 57
‘Sabaei populi ... dicti Sabaei ἀπὸ τοῦ σέβεσθαι’; on _Aen._ i. 17
‘“thensa”[380] autem cum aspiratione scribitur ἀπὸ τοῦ θείου’.
Literary criticism, the κρίσις ποιημάτων of Dionysius Thrax,[381] also
played a part. The discussions in Macrobius represent an advanced stage
of the sort of thing which was begun in the schools. Servius[382]
discusses whether Vergil wrote ‘Scopulo infixit’ or ‘Scopulo inflixit’,
and in Aulus Gellius we have questions raised as to Vergil’s use of
_tris_ and _tres_, and Cicero’s use of _peccatu_ and _peccato_, _fretu_
and _freto_.[383] Again, Servius considers Probus’s doubts as to Vergil’s
invocation to Jove as ‘hominum rerumque aeterna potestas’.[384] But,
on the whole, such a critical attitude is rare. The commentator, and
therefore the grammarian, is chiefly concerned with a mass of rather
simple and diffuse exposition. The references are mainly to Lucretius,
Horace, Pliny, Terence, Hesiod, and, most of all, to Homer. Grammatical
notes, especially figures of speech, and geographical references are
frequent and ample. Historical allusions, on the other hand, are rather
slight. The critical faculty, then, was not very much alive. Indeed, one
would hardly expect it to be from the general tone of the age, and from
Servius’s own statement of the teacher’s duty. ‘In exponendis auctoribus
haec consideranda sunt: poetae vita, titulus operis, qualitas carminis,
scribentis intentio, numerus librorum, ordo librorum, explanatio.’[385]
The grammarian thus moves on a fairly low plane. To him, ‘intentio
Vergilii haec est, Homerum imitari, et Augustum laudare a parentibus’.
The higher thought, the fundamental inspiration of the poem, ‘tantae
molis erat Romanam condere gentem’, is omitted altogether.
Of the text-books used, by far the most famous[386] was that of Donatus,
who taught Jerome about the middle of the fourth century.[387] He was the
model of succeeding writers and his name became a synonym for grammar.
His work consisted of (1) an _ars minor_ for the elementary school,
containing the parts of speech; (2) an _ars maior_, divided into three
parts (_a_) ‘de voce, de littera, de syllaba, de pedibus, de tonis, de
posituris’ (punctuation); (_b_) another treatment of the parts of speech;
(_c_) ‘de barbarismo, de solecismo, de ceteris vitiis, de metaplasmo
(grammatical irregularity), de schematibus (figures of speech), de
tropis’.[388] We hear of a ‘Donatus provincialis’[389] which was used in
Gaul, and it may well be that Jerome’s influence in the provinces served
to spread the popularity of Donatus, especially when supported by the
Roman tradition, though his work must have obtained a footing in the
schools even on its own merits.
Agroecius (fifth century), whose ‘disciplina’ is praised by
Sidonius,[390] wrote a book on orthography,[391] which was intended to
supplement a work on the same subject by Flavius Caper. And we hear of
Dositheus’s _Chrestomathia_ or collection of passages from literature,
intended for Greek students and written in both languages,[392] as a
common text-book of the later Empire. Jerome mentions Sinnius Capito
as an authority on antiquities who was still read in his day,[393] and
therefore, considering the universality of the rhetorical tradition,
probably used in the schools of Gaul. Some of his fragments may be taken
as typical of the scope and character of the grammarian’s teaching.
‘Docet (Sin. Capit.) “pluria” Latinum esse, “plura” barbarum. Pluria sive
plura absolutum esse et simplex, non comparativum.’[394] A solecism is
defined as ‘impar atque inconveniens compositura partium orationis’. He
does not neglect derivation: ‘pacem a pactione condicionum putat dictam
Sinnius Capito’,[395] and in his philology a place is given to phonetics.
‘De syllabis, “f” praeponitur liquidis, nulla alia de semivocalibus; nam
praeponitur liquidis duabus sola “f”; praeponitur “l” litterae, si dicas
Flavius ... est libellus de syllabis, legite illum ... Sinni est liber
Capitonis.’[396]
Grammar, in the narrow sense, was naturally part of the grammarian’s
work. ‘_Nec_ coniunctionem grammatici fere dicunt esse disiunctivam, ut
“nec legit nec scribit”, cum si diligentius inspiciatur, ut fecit Sinnius
Capito, intelligi possit eam positam esse ab antiquis pro _non_ ut et in
XII est....’[397] His remarks on the verse of Lucilius,[398] ‘nequam
aurum est’, &c., are an example of the ordinary exposition so plentifully
illustrated in Servius, handed down from one generation of grammatici
to another. His opinion is quoted also on historical questions: ‘Sardi
venales (_alius alio nequ_)ior. Sinnius Capito ait Ti. Gracchum consulem,
collegam P. Valeri Faltonis, Sardiniam Corsicamque subegisse, nec praedae
quicquam aliud quam mancipia captum....’[399] Constitutional history
interests him: ‘Tertia haec est interrogandi species, ut Sinnio Capitoni
videtur, pertinens ad officium et consuetudinem senatoriam; quando enim
aliquis sententiam loco suo iam dixerat, et alius postea interrogatus
quaedam videbatur ita locutus....’[400]
Nor did he omit antiquarian tradition: ‘Sexagenarios (_de ponte olim
deiciebant_): exploratissimum illud est causae quo tempore primum per
pontem coeperunt comitiis suffragium ferre, iuniores conclamaverunt
ut de ponte deicerentur sexagenarii qui iam nullo publico munere
fungerentur...’,[401] and he is invoked as an authority on traditional
law: ‘Sinnius Capito ait cum civis necaretur, institutum fuisse ut
Semoniae res sacra fieret vervece bidente....’[402] Such were the
shapers of the material taught in the schools. They epitomized the
learning Varro had left, and boiled down the Vergilian commentaries of
Servius, Macrobius, and Fulgentius. And if we do not know their number
and their works too precisely, we may be fairly sure of the trend of
their teaching. We may therefore leave them, adding just a word about
dictionaries. M. Verrius Flaccus, the head of the court library under
Augustus, had written a work _De Verborum Significatu_ in alphabetical
order. Each letter took up several volumes. And in the middle of the
second century, Pompeius Festus made an extract of this in twenty
volumes, of which only a small part has been preserved, the original
being wholly lost.[403] Verrius’s work was a standard one, as is shown by
the frequent references to it in the grammarians.[404] It was frequently
amplified and revised. ‘Scribonius Aphrodisius’, Suetonius tells
us,[405] ‘was a teacher and a contemporary of Verrius, whose books on
orthography he edited, criticizing his scholarship and his character.’
But it remained the foundation, and modifications of it must have been
used by the teachers of the Gallic schools.
Two of the subjects over which the grammarian paused in his exposition
may be noticed. Blümner remarks[406] that geography was not a school
subject, and Bernhardy draws attention to the traditional weakness of
the Romans in it.[407] Yet considerable and increasing attention must
have been given to it with the extending operations of the Roman army
and the growth of commerce with distant lands. Maps were in use even
in early times. Varro[408] mentions a ‘picta Italia’ in the temple of
Tellus, and Propertius testifies that he was compelled to learn by
heart the countries of the world painted on the map.[409] The elder
Pliny[410] mentions Pytheas, the famous Gaul, who lived probably at the
time of Alexander the Great, and was a writer on geography, ‘praesertim
Geographiae notitia illustris, commendatus ... ab omnibus gentibus’.[411]
Aethicus Hister tells us in his _Cosmographia_ of a measurement of
the Roman world which was ordered by Julius Caesar and carried out by
the ablest men of the day, and there were writers on geography like
Poseidonius and Mela.[412] In our period we find the subject being used
as part of the imperial policy. ‘Moreover’, says Eumenius, ‘let the
young see in the porticoes of the new schools all countries and all
seas and whatever of cities or races or tribes the invincible princes
either restore or overcome by their valour or bind down by the fear they
inspire.’[413] And again, since children learn better by eye than by
ear,[414] ‘the situation, the extent and the distances of all places
have been marked and the names given, the source and the mouth of every
river, the bend of the coast-lines, the curves of the sea where it flows
round the land or breaks into it.’[415] In Ausonius we are struck with
the accuracy and extent of the author’s geographical knowledge, due, no
doubt, to the fact that he had to practise it in his school. He refers
directly to maps in the _Gratiarum Actio_.[416] He wants to put in a
compact form all the emperor’s praises, as the geographers do with the
earth (_qui terrarum orbem unius tabulae ambitu circumscribunt_). Such a
‘tabula’ Millin reports at Autun, on the site of the Maeniana, containing
the outline of Italy with the boundaries of Gaul and towns like Bononia,
Forum Gallorum, Mutina.[417]
Astronomy, in an elementary way, was quite popular among the ‘savants’ of
Gaul. Ausonius’s grandfather, Arborius, dabbled in it,[418] and Sidonius
mentions it frequently. It was one of the accomplishments of Claudianus
Mamertus that he could wield the horoscope with Euphrates and explore the
stars with Atlas.[419] When Sidonius describes Lampridius’s superstition
in consulting astrologers (for superstition was intimately connected with
the few scientific facts of the subject which had been ascertained), he
mentions technical terms such as ‘climactericos’, ‘thema’, ‘diastemata
zodiaca’, which indicate an organized body of astrological tradition,
of which Julianus Vertacus and Fullonius Saturninus were the founders,
according to Sidonius (_matheseos peritissimos conditores_).[420] He
writes to his friend Leontius[421] of one Phoebus, the head of whose
college can surpass in argument not only musicians, but also masters of
geometry, arithmetic, and astrology. For no one knew more accurately
than he the astrological significance of stars and planets in their
varying positions. These references give us some idea of the extent
of astronomical knowledge, which cannot have included much more than
elementary facts about the zodiac, the solstices, the equinoxes, and the
revolution of the planets. The more strictly astrological developments
were, no doubt, confined to such as cared to make a hobby of them, but
some knowledge of the stars was imparted in the schoolroom and considered
necessary to the pupil for the understanding of poetry,[422] as it was
for practical purposes, by no less an authority than Quintilian. For time
was largely computed by direct reference to the sun and the stars.
(ii) THE SUBSTANCE AND METHODS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION
From the grammarian the boy passed into the hands of the rhetor and
studied ‘Rhetoric’. We must be careful in our interpretation of this
term. Just as ‘Grammatikê’ covered a large number of subjects, so
‘Rhetorikê’ was not confined to the theory of speaking. ‘On apprenait des
rhéteurs l’art de bien parler et de bien écrire, non pas seulement sur
la littérature ou la poésie, mais aussi sur l’histoire, la morale, la
science même.’[423] The characteristic thing about the rhetor’s school
was discussion and declamation, and the end in view was oratory or
oratorical composition; the characteristic thing about the grammarian’s
school was exposition and interpretation, and the immediate end in view
was encyclopedic knowledge. But the subjects treated in either case
were very much the same; only, the emphasis was shifted. The grammarian
used his knowledge to expand the text, the rhetor his imagination. The
grammarian’s method was prosaic, the rhetor strove to be poetic.[424]
The rhetor chose some subject from imagination or from literature
(from the books which the grammarian had been reading with his class)
for his pupils to exercise their ingenuity upon. Three stages may
be distinguished[425] in the schools of the later Empire. First,
the _Vergilian stage_ (_locus Vergilianus_), at which the students
paraphrased some speech in the _Aeneid_. The point was to portray as
closely as possible the emotions of the original speaker. ‘Proponebatur
mihi negotium animae meae’ (says Augustine) ‘ut dicerem verba Iunonis
irascentis et dolentis quod non posset Italia Teucrorum avertere
regem.’[426] Next there came the _Dictiones Ethicae_—soliloquies which
persons in history or mythology would have made on certain occasions:
e.g. Juno’s words when she saw Antaeus matched with Hercules, or Thetis
before the body of Achilles. Ennodius gives several examples of this
type: ‘Verba Didonis cum abeuntem videret Aeneam,[427] Verba Menelai
cum Troiam videret inustam,’[428] and so forth. Thirdly, there were the
_Controversiae_, nearer to the oratory of public life, on some more
general subject, e.g. against an ambassador who betrays his country,
against one who refuses to support an aged father, against a tyrant who
has honoured a parricide with a statue, ‘in eum qui in lupanari statuam
Minervae locavit.’[429]
The influence of Vergil did not decline with the entry into the rhetor’s
school. The rhetors of Ausonius’s day could hardly write a page without a
Vergilian reminiscence. And Servius[430] tells us of the rhetors Titianus
and Calvus that they chose all their subjects from Vergil, adapting them
for rhetorical exercises. They gave as examples of the _controversia_ the
speeches of Venus and Juno in _Aeneid_ x. 17 and x. 63. When Venus says
to Juno: ‘A cause of peril hast thou been to these whom Fate has granted
the land of Italy,’ she is using the ‘status absolutivus’. Juno, in her
reply, uses the ‘status relativus’.
This passage gives a single instance of that intricate system of
technical terminology which the study of rhetoric had elaborated. But in
our period there is no writer who explains that system in any way. It had
become traditional, covering a large space of time; it had become almost
universal, covering a large part of the Roman Empire. The text-books we
hear of belong to a previous time: Cicero’s _Rhetorica_, the anonymous
_Rhetoricorum ad Herennium libri quattuor_, and Quintilian. The work of
C. Chirius Fortunatianus,[431] it is true, dates from the fifth century,
and that of Sulpicius Victor[432] from the fourth. But Fortunatianus drew
mainly from Quintilian and Cicero, and Sulpicius Victor, in the fragments
of his book that survive, professes his dependence on the traditional
statement of the subject. ‘I have set in order’, he says, ‘the general
rhetorical principles that have come down to us, and have been taught me
by my masters. Yet I have reserved the right to pass over points as I
thought fit, adhering in the main to the traditional substance and order,
and inserting from other authors a number of points which I considered
necessary.’[433] In fact, all the fourth- and fifth-century writers on
rhetoric (in that age of summaries) are merely compilers or epitomizers.
Solid and persistent is the body of tradition which runs through the
centuries. The precepts and examples[434] which we find in Seneca, the
rhetorician, are almost identical with those of Ennodius at the end of
the fifth century; and Quintilian is found again in Hilary of Poitiers.
In these circumstances it need not distress us that there is no
contemporary account of the activities of the rhetor’s school. We do
not even possess the title of a declamation at Bordeaux, and the very
silence is significant: the rhetorical system was too widespread and
too well known to need special mention or explanation. Not only the
Latin rhetoricians were bound together by this common tradition: the
Greek of the East shared in it as well. Libanius is on familiar terms
with Symmachus,[435] who loved pagan oratory next to pagan religion,
and mentions the books of Favorinus who was a native of Arles, and
lived in the time of Hadrian.[436] One of the Theodori to whom Libanius
wrote, was, according to Ammianus, a Gaul,[437] and so was Rufinus,
the ‘Praefectus praetorio’, of whose praises the letters are full.
Intercourse between East and West was free and frequent. But the most
convincing proof of the unity of the tradition is found in a comparison
of the Greek rhetoricians with men like Quintilian or Seneca: there is
hardly any difference of importance.[438] But the _Rhetores Graeci_ give
us a much more detailed and lively picture of means and methods than any
other body of evidence.
In imparting his facts the grammarian had to work up to that educational
consummation represented by the rhetorical school. ‘Ratio dicendi’ is
quite distinctly laid down by Quintilian as one of his duties.[439]
In giving his exercises, therefore, he would endeavour to give such
information on technical and traditional points as would prepare the
pupil for his course of study in the senior school. Sometimes the pupil
went for further preparation to a special master.[440] Sometimes a whole
course—the famous ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία—in which special stress was laid
on music and geometry[441]—was put in between the grammarian’s and the
rhetor’s schools. How far these practices were customary in Gaul we
have no means of ascertaining; but it is certain that there must have
been exercises preparatory to the rhetorical training, and it is these
which are recorded by the Greek rhetoricians, and which give us a unique
insight into the methods of that training. Προγυμνάσματα they are called
by the rhetors, and defined by one of them as ἂ πρὸ τῆς ὑποθέσεως (i.e.
before declaiming from a given subject) ἀναγκαῖόν ἐστι εἰδέναι τε καὶ
ἐπιεικῶς ἐγγυμνάζεσθαι.[442]
Aphthonius was a sophist of Antioch, a pupil of the great Libanius, and
flourished during the second half of the fourth century. He is mentioned
by Libanius[443] as a teacher of boys. Of his many works we possess only
the _Progymnasmata_ and the _Fables_. Closely associated with his name
are those of Theon and Hermogenes. Hoppichler has demonstrated[444] how
similar their works are. Theon is clearly the oldest,[445] and Aphthonius
is younger than Hermogenes.[446] From a scholiast who says that after
Aphthonius had published his work, that of Hermogenes came to be looked
on as ἀσαφῆ πως καὶ δύσληπτα, it is equally clear that Aphthonius was the
most recent of these writers. That he was also the best and most enduring
is shown by the many commentaries and scholia on his work (which is often
verbally quoted by later rhetoricians like Nicolaus), and by the fact
that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries his book was still used
in schools and universities. Indeed, the form of school exercise which he
suggests persists up to the present day.[447]
Aphthonius, then, may be taken as the best representative of the
rhetorical school at Antioch.
His first chapter[448] deals with fables. They are widely and frequently
used by teachers to point a lesson (ἐκ παραινέσεως), e.g. the story of
the ants and the cicadas. He proceeds to expound the treatment of the
subject, and deals first with narration (διήγημα), of which there are
three kinds: (1) _poetic_ (δραματικόν), which has to do with fictitious
subjects; (2) _historic_, which has to do with the past; and (3) _civil_,
dealing with controversial cases. In every narration, again, there are
six elements: agent, act, time, place, manner, cause; and the four
virtues of narration are: clearness, brevity, probability (πιθανότης),
and purity of language (ἑλληνισμός). The example given, telling why the
rose is red, has at least the virtues of brevity and clearness. It may be
noticed that Quintilian assigns _narrationes poeticas_ to the grammarian
and _narrationes historicas_ to the rhetor.[449]
Of the collection of fables made by Aphthonius some were apparently
written by himself. These are rather less pointed than those of Aesop,
and more directly applied to school conditions. Such is the story of the
goose and the swan.
‘A rich man kept a goose and a swan, but not for the same purpose: for
the former he kept for his table, and the latter for the sake of its
singing. When the time came for the goose to be killed (which was his
proper end), the man, not being able to distinguish the one from the
other in the darkness of night, took the swan instead of the goose: but
by singing the swan showed his nature, whereupon by the sweetness of his
song he escaped death.’
The general moral is that music provides respite from death, and the
particular application, that boys should love eloquence. Similarly, in
the story of the provident ant it is pointed out that laziness in youth
means distress in old age (οὕτως νεότης πονεῖν οὐκ ἐθέλονσα, παρὰ τὸ
γῆρας κακοπραγεῖ).
Some very familiar fables are included in Aphthonius’s collection: the
crow and the cheese, the ass and the lion’s skin, the sick lion, &c.
These were taken over from Aesop and are found, polished and versified,
in Avienus.
Aphthonius next defines the Chreia as a pointed saying, applied to
some person or thing. It is so called because it is ‘useful’ for
moral and intellectual lessons. There are three general classes: (1)
the _Word-Chreia_, found only in speech; (2) the _Act-Chreia_ (e.g.
Pythagoras, on being asked how long a man’s life was, answered by
appearing for a short time and then disappearing. A scholiast adds
the example of Tarquin and the poppies); (3) the _Mixed Chreia_. The
divisions of every Chreia are: (1) _praise_, (2) _paraphrase_, (3)
_cause_, (4) _the contrary_ (i.e. the pupil states what would happen
if the opposite were true), (5) _simile_ (the same sort of thing in
other spheres), (6) _example_ (instances of the same thing in recorded
history—generally in the poets), (7) _testimony of the ancients_ (appeal
to similar teaching in older writers like Hesiod), (8) _short epilogue_
(a summary of the argument). Then follows an example of the Word-Chreia,
illustrating all the divisions. The saying of Isocrates that the roots
of education are bitter, but its fruits sweet, is worked up into a
little essay. The mediaeval scholiasts go copiously into all the minor
points raised by the various Chreiae, and give biblical examples from
Genesis and Ecclesiastes in which Juvenal, Hesiod, and Menander curiously
intermingle.
Next comes Sententia (γνώμη), an aphoristic saying of a hortatory or
enunciatory kind. Unlike the Chreia, it is found only in speech. Examples
are:
εἷς οἰωνὸσ ἄριστος ἀμύνεσθαι περὶ πάτρης
(Dulce et decorum est ...)
and
οὐδὲν ἀκιδνότερον γαῖα τρέφει ἀνθρώποιο.
(Of all things Man most wretched is on earth.)
There are three kinds: hortatory (προτρεπτικόν), dehortatory
(ἀποτρεπτικόν), enunciatory (ἀποφαντικόν). Further divisions are: simple
and composite, or probable, true, and hyperbolical. All of these are
amply illustrated. The same divisions hold as for the Chreia, and they
are exemplified by developing the protreptic gnomê that death is better
than poverty:
χρὴ πενίην φεύγοντα καὶ ἐς μεγακήτεα πόντον
ῥίπτειν καὶ πετρῶν, Κύρνε, κατ’ ἠλιβάτων.
There follows a chapter on Refutation (ἀνασκευή). The first step is to
attack your opponent (τὴν τῶν φησάντων διαβολήν), the next, to give a
statement of his case (πράγματος ἔκθεσιν), the third, to refute this
statement under the following heads: (1) Obscurity, (2) Incredibility,
(3) Impossibility, (4) Illogicality, (5) Impropriety, (6) Inexpediency.
Take, for example, the statements of the poets about Daphne. In his
διαβολή the student says that it is needless to convict the poets of
folly: they stand discredited by what they say about the gods. He then
briefly narrates the story of Phoebus and Daphne, and is ready for the
refutation. Under the heads of _Obscurity_ and _Improbability_, the
difficulties of Daphne’s birth from Ladon and Terra are discussed in a
forced and perverse way. ‘If a human being is born from a river, why not
a river from a human being?’ ‘What name are we going to give to a union
of a river and Earth? In the case of men it is called “marriage”, but
Earth is not a human being’, &c.
Under the head of the _Impossible_, he contends: ‘But granted that Daphne
was the daughter of Terra and Ladon—who brought her up? That’s a poser!
If you say her father, well, human beings just _don’t_ live in rivers: he
would unwittingly have drowned her. If you say her mother, it means that
she lived under the earth: therefore, her charms would be hidden, and she
would have no admirers.’
There is also the head of _Impropriety_. Granted even that she could
have been brought up, it is absurd to attribute love to a god: ἔρως τῶν
ὄντων τὸ χαλεπώτατον (a moral note for the boy’s benefit). It is wrong to
connect such terrible things (τὰ δεινότατα) with the gods.
_Illogicality._ How could a girl beat Phoebus in the race? Men are better
than women, and _a fortiori_ gods must surpass them. Why did her mother
help her? Surely she could not have feared a ‘mésalliance’! Either,
therefore, she was not her mother, or else she was a bad mother.
_Inexpediency._ There is no point in Earth taking away her daughter and
offending Phoebus, and then giving him the laurel with which he crowns
his tripods. Nature has separated the human and the divine: it’s no good
having a god matched with a mortal maid.
_Peroration._ All poets are fools; avoid them. But we must stop talking
about poets, lest like them we talk nonsense (πέρας ἔστω τῶν ποιητῶν, μὴ
κατὰ ποιητὰς δόξω φθέγγεσθαι).
_Confirmation_ (κατασκευή) is the next subject. The method is to praise
the man who makes the statement which is to be confirmed, to state the
case to be established, and to ‘confirm’ it under the following heads:
(the opposites of those mentioned under Refutation) the manifest, the
probable, the possible, the logical, the proper, the expedient. Taking
the same thesis, the credibility of Daphne’s story, he attempts to prove,
with considerable ingenuity, the opposite conclusion: ἐπὶ τούτοις θαυμάζω
τοὺς ποιητὰς καὶ διὰ τοῦτο τὸ μέτρον (the poem) τιμῶ.
Again, there is the _locus communis_ (κοινὸς τόπος), a speech which
emphasizes the good or evil in a person or thing, and which is so
generalized that it can be applied to all persons or things of that class
or in those circumstances. Thus a _locus communis_ about traitors would
fit all who do treacherous deeds. It has the following divisions:
(1) By the contrary (ἐκ τοῦ ἐναντίου). (2) Exposition of the subject.
(3) Comparison—which shows the person denounced to be worse than
others, or the person praised, better. (4) Opinion (γνώμη)—denouncing
or praising the intention of the agent. (5) Digression—conjecturally
(στοχαστικῶς)—reviling the past life of the man. (6) Exclusion of
pity. (7) Finally, the following heads: the legitimate, the just, the
expedient, the possible, the honourable, and the conclusion from the
results obtained. A conclusion on the well-worn subject of tyrants is,
that after all a democratic jury is all that is needed to destroy their
power.
The subject of Praise (ἐγκώμιον) is next treated. Praise is of persons
or of things, and a list of praiseworthy subjects is given. It may be
applied to one of these subjects as a group, e.g. the Athenians, or
individually, e.g. one particular Athenian. The divisions given for the
praise of a person are:
(1) Prooimion. Quality of subject to be praised.
(2) Class to which subject belongs: race, country, ancestors, parents.
(3) Education of subject: training, art and laws of his environment and
education.
(4) Achievements (main division):
(_a_) Qualities of soul: courage, prudence, &c.
(_b_) Qualities of body: beauty, strength, &c.
(_c_) Qualities of fortune: rank, friends, &c.
(5) Comparison—to the advantage of the subject.
(6) Epilogue, in the nature of a prayer.
These heads are illustrated in panegyrics on Thucydides, and on an
abstract thing like wisdom, where the divisions are naturally modified
and curtailed.
Corresponding to the chapter on Praise is that on Censure or Vituperation
(ψόγος), which starts with a bad quality and expands it. It does not
raise moral issues or propose penalties (differing herein from a _locus
communis_), but merely attacks (μόνην ἔχειν διαβολήν). An example, with
the same divisions as in the previous chapter, is given of a vituperation
of Philip of Macedon. Here, as in the case of praise, there is a mass of
illustrations by the mediaeval scholiasts.
_Comparison_ (σύγκρισις) of persons or things admits of ψόγος or ἐγκώμιον
or both. Large wholes should not be compared, but rather similar parts,
e.g. one head with another. The divisions, which are the same as in
the previous chapters, are illustrated by a comparison of Hector and
Achilles, to the advantage, naturally, of the latter.
The characterization of a person, by putting a speech into his mouth
(ἠθοποιία), was another department of exercise. It is defined as μίμησις
ἤθους ὑποκειμένου προσώπου. Three types are given, not very clearly
distinguished from one another:
Εἰδωλοποιία—when a well-known character no longer living is
made to speak, as in the Δῆμοι of Eupolis. (Apparently only
local or political people are meant.)
Προσωποποιία—when both words and speaker are imagined.
Ἠθοποιία proper—when the person is known from literature, and
words are put into his mouth to illustrate his character.
The classes of Ethopoeia proper may be described as:
_Emotional_ (παθητικαί), e.g. the words Hecuba would have uttered on the
fall of Troy.
‘_Ethical_’ (ἠθικαί), e.g. what a man who had never seen the sea would
say on beholding the Mediterranean.
_Mixed_, e.g. what Achilles would have said over the body of Patroclus.
The style is to be clear, and the sentences short, ‘flowery’
(ἀνθηρῷ),[450] antithetical, without adornment or involved figures. An
example of Emotional Ethopoeia, illustrating the divisions past, present,
and future, is given by a speech put into Niobe’s mouth on the death of
her children.
Next comes _Description_ (ἔκφρασις) of persons or things. Descriptive
extracts from Homer and Thucydides are given, with the general counsel
that the describer must adapt himself to his subject in every way.
Only two classes are suggested: _simple_ (descriptions of actions) and
_complex_ (descriptions of action and place). The citadel of Alexandria
is the stock example.
By ‘_Thesis_’ Aphthonius means the study of a question in the course of
a speech. There are two kinds: (1) ‘_civil_’, e.g. must one marry? and
(2) _contemplative_, e.g. are there more worlds than one? The divisions
are: ἔφοδος or _prooemium_, and the heads: the legitimate, the just, the
expedient, the possible. The example given (εἰ γαμητέον) is interspersed
with the objector’s remarks (ἀντιθέσεις) and the replies of the speaker
(λύσεις).
Some grammarians consider the method of supporting or opposing a law
(συνηγορία and κατηγορία) a subject for a school exercise. After the
prooemium comes a consideration of objections (τὸ ἐναντίον) and the
treatment of the subject takes the same form as in the preceding chapter.
Again we have the alternation of ἀντιθέσεις and λύσεις.
Such is the course of exercises by which the adolescent boy was prepared
for the speeches of the rhetor’s school, and of public life; and from
them we gather a fairly definite impression of the main activities that
succeeded those of the grammarian.
These activities were eked out by several ‘senior’ studies, which must
be briefly considered. It has been disputed that there were any subjects
in the rhetor’s school at all except rhetoric.[451] Now it is true that
Gratian’s famous decree about teachers in 376 does not specially mention
philosophers, and that there is very little official recognition of them,
though we are told that Antoninus Pius gave salaries to rhetors and to
philosophers ‘_per omnes provincias_’.[452] But whether in our period
philosophy was an organized subject or not, there can be no doubt that it
had its place in the schools.
In the grammarian’s school it was touched on in a superficial way:
Paulinus of Pella talks of learning ‘dogmata Socratus’ at the tender
age of five.[453] But there could have been no serious appreciation of
the content of philosophy before the pupil had reached the rhetor’s
school. Ausonius mentions ‘dogma Platonicum[454]’ as one of the avenues
by which a Bordeaux professor reached renown, and Nepotianus[455]
is ‘disputator ad Cleanthen Stoicum’. That there was some sort of
philosophic discussion we gather from the _Eclogues_, though, no doubt,
it was mainly rhetorical. Speaking of the ΝΑΙ ΚΑΙ ΟΥ ΠΥΘΑΓΟΡΙΚΟΝ Ausonius
says that these two words (Yes and No) form the basis of philosophic
discussion. ‘Starting from them, the school also, in harmony with its
gentle training, gently debates philosophic questions, and with them as a
basis the whole tribe of logicians holds debate’.[456]
It is clear from Sidonius that the subject was popular among the
‘litterati’ of fifth-century Gaul. Logic is often mentioned,[457]
and the description of the ‘septem sapientes’ shows a comprehensive
knowledge of the history of philosophy.[458] Eusebius,[459] a professor
of philosophy at Lyons, gathered around him a number of students who were
eager to discuss problems. The _Categories_ of Aristotle are especially
mentioned as subjects of study. The philosopher was the president of the
company, holding a sort of ‘seminar’, in which he appointed a spokesman
and discussed points with each in turn. He was very learned, and ‘was
as pleased as could be when some very obscure and involved problems
happened to arise, so that he could scatter abroad the treasures of
his learning’.[460] Plato dominated contemporary thought. There was a
Platonic club, ‘collegium conplatonicorum’.[461] Faustus (Sidonius tells
him) has married a fair woman and borne her off with strong passion,
and her name is Philosophia. She has abjured worldly wisdom and belongs
to the Church of Christ, but none the less, also, to the Academy of
Plato.[462] ‘On voit que les Gallo-Romains du cinquième siècle,’ says
Fauriel, ‘cultivaient avec ardeur une certaine philosophie qu’ils
prenaient pour celle de Platon.’[463]
There was a tendency to give a wide and vague meaning to the word
‘philosophy’. For its proper study, knowledge of the sciences
was postulated. Music and astrology are spoken of by Sidonius as
‘consequentia membra philosophiae’.[464] So in the fourth century
philosophy ‘was regarded as incomplete unless it included some knowledge
of natural phenomena to be used for purposes of analogy’.[465] Hilary of
Poitiers, for example, in the _De Trinitate_ and the Commentaries, refers
to facts of animal birth, life and death; to medicine and surgery; to
the natural history of trees and animals; and we know of a lost work of
his against the physician Dioscorus which may have been a refutation of
materialistic arguments.[466]
When we attempt to look at the purely pagan side of philosophy in this
period, the impression made by the scanty data is not one of greatness.
Agricola, indeed, in a previous century, could say of his Gallic studies
‘se prima in iuventa studium philosophiae acrius, ultra quam concessum
Romano ac senatori, hausisse’,[467] but he had been at Massilia, which
was different from the rest by reason of its Greek spirit. And his
very words indicate the general Roman attitude to philosophy, the
inflexibility of a positive and practical mind which resulted in a
superficial conception of the subject. To a certain extent it seems
reasonable to say that the provinces accepted this attitude as part of
the Roman tradition. The Gaul of the fourth century certainly seems to
have done so. For Ausonius, though he makes a fine show of technical
terms and learned allusions, is far from suggesting any depth of thought.
We instinctively agree with a commentator[468] who regards him as ‘tritis
et vulgivagis sententiis ex usu scholastico ditatus’. His philosophical
verses[469] in the _Eclogues_ are translations and only the first part
strikes a deeper moral note; the rest, like the ΝΑΙ ΚΑΙ ΟΥ ΠΥΘΑΓΟΡΙΚΟΝ,
is all more or less trifling. It is significant that he calls himself
a Christian, yet he gives no sign of Christian thought, and shrugs his
shoulders about the question of immortality. Again and again he dismisses
the matter with a query.[470] Even Sidonius, who is a semi-Christian and
touched to some extent by the impetus which Christianity was at that
time giving to thought, is diffident about independent thinking and
fearful lest the Roman tradition[471] should be impaired, especially by a
provincial. He uses the technical terms which Cicero had introduced from
the Greek.[472]
Jung thinks that the comparative neglect of philosophy was part of a
definite imperial policy, which remembered the fact that the stirring
teaching of the Druids (_actuosa doctrina_), regarding the immortality
of the soul, urged the Gauls to warfare and made them reckless in
rebellion.[473] But this appears to be founded rather on the fancifulness
of an exaggerated nationalism than on a general consideration of existing
conditions. For slackness of thought and lack of thinkers was a common
characteristic of the time, and it had its roots in the general paralysis
produced by the imperial system and the rhetorical form of education
(factors which will be more fully considered at a later stage), rather
than in a measure aimed at philosophy for so special and so antiquated a
reason.
The contention that there were none except teachers of Rhetoric in the
secondary schools of Gaul, seems to rest on better evidence in the case
of Law. In spite of Juvenal’s well-known allusion to Gaul as a school of
forensic eloquence[474] and his contention: ‘Gallia causidicos docuit
facunda Britannos’, and Lucian’s reference[475] to the famous lawyers of
Massilia, Menecrates, Charmolus, and Zenothemis, Ausonius mentions no
professors of law, though there are those among the Bordeaux teachers
whom ‘forum ... fecit nobiles’.[476] The studious Victorius investigates
‘ius pontificum’, the resolutions of the people and the Senate, and the
codes of Draco and Solon, but only as the grammarian would and from the
antiquarian point of view. It is worm-eaten and ancient manuscripts that
he studies rather than more obvious and accessible works.[477]
In the fifth century there are indications of considerable interest. And
this is what we should expect. For the publication of the Theodosian Code
in 438 made the study of law more accessible, and tended to eliminate the
superstitious and the sacramental element in it. So Fauriel says that
jurisprudence attracted more men of distinction then than in previous
centuries.[478] Sidonius mentions particularly the learned Leo of
Narbonne who was more learned in the Twelve Tables than Appius Claudius
himself,[479] and he calls Marcellinus ‘skilled in laws’.[480]
Arles, the seat of the prefect of the Gauls and of the emperor,
naturally became a centre for the study of Roman law. It was there that
Petronius[481] practised his profession.
It appears, however, that while the Gauls were famed for legal knowledge
and ability, Rome was still regarded as the school of jurisprudence.
It is not mere rhetoric when Symmachus calls Rome ‘Latiaris facundiae
domicilium’,[482] and Sidonius ‘Domicilium legum’.[483] Rutilius extols
Rome with unaffected enthusiasm for her law: ‘Thou hast also embraced the
world with thy law-bringing triumphs and makest all to live by a common
bond.’[484]
The belief in Rome’s eternal sway[485] is for him connected chiefly with
her law. ‘Stretch forth thy laws that are destined to live into the Roman
ages, and do thou alone unafraid regard the distaff of the Fates,’[486]
and poetic vision is aided by the lawyer’s foresight.[487] He tells of a
Gaul, Palladius, who went to study law at Rome:
Facundus iuvenis Gallorum nuper ab arvis
missus Romani discere iura fori.[488]
And we are told that St. Germanus who, according to the life claimed
to be by his pupil Constantius, was born at Auxerre towards the end of
the fourth century, had a similar training. To set the crown upon his
literary education in Gaul he went to study law at Rome.[489] Rome, in
fact, maintained her supremacy in this branch longer than in any other,
and her professors attracted students from all parts of the Empire.[490]
The connexion between jurisprudence and imperial matters is clear. For a
study of Rome’s great contribution to the world could not but stimulate
admiration for the imperial city. By examining the law, the provincial
realized more clearly the advantage of the _pax Romana_. One of the
panegyrists[491] declared to Maximian in 293 ‘iustitia cognitione iuris
addiscitur’,[492] and it is clear that his appreciation of the moral
benefits of Roman order is more than mere rhetoric. Perhaps Rome’s rulers
perceived this, and made it their policy (as Jung[493] suggests) to
attract students of law to Rome, that they might see things from Rome’s
point of view, and facilitate the government of the provinces by applying
the law according to the Roman tradition. For as the Empire had grown
and its administration increased, there had arisen a need for officials
who would carry out the law with ability and uniformity; and complete
uniformity could only be attained by a knowledge of law seen as the Roman
saw it.[494]
Justinian, in the preface to the _Digest_ which he addresses to the
teachers of law in the Empire, reviews the study of jurisprudence in the
past. It was hopelessly deficient. Only six books were studied and those
intricate, confused, and partly obsolete (_iura utilia in se perraro
habentes_). Among the six books were the _Institutes_ of Gaius, but they
were not consecutively studied, many parts being omitted as superfluous.
The teaching, in fact, was entirely haphazard; Gaius was given to the
first-year students, ‘passim et quasi per saturam collectum et utile
cum inutilibus mixtum’. Only in their second year did they learn the
first part of the _Institutes_, and it was an unheard of thing to go
into details. They also learnt certain ‘tituli’, and more of these in
their third year, when they were initiated into the ‘responsa’ of the
great Papinianus (_ad sublimissimum Papinianum eiusque responsa iter
eis aperiebatur_). But here, too, their training was imperfect, as they
only read eight books. The students read the ‘Pauliana responsa’ for
themselves in a slipshod fashion (_per imperfectum, et iam quodammodo
male consuetum inconsequentiae cursum_). This was the end of their
theoretical training throughout ancient times. Justinian is resolved that
there shall be an improvement and proceeds to outline a scheme by which
the youth of the future may be better instructed. This syllabus, however,
lies beyond the limits of our period.
The emperor is at pains to kindle enthusiasm for jurisprudence. He
exhorts the students to exert all diligence, so that on the completion
of their studies the glorious hope of governing the Empire may be
theirs.[495] For, as Gibbon remarks, ‘all the civil magistrates were
drawn from the profession of the law.’[496] _Antecessores_[497] or
lecturing lawyers were appointed throughout the Empire, and the places
where they taught were called ‘stationes’.[498] The course, at any rate
in the time of Justinian, lasted five years (_Constitution_, ‘Omnem
Reipublicae’, § 5). Learned lawyers like Antistius Labeo under Augustus
lectured for six months and devoted six months to writing.[499] When the
students dispersed themselves through the provinces there was no lack of
opportunity to practise their profession. The court of the Praetorian
prefect of the East alone required the services of one hundred and fifty
advocates,[500] and the rewards so liberally promised by Justinian for
the ‘laudabile vitaeque hominum necessarium advocationis officium’[501]
must have created a vast interest in the study of law.
Whether it was the fault of the teachers or of the pupils or of the
social conditions, it is clear that lawyers had a bad name in the fourth
as well as in the fifth century. The vivid and caustic description of
Ammianus is well known.[502] He is suspicious of legal cunning and has
the soldier’s impatience of rhetoric. We must therefore allow something
for his prejudices. But his analysis cannot be wholly false. We may
discount his language when he describes the profession as consisting of
‘violenta et rapacissima genera hominum’, but when he enumerates these
classes and gives each its special characteristics, we feel that he may
exaggerate but that he does not invent. The first class consists of
mischief-makers and robbers, ‘odia struentes infesta’. Their oratory
is empty and artificial: ‘eloquentiam inanis quaedam imitatur fluentia
loquendi’. The second class consists of fraudulent people who make a
superstition and a mystery of the law, increasing its entanglements,
‘velut fata natalicia praemonstrantes’, in order to enhance their own
importance. Thirdly, there are the unscrupulous advocates who are always
ready to sacrifice truth to money or fame. Finally, we have ‘a shameless
race, perverse and ignorant—men who, having run away from school too
young, scurry about in the nooks and corners of various states’.[503]
Cicero is the ideal—‘excellentissimus omnium Cicero’—and Ammianus regards
the practice of his day as erring from the good of the past.
Confirmation of the point in this criticism which most nearly touches
education comes from an unexpected source. Sidonius, the rhetorical,
the obscure, the vendor of subtle argument, associates ‘obscurity’ with
the lawyers as a special characteristic.[504] Nor does he seem to think
them particularly helpful. He sends a man, who has a case about a will,
to Bishop Leontius, and begs him to see that justice is done, using his
episcopal authority, if the lawyers will not help the client.[505]
Finally, there is medicine. When Denk maintains[506] that there was no
faculty of medicine in the provinces, he cannot mean to exclude medical
study as a subject of secondary education. There was probably no separate
school of medicine,[507] but Ausonius definitely mentions the ‘medica
ars’ as one of the Bordeaux professors’ titles to fame.[508] In former
days Massilia had given to Gaul the medical tradition of the Greeks,
just as Greece had given it to Rome. A certain Crinas, who lived in
the reign of Nero, is said (though apparently only by Bulaeus) to have
been the first to advance the study of medicine at Massilia, and we
gather from Pliny that he introduced astrology into his medicine and
gained an immense name and fortune.[509] Galen twice mentions Claudius
Abascantus[510] of Lyons, who probably flourished under Augustus, as a
doctor of prominence, and Eutropius of Bordeaux appears among the writers
on medicine in the fourth century.[511] Julius Ausonius, the father of
the poet, was the court physician of Valentinian I. At the beginning
of the fifth century we find Marcellus Empiricus[512] of Bordeaux
composing a book of prescriptions, ‘compositiones medicamentorum’. He
gives many Celtic plant-names, Druidical beliefs, and a large number
of ἅπαξ εἰρημένα and provincialisms.[513] As in the case of astrology,
superstition plays a large part: certain herbs are to be picked with
the left hand, or while muttering some magic formula like ‘rica, rica,
soro’.[514] It is partly for this reason that Ausonius refers to the
‘libros medicinae’ as books closed to the vulgar, and that his eccentric
aunt took up the study of medicine.[515] There seems to have been no
organized system of medical study, and we do not even possess any details
of the procedure in a particular case. It seems reasonable to suppose
that the practical part of the profession was acquired by apprenticeship,
while the rhetor confronted the student with such parts of the medical
theory as could be found in the writings of Galen (who was the central
authority) and his successors.
The frequent grouping of the doctors with the teachers in the Theodosian
Code suggests that the public State-paid physicians taught as well as
practised their art. Reinach[516] warns against certainty on this point,
but it is at least probable. The wording of Constantine’s law[517] of
September 27, 333, confirms the supposition. Doctors and teachers are
proclaimed exempt from military service and public burdens so that they
may have leisure to train others in their art—‘quo facilius studiis
liberalibus et memoratis artibus multos instituant’. Of the original
five classes of _archiatri_ paid by the State—those of the court, those
belonging to the municipalities, the heads of the medicine guilds, those
in charge of the public gymnasia, and those who attended the Vestals—it
was probably the second, the municipal doctors, who were the teachers of
their profession.
If this is so, it proves that Rome was not the only place where doctors
could be trained, as Denk seems to think.[518] Indeed, the provinces
were more interested in medicine than Rome herself. Pliny[519] said
in a broad and general way that for six hundred years Rome had got on
without doctors, and it is well known that the Roman doctors made no
important contribution to the science. Egyptians, Greeks, Gauls—these
were the physicians of Rome. Pliny writes to Trajan asking him to give
the citizenship to a doctor from whom he had derived benefit: ‘est enim
peregrinae condicionis, manumissus a peregrina’.[520] The doctor who
attends Hadrian on his death-bed is a foreigner.[521] Ammianus describes
the growing fame of the Alexandrian school of medicine during the fourth
century, as such, that a man, even if his actual work turned out badly,
need only say that he had been trained at Alexandria in order to gain
commendation.[522]
Then, as now, it was a lucrative profession, according to the proverb
‘Galenus dat opes’;[523] nor did the benefit to the sick always
correspond to the doctor’s gain.[524]
A word may perhaps be added on the _agrimensores_, who represent the
department of science among the Romans that was most scientifically
employed, though all their mathematics came from Hiero of
Alexandria.[525] Their work was partly military (the marking out of
camps and locating of positions for the army) and partly civil (the
surveying of colonies and provinces for revenue purposes). In cases of
‘controversia de loco’, the Theodosian Code appoints them judges.[526]
At first they were free to practise where and when they could, but in
our period they were attached to guilds, and stood under a ‘primicerius
mensorum’.[527] This organization of the ‘agrimensores’ implies a certain
amount of training and a professional test of proficiency.[528]
Their connexion with Gaul is not very clearly attested, but can hardly
be doubted. Frontinus in his _De Controversiis Agrorum_, speaking of
the well-known question as to the ownership of the old bed of a river
which has flowed out of its course into another man’s land, says ‘Hae
quaestiones maxime in Gallia togata moventur’.[529] Again, in speaking of
certain technical surveyor’s terms, he says ‘Hae vocabula in lege quae
est in agro Uritano, in Gallia ... adhuc permanere dicuntur’,[530] which
shows that surveying had long been connected with Cisalpine Gaul. In view
of the laws of the Theodosian Code of our period about surveyors, it
seems possible that in Transalpine Gaul there may have been schools for
the training of _agrimensores_.
* * * * *
A question that comes into one’s mind on reading Ausonius is whether, in
the methods of the Gallic master, mnemonics did not play an important
part.
We find in the _Eclogues_ verses which, on the face of them, suggest
special composition for school use. The ‘Monosticha de Mensibus’[531]
inevitably remind one of school rhymes:
Primus Romanas ordiris, Iane, Kalendas,
Februa vicino mense Numa instituit, &c.
So the verses giving the number of days in each month[532] (‘Thirty days
hath September’), or the days on which the Nones and the Ides fall in
the various months,[533] or the intervals between the Ides of the one
month and the Kalends of the next,[534] or the order of the seasons,[535]
or the names and places of the Greek games,[536] or the labours of
Hercules,[537] all suggest a similar purpose.
Again, in his metrical summary of the Caesars of Suetonius, written for
his son, we find ‘monosticha de ordine imperatorum’,[538] ‘de aetate
imperii eorum monosticha’,[539] ‘de obitu singulorum monosticha’,[540]
all of which look very much like mnemonics.
First of all, their style is such as is suitable to school
children—simple, clear, and terse, and the absence of rhetoric and
affectation is not less striking than the dullness of the lines.
Secondly, it was a tradition handed down by the last great writer on
education, that the memory should be trained by various devices. And the
fourth century was prone to be tradition-bound.
Cicero says that Simonides of Ceos was the founder of the ‘ars
memoriae’,[541] i.e. the ‘techne’, the system for developing the memory,
a statement which Quintilian repeats before expounding his views on the
subject. This he does with care, feeling the importance of memory—as
‘thesaurus eloquentiae’.[542] Only the man who remembers well, he says,
in effect (and his words have a modern ring), can ever hope to become
an orator.[543] There was always a tendency among the Romans towards
encyclopaedic learning, which was the main feature of the grammarian’s
school. We notice it also in the ostentatious lists of authors given by
Sidonius.[544]
Nor can we wonder at this. The whole educational system was calculated
to produce a good memory. The grammarian’s school supplied facts which
had to be remembered in declamations, and the rhetor introduced a host
of technicalities which had also to be kept in memory. The declaimer
had to fit into his speech as many quotations as he could possibly
remember,[545] and in Ausonius’s letter to his grandson the ‘good boy’
is the one with the long memory.[546]
Bearing this in mind, Quintilian recommended that boys should learn as
much as possible by heart, going over the same ground again and again
(_quasi eundem cibum remandendi_, _sc._ _opus_). They must, therefore,
begin with the poets, before going on to prose which is harder to
remember.[547] Memory is a matter of pigeon-holes. What is to be
remembered must be imagined in certain places, so that the order of the
places will recall the order of the things to be remembered. We shall
then use the ‘places’ instead of tablets, and the images associated
with them as letters (_ut locis pro cera, simulacris pro litteris
uteremur_).[548] To cultivate the memory various tricks may be tried.
We learn a large subject by remembering parts of it in order; or we may
take a sign to stand for the thing to be remembered, e.g. an anchor for
‘sailing’, or a weapon for ‘campaign’. Like Cicero, he lays stress on
‘loca’, imagined or actual, and on ‘simulacra vel imagines’. In the case
of a long speech it is best to divide it into parts which should not be
too small. Division is important. ‘Qui recte diviserit, nunquam poterit
in rerum ordine errare.’ He also recommends marking a difficult passage
(_aliquas apponere notas_).[549]
Thirdly, we may note the fruits of this training, as far as memory is
concerned. Ausonius, by writing the _Cento Nuptialis_, proved only one
good thing: that he knew the whole of Vergil by heart. Minervius[550] was
noted for his memory. Ausonius spends ten lines in describing it, and
clearly indicates how highly it was prized. Nepotianus, too, is specially
commended for possessing this gift.[551]
In view of all this, we may not unfairly conclude that mnemonics played
a considerable part in the schools of Gaul. In the history of the human
race, as in that of the individual,[552] the memorizing stage comes
before the development of thought. And the less advanced systems of
education all over the world are characterized by their almost exclusive
emphasis on learning things by heart.
(iii) CONTROL AND ARRANGEMENT OF THE SCHOOL
(a) _Discipline in primary and secondary schools._
The rhetorical tradition brought with it certain traditional methods,
and one of them was the excessive use of corporal punishment. In the
East, Libanius testifies to the frequent employment of this method.
We have seen that the _paedagogus_ appealed as a matter of course to
the ‘argumentum ad baculum’; we find in Libanius that the rhetor, the
university teacher, did likewise.
The general prospect of a schoolday may be described in terms of the rod:
ἔσονται δ’ ἐνεργοὶ μὲν ἱμάντες, ἐνεργοὶ δὲ ῥάβδοι. He has a feeling that
it is the only method of curing idleness. Writing to a father whose son
has complained to him about a beating he had received, Libanius maintains
that it is absolutely necessary to treat slothfulness in that way.[553]
In the West we have the pathetic reminiscences of Augustine.[554] No
trouble was taken to explain to him the use or object of lessons; all
he knew was that if he did not learn he was beaten. His prayer was to
escape the rod, and very earnestly he prayed (_rogabam Te parvus non
parvo affectu_), for his blows were to him ‘magnum tunc et grave malum’.
He speaks bitterly of the lack of sympathy, which his sensitive nature
felt more than the rest. He is galled by the unfairness of a system which
punished faults in boys that were excused in men. ‘Maiorum nugae negotia
vocabantur, puerorum autem talia cum sint, puniuntur a maioribus.’ No
proper balance was kept between lessons and play.
On the other hand, he confesses that he was often disobedient through
love of play, and admits ‘non enim discerem, nisi cogerer’.[555]
Moreover, when he puts his punishments in the same category as
‘temptationes martyrum’, we are inclined to think him a sentimental
prig. But there can be no doubt about the excessive severity which was
prevalent, and the fact that it impressed Augustine’s mind to such an
extent[556] is a measure of its wrongness. The worst feature of the
system was not so much the general acquiescence in force as a scholastic
panacea, but in the rigidity which made no distinctions or allowances.
Gaul was no exception to the general tradition. We find in Ausonius a
fine gentleness of spirit and an elaborate courtesy; he shows an almost
un-Roman sympathy with Bissula, the barbarian maid, and is fond of
animals,[557] yet he is by no means thoroughly converted from the old
Roman harshness. The gladiatorial games went on, and were significant
of a prevalent disregard for human life and personality. The old spirit
flashes forth under the veneer of culture; as when Ausonius surprises
us by saying blandly to his secretary, who had been branded for running
away: ‘on your branded face then, Pergamus, you have borne the marks;
letters which your hand neglected are inflicted on your forehead.’[558]
When he writes a letter of exhortation to his grandson we feel that
though there is something of the Greek spirit of pleasure in education,
and though he says[559] that the Muses, too, must play,
Et satis est puero memori legisse libenter,
et cessare licet....
and again:
Disce libens ...
... studium puerile fatiscit,
laeta nisi austeris varientur, festa profestis,[560]
yet there is an acquiescence in an almost savage system of control.
Surliness and brutality on the part of the master is accepted as one of
the ills that flesh is heir to. It was not always so, he says:
sic neque Peliaden terrebat Chiron Achillem:[561]
Chiron used to guide his pupils with gentle words (though Juvenal
represents Achilles as trembling before the rod).[562] But that state
of things belongs to a mythological age. The only thing to do in the
circumstances is to remember Vergil’s dictum: ‘Degeneres animos timor
arguit’, and face the master as a brave warrior would his enemy.[563]
He pictures to his grandson the cane, the birch, the strap, and the
excited bustle of the school-benches (a confession that even the most
rigorous system of force could not keep perfect order). These instruments
are ‘the pomp of the place’ and the elements in its scene of fear. But
the great consolation is that both his father and his mother went through
the same storm of blows in their childhood—an indication that the girls
were not more spared than the boys.[564]
The same assumption that flogging is the inevitable counterpart of
teaching is found in Sidonius.[565] ‘Ferulae lectionis Maronianae’
becomes a synonym for education at a grammar school, and the phrase
‘manum ferulae subducere’, in the sense of attending school, goes down
through the Middle Ages into modern times. Even at the universities
corporal punishment was the usual thing. Eusebius, professor of
philosophy at Lyons, moulds his pupils ‘castigatoria severitate’.[566]
There are signs that the finer spirits, in theory at any rate, felt that
there was something wrong with all this external rigour. Partly, no
doubt, they followed the lead of Quintilian, and partly, perhaps, there
was a slow evolution past the stage of mere militarism. Libanius boasts
ἑτέρους δὲ ἴσμεν μυρίας ῥάβδους ἀνηλωκότας,[567] but _he_ had no need to;
and experience has taught him that the desired end is not always reached
in this way. ‘Now I avoided correction by means of blows, for I saw that
this method often had the opposite of the intended effect.’ We gather
that the applause, which was usual in the rhetor’s school,[568] often
degenerated into rowdiness.[569] Yet we find that the relation between
master and pupil was often very hearty. Gregory of Nazianzus tells of the
farewell speeches, the laments, the tears, which used to mark the day of
parting.[570]
The opposition to the regular tradition is not so clearly formulated in
the West, but we find indications of a better ideal. In the letter to
his grandson, Ausonius does not praise existing conditions, but rather
accepts them as a necessary evil. Indeed, he describes his own teaching
in words which are so contrasted with his picture of the ordinary school
as to imply a direct criticism.
Mox pueros _molli_ monitu et formidine _leni_
pellexi.[571]
Paulinus of Pella has pleasant memories of his schooldays.[572] The
affection with which he writes to his teacher Ausonius[573] proves
that the professor’s statements about the mildness of his régime were
not unfounded. He had referred to his work with Paulinus as that of a
yoke-mate, and his pupil replies:
Love joins me to you. In this bond alone
Dare I to claim equality with you.
Sweet friendship binds me ever to your heart,
And ever we renew our equal love.[574]
Similarly, Sidonius speaks of his master Hoënius in a way which implies
at least some degree of familiarity,[575] while his general recollections
of his schooldays seem to have been distinctly pleasing.[576]
(b) _Play._
The Romans were not much interested in psychology, or in the full
development of personality. It is not surprising, therefore, to find
that practically all the child-games we know of in the ancient world
are Greek;[577] nor can we wonder that the Gallo-Romans have left us no
description of the sort of things the child mind does, the way in which
its personality develops, when freed from the guidance of what is called
education.
The subtler African mind of Augustine, however, has left us some record
of such games; and they are all so human and lifelike that they may very
well have been common not only to his country, but also to his age.
He mentions ‘nuts’, handball, and bird-catching (_nucibus et pilulis et
passeribus_).[578] Games of ball were, of course, common to the children
of all countries. We find Paulinus of Pella at the age of fifteen wishing
for a golden ball just arrived from Rome,[579] and Augustine describes
how desperately keen he was on beating a chum in the contest of the
ball.[580] As for the sparrows, ‘to capture a bird’, says Bertrand in his
_Life of St. Augustine_,[581] ‘that winged, light and brilliant thing, is
what all children long to do in every country on earth’. The same author
describes the game of nuts as it is played in modern Africa. ‘A step
of a staircase is used as a table by the players, or the pavement of a
courtyard. Three shells are laid on the stone and a dried pea. Then, with
rapid, baffling movements, hands, brown and alert, fly from one shell
to another, shuffle them, mix them up, juggle the dried pea sometimes
under this shell, sometimes under that, and the point is to guess which
shell the pea has got under. By means of certain astute methods an artful
player can make the pea stick to his fingers, or to the inside of the
shell, and the opponent loses every time....’
It may be, too, that there were battles in which they took sides as
Carthaginians and Romans or Greeks and Trojans.[582] Augustine loved
to listen to fairy tales and was passionately fond of watching plays
and performances (_curiositate magis magisque per oculos emicante in
spectacula, ludos maiorum_).[583] The spirit of adventure sometimes led
him (as it has led children of all ages) to break the laws of property,
as the incident of the pear-tree shows.[584]
Of the organized sport of youth and manhood we derive considerable
information from Sidonius, who frequently mentions indoor games such as
the _duodecim scripta_, a sort of backgammon,[585] _fritilli_[586] and
_pyrgus_[587] (in which dice [_tesserae_] were used), as well as outdoor
games. Paulinus of Pella tells us how he was taken ill with fever at the
age of fifteen, and his parents, thinking his health more important than
‘doctae instructio linguae’, followed the doctor’s advice and removed him
from his school at Bordeaux. Among the pleasures that were planned to
speed his recovery was hunting, which his father resumed for his son’s
sake.[588] The equipment of a well-to-do Gallic huntsman is described.
The young Paulinus wishes for a fine horse with extravagant saddle and
bridle adornments (_faleris ornatior_), a tall groom, a swift hound, and
a smart hawk. Fine clothes and scent from Arabia are also objects of his
desire.
The main details of the chase may easily be filled in from Sidonius. From
the description of Theodoric’s hunting skill, we gather that spears were
used as well as bows,[589] and that the unsportsmanlike Roman habit of
driving the game into nets was practised in fifth-century Gaul.[590] The
hawk was regarded as an indispensable item.[591] There is river and lake
fishing,[592] either with nets or with lines laid before nightfall,[593]
and we hear of boat-racing[594] on lakes.
The game of ball, which is so frequently mentioned in Sidonius, was
undoubtedly the most popular outdoor game. It was played by two
persons,[595] or four,[596] or more than four,[597] and we gather that
there was a good deal of running about. That is practically all we know
of its rules, so that it is, strictly speaking, an assumption to call it
‘tennis’.[598] There were professional ball-throwers or jugglers, and
there is an epitaph, found at Narbonne, to one Capito, a ‘pilarius’.[599]
The games of the circus were still popular. Majorian held them at
Arles,[600] and they are frequently mentioned in inscriptions, as in the
one at Arles in which some thousands of sesterces are given ‘from the
interest on which athletic or circus games are to be given yearly’.[601]
At St. Pierre (Narbonne) a well-preserved inscription was found to a
man who had been ‘flamen’ of Augustus and curator of the gladiatorial
games, and had been honoured ‘for his exceptional munificence in
providing games’.[602] A Massilian inscription mentions ‘agonothet(ae)
agoni(s)‘,[603] and it is not impossible that the tradition of public
games in Gaul received an initial impetus from the Greek city of the
south.
Against these athletic displays there seems to have been a good deal of
feeling. Pliny tells us that they were abolished at Vienne by Trebonius
Rufus, whose judgement, when appealed against, was upheld by Junius
Mauricus, who added ‘Vellem etiam Romae tolli posset’. The reason
given was a moral one. ‘Mores Viennensium infecerat, ut noster (agon)
hic (Romae) omnium’, says Pliny,[604] voicing the traditional Roman
opinion on the subject. For Ennius had maintained: ‘Flagiti principium
est nudare inter civis corpora’;[605] and Cicero had followed up the
objection with ridicule: ‘Iuventutis vero exercitatio quam absurda
in gymnasiis’.[606] Seneca[607] excludes gymnastics from his liberal
studies, the main reason being ‘that they do not make for virtue’.
Quintilian is more moderate. He has no objection to those who give them
some little attention—‘paulum etiam palaestricis vacaverunt’. But those
who overdo it, who spend part of their life in oil and part in wine,
and so cloud the intellect, he would keep at the greatest possible
distance.[608] There was a feeling that the ‘Graeculus magister’ who took
charge of the exercises, instead of the old Roman veteran, was largely
responsible for the degeneration.[609]
Now the question arises whether gymnastic exercises were part of
the school programme, as in Greece, and whether there was anything
corresponding to the State-governed training of the ‘ephebi’. There seems
to be considerable confusion of thought on this point.
Denk[610] writes of the school buildings of Autun that they ‘lay in
the shadow of trees, in the neighbourhood of murmuring fountains, the
water of which was utilized by means of canals for bathing and swimming
establishments, while the Gymnasium and the Palaestra provided for
physical training and fitness’. For this he quotes Bulaeus.[611] But
the reference is wrong. Elsewhere[612] this unreliable author vaguely
mentions a palaestra in connexion with Autun, but cites no authority for
his statement. Nor does Tacitus,[613] whom he quotes, refer to anything
of this kind at Autun.
On the other hand, there is the fact that neither Ausonius, who was
interested in education, nor Sidonius, who was interested in games, says
a word about gymnastics in schools.
It is true that Sidonius, in describing the pictures of his country
seat at Avitacum, refers to wrestling bouts and to the ‘virga
gymnasiarchorum’.[614] But he is writing about artistic representations,
the content of which were probably literary and without reference to
Gaul, and the ‘virga gymnasiarchorum’, if, like the description of the
misers who are practised in the palaestra of detraction and rub their
limbs with poison instead of oil,[615] it has a realistic and a local
ring, may refer with greater pertinence to the public performances such
as took place at the Ludi Circenses.
Nor need we depend on the dangerous argument from silence. The whole of
Roman traditional sentiment was against such an arrangement. Seneca, and
the influential Quintilian, definitely excluded it from their scheme of
studies. The most that Quintilian will concede is a master of deportment,
who will teach the art of gesticulation (_chironomia_, _lex gestus_),
which is important for the orator, and who will train in the pupil a
decorous grace of body. He will even go so far as to pass the war-dance
of the old Romans, with the qualification ‘nec ultra pueriles annos
retinebitur nec in his ipsis diu.’ But he clearly means to exclude the
gymnastic training as practised by the Greeks.[616]
It may be that the misconception of Denk partly lies in an unconscious
confusion of the word ‘gymnasium’. Early writers like Plautus use it in
the Greek sense of a school for gymnastic exercises, but where we find
it in later authors like Cicero and Juvenal, the meaning is ‘public
school or college’; and so it is that Sidonius uses it.[617] However that
may be, it seems clear that on the whole Cramer is right, when he says
that in the West gymnastics were never looked on as a part of public
education.[618]
In so far as they appeared at all in the Roman world, they were due to
original Greek influences, which, however, sometimes lasted surprisingly
long. We read, for example, that Augustus was a constant spectator of the
young men at their exercises, a considerable number of them (according
to ancient custom) still being found at Capreae[619]—which was under the
Greek influence of Naples. The inscriptions (as we have seen) point to
the existence of a _gymnasiarchia_ which superintended officially the
physical exercises of the youths and children at Massilia,[620] though
how late it persisted we cannot say. It is probable that even in the
Greek city of the South the practice was discontinued in the fourth and
fifth centuries, for Massilia’s glory was a thing of the past and her
specifically Greek character had all but disappeared.
(c) _Organization._
The Maeniana at Autun attracted so much attention that contemporary
writers have left us a fairly complete picture of its organization and
its structure, which may be taken as typical of the imperial schools in
the larger cities of Gaul.
Autun, as we gather from the _Panegyrici Latini_, was full of big
buildings—temples of Janus, Pluto, Jove, Apollo, Hercules, Venus,
Proserpine, and Minerva—and possessed an amphitheatre, a ‘naumachia’ or
artificial lake for mock naval battles, fountains, and aqueducts. To
these, by the generosity of Constantius Chlorus, there had been added at
the end of the third century the Maeniana, standing several stories high,
in the most important part of the town between the Capitol on the one
hand and the temples of Apollo and Herakles Musagetes on the other.[621]
The schoolroom was probably of the traditional type. The furniture
was very simple. There were no desks (as we may infer, e.g. from the
well-known fresco at Herculanum and the bas-relief at the Louvre)[622]
and the pupils wrote on their knees. The benches on which they sat were
arranged around the chair of the teacher. On the walls would be pictures
of great historical events and geographical maps[623] according to
Seneca’s principle ‘homines amplius oculis quam auribus credunt’.[624]
A gravestone relief discovered at Neumagen near Trèves shows a tutor in
a comfortable seat holding a roll of papyrus. On either side sit two
elder sons also reading from rolls, while a younger son stands on the
right with his wax tablets, furnished with a handle, waiting for his
writing lesson. The stone dates from the first centuries of the Christian
era, and probably represents a private school in the home of a wealthy
Gaul who wished to boast of the good education which he had given his
children.[625]
We do not hear much about private tuition, but the old Roman custom of
having a household slave to teach the rudiments must have persisted in
the wealthy families of Gaul. Paulinus of Pella gives the impression that
he had such training,[626] and Sidonius writes to Simplicius[627] that it
is his duty to admonish his sons who are spoiled and refuse to submit to
his assiduous care—which suggests, as Hodgkin remarks, that he was their
tutor.
In the schools a ‘chair’ (_cathedra_) was occupied by the teacher,
who was variously called ‘professor’, ‘praeceptor’, or, more rarely,
‘magister’, and a _schola_ meant the number of people grouped under one
_cathedra_, just as, in the official language of the time, it meant a
group of officials serving under one head—soldiers, servants of the
palace, and so forth.[628]
It is vain to look for any detailed scheme of arrangement in the
subjects of the schools. As we have seen, no definite compartments can
be distinguished in a subject like ‘Grammar’, nor were the same number
of subjects found in every school: Law, Philosophy, and Medicine being
taught in accordance with the traditions and the size of the place. We
are not even quite clear as to the relation of the various grades of
schools to one another when we try to look at Gaul in particular. For a
point that is left vague in one’s mind after reading the authorities for
Gaul, is whether a distinction was made between the elementary school
and the more advanced classes of the grammarian. Julius Capitolinus, in
his _Life of M. Antoninus_, the philosopher,[629] makes it quite clear
that a different master was used at Rome during the second century
for the two stages. ‘Usus est magistris ad prima elementa Euforione
litteratore ... usus est praeterea grammaticis, Graeco, Alexandro
Cotiaensi, Latinis, Trosio Apro et Pollione et Eutychio Proculo
Siccensi. Oratoribus usus est Graecis Aninio Macro ... Latino Frontone
Cornelio....’ Apuleius is just as clear. Drawn from the fountain of the
Muses, he says that the first goblet provides the instruction of the
elementary master, the second the teaching of the grammarian, while the
third provides the rhetor’s eloquence; and that this is as far as most
people go.[630] And in our period Augustine says that he was very fond of
Latin literature ‘non quas primi magistri sed quas docent qui grammatici
vocantur’.[631]
There is, therefore, a clear traditional distinction in the Roman world
between the _primus magister_ or _litterator_, the grammarian and the
rhetor, and perhaps we may see this division in the stages of his career
which Ausonius describes in the _Protrepticon_:[632]
(1) Multos lactantibus annis,
ipse alui gremioque fovens et murmura solvens.
(2) Mox pueros molli monitu et formidine leni
pellexi.
(3) Idem vesticipes, motu iam puberis aevi,
ad mores artesque bonas fandique vigorem
produxi.
But in the Gallic writers of our period the distinction between the
first two stages is not at all clear. Ausonius, for example, who never
directly mentions the elementary school, says that Macrinus was his
first master, but he puts him under the heading ‘grammaticus’;[633] and
in the Theodosian Code, while _grammatici_ and _rhetores_ are always
distinguished in the laws of the emperors about teachers’ salaries and
privileges, the elementary masters are never specially named. Probably
the work of the _primus magister_ was considerably diminished in the
schools by the fact that many families employed private tutors for the
initial stages of education; and whether a school had a separate master
for the lower classes depended, no doubt, on its size and circumstances.
The whole of ‘primary’ education was loosely considered the province
of the _grammaticus_,[634] who in most cases would have an assistant,
called by the less honourable name of _litterator_[635] or _primus
magister_. The _proscholus sive subdoctor_, mentioned by Ausonius,[636]
seems to have been an assistant grammarian, different from his chief
only in social position. For the _proscholus_ described seems to have
been as much above the ordinary grammarian in learning as the grammarian
was above the _litterator_. But his learning was in inverse ratio to
his pay, for Ausonius describes him as ‘Exili nostrae fucatus honore
cathedrae’.[637]
Of Minervius, Ausonius says that he supplied the forum with a thousand
of his pupils, and added two thousand to the number of the senate,[638]
and Jullian[639] doubles this number (three thousand) to get the total
number which Minervius taught (for he was rhetor at Constantinople and
Rome as well as at Bordeaux) and, dividing by thirty (the probable number
of his teaching years), allots to him two hundred students per annum.
But Ausonius’s style and character hardly admit of such mathematical
speculation. He was much too vague and careless about things to make a
calculation of this kind anything but extremely uncertain. The most we
can say is that Bordeaux, the most flourishing Gallic university of the
fourth century, must have had an exceptionally large number of students,
several hundred, perhaps, drawn from all parts of Gaul, just as the
professors sometimes came from Greece or Sicily.
Education was begun at an early age. Paulinus of Pella began when he was
five,[640] and Ausonius took charge of children in their infancy.[641]
At fourteen or fifteen the boy usually left the grammarian. Paulinus,
who was probably retarded by the difficulty he found with Latin, was
still in his grammarian’s school at fifteen.[642] If, as it appears,
the law-course lasted five years, law students who went to Rome from
Gaul would spend only a year or so in the school of the rhetor. For the
emperor forbade students to continue their studies at Rome after the age
of twenty, when they were removed by force if they omitted to return.
‘His sane qui sedulo operam professoribus navant, usque ad vicesimum
aetatis suae annum Romae liceat commorari. Post id vero tempus qui
neglexerit sponte remeare, sollicitudine praefecturae etiam invitus[643]
ad patriam revertatur.’[644] Such was the stringent enactment of
Valentinian in A.D. 370. We hear of students attached to the ‘Corpora’
who continued their studies at Rome after their twentieth year.[645] But
it appears that the general age for leaving the rhetor’s school was, at
any rate, before twenty.
Pueros ...
formasti rhetor metam prope puberis aevi,
says Ausonius to Exsuperius,[646] which means that fifteen was a common
age for boys to be at the rhetor’s school.
About school-hours we know very little. It does not seem likely that
the grammarian had so many hours per week for each of the seven liberal
arts. What he aimed at was extensive reading, primarily for philological
and literary knowledge, and only secondarily for such historical
and scientific facts as came under Capella’s various heads. ‘The
grammarian’, says Seneca, ‘attends to language, and, if he wishes to go
farther afield, to history, while the utmost limit of his activities is
poetry.’[647] ‘If he wishes to go farther afield’ is significant: the
system was an elastic one.
Of the total number of teaching hours there is only one indication.
Ausonius sends the teacher Ursulus six philippi, the usual New Year’s
gift from the emperor which Ursulus had not received, and says that they
are ‘As many as the men to whom the fates of the Romans and the Albans
were entrusted, and as many as his teaching hours at school and the hours
he sits at home’.[648]
Denk, therefore, seems to be wrong when he says of the teachers[649] that
they had no limitations of subject or method or time.
When this schoolday of six hours started in Gaul we do not know; but
it is probable that it began fairly early in the morning and went on
into the early afternoon. This was the case at Antioch in the fourth
century;[650] and Augustine says that the teacher is kept busy in the
hours before noon.[651]
With regard to examinations we find nothing definite, but there is a
passage in the famous law of 370[652] which points to the application
of some test. The emperor wants a report from the prefect of Rome, with
a view to imperial appointments, of all students who have completed
their course and are going back to the provinces. Moreover, such reports
(_breves_) must be lodged at the imperial office every year. ‘Similes
autem breves etiam ad scrinia mansuetudinis nostrae annis singulis
dirigantur, quo meritis singulorum institutionibusque conpertis, utrum
quandoque nobis sint necessarii iudicemus.’
From a few scattered hints it looks as if there was some sort of academic
dress. Domitius teaches Terence at Ameria, wrapped in a thick cloak
(_endromidatus_) though the weather is warm[653]—a picture which reminds
us of Augustine’s ‘paenulati magistri’.[654] At Antioch the rhetor wore
a philosopher’s mantle[655] (_tribon_), a costume which was not unknown
in Gaul, for Sidonius remarks that Claudianus, though a philosopher, wore
ordinary dress.[656]
That there were holidays at regular intervals is clear from Ausonius’s
letter to his grandson:
Sunt etiam musis sua ludicra: mixta camenis
otia sunt ...
set requie studiique vices _rata tempora servant_.[657]
And Sidonius invites Domitius to come and share the joys of the country
after his laborious teaching in the stuffy schoolroom.[658]
When exactly the vacations began and how long they lasted in Gaul we do
not know, but it is probable that the order and duration of the Roman
holidays were imitated. Ausonius’s verses in the ‘Thirty days hath
September’ style on the Feriae Romanae[659] indicate that the Roman
holidays existed at least in the memory of the schoolboy. Tertullian
implies that they existed also in his experience, though less splendid
in the provinces than at Rome (_minore cura per provincias pro minoribus
viribus administrantur_).[660] We hear of ‘Florales Ludi’, which were
different from the Roman Floralia, in connexion with the academy of
Toulouse. There were ‘Agones rhetorici et poetici quotannis celebrari
soliti, quique etiamnum hodie Kalendis Maii (_sic_) quotannis in domo
publica committuntur’.[661] It is doubtful when these games were first
introduced. Justinus mentions them in his description of the foundation
of Massilia. Tradition at Toulouse said they were instituted by a maiden
of literary tastes, Clementia Isaura; another version is that she merely
renewed them. She is mentioned in the _Agonisticon_ of one Petrus Faber
of Toulouse in the sixteenth century, and Papyrius Massonius wrote an
‘Elogium Clementiae Isaurae’. They set up a statue to her on which the
inscription ran: ‘Clementia Isaura ... forum frumentarium, vinarium,
piscarium et olitorium ... Capitolinis populoque Tolosano legavit, hac
lege ut quotannis ludos Florales in aedem publicam quam ipsa sua impensa
extruxit celebrent....’
On such occasions a child would be taken by his parent to see the
show, though he would not be allowed a seat (_non sedens propter
aetatem_),[662] and at festivals such as those of St. Just he would enjoy
a game of ball or dice.[663]
A calendar of about the middle of the fourth century would, Jullian[664]
supposes, taking the evidence of Ausonius’s poem ‘de Feriis’, the
calendar of Philocalus, and the Christian writers, show about eighty-nine
holidays, of which he considers six doubtful. In the meantime Christian
festivals were increasingly claiming recognition. Already in 321
we find Constantine prohibiting the exercise of certain trades on
Sunday,[665] and in 389 the Biblical conception of Sunday is definitely
recognized[666] (_solis die quem dominicum rite dixere maiores_) and a
general cessation of business is enjoined. In the same year the pagan
festivals were cut down; only the summer and autumn festivals (described,
even in the law, with the usual literary diffuseness of the time), the
New Year holidays, and the foundation-days of Rome and Constantinople
were to remain.[667] On the other hand, shows on Sunday were forbidden,
‘so that the sacred rites enjoined by the Christian law should not be
disturbed by any gathering of shows’[668] (A.D. 392), and at Easter
the business of the forum and of the law courts[669] was suspended.
In theory, therefore, there was a decrease in pagan and an increase
in Christian holidays. In practice, however, pagan festivals long
persisted,[670] and it is significant of the tenacity of paganism that
the Lupercalia was celebrated in the fifth century. Very often the church
kept the old festivals, merely changing their meaning.[671]
There can be no doubt that the pagan festivals were observed as school
holidays: the references in Horace and his contemporaries and the Roman
conception of _festus_, _fastus_, _feriae_, as indicating solemnity and
reverence,[672] point to this conclusion. Such was evidently the case in
the fourth-century Italian schools, for Augustine waits to resign his
professorship until the holidays of the ‘Vindemia’.[673]
Of the Christian festivals it is harder to judge, especially after the
revival of paganism under Julian at the beginning of our period. But it
is probable that while the earlier laws (e.g. those of Constantine) had
no widespread effect on the schools, the increasing emphasis laid on
Christian festivals, passing through the fourth and fifth centuries into
the Germanic period of Gaul, must have meant the recognition of Sundays
and such festivals as Easter in the school curriculum.
Besides the public festivals there was the long vacation, lasting
from the end of July till the beginning of October.[674] At Antioch,
similarly, classes were taken only in the winter and in the spring,[675]
the vacation lasting from midsummer till the beginning of winter. When
the vacation came, the Antioch rhetors used to go in for public speeches
and imperial panegyrics.[676]
Moreover, any special event produced a holiday. At Antioch any festive
occasions, funerals,[677] or civil commotions,[678] served to close the
schoolrooms. On the occasion of the marriage of Ricimer with the daughter
of Anthemius, the schools of Gaul enjoyed a holiday.[679] Apparently the
length of the holiday was not controlled by organized rules, and this
time it lasted so long that even Sidonius protested.[680] ‘_Tandem_’, he
says, ‘reditum est in publicam serietatem, quae rebus actitandis ianuam
campumque patefecit.’
It is interesting to find signs of a common life among the students,
the beginnings of a residential university. Aulus Gellius claims the
authority of Pythagoras for this mode of life. ‘Here is another point
we must not omit: all the students of Pythagoras, as soon as they had
been admitted into that “corps” of his, pooled all their possessions,
slaves, or money, and so a close and lasting society was formed.’[681]
Suetonius tells of one C. Albucius Silus of Novaria (Cisalpine Gaul)
who came to Rome and was received into the ‘contubernium’ of Plancus,
the orator, i.e. lived under the same roof, became a ‘convictor’ with
him.[682] ‘You can enjoy the possession of no good thing’, Seneca says,
‘without some one to share it.’ You will gain more by talking and living
with (_convictus_) people than from set speeches. Cleanthes could never
have interpreted the philosophy of Zeno if he had merely attended his
lectures. But he lived with him, examined his private life, and watched
him to see if he practised what he preached.[683] Similarly, Plato and
Aristotle and the rest learned more from the conduct than the words of
Socrates, and ‘Metrodorus, Hermarchus, and Polyaenus were made great not
by the school of Epicurus, but by living with him (_contubernium_).’
Gellius gives many examples of this sort of literary fellowship. While
master and students dined together, one of the servitors would read
some passage from a Greek or Latin author, and if a difficulty arose
the master explained. So at the table of Favorinus ‘servus assistens
mensae eius legere inceptabat....’ and a discussion was introduced by
the philosopher on the word ‘parcus’.[684] Literary criticism was the
favourite thing, as when the _Bucolics_ of Vergil and Theocritus were
read together at a dinner, and it was noticed that Vergil had left alone
passages which contained the peculiar Greek sweetness but could not and
should not be translated.[685]
We have no direct data for supposing that this system was followed in
Gaul in our period; but the Favorinus mentioned in Gellius came from
Arles, and there appear to have been ‘contubernia’ in Massilia.[686]
Moreover, the ‘Platonic clubs’ of Sidonius and the general social temper
of the Bordeaux professors make it likely that something of the kind was
found at the Gallic universities.
As to the payment of teachers, it is clear that before Vespasian it was
very unequal. Verrius Flaccus, who was tutor to the children of Augustus,
received a salary of 100,000 sesterces (£1,000).[687] Even the infamous
Palaemon, to whom parents were forbidden to send their children by
Tiberius and Claudius, got as much as 40,000 sesterces. Martial takes a
pessimistic view. In his advice to a friend on a career for his son he
counsels: Let him avoid grammarians and rhetoricians if he wants to make
money:
Artes discere vult pecuniosas?
fac, discat, citharoedus aut choraules.[688]
In Gaul, it appears, teachers were paid by the State before this was
the case at Rome; for Strabo remarks in the first century A.D. that
he found State-appointed teachers there.[689] But there must have been
great lack of organization and equality because State-payment meant, at
that time, payment by the municipal town, which could not always provide
proper security. Security, indeed, became more and more shaken, and the
improvement made by Vespasian when he fixed the teachers’ salaries was a
much-needed measure. In the famous decree of 376 Gratian and Valentinian
ratified this enactment.[690] Rhetoricians are to receive twenty-four
_annonae_[691] from the treasury, Greek and Latin grammarians, twelve.
The chief cities of the provinces are encouraged to elect professors who
are to be paid according to the standard fixed by the emperors. Trèves,
the imperial favourite, gets something more (_uberius aliquid_), thirty
annonae for a rhetor and twenty for a grammarian.
There can be no doubt that the emperors tried to monopolize education.
Julian’s decree[692] that the appointment of all teachers was to
be subject to the imperial approval, and the law of Theodosius and
Valentinian in the next century forbidding all public schools outside
the imperial academy, are illustrations of this tendency. Nevertheless,
there must have been a large number of private-school teachers who were
not paid by the State. The imperial legislation of the later empire could
not have done away entirely with so established and widespread a class
of men. They survived, especially in elementary education, and possibly
their number exceeded that of the officially State-paid teachers.
The law makes it quite clear that the State-paid school and university
teachers[693] were, at one time, dependent on their towns for pay;
and the frequent mandates of the emperors to the municipalities not
to neglect these salaries show that they were not always prompt in
paying. Symmachus, also, complains of the withholding of salaries;[694]
and it has been suggested in this connexion that the teachers were
unpopular because they were mostly pagans. It is more likely that their
unpopularity was due to the fact that their teaching did not touch the
mass of the population, who nevertheless had to support them. That the
municipal salary stopped when the imperial one came into existence seems
unlikely. Denk thinks that the imperial-paid ‘auditoria’ were distinct
from the lower municipal-paid schools,[695] but probably the individual
cities went on contributing part of the professors’ salaries, even after
the law of Gratian.[696] As to the amount received, the impression made
by the upper circle of the Bordeaux professors is certainly one of
material prosperity. Marcellus of Narbo,[697] Sedatus of Toulouse,[698]
and Exsuperius[699] did very well for themselves, and Eumenius considers
his salary of £5,000 as nothing extraordinary: ‘multo maiora et prius
et postea praemia contulerunt’ (_sc._ _principes_).[700] Even of the
grammarian Marcellus, Ausonius could say that riches came by teaching:
Mox schola ...
grammatici nomen divitiasque dedit.[701]
On the other hand the less distinguished seem to have had a
disproportionately small salary. The frequent application of the epithet
‘sterilis’ or ‘exilis’ to the chair of the grammarian is a feature of
Ausonius’s picture of them.
Besides the imperial and the municipal support there were the gifts from
the emperor,[702] and the possibility of presents from the family of the
pupils—a practice which is still very much in evidence in many country
centres. Finally, there were the fees from the pupils, part of which
seems to have been paid directly to the teacher.
The class fee (_merces_, _minerval_) seems to have been stipulated
for by the rhetors individually. Axius asks Merula in Varro’s _De Re
Rustica_,[703] ‘to be his master in the shepherd’s art’, and the reply
is, imitating the practice of the rhetors, ‘Yes, as soon as you promise
to pay my fee’ (_minerval_). Juvenal refers to the same practice:
Quantum vis stipulare, et protinus accipe quod do
ut toties illum pater audiat.[704]
Bulaeus says that the amount of the fee was sometimes left to the
generosity of the parents.[705] He can hardly be referring to a common
practice. The fourth century was far too business-like for this sort of
thing. Most of the teachers who were in a position to do so probably
demanded a large fee, like Exsuperius.[706] How far this bargaining went
on after the law of Gratian we cannot tell: but the fact that it went on
after Vespasian had fixed the salaries shows that it was not necessarily
stopped in 376. Much more liberal was the East. Lectures at Antioch
were open to all, even to pupils of other rhetors:[707] and sometimes
invitations to attend were sent round by the servant of the lecturer.[708]
As to the number of the professors appointed little is known. Probably
from what Ausonius says there were ten at Bordeaux, six ‘grammatici’ and
four ‘rhetores’—the highest number, Jullian thinks, that Bordeaux ever
reached. At Constantinople Theodosius appointed in 425 to his special
_auditorium_[709] three rhetors and ten grammarians for Latin, five
rhetors and ten grammarians for Greek, one professor of philosophy,
and two for law. But this is Eastern exuberance. Trèves, the imperial
favourite, had only two or three rhetoricians, one Latin grammarian, and
one Greek grammarian—a post which could not always be filled.[710]
Denk, in remarking that the number of teachers was thus definitely fixed,
adds that there is no trace of a principal who gave direction to the
work of the students.[711] Now it is true that there was no definite
organization, but it seems very probable that the emperors, when they
interested themselves in a school and appointed teachers, would have
some one at the head of the establishment to facilitate communication
between the imperial offices and the school. Moreover, it is a natural
and traditional thing the world over for a group of men more or less
permanently banded together to have a chief. The Druids had their
leader,[712] and among the Persian Magi there was an archimagus. Besides,
we have at least one ‘trace’ which Denk does not notice. Eumenius,
as head of the Maeniana, was called _moderator_, which looks like an
official title. And in the Christian schools it was a common thing to
have a head (_primicerius_), as will be shown later.
Jullian[713] notices as a praiseworthy feature of the fourth-century
educational system that the master passed on with his pupils as they
advanced from stage to stage. Our author reads into his idealized fourth
century a method which has long been practised by the Jesuits. But
perhaps the wish is father to the thought. For it is clear that this
could not, in the majority of cases, apply to the elementary master,
whose intellectual limitations would effectually prevent him from taking
the higher classes. Ausonius tells us as much.[714] Such teachers were
‘humili loco ac merito’. He mentions Romulus and Corinthius[715] as the
Greek grammarians who taught him ‘primis in annis’, and they do not
appear again in the list of his masters. When quite young he was put
under his uncle Arborius (_qui me lactantem, puerum iuvenemque virumque
| artibus ornasti_),[716] who may have been a kind of general tutor to
him at that time. When he was about ten years old he went to Toulouse
(_c._ A.D. 320) and was taught for eight years in the school of Arborius,
who in 328 was appointed tutor to one of the sons of Constantine at
Constantinople,[717] where he died. Ausonius then returned to Bordeaux
where he seems to have continued his studies in the rhetorical school,
studying under Minervius,[718] and Luciolus,[719] who was once his fellow
student, and probably under Alcimus[720] and Delphidius,[721] while
Staphylius took the place of Arborius[722] as general tutor:
Tu mihi quod genitor, quod avunculus, unus utrumque
alter ut Ausonius, alter ut Arborius.
All these later masters, like Minervius, are spoken of distinctly as
‘rhetor’ or ‘orator’, just as his early masters are distinguished as
‘grammatici’.[723]
Ausonius’s experience as pupil, therefore, seems to contradict the
statement that the master followed his students from class to class. But
it may be argued that the scheme was upset in Ausonius’s case by his
temporary removal to Toulouse, and his experience as master may be urged.
This is a plausible contention. For he tells us in the _Protrepticon_
of three stages in his career corresponding presumably to those of the
litterator, the grammarian, and the rhetor. Yet Jullian’s supposition
is not therefore true. Not every primary master was an Ausonius who
could rise to the top of his profession and become an imperial tutor.
Obviously there were a large number who found, as they left, the teaching
profession a poor and dreary task. The grammarians whom Ausonius
mentions,[724] except, perhaps, Nepotianus,[725] did not rise to the
higher position, and some, in their old age, even lost the little glory
they had achieved, as Anastasius did.[726] Moreover, Ausonius does not
say that his promotion kept pace with the advance of his students. The
terms he uses are quite vague (_mox_, _idem_). And even supposing the
master could in this way remain with his pupils, what happened when
they had reached the highest stage? Jullian maintains that he started
at the bottom again with a new class: ‘Le même homme était tour à tour
professeur de grammaire et rhéteur: il lui arrivait ainsi de suivre ses
élèves, de les accompagner de classe en classe.’[727]
Now this is reducing the matter to an absurdity. The fixity of the
distinction between grammarian and rhetor is so striking in all Latin
literature, and particularly in Ausonius, that the system, however
desirable, would have been impossible. It is quite clear that there was a
definite status attached to the positions,[728] and the Theodosian Code
prescribes different salaries. Is it conceivable (to mention no other
objections) that a man would be constantly changing his social standing
and his salary in order to accompany his class from stage to stage?
The most we can say is that the connexion between the lower and higher
forms of education was sufficiently close (as in France to-day) to
allow a man of merit to rise from the lowest to the highest. This is
proved by Ausonius’s case, and Denk is not stating the whole truth when
he says that the teachers were independent of one another.[729] There
was a certain amount of independence, no doubt, between grammarian
and grammarian, or rhetor and rhetor, but between the grammatical
school and that of the rhetorician there was a considerable degree of
interdependence.
C. OUTSIDE THE SCHOOL
(i) ADMINISTRATIVE AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS
Before we can understand the working of the school and see it in its
proper perspective, before we can grasp the inner meaning of the system
and appreciate its merits and demerits, something must be known about the
society in which the school flourished and of the imperial organization
which gave direction to that society. As Guizot said in his _History of
Civilization_, study must proceed from without to within.[730]
It is unnecessary to give a detailed account of a subject so well worn,
but a brief summary of such points as bear on education is necessary.
An outstanding feature in the development of the later empire is the
growth of civil power. The great military commands, so common previously,
become more and more impossible, owing to greater subdivision. The
imperial army was divided into one hundred and twenty[731] parts, as
against forty-five at the end of Trajan’s reign, and of these Gaul had
fifteen. The civil power was so far recognized that military and civil
offices were separated. The civil administrator of a province was called
‘proconsul’ or ‘consular’ (which did not necessarily mean ex-consul)
according to whether the province was reckoned as ‘old’ or not. Above him
were the four supreme civil authorities of the empire, the Praefectus
Praetorio (who had become a civil magistrate after the Praetorian Cohorts
had destroyed themselves by supporting Maxentius against Constantine),
the Praefectus Galliarum, the Praefectus Italiae, and the Praefectus
Illyrici et Orientis. It is well to bear in mind the status of these
officials, for it will help us to understand the meaning of the fact
that a schoolmaster like Ausonius became ‘praefectus Galliarum’. Each
praefecture was divided into ‘dioceses’ and at the head of each was a
‘Vicarius’. The tenants of the higher offices were divided, according
to the honour of their position, into ‘Illustres’, ‘Spectabiles’, and
‘Clarissimi’.
An important point in this system is that there was no continuous
official chain passing down from the emperor to the lowest official;
the emperor could interfere at any point (a particular in which the
Pope resembles the Roman emperors) and every official was regarded as
directly responsible to him, though he was controlled by his superior
official as well. Functionaries were made to change places rapidly, so
as to prevent a man from obtaining undue influence by long residence
in one place. Thus, though the growth of civil power was favourable to
the development of schools, the coercive spirit which is destructive
of true education remained. On the one hand, education was encouraged
by the various departments of the extensive[732] Civil Service—the
secretariat (_scrinium ab epistulis_), the Record Office (_a memoria_),
the office for legal documents (_a libellis_), and that for the emperor’s
engagements and arrangements (_scrinium dispositionum_); and on the other
hand, the controller of the civil service (_magister officiorum_) sent
forth his secret service men (_schola agentium in rebus_), who, beginning
their career by superintending the post service (_curiosi_), became a
pregnant source of corruption and oppression. Extraordinarily efficient
as the imperial civil service was, it had this important loophole of
corruption, while oppression was possible everywhere.
The centre of the bureaucracy was the ‘Consistorium’ or Privy
Council.[733] Certain high officials became ‘comites consistoriani’, and
special people were called in for particular points. The position of the
senate in this scheme of things is interesting from Ausonius’s statement
that Minervius added to it two thousand members.[734] The number of
members tended to grow enormously owing to the increasing use made by
the emperor of his ‘ius adlectionis et loco movendi’, and the ‘ordo
senatorius’ was still in existence. Ultimately, all who were ‘clarissimi’
belonged to the senate. But in practice only the higher officials, the
priests, and the ‘consulares’ actually took part in the proceedings,
which tended to become municipal rather than imperial. The position of
the senate, therefore, regarded as an imperial body, was merely nominal,
though it was of considerable local importance. Its chief function was to
provide ‘panem et circenses’, paid for by the holders of the consulship,
the praetorship, and the quaestorship, which alone survived from the old
‘cursus honorum’. At the head of the senate was the ‘praefectus urbi’,
whose powers were wide and undefined. Rome’s loss of dignity, with
the emperors frequently residing in Gaul and elsewhere, affected the
prestige of the senate, which still met in the ‘eternal city’. Yet as
the emperors became weaker we find the senate growing in importance, and
during the last twenty-five years of the Western Empire its activity is
remarkable.[735]
Society in Gaul during the fourth and fifth centuries may be divided into
four classes:[736] (1) the senators, (2) the curiales, (3) the common
people, and (4) the slaves.
The senators were exempt from municipal offices and from torture, and had
a right to be tried in a special court. These privileges were hereditary,
though subject to the emperor’s good pleasure, and were counterbalanced
by the heavy taxes, especially the senatorial ‘aurum oblaticium’.
Distinguished from this political aristocracy were the ‘curiales’ or
‘decuriones’, members of the ‘curia’ or municipal council of their town.
Entry into the class was by nomination, and could not be refused by
anybody who had the property qualification, and, once procured, it was
hereditary. It was a most unpopular honour,[737] because it involved the
collection of taxes, for which the ‘decurio’ was financially responsible.
In practice it was often a ruinous position, since no effective
jurisdiction was open to the collector. In the fourth century there
were about one hundred decurions in each town. The plebs comprised petty
landowners, tradesmen, and free artisans. Whereas under the republic
slaves worked for the family, and trade was domestic, free men now worked
for the State, and trade became public. Guilds had sprung up under the
republic, but, whereas they were then free, the empire more and more
destroyed their liberty. Augustus made them dependent on the will of
the prince and the senate, and in our period we find them regarded as
rendering compulsory services under the tutelage of the emperor. What is
more, the Theodosian Code proves that they had become _hereditary_.[738]
Finally, the slaves may be classified as domestic and rural, the latter
comprising many different grades, from serfs of the soil to comparatively
free labourers.
In spite of this rigid suppression of spontaneity and freedom, which is
seen also in Diocletian’s Edict fixing the prices throughout the empire,
there is a gain in other directions. The ‘societates publicanorum’ ceased
to exist, and the provincial was less exposed to capricious plunder,
which in some cases, however, was removed only to admit organized
robbery. Diocletian had levelled the inequality of taxation, but had not
made an equal oppression impossible. Yet there was the boon of peace,
and the genuine efforts to help provincials on the part of emperors like
Julian. He greatly reduced the land tax[739] and administered justice
in person, revising the decisions of judges, and summarily dismissing
corrupt officials. The supply of slaves had palpably decreased, for wars
of conquest had ceased, and the Germanic prisoners, having been found to
be unmanageable, had been granted a certain amount of independence. We
find that as much as two hundred ‘aurei’ was paid for a single slave;
and if we are forced to conclude that the slave in question must have
been of a very special kind, we must grant that even so the price had
risen enormously. This meant that people had to fall back on their own
resources more frequently: a local and provincial independence was
fostered, and we have something more nearly approaching ‘natural economy’.
Such was the system of which the fourth and fifth centuries witnessed
the failure. As time went on taxes continued to be oppressive,[740] the
bankruptcy that inevitably resulted from keeping an army continuously
on a war footing became more apparent, and the security afforded by the
empire became less and less. A weak ruler in a despotic state makes
room for all manner of corruption, and under the weak emperors of the
later empire this result is evident from ‘the frequent creation of new
offices whose object was to curb the corruption of the old’.[741] When
the imperial defence at length breaks down before the repeated waves of
barbarian invasion, we feel that the severance of Gaul from an imperial
government so rigid and so inelastic has merely been forestalled: it
would have come in any case.
The deadening effect of this system is evident. It left no room for life
and growth; spontaneity and genius were stifled, and progress checked.
Naturalness and truth were not at home in this age of officialdom
and adulation. The Theodosian Code bears witness to the elaborate
and involved etiquette which revelled in high-sounding names,—‘tua
sublimitas, tua excelsitas, tua magnificentia, praecelsa sinceritas
tua’,[742] &c.—to which even the emperors were bound by the enormous
stress which public opinion laid on these distinctions. Not that this
Byzantine etiquette was wholly evil. As a means of counteracting the
confusion which had previously reigned, of creating a respect for the
person of the emperor which meant better order and fewer rebellions, it
was a master-stroke on the part of Diocletian. But its evil effects in
the direction of artificiality in times when the emperors could, with
less justice, be called ‘divine’ is not to be denied.
But by the side of this mechanical pagan society there was growing up
at this time ‘another society, young, energetic, fruitful of results—the
ecclesiastical society. It was around this society that the people
rallied ... the senatorial and curial aristocracy was a mere phantom: the
clergy became the real aristocracy.’[743]
In this society lay the hope of the future.
(ii) CLASS DISTINCTION AND EDUCATION
The cast-iron rigidity of class distinctions is apparent even from the
slight foregoing sketch of social conditions. Yet it is worth while
dwelling on it a little longer in view of the statements that have been
made. Every man had his place allotted to him by the divine will of
the emperor, and there he must remain on pain of committing sacrilege.
Valentinianus (says the emperor in A.D. 384) has prescribed for every
rank its proper place and worth. If, therefore, any one occupies a
position not his own, let him not plead ignorance. He stands convicted of
sacrilege, for he has neglected the divine commands of the emperor.[744]
This was the general scheme of Roman society. Nor was it modified to any
great extent in Gaul by the admixture of the Visigoths, who had much
the same system.[745] How did its details affect education in Gaul?
Jullian maintains that practically every free-born child regularly
attended the schools, which were equally accessible, he thinks, to the
children of freedmen.[746] He does not deny that distinctions were rigid
and many: ‘le IVᵉ siècle est, comme le XIIIᵉ, un siècle de privilèges,
de distinctions et de hiérarchie’: but he thinks that all the classes
were equal in the matter of education and that rank disappeared in
the school.[747] In a similar strain Denk argues that the curials
must have had a considerable school training in order to fit them for
the management of municipal affairs. ‘In order to perform such duties
thoroughly they must have had the necessary knowledge: and this they must
have obtained from the school.’[748]
As for the free artisans and the slaves, Denk cites the education of
the old Roman slaves. Cato had demanded that household slaves should be
able to read and write, and Mommsen says[749] that the lower classes had
considerable knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Similarly,
Lavisse says[750] that the uneducated, on the whole, could not have been
too numerous, for even the humble sergeant had to be able to read the
word of command on the tablets, and there were schools for the sons of
veterans.
What authority Jullian has for saying that the distinction between
classes broke down in the matter of education he does not say; and an
examination of the Theodosian Code and of contemporary authorities makes
it entirely improbable.
First of all, it was only the upper class that could compete for the
higher grades of imperial office, which was regarded as the prize of
education. The pride which Ausonius took in his imperial honours is only
half concealed,[751] and he puts before his grandson the same goal of
studies.[752]
Sperabo tamen, nec vota fatiscent,
ut patris utque mei non immemor, ardua semper
praemia musarum cupias facundus, et olim
hac gradiare via, qua nos praecessimus et cui
proconsul genitor, praefectus avunculus instant.
This particular incentive to education was lacking in all but the
senatorial class, from which, Jullian confesses,[753] the greatest number
of pupils was drawn. Freedmen were definitely excluded by law. The
emperors of 426 forbade all of their station to stand for the higher
offices, or to be admitted as soldiers of the Imperial Guard.[754]
The laws which prevented the curial from leaving his class[755] were
many and stringent. Once a curial, always a curial, and not even flight
from his town could save him. The prize of five ‘aurei’ offered by the
government would be sure to find him a captor.
Denk’s argument that the curial must have had a school training to
manage municipal affairs does not go very far. The reading, writing,
and arithmetic taught by the ‘litterator’ he would certainly need,
but there is no reason for supposing that he went any further. The
respectable curial on his freehold farm probably had little incentive
to education, and found no inspiration in his forced work of somewhat
anxious tax-gathering. He would probably have considered the poetical
flourishes of the rhetor beside the point for his son. It would be much
more important for him to learn the practical wisdom which his father had
formulated as to the best methods of making people pay their taxes or of
managing the problems of agriculture.
Now it is true that a law of Constantius[756] enacts that no one shall
attain to the first rank in the ‘ordo decurialis’ unless he has passed
through a course of studies. But firstly, the law applies technically
only to the city of Rome, and its ‘decuriae’; secondly, the amount of
education required was not excessive: all the emperor wanted was that a
man of the first rank should be able to speak grammatically (_ita esse
litteris expolitum, ut citra offensam vitii ex eodem verba procedant_);
and finally, the regulation that this elementary knowledge was specially
laid down as a qualification for the first rank (_librarii_) suggests
that the other two (_fiscales et censuales_) were frequently held without
such proficiency.
If the law tended to stifle the curial’s interest in education, much more
was this so with those who belonged to a lower grade. The incentive
needed there was greater and the incentive given, less. The work of the
artisans belonging to the rigidly separated ‘collegia’ was harder, though
it varied with the trade. The bakers’ guild was not far removed from
slavery. Here, too, frequent flight from the class points to oppression.
The tendency to learn only the practical tricks necessary to make the
trade a paying one must have been even more accentuated. For where there
is no prospect except the drudgery of the trade in which he grew up, it
must be an exceptional man who will take an interest in education or
awaken it in his son. Even the school of the ‘litterator’ must have been
a mystery to many of these ‘corporati’. Moreover, intermarriage between
the classes was regarded with horror, and forbidden on the severest
penalties. Senators or men who ranked as ‘perfectissimi’, or ‘duumviri’,
or ‘quinquennales’, or ‘flamines’, or ‘sacerdotes’, suffered ‘infamia’ if
they married a freedwoman or the daughter of a freedwoman, an actress or
the daughter of an actress, a shopkeeper (_tabernarius_) or the daughter
of a shopkeeper, or any one of low standing.[757]
Whatever we may think of the wisdom of such a measure, one thing is
clear: the difficulty of imagining that all ranks were levelled, as
Jullian says, in the school, and that the son of a senator sat on the
same benches as the sons of freedmen.
Further, the tendency of the emperors to restrict people to the same
place must also have had an effect on education.[758] For the imperial
policy aimed at uniformity and immobility, and in attaining them it
lost life and progress. The discouragement of travel must have meant
a restriction of knowledge and a strangling of that wonder which is
stimulated by new scenes, and is, as Plato said, the beginning of
philosophy.
Again, the inspiration which comes from the feeling of citizenship,
the realization of being a living member of a group and helping to
further its ends, was crushed out by the mechanical fiscal system of the
empire. Men like Claudian and Sidonius might write with an enthusiasm
inspired by this feeling, but what chance was there for the anxious
curial or the fettered artisan to share this inspiration? For him the
round of daily duty was too narrow or too relentless, to allow much
room for ideals. ‘Municipal self-government, bereft of its political
significance, restricted to the sphere of local interests and ambitions,
is apt to degenerate into corrupt and spendthrift practices.’[759] To the
curial, as he carried out the commands of the emperor, it must have been
difficult to see any inspiring meaning in it all, when Gaul was day by
day being more abandoned to the barbaric invasions, while the burden of
taxation remained unalleviated. And yet it is where a meaning, an ideal,
is most clearly seen, that education has its truest incentive and its
most fruitful results.
Denk appeals to the fact that many Roman slaves could read and write,
to Cato’s requirements of a household slave, and to Mommsen’s statement
that there was much reading and writing among the lower classes. But
(as far as the artisans and free labourers are concerned) the reference
is to republican times when the guilds were free, and when a fiscal
imperial system had not yet enslaved the people and created the frightful
inter-class rigidity which culminated, to the detriment of education,
in the fourth century. That there were, however, even then, some
‘collegiati’ who attained to higher education is clear from the law of
370.[760] The emperor, in asking the Prefect of Rome for a report of
provincial students, makes an exception of those who are serving in the
public guilds. But we must remember that these ‘collegiati’ probably
belonged to the higher guilds, like that of the ‘navicularii’, in which
the higher classes had a share, and were probably picked men. Ritter,
in his commentary on the law, suggests that they were young men who had
voluntarily joined a ‘corpus’ and were allowed to stay longer than usual
because they were doing public work. However this may be, they were
certainly the exceptions. The impression derived from the Theodosian Code
is that the ‘collegiati’ who had the opportunity of higher education were
very much the fortunate few.
As for the slaves, it is true that there were some of them in the fourth
century who could read and write like Ausonius’s ‘notarius’, but slaves
_qua_ slaves received no education. It was found useful to make them
acquire a knack like shorthand, just as it is useful to break in a
horse. Their knack was their only virtue. But there was no provision for
them as a class, and no encouragement to extend their knowledge beyond
their narrow speciality. A glance at the laws of the Theodosian Code is
sufficient to show this. A ‘colonus’ is bound to the soil on which he is
born, and if he runs away from the place of his birth he is to be brought
back immediately, together with his family.[761] So says a law of A.D.
419. A law of Constantine had also enacted that ‘coloni’, who purposed
flight, should be reduced to slavery and put in chains, and with this
sentence upon them be compelled, as they deserve, to perform the tasks
of free men.[762] The law shows that the ‘coloni’ were still regarded as
belonging to the third rather than the fourth class. But their freedom
did not exist in more than name, and it seems most improbable that they
had any share in the education of the day.
Finally, the deduction of Lavisse that education was general from the
fact that the sergeants could read, and that the sons of veterans had
schools, is not altogether justified. For, again, the soldier would pick
up just the minimum of school knowledge to help him through (and this he
might conceivably have done even without going to a ‘litterator’) more
especially as the army by this time consisted largely of barbarians.
As for the veterans, they were a privileged class, as the thirteen
enactments of the Theodosian Code[763] regarding their status and
immunity from public burdens can prove.
Turning now to the contemporary writers, we can trace the effect of
the code on their methods and ideas. Sidonius clearly thinks of men in
‘ordines’. At the feast of St. Just, in which all classes participate,
there is not much trace of intermingling or exchange of greetings, and
when they scatter for relaxation the lines of demarcation are still
plain.[764] Eumenius, too, illustrates the value which men attached
to class privileges. He had been ‘magister sacrae memoriae’, and the
emperor, in appointing him to the school at Autun, assures him that his
‘dignitas’ will not be impaired by the change. The gratitude of Eumenius
for this boon, ‘ut salvo honoris mei privilegio doceam’,[765] is effusive
and significant.
But the important point is that the upper classes came to look on
education as their monopoly. Sidonius rebukes a friend who is absorbed
in the material concerns of his estate for neglecting his reading.[766]
It is a nobleman’s business, he finely says, to maintain a noble level
of culture. Think of the disgrace of being distanced in your old age
by one of humbler rank, and surpassed in honours by men whose worth is
that of a lower class—‘cum eos, _quos esset indignum si vestigia nostra
sequerentur_, videris dolens antecessisse’. The argument is that the
nobleman has to undertake administrative and other imperial offices;
they are his by right. Therefore he must keep up his education, which
is the road to office, and also peculiarly his prerogative.[767] And
so, when Ausonius says: ‘It isn’t right that I, a royal master, should
expound verses to the common herd’,[768] there is a background of fact
to his jocularity. At the end of the empire, when the social fabric was
tottering and the accustomed ranks and distinctions were vanishing away
(_iam remotis gradibus dignitatum_), Sidonius sees in literary knowledge
the only mark of nobility that will survive: ‘solum posthac nobilitatis
indicium litteras nosse.’[769]
In these circumstances it is hard to see how Jullian is justified in
calling the Roman society in Gaul during the fourth century ‘toute
intellectuelle’.[770] Yet there are two considerations which must modify
our conclusion. The first is that in practice the lines of demarcation
were not so rigid as in theory. As we have seen in the case of the
‘collegiati’, there was higher education where we should not have
expected it, and members of guilds were not always swallowed up in their
guild work. The second consideration is that their interest in education
was not always damped by discouraging surroundings. There was a strong
and almost passionate loyalty to letters among the upper classes which
must have spread lower down in society. The curial, no doubt, sometimes
cultivated his intellect as well as land and tax-collecting, even though
there was no material gain to be won. And it was felt, perhaps, that it
was the respectable thing to send one’s son to a grammar school.
We must, therefore, allow a certain margin for higher education among
the ‘curiales’ and the ‘corporati’, while we accept a very wide range
of mere literacy,[771] such as could be obtained from an elementary
school teacher. The enormous staff of scribes required for the imperial
‘scholae’ must have embraced many of a lower social standing. The need
for people who could read and write was great, and we may perhaps see
in the large[772] number of grammarians[773] (as compared with the
rhetoricians), which the emperors provided, an indication of this need.
But, as we go down the social scale, it is only the exceptions who go
beyond the grammarian, while the majority probably knew none but the
elementary master.
(iii) THE TEACHER IN SOCIETY
Libanius draws a picture of the rhetor lingering in the classroom after
the day’s work because of the unpleasantness of conjugal and family
difficulties at home;[774] and Ausonius roundly declares, emphasizing
another side of the teacher’s unfortunate lot, that a grammarian is _not_
happy and never was; that the very name of grammarian is incompatible
with happiness. If beyond destiny and fate there has existed one that
was happy, he must indeed have passed beyond the bounds of the mere
grammarian.[775]
Routine produced its usual discontent, and it was true of the fourth
century as of the first:
Occidit miseros crambe repetita magistros.
Yet the striking thing about the Gallic teachers (if we may take Bordeaux
as typical of the province) was their sociability. Alethius is ‘comis’
and ‘liberalis’;[776] Luciolus is commended by the poet for his geniality
to his guests, his good temper to his clients, his gentleness with his
servants;[777] and to Minervius[778] he says: ‘No gall embitters your
heart; your wit is abundant; yet your jokes are never such as lead to
strife.’[779]
They loved their dinners and their jokes, and could jest without malice
and in gentleness of spirit. So Nepotianus is addressed as a man ‘old in
years yet witty and young in heart; a spirit unembittered and overflowing
with much sweetness’.[780]
Leontius earns the cognomen Lascivus,[781] and Jucundus, though condemned
for inefficiency, is admitted to the ‘numerus grammaticorum’ on account
of his social and personal pleasantness.[782] It may be noticed, too,
that Constantius, in appointing Eumenius to the head-mastership of the
Maeniana, stated as one of his qualifications ‘his pleasing ways’.[783]
Wine played a great part among them. Crispus, the old master of Ausonius,
was believed to have tippled occasionally.[784] To the reader Ausonius
says in his introduction to _Bissula_ that he is to be read only by those
who have dined and dined well:
Ieiunis nil scribo; meum post pocula si quis
legerit, hic sapiet.
About the futile _Griphus_ he declares that all serious judgement must
be suspended, for ‘iniurium est de poeta male sobrio lectorem abstemium
iudicare’,[785] and the convivial spirit is further illustrated by the
epistles to Paulus[786] and to Theon.[787] Moreover, a favourite ideal
among these professors was to marry an heiress. Like Dynamius, who found
fortune and a wife as a teacher,[788] the jovial Marcellus won the
goodwill and the daughter of a nobleman,[789] as did the rhetor Alethius
Minervius.[790] Even the Syracusan Citarius ‘soon attained to wedlock in
a rich and noble family’.[791]
The Theodosian Code clearly shows how eager the emperors of this time
were to increase the social status of the teacher. A law of 425, for
example,[792] raises certain ‘grammatici’ and ‘sofistae’ to the rank of
_comes_, and adds that all such teachers, if they behaved well and showed
skill in their profession, would enjoy the same privileges after twenty
years of diligent service.
In the social world, therefore, these teachers ranked high: in the
intellectual world their place was considerably lower. We find that there
was a certain standard set for a teacher:
Posset insertus numero ut videri
grammaticorum.
Jucundus[793] is reproached for not reaching this standard and being
unworthy of his profession. But there can be no doubt that the
requirements were fairly low and very irregularly fulfilled. Leontius
knew only the little that his poor position demanded,[794] and masters
like Ammonius and Anastasius were equally ignorant.[795] Ausonius twits
Auxilius on his defective pronunciation and addresses him as ‘inscite
magister’,[796] and Rufus, the rhetorician, had so little sense (_cor_)
that he used to write ‘reminis_co_’ in his verses. Moreover, he was very
like a statue in his lifelessness—only softer and more effeminate.[797]
Philomusus, again, had stuffed his library full of books, but this was
his only claim to knowledge.[798]
Jung[799] finds an illustration of the general tendency to superficiality
in the fact that many of the Bordeaux professors were at the same time
advocates, poets, and farmers.[800] But we feel that this is carping
criticism, and that such combinations of activity are no more anomalous
or indicative of shallowness than they are in many universities of to-day.
But, on the whole, we get the impression that Julian’s emphasis on the
preparation of teachers,[801] apart from its motive, was much needed
throughout this period, and that the level of the Gallic university was
probably not much above that of a modern high school.[802]
In the professional world the status of the teacher had steadily risen,
ever since Vespasian had given education the imperial blessing by
appointing Quintilian to the first State-paid chair. We find Constantius,
in his letter to Eumenius, deprecating the idea that the teachers’ task
is a lower form of imperial service;[803] and there can be no doubt that
Gaul in the fourth and fifth centuries, all enthusiastic as she was for
literature and culture, honoured her teachers more than had previously
been the custom. With the full light of imperial favour upon them, they
were respected, not so much for what they were, but for all the golden
avenues of imperial office to which their profession could lead.
The picture which Ausonius gives of the Bordeaux professors suggests a
resemblance to Oxford. The division of studies between the grammarian and
the rhetor gives an ‘institutio’ which is the forerunner of the Oxonian
School of Classics. For the grammarian did ‘Mods.’ work, training the
pupil in a wide range of detailed facts, while the rhetorician aimed
(though in a poor way) at a philosophic combination of the facts into a
speech, and at grace and lucidity of style. And this is largely also the
aim of ‘Greats’.
Moreover, there is a similarity of social atmosphere. There is a bright
and genial contact of man with man, which implies a study of men as well
as of books, and there is that emotional content springing from such
intercourse, which, if kept within bounds, serves to keep thought fresh
and balanced, and prevents the letter from killing the spirit. That there
was also the danger, as at Oxford, of the social side looming too large,
is clear from a study of these professorial portraits.
(iv) IMPERIAL PROTECTION
A change had come over the administration of schools in the later part
of the empire. In early republican times there had been no public
interference with education: the ideal of men like Cato was ‘in gremio
matris educari’.[804] But even the spirit of Cato could not stop Crates
of Mallos from establishing the first school of grammar, after the
Punic Wars had opened the flood-gates of Greek influence; nor could
it prevent fathers from paying large sums for the services of these
public teachers. A transition stage came in the first century, when the
conflict between the old and the new reached a crisis. The censors grew
alarmed, and issued a decree in 92 B.C. prohibiting the teaching of the
Latin rhetoricians as being contrary to the ‘mos maiorum’.[805] They had
endured Greek rhetoricians, but when Romans began to adopt the ways of
these ‘Graeculi’ they thought it was time to interfere.[806] But public
schools were rapidly growing, and when Vespasian fixed the salaries of
teachers the old conservative Roman prejudice against public education
had practically died out. In the second century Hadrian opened his
Athenaeum—the first school for higher education. Alexander Severus gave
salaries to teachers ‘etiam in provinciis’.[807]
The goodwill and personal interest of the emperors in the schools is seen
in the letter of Constantius to Eumenius.[808] ‘Our loyal Gauls’, he
says, ‘who enjoy the benefits of civilization in Autun, deserve that we
should take thought for the development of their children’s talents. What
gift, then, more fitting than that which fortune can neither give nor
take away? Therefore, we appoint you to be head of this school; for we
have learned to know from your service under us, your eloquence and your
genial temper.’
Nor was this mere wordy benevolence. Public works, temples, schools had
been repaired.[809] Augustodunum had suffered badly from the inroads of
the barbarians, but so effective was the help given, that the restored
city, says the orator, possibly with some exaggeration, was greater and
grander than the old one (_ipsa moles restitutionis immanior_). Money was
given for private as well as public buildings, and not only money, but
artificers from over the sea, new inhabitants of high rank, and soldiers
to guard them during the winter.[810] All this had a very real bearing
on education. Like Britain, the city had gradually got rid of its
‘barbarism’, and had emerged into the light of Roman culture.[811] Amid
all the benefits of the emperors, says Eumenius, the greatest is their
zeal in fostering liberal studies. Though the cares of state are great
and engrossing, they find time to attend to education, and herein perhaps
the true future of Rome may lie—‘si non potentia, sed etiam eloquentia
Romana revirescat’.[812]
The Theodosian Code shows how Constantine continued and developed this
patronage of education. Gaul appeared prominently in this connexion with
the promulgation of the Law of Gratian and Valentinian in A.D. 376 for
the regulation of teachers’ salaries, addressed to the prefect of the
Gauls.
In this, as in many other laws, it is clear that the imperial policy
aimed at the spread of education. ‘In the most populous, powerful and
famous cities of every district entrusted to your Magnificence, let
all the best teachers be appointed for the education of the young: we
refer to Greek and Latin rhetoricians and grammarians.’[813] Similarly,
Valentinian and Valens had exhorted any one who was qualified, either to
open a new school or to revive an old one.[814] But the emperors were
not content with a general policy for education. They provided directly
for all the details of a student’s behaviour and discipline. Those
Gallic students who went to Rome for the study of law had to submit to
the enactment of 370,[815] which prescribed many regulations for their
studies and their conduct.
A different and a closer interest in the schools had been shown by
Julian—the interest of a philosopher. He had laid stress on the morals
and efficiency, and on the personal share he desired to have in the
appointment of teachers, probably with a view to ejecting Christians.
‘Masters and teachers must show excellence first, in character, and
then, in eloquence. But, since I cannot be present in person at every
city, I command that all who wish to teach should not rashly and hastily
leap into this profession, but only when their order has judged them fit
and the unanimous vote of the best citizens has gained them a decree of
the curials. This decree will be referred to me for consideration, so
that the teachers may approach their work of public education with the
higher honour of our approval.’[816] This moral emphasis is repeated in a
decree of Valentinian and Valens: ‘si qui erudiendis adulescentibus _vita
pariter et facundia idoneus erit_.’[817]
From pupil to teacher, from teacher to civil servant or imperial
dignitary, the emperor’s influence was paramount. He decreed when studies
must cease, and how they must be conducted; it was he who fostered
the schools, and from him needy children received financial support.
The institution of the ‘alimenta’ is said to be as old as Ptolemy,
the founder of the Alexandrian library;[818] and we read that Nerva,
like Augustus,[819] reared children at the public expense,[820] and
that Trajan (as is proved by two famous inscriptions)[821] and Hadrian
followed his example.[822] These ‘alimenta’, which had originally been
instituted as a measure against the decreasing birth-rate, were fully
organized in the early empire, but dwindled as financial difficulties
grew.[823] Yet we find Constantine passing laws about the support of
children which probably remained in force at least until the end of the
fourth century. ‘Officium tuum’ is his mandate to the Praetorian Prefect,
‘haec cura praestringat ut si quis parens adferat subolem, quam pro
paupertate educare non possit, nec in alimentis nec in veste impertienda
tardetur ... ad quam rem et fiscum nostrum et rem privatam indiscreta
iussimus praebere obsequia.’[824] Again, in 322, there is a similar law,
this time specially intended for provincials: ‘Quiquis igitur huiusmodi
reperietur qui nulla rei familiaris substantia fultus est, quique
liberos suos aegre ac difficile sustentet, per fiscum nostrum ... stipem
necessariam largiantur....’[825] As far as actual schooling is concerned,
this kind of imperial support, being intended for the relief of the lower
classes, applied only to elementary education.
The teacher was dependent on the emperor (as we have seen) for his
appointment. Sometimes a man would be directly appointed by the emperor,
as Eumenius was,[826] but generally in Gaul, as at Antioch,[827] he would
be nominated by his municipality, and his nomination would be subject
to the approval of the imperial patron,[828] to whom he looked for all
good things. The Gaul of Panegyric VI speaks of ‘privatorum studiorum
ignobiles curae’, and the suggestion is that it is the approving glance
of the emperor that makes them ‘nobiles’. Eumenius clearly brings out
this relation between the teachers and the emperors, who are praised
because they found time to appoint schoolmasters as well as masters of
the horse.[829]
And finally, both teacher and student depended on the emperor for
promotion. Imperial service was the conscious motive of education,
and the rhetor could count among the officials of the empire many a
former pupil. One of the panegyrists looks proudly and wistfully back
to those who left his school and rose high in the forum or the offices
of the palace, and fondly thinks of them as his children. ‘For many
and not ignoble are the streams that take their course from me,’ he
exclaims to the emperor, ‘many whom I guided have risen to govern thy
provinces.’[830] The reason why the emperors take so much care to
appoint efficient teachers is, ‘lest those who ought to be appointed
to the various forms of State service should be overtaken, as it were,
by a sudden cloud midway on the waves of youth, and steer their course
by doubtful stars of oratory.’[831] The service of the emperor is so
obviously the best, that anything else looks like partial shipwreck. The
imperial goal dominates everything. Ausonius served, like many of the
Bordeaux teachers, on the municipality of his town, and rose to be consul
and prefect. Even a man like Exsuperius, whom Ausonius criticizes as a
trivial talker,[832] could become governor of a province. So much was a
public career the fashion that Ausonius expresses surprise at Alcimus for
keeping out of the imperial service:
Quod laude clarus, quod operatus litteris,
omnem refugisti ambitum.[833]
All this finds its counterpart, of course, in the direct encouragement of
the emperors. If Constantine had merely said: ‘We allow teachers to stand
for office, if they wish, but do not compel them,’[834] Constantius,
with an enthusiasm for letters rarely paralleled among princes, could
promise that he would promote to higher rank him who by his studies
and eloquence seemed to be worthy of the first place. ‘For literature
must not be denied her rewards—literature which is _the greatest of all
virtues_.’[835]
One of the main features of the imperial policy towards the teachers
was the panegyric. The emperors had to mould public opinion, and, not
possessing newspapers, they fell back on the professor. And perhaps this
is the reason why, during the fourth century, they made such a special
point of residing in Gaul and expressing their fondness for her by
word and deed—Gaul the home of rhetoricians. However that may be, the
panegyric obtained a regular place among the teacher’s duties.
Ever since Pliny had set the fashion with his panegyric on Trajan, ‘there
had gradually grown up a custom, especially in the cities of Gaul, where
rhetorical studies were flourishing, a custom which became frequent in
the times of Diocletian and Maximian, and again under Constantine and
Constantius, of sending rhetors to the emperor to congratulate him on
successes and to thank him for benefits.’[836] The panegyric was one
of the accomplishments of the famous Minervius,[837] and among the
‘Panegyrici Latini’ it was a much-coveted honour to be allowed to air
this accomplishment. ‘Summam votorum meorum’[838] is the description
applied by the sixth panegyrist to his speech before the emperor. Nor
need we consider this mere flattery; for the rewards were many and
substantial. Sidonius’s panegyric on Avitus procured him a statue in
the forum of Trajan,[839] after his panegyric on Majorian (who had been
nominated by Avitus’s murderer Ricimer), he was admitted into the court
and became a count, and when he performed the same service for Anthemius
in 468 he was made prefect of Rome and president of the Senate; he tells
us himself that he obtained the praefecture ‘sub ope Christi, styli
occasione’.[840]
These were the rewards of the brilliant. But even the humblest grammarian
enjoyed the emperor’s favour as a potential panegyrist. Many laws
at different times protected him from taxes and military service.
Constantine had decreed this, and had added that they were also to be
free from prosecution and shielded from wrongdoing. The magistrates were
to exact a fine of £1,000 from any one who injured them, or themselves
bear the punishment.[841] In the case of a slave whipping was prescribed.
In 333 Constantine confirmed this law ‘to facilitate and extend the
teaching of liberal arts and studies’.[842] His example was followed in
414 by Honorius and Theodosius, who decreed that grammarians, orators,
and teachers of philosophy as well as certain court doctors, besides all
the privileges granted to them by the emperors in the past, should enjoy
freedom from the rearrangement, municipal or curial, of property which
had been put together from several sources in order to be divided equally
(_conlatio_), from the marking out of land for the senatorial or land tax
(_descriptio_), and from all office and public burdens. Nor were they to
have soldiers or judges billeted on them wherever they lived. Moreover,
all these privileges were to be shared by their sons and wives, so that
their children could not be forced to serve in the army.[843]
But the gratitude of the Gallic teachers to the emperor was based on
more than personal benefits. They realized very clearly (in the fourth
century, at any rate) that without the Roman military power education
could not have flourished. Eumenius tells how, after the confusion of
destroying barbarians, the trees flourish again and the corn-stalks
lift their heads when the frontier is made secure. The age of gold
has come again. ‘Adeo, ut res est, aurea illa saecula, quae non diu
quondam Saturno rege viguerunt, nunc aeternis auspiciis Iovis et
Herculis renascuntur.’[844] Panegyric inspires comforting pictures, but
in this case there is a basis of truth. There is a true ring about the
praises of the Aeduan who describes the evil condition of his country,
and pours out his thanks before the emperor,[845] even though he has a
tendency to hysterics.[846] There is a certain amount of real feeling
in his exclamation: ‘O divinam, imperator, tuam in sananda civitate
medicinam’;[847] and the Gallic orator of the sixth panegyric is not
very far wrong when he says: ‘Thence, O emperor, comes this peace which
we enjoy: not the waters of the Rhine, but the terror which thy name
inspires is the rampart that defends us.’
Valentinian I, ‘the frontier emperor’, restored the defences of the
West against the barbarians (367-8). Trouble was brewing among the
Persians,[848] says Ammianus, ‘but Valentinian, conceiving in his mind
great things and profitable’, fortified the whole of the Rhine from
Rhaetia to the sea, strengthened camps and forts, planted many towers in
suitable spots along the Gallic frontier, and sometimes even across the
river close to barbarian territory.[849] Zosimus remarks on his care for
the provinces and for the Celtic peoples.[850]
Even the usurper Constantine, ‘the vain deliverer of Gaul’, as Gibbon
calls him, in A.D. 407 ἐγκατέστησε ... καὶ τῷ Ῥήνῳ πᾶσαν ἀσφάλειαν, ἐκ
τῶν Ἰουλιανοῦ βασιλέως χρόνων ῥᾳθυμηθεῖσαν.[851]
One of the panegyrists[852] mentions ‘sapientia’ as a blessing of the
empire, ‘ipsa ... illa quae videtur rerum omnium domina esse’, and
this wisdom comes by experience of men and things, ‘perspectis hominum
moribus et exploratis rerum eventis’. By giving opportunities to the
Gauls for studying and mixing with different types from all parts of the
world, Roman rule contributed to the general culture of the country; and
the provincial orator is not guilty of his usual exaggeration when he
emphasizes the fact that in this way, too, the empire was a boon at this
time to the education of Gaul.
But against these real and undeniable advantages there may be set some
corresponding drawbacks. Elaborate centralization[853] may be good from
a purely military point of view, but it checks the progress of the human
spirit. The panegyrists show how excessive the expenditure of the central
court was, and how the interests of the empire were sacrificed to the
sovereign.[854] The accession of Julian was a boon, for ‘the provinces
were exhausted, partly by the plundering barbarians, partly by the greed,
destructive as it was disgraceful, of the provincial governors.’[855]
And of Julian the orator asks in a way which affirms the charge on the
part of his enemy Constantius: ‘Flagitiis administrantium non modo frena
laxaret, sed etiam stimulator accederet...?’
This over-centralization resulted in over-interference in education. ‘The
traditional liberty which had formed the foundation of Roman education
was seriously infringed by the appearance of imperial privileges....
All these benefactions were in reality an interference in the affairs
of education.... Thus from the second to the fourth centuries of our
era, the complete transformation of school organization was quietly
accomplished. It is the transition period between the ancient Roman
school and the formalism of the Middle Ages.’[856] This stiffening
of the imperial support into formalism and tyranny is seen in the
Theodosian Code. The personal liberty of the teacher becomes more and
more restricted. Theodosius and Valentinian decreed[857] in 425 that no
State teachers, on pain of being driven from the city with the stigma
of ‘infamia’, were to hold classes in public outside the prescribed
limits. Tutors in private families were permitted if they confined their
teaching to the inmates of the house. But all who taught in the emperor’s
Capitoline ‘auditorium’ were strictly forbidden to teach privately or
else they must lose all the privileges of their office.
It looks as if this prohibition of all public schools outside the
imperial academy was directed against the itinerant sophists. The law
was issued at Constantinople and it may have been a salutary measure in
some ways; but there is a suspicion that the emperor is rather abusing
his authority to favour his own particular college, and the principle of
vesting such unlimited powers over education in one man is a dangerous
one. The penalty imposed on those who disobey this injunction (_infamia_
and banishment) seems to be disproportionately severe. It smacks of that
rigidity which made the emperor forbid the masters of his academy (_intra
Capitolii auditorium_) to teach, even privately, elsewhere. And it is a
continuation of that coercive attitude on the part of the imperial patron
towards the schools, which we see increasing from the beginning of our
period when Julian enacted that every teacher must receive the imperial
approval before he was qualified to teach.[858] He was right in insisting
on efficiency, but his evident attempt to abolish private adventure
schools can hardly be justified.
Extreme centralization had also another and subtler influence. We feel,
as we read the words of Eumenius or Ausonius to the emperors, that there
was an unhealthy relation between them, one which tended to destroy the
individuality of the subject. The deification of the emperor looms very
large in the _Panegyrici_:[859] his favour was the summit of a man’s
ambitions, to him all ideas and ideals had to be accommodated. It is
quite pitiful to watch the hysterics of the panegyrists. It is no more a
case merely of the rules of rhetoric and the laws of the game; it is the
complete breakdown of all self-respect and individuality, an abasement
of body and soul before the temporal powers, springing partly from the
rhetorical tradition and partly from a real sense of dependence on the
emperor.
‘O that fortunate journey of mine!’ exclaims one of the panegyrists of
his visit to the emperor at Rome, ‘O labour excellently begun and ended!
What blessings do I taste of! With what joys am I furnished! What wonders
will I dispense when I return to the cities of the Gauls! What numbers
of thunderstruck people around me, what huge audiences will listen to me
when I say: “Rome I have seen, Theodosius I have seen, and both together
have I looked on. I have seen him, the father of the prince, I have seen
him, the prince’s avenger, him, the restorer of the prince.”’[860] Such
is the recurrent language of a distinguished man, Pacatus the Gaul, a
friend of Ausonius, who dedicated to him the _Ludus Septem Sapientum_
and the _Technopaegnion_, and said of him that none, save Vergil, was
better loved by the Muses.[861] Nazarius, who may be one of Ausonius’s
professors,[862] solemnly maintains that it is wicked to form an opinion
about the emperors, and reasons out his thin-spun absurdities thus: ‘Nam
et in vestibulo suo inquirentem repellit obiecta veneratio, et si qui
mentem propius adierunt, quod oculis in solem se contendentibus evenit,
praestricta acie, videndi facultate caruerunt.’[863] The splendour of
majesty (it is a golden glitter) affects the eyesight of the orator.
Ausonius had been asked by the emperor to write a poem. ‘I have no talent
for it: but Caesar has commanded: I will have. It isn’t _safe_ to refuse
a god.’[864] He speaks with great glee of his escape, in attaining to the
consulship, from all the usual methods of candidature: all was summed
up in Caesar ‘Romanus populus, Martius campus, equester ordo, rostra,
ovilia, senatus, curia—unus mihi omnia Gratianus’.[865] The ease implied
in the simplification of everything to the person of the emperor was no
doubt pleasant: but it was a mark of decadence. It meant a limitation
of ideas, a cramping of individuality, a slavishness of spirit which
must eventually reduce education to spiritless formalism. What perverted
results this militaristic control of education sometimes could produce is
well illustrated by the _Cento Nuptialis_. Ausonius had enough education
and taste to be half ashamed of his subject. ‘Piget enim Vergiliani
carminis dignitatem tam ioculari dehonestasse materia.’ Yet what was he
to do? ‘Iussum erat.’ Valentinian had commanded it: ‘sanctus imperator
... vir meo iudicio eruditus’. If we are to judge of this erudition by
such fruits as these, we cannot say much for its depth or taste. ‘Ridere,
nil ultra expeto’, says the poet. But there is more than one way of
laughing, as he very well knew. Here, then, we have imperial interference
making a man at the head of his profession, a man who would be imitated
by his pupils and by other teachers as he imitated the emperor, write
for the edification of the world the most asinine and disgusting verses
ever produced.
Not only the personal, but also the collective individuality, tended to
be impaired by over-centralization. The sense of citizenship, which it
is one of the duties of education to foster, was crushed in the great
mechanical organization of the Empire. Loyalty to Rome grew hollow for
lack of a subordinate and more immediate loyalty. Loyalty is in the first
place evoked by personal contact, and the emperor was sometimes very far
away. The subordinate official lost the full sense of partnership because
some mighty power from without imposed laws and made regulations, and
could interfere between him and his superior official at any moment.
Even in men like Ausonius, who could get into touch with the emperor and
feel genuine loyalty towards him by reason of a sense of partnership and
personal benefits, we find Rome appearing as the symbol of the Empire in
a very official capacity. In his description of noble cities he gives one
perfunctory line to Rome and forty to Bordeaux. ‘Bordeaux has my love,
Rome my respect’,[866] he says, and he gives the reason: ‘_here_ stood my
cradle, _there_ my chair of office.’ Officialdom may evoke respect, but
it can never call forth that spirit of love which is the basis of true
loyalty in every sphere. Paulinus of Pella, writing after the barbarian
invasions of the early fifth century, expresses himself in a similar way.
Rome is only cursorily mentioned[867] in conventional terms,[868] and
there is no point at which Rome touches him personally. Indeed, he has
rather bitter memories of her:
Romanumque nefas contra omnia iura licenter
in mea grassatum diverso tempore damna.[869]
Bordeaux, on the other hand, is described in the language of
affection.[870]
If Rome and her rule appeared so artificial even to the upper class of
society, much greater must have been the effect on the less privileged
and enlightened. There is evidence that the law providing immunity from
public burdens in the case of teachers was frequently abused. So little
public spirit and sense of citizenship was there that men falsely assumed
the philosopher’s cloak to escape serving their city. Against this a
law of Valentinian and Valens[871] (A.D. 369) protests. ‘Let every man
be returned to his country who is known to assume the philosopher’s
cloak illegitimately and insolently ... for it is disgraceful’ (does a
ripple of humour momentarily penetrate the rigid face of Roman law?),
‘it is disgraceful that he who professes ability to bear even the blows
of fortune, should shrink from the burdens of his country.’[872] The
general feeling of citizenship, when we look beneath the rhetorical
veneer, was unquestionably low; and it is only rarely that we find a
man like Eumenius who really had the ‘amor reipublicae’[873] which
issued in action, and the enthusiasm of a Sidonius for the Empire could
hardly have been shared by the less privileged classes who had had fewer
opportunities of enjoying Rome’s benefits, and had suffered so much more
from her failure to protect them against the barbarian or the corrupt
official.
Monroe, speaking of the imperial support of education, says: ‘This is
probably but another evidence of the general decline in virility and
morality, for it is in order to combat these tendencies that education is
encouraged.’[874]
Now there were elements of decline in the education of the day, but the
emperors did not see them. If they had, they would have changed, not
merely increased, the schools. If it was virility they wanted to restore,
they would not have encouraged the panegyrists; if morality, they would
hardly have expected teachers to write things like the _Cento Nuptialis_,
and there would have been more of them who, like Julian, mentioned such
an aim in their educational decrees. Much truer it would be to say
that the support of education was due partly to a real enthusiasm for
letters,[875] and partly to that policy which sought to gain the goodwill
of the provincial youth, at a time when the provinces were becoming
more and more important. And in education lay the key to the deeper
Romanization of Gaul.
About the general sincerity of the emperors in passing their educational
laws there can be no doubt. Jung thinks that these magnificent and
munificent decrees were not always sincerely meant or carried out, ‘et
multa interesse, ut Romani aiebant, inter os atque offam’.[876] But the
concrete fact of the help given to Autun, and the general correspondence
between the historical events and the school conditions as recorded
in Ausonius and elsewhere, suggest that the suspicion is on the whole
unjustified. The slackness in paying salaries, which he quotes, was one
of the abuses to which the emperors specially addressed themselves, and
Ausonius’s epigram about the happiness of the grammarian,[877] to which
he refers, is no proof whatsoever. For it does not imply broken promises,
and happiness may be impaired by causes independent of imperial laws.
PART III
CHRISTIAN EDUCATION
1. INTRODUCTORY: CHURCH AND STATE
We have seen how large the emperors loomed in the ideas and education of
the fourth century, and what some of the evil effects of this were. As we
pass into the fifth century we find a growing reaction. The balance is
shifted, and the Church begins to receive from the emperors an authority
which had previously been confined to the secular State.
At first the Church had been independent, unnoticed by the State; then,
after the persecutions of the early Empire, it found imperial recognition
with the accession of Constantine. But there was still a measure of
independence of the State: the emperors did not interfere with Church
dogma, and the bishops took no part in politics. They were, as yet, very
humble and submissive, for they felt the need of imperial protection,
having no sufficient organization of their own and no effective
ecclesiastical government; though a considerable machinery had been
created by the councils which had been meeting since the third century.
A third stage is reached when the bishops become haughty and imperious
and begin to meddle with politics. The clergy have strengthened
themselves by organization and training. The latent antagonism between
Church and State becomes prominent, and the State sometimes comes off
worse. And when the political framework goes under, the power of the
Church grows and prospers.[878]
Now it is this growth of Church influence in the fifth century and its
effect upon ideas and ideals that is important for our purpose. On the
material side this growth is indicated by an increase of civil power. The
Edict of Milan restored the confiscated buildings of the churches, and
Constantine in 321[879] allowed the clergy to receive bequests. A vast
amount of property was bequeathed to the Church in the fifth century,
the administration of which was settled by the canons of the various
synods. These canons gave rise to an ecclesiastical law which was later
augmented by the decisions of the Popes, and played a great part in
the Middle Ages. Civil jurisdiction largely passed into the hands of
the bishops, and against their sentence, which was carried out by the
civil authorities, there was no appeal. The entire administration of the
widespread Church property and affairs was in the hands of the bishop.
The State reserved criminal law for itself. Like the pagan ‘flamen’, the
bishop sat on the ‘Curia’ of his city, where he exercised great authority.
More and more the State came to recognize the ecclesiastical society as
a separate polity. Manumissions within the Church were sanctioned by the
emperors.[880] The clergy are repeatedly excused from all public burdens
whatsoever.[881] This cleavage between Church and State, which had been
momentarily accentuated by Julian’s law of 362 forbidding Christians to
teach, is further emphasized by the establishment of separate courts for
ecclesiastical offenders. ‘The clergy’ (so ran the law of Honorius and
Theodosius in 412) ‘may be tried only before an episcopal court.’[882]
More and more, therefore, the bishop came to be appealed to as a civil
power,[883] and when the crisis came bishops like Sidonius defended the
towns against the invaders.[884] A sense of the failing Empire made men
turn to the Church for help against the oppression of imperial officials,
and the ruin of invading barbarians.[885] Above all they turned to her
for education.
For this position the Church had strengthened herself by increased
organization during the fourth and fifth centuries. She assimilated the
principles of imperial government and law, applied them in creating her
bishoprics, and modelled on them her methods of administration. Thus law,
the great contribution of the Roman Empire, passed into the Church, and
so down the ages.
On the spiritual side this development of Christianity is marked
by a greater kindliness (due also to the teaching of the pagan
philosophers[886]) in the hard Roman world. Hints of a new attitude to
slaves are to be found in the Theodosian Code. There are lengthy laws
providing protection from enslavement—‘non erit impunita labefactatio
atque oppugnatio libertatis’[887]—and steps are taken to enable people to
rise out of slavery by placing legal means within their reach and making
the assertion of liberty easier.[888] Moreover, the breaking up of slave
families is forbidden, and the objection is stated from the moral point
of view. ‘Quis enim ferat liberos a parentibus, a fratribus sorores ...
segregari? Igitur qui dissociata in ius diversum mancipia traxerunt,
in unum redigere eadem cogantur: ac si cui propter redintegrationem
necessitudinum servi cesserint, vicaria per eum qui eosdem susceperit
mancipia reddantur.’[889] But while we must grant to the philosophers
and to Christianity an important share in the gradual disappearance
of slavery, it must be remembered that the process was largely due to
economic causes. It was found that it paid better to give a man some
measure of personal freedom, and the economists tell us that the colonate
which appeared at the beginning of the third century was a natural
economic development of slavery. The absence of wars of conquest also
contributed to this result.[890]
Moreover, liberation of body and spirit was aimed at by the attitude
of the Church to the stage and the arena. Attendance was forbidden to
Christians, and actors were not allowed to be baptized. The discredit
thus cast upon these professions was emphasized by the emperors. A great
many restrictions were introduced,[891] and games were forbidden on
certain Christian feast-days.[892] It was enacted that actresses who had
become Christians—‘quas melior vivendi usus vinculo naturalis condicionis
evolvit’—should not be forced back into the profession.[893] Similarly,
actors and actresses who had received the sacrament when thought to be
dying must not be allowed to act again.[894]
Against the arena, too, a blow was struck. Constantine enacted in 325
that all those criminals who had previously been condemned to the
arena should now be assigned to the mines. This did not mean the total
abolition of gladiatorial contests, but it certainly meant a decrease in
the victims of the ‘ludi gladiatorii’, and the moral lead it gave was
valuable. ‘Cruenta spectacula’, he said, ‘in otio civili et domestica
quiete non placent.’[895]
Later, he forbade soldiers to become gladiators,[896] and Valentinian
exempted Christians from the punishment of the arena.[897] Gibbon gives
the story of St. Telemachus to mark the final abolition of these contests
by Honorius[898] in 404, though Bury points out that there is evidence
of such shows some years later. As late as the fourth century we still
find a man like Symmachus spending £80,000 on games for his son’s
praetorship,[899] but, on the whole, the influence of the Christian ideal
made for greater frugality and gentleness.
This influence was also seen in the increase of charities. The bishops,
for example, often distributed corn among the people when times were
bad.[900] That misuse was made of this spirit is seen from the strict law
of Valentinian against mendicancy;[901] but the misuse is not so serious
as the previous lack of charitable spirit.
The feeling of the Christians against slavery and the manual labour
of the monks tended to destroy the aristocratic prejudice against
practical work, and made for a simpler and more natural life. The
artificial position in which the pagan world had placed women was to
some extent remedied along the same line of the brotherhood of man.
Jerome’s correspondence with Paula and Eustochium is an indication of
this new attitude.[902] Naturalness also resulted from a reaction against
the exaggerated centralization of the Empire, and was manifested in a
development of individuality. The Western Church occasionally showed that
it could stand up to the emperor.[903] When Constantius commanded that
all the bishops assembled at the synod of Ariminum should be given their
food (_annonae et cellaria_) the bishops of Gaul and Britain refused
the gift, fearing the diplomacy of Constantius because ‘it did not seem
fitting. They refused the imperial support and preferred to live at their
own expense.’[904]
There was, therefore, a considerable and increasing independence on the
part of the Church. Yet Church and State co-operated in many things.
One of these points of co-operation, which was most important for
education, was the holding of councils. First the Council of Arles
(314), representing the Western Church, and then the Council of Nicea
(325), representing the whole Church, was summoned by Constantine. And
the influence of these councils in clearing away provincial prejudices
and producing breadth of vision must have reacted very favourably on
education, though the bishops of Gaul, owing to the larger extent of
their bishoprics, did not have that close relation of teacher and pupil
with their congregations which was the case in the East.
With all this in her favour the Church drew into her service men of
the best blood and intellect. The nobility became the holders of the
bishoprics, and the Christians consented. Indeed, they did more than
consent. They sometimes demanded it, as in the case of Ambrose, feeling,
no doubt, the value of having a man of high social rank to protect them
in the political world. Men like Sidonius who had been living quite a
‘worldly’ life became bishops, moved, one is inclined to suspect, rather
by the sense of power than the spirit of devotion. Thus aristocratic
ideas were introduced into the Church and the bishop’s office was
sometimes made hereditary, as in the case of Eucherius and his sons
Salonius and Veranius. These aristocrats were at the same time the
intellectuals of their time, and men like Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, who
was consulted by all the writers of the South,[905] Arbogast of Trèves,
afterwards Bishop of Chartres,[906] of whose learning, as of that of
Auspicius, Sidonius thought much,[907] Patiens of Lyons,[908] Faustus of
Riez,[909] Mamertus of Vienne,[910] Graecus of Marseilles,[911] Perpetuus
of Tours,[912] and many others, all friends of Sidonius and therefore of
culture, shifted the balance of intellect from the pagan to the Christian
side of society.
And yet, in spite of these hopeful signs, this growth in the power of
ideals, we feel that the Church in Gaul did not transform the Roman
Empire. Power the Church obtained, but found it a perilous possession.
For with power came the whole host of political corruptions which had
found a home in the imperial system, and entered, unsuspected, along the
paths which custom had made. In becoming, to some extent, the successor
of the Empire, the Church exposed herself to imperial dangers. Politics
tended to overshadow principles. At least one of the two invasions of
which Montalembert speaks[913] was needed in order that the Church should
save Society—that of the monks from the South.
2. THE PERSISTENCE OF RHETORIC: TRADITION AND REACTION
The development of Christianity, then, in the fourth and fifth
centuries, largely takes the form of a struggle between the old and the
new. Everywhere in the ecclesiastical society there are, inevitably,
survivals, and they loom particularly large on account of two factors:
the entry of Roman law into the Church, and the assumption of Church
leadership by large numbers of the aristocracy.
It is natural, therefore, that we should find survivals in education too,
and the extent to which we find them is evidence of the strength and
the universality of the rhetorical tradition. And we need to see this
tradition in its proper perspective before we can fully appreciate the
significance of Gallic education in our period.
As we look back on the long line of rhetorical teachers, we can trace
an increasing degree of narrowness and futility. The conditions of life
in the city-state had made public speaking a practical and personal
necessity. What Isocrates strove to do in his rôle as pamphleteer was
to raise oratory from the personal to the national level, to connect
education with statesmanship,[914] and to unify it by setting before it
the ideal of a united Greece. The sphere of rhetoric in his view was wide
and humane.[915] It is true that he himself was a theorist, unskilled
in the practical issues of politics.[916] He was what Crito in the
_Euthydemus_ called a ‘Boundary Stone’—one who tried to combine practical
politics and philosophy, avoiding the extremes of each. His attempt was
unpopular, though ultimately he succeeded, for his school became the
university of Greece.[917] But the ideal which he put forward had a real
inspiration, and had none of the cramping restrictions of later rhetoric.
Moreover, he taught the unity of moral and intellectual education: ‘The
more strongly a man desires to persuade his audience’ (the intellectual
practice of the rhetorical school) ‘the more will he train himself in
culture of mind and manners and in gaining the esteem of his fellow
citizens.’[918] Speech is regarded as the instrument of Persuasion, from
which all the blessings of human society proceed,[919] and its function
is to advance civilization by educating the ignorant and testing the wise.
Such was the high educational ideal of Isocrates, and we find much of it
reflected in Cicero, his admirer and his imitator. The breadth of view is
not impaired. For Cicero maintains that the power of eloquence is such
that it embraces the rise, the force, the vicissitudes of all affairs,
virtues, and duties; of everything in nature—character, mind, life. It
defines the moral code, the principles of law and right. It regulates
the State, and on every subject and in all its relations its words are
many and eloquent.[920] There is the same attempt to connect rhetoric
with politics, the same insistence that intellectual issues (_doctrina
bene dicendi_) cannot be separated from moral ones (_doctrina recte
faciendi_).[921] Wide and all-round knowledge is required of the orator:
‘mea quidem sententia, nemo poterit esse omni laude cumulatus orator,
nisi erit omnium rerum magnarum atque artium scientiam consecutus.’[922]
Yet Cicero was a panegyrist, and he followed the artificial rules of the
game in exactly the same way as the Gallic rhetoricians of the third and
fourth centuries did; and when he warns against spending too much time on
philosophy,[923] which may be lightly learned, he says, we feel that he
is giving rein to a natural Roman tendency to discount thought, and that
this tendency proved the bane of rhetoric.
Cicero’s attempt to make the oratorical education something of wide
scope, and to make it bear upon practical politics, was doomed to
failure. More and more the tyranny of rhetorical rules, co-operating
with the restriction of liberty under the Empire, produced a narrow
and formal result. The sciolists of the fourth century believed that
philosophy could be so easily learned that they hardly troubled to make
its acquaintance. A political connexion with oratory was kept up, but it
consisted in the degenerate panegyric. More and more rhetorical education
narrowed its range, and retired within the academical atmosphere of the
school.[924] As for moral education, we must find in the criticisms of
Tacitus and Juvenal an element of truth. The emperor set the fashion, and
the subject did not always find an inspiring example.
The change that came over oratory was not entirely one of artificiality.
This there had been in Isocrates, whose rules were just as artificial
as those of the ‘Panegyrici Latini’. It was rather a question of ideal.
Isocrates had a national ideal, which could give meaning and life to
his utterances; Cicero had the interests of a party to inspire him; but
the panegyrists of the fourth century were confined to the emperor; his
birthday or his benefits are the sort of subjects that stimulate their
oratory, and Pliny could praise with equal fervour the political reforms
and the white horses of Trajan.
Thus the rhetorical tradition, the ideal of oratory as the goal of
education, came down through the centuries to our period. It came to
Gaul, and flourished exceedingly on account of the natural aptitude
of the Gauls for eloquence. Lucian, in the _Herakles_,[925] gives a
picture of the Gallic Hercules who drags all men after him by fine chains
attached to his tongue and their ears, and they follow gladly though it
is in their power to break away. Cerialis, in addressing the Treveri and
Lingones, maintained that the Roman way of establishing justice was the
sword, but that words had most influence with the Gauls.[926]
And Jerome said of the Gauls: ‘The fact that they are prolific of orators
points not so much to the studious character of the country as to the
noise made by the rhetors: especially as Aquitaine boasts of its Greek
origin.’[927] This is borne out by the inscriptions. We are struck in the
south by the frequency of long-winded and ornate epitaphs, e.g.[928]
D.M.
Memoriae aeternae
Socchiae Enneanis
Dulcissim. et. super. ae
tatem. ingenio. nobi
lissimo. qui vixit. an
... Menses VII. D. XXIIII
L. Boconius. Pho(t)inus Pa
ter et Alpia Castina ma
ter. Parentes infelicis
simi repentina huius. a
missione orbati filio
Karissimo unico prae
cl.... p.... s.... sibi erepto (praeclaro pro sua aetate)
et sibi vivi posteris que
suis Po(s) et sub Ascia (posuit)
dedicaverunt.
As we go north epitaphs of this description become much rarer, which
seems to indicate that as the influence of the Celtic element, and,
perhaps, the Greek Massilia, decreases, there is a decrease also in the
‘ubertas Gallici sermonis’.[929]
We can hardly realize to-day how enormous the power and the extent of
rhetoric was. In all parts of the Empire it was the mark of a cultured
gentleman. As we have seen, it was the basis of education, the condition
of imperial appointments, a tremendous factor in the policy of the
emperors. ‘If we lose our eloquence’, said Libanius,[930] ‘what will be
left to distinguish us from the barbarians?’ and again, ‘If you know the
art of speaking you know the art of commanding.’[931] From Isocrates to
Libanius Persuasion (Peitho) cast her spell with unfailing charm, nor
was it Gaul alone that was bound by the chains of the tongue. Beyond the
Graeco-Roman world the influence went: Sidonius, the conservative, could
compliment an Arbogast on his eloquence,[932] and it was the rhetoric of
pagan Gaul, as well as the religion of Christian Gaul, that led captive
her fierce conquerors. So, too, beyond the pagan world, rhetoric invaded
the Church and left its manifold traces on Christian education.
Kaufmann estimates that by the year 450 pagan schools in Gaul were
disappearing under the influence of the Church militant.[933] Now it is
true that the Church considered it a duty to condemn the rhetoricians,
but their system persisted nevertheless through the monasteries up to our
own day both in the matter and in method.
The Christian literature of the period shows this clearly. In poetry
(except in a few cases like the _Ad uxorem_, and the _De providentia
Dei_) the fetters of the tradition are still strong, and in trying to
force biblical subjects into unsuitable forms, men like Sedulius, Marius
Victor, and Paulinus of Nola produce mere lifeless paraphrases; in
prose, where there were fewer rules to check naturalness and freshness
of thought, the results are much more gratifying. In the schools it is
recognized that the rhetorical system is indispensable. Tertullian[934]
allows Christian children to attend pagan schools, though he will not
permit Christians to teach in them, and Jerome, while he complains that
the clergy are too fond of Vergil and the Comedies, is constrained to
add ‘in pueris necessitatis est’.[935] The Church did not create a new
educational system.
One or two particular cases of the survival of rhetoric may be given.
Ennodius, Bishop of Pavia, born in 474 at Arles, illustrates in a typical
way the enormous power which rhetoric could exercise over Christians
as late as the end of the fifth century. He is passionately in love
with the forms and methods of his pagan authors, loves their pomp
and glitter,[936] and is always playing a part in the hope of winning
applause.[937] He makes rhetoric say: ‘I am she who does things or
changes things done. Light can dispel the darkness, however vast, in
which the law involves a man, and this light by reading I can give. I am
she from whom men await prosecution if guilty and acquittal if innocent
... for my gain the Roman keeps vigil throughout the Empire. Unless
I adorn them, office, riches, honours lose their attraction: it is I
who rule the rulers.’[938] This is all very similar to what Isocrates
had said centuries ago, when he talked of the power and benefits of
Persuasion,[939] and the traditional moral note is there just as in
Isocrates[940] and in Cicero.[941] Rhetoric, says Ennodius, is the only
moulder of public opinion. Her charm is irresistible and universal. (Why
mention so obvious a fact?) The opinion she creates is eternal. It is
she who makes people believe whatever she wishes about the deeds of the
brave, she who can suppress facts with impunity. She is the mother of
poetry, jurisprudence, dialectic, arithmetic, and she gives them their
value.[942] ‘Grammar’ is recognized as the necessary precedent, the
nurse of knowledge and virtue, who produces the sparks that lead to the
Ciceronian fire of speech.[943] The idea that rhetorical adornment is
specially connected with the school is still current. A correspondent
begs him with many prayers that his letter to him should be embellished
with the graces of the school (_multis enim supplicationibus exegistis
ut pagina vobis concinnationis didascalicae fingeretur_[944]) and in the
_Libellus pro Synodo_ he urges ‘illas _didascalici_ libelli relegamus
argutias’.[945]
Later on Ennodius began to have misgivings about the part rhetoric
played in his life. ‘Erat orandi fastidium dum perorandi tenebar
cupiditate....’[946] He laments his placid satisfaction with his fine
speeches, his elation at poetic successes, while he had no ear for the
‘angelorum chori’ owing to the intoxication of applause. ‘Quotiens
adclamantium flatibus propter religionem vertex nudatus intumuit....’ But
even in his confessions rhetoric is present, and she triumphs at the very
time when he speaks of her defeat.
A curious instance of the survival of rhetoric is seen in the invective
of Hilary of Poitiers against Constantius.[947] The author has worked up
a great deal of feeling, and, to give it the most effective utterance,
he lets it flow into the moulds prescribed by tradition. His divisions
correspond perfectly to those of the schools. He spares no form of
contumely, even at the expense of historical fact.[948] His railing
reminds us of Milton’s denunciation of Salmasius:[949] for as late as
the seventeenth century Latin retained its reputation as the language
of invective. In spite of his preliminary professions of sincerity:
‘cesset itaque maledictorum opinio et mendacii suspicio. Veritatis enim
ministros decet vera proferre’, we feel that in following the rules of
the game he has proved himself a good player, but not always ‘a servant
of truth’.[950]
Of a truer type was the rhetoric of Hilary of Arles. Honoratus is
enthusiastic about the copious eloquence of his oratory, the gems of
expression which he produced, the varied shades and shapes of his
descriptions.[951] There was plenty of rhetorical colour, but there was
also elasticity. ‘If the learned company was absent, he fed the hearts of
the untutored with simple food’; and it was the opinion of contemporary
critics, the savants of the day, that Hilary ‘had attained something that
was neither eloquence nor learning, something superhuman’.[952] Famous
for eloquence were also Salvian, the master of fiery denunciation, and
Lupus, ‘scholis adhibitus et rhetorum studiis imbutus’.[953] In the very
monasteries the artifices of the rhetor’s school lingered. Valerian,
Bishop of Cemelium (near Nice), gives many examples of this in his
Homilies. He frequently uses Parallelism and Repetition: ‘Disciplina
igitur magistra est religionis, magistra verae pietatis; quae nec ideo
increpat ut laedat, nec ideo castigat ut noceat’;[954] or Chiasmus and
Assonance: ‘Alter de subscriptione patris disputat: alter de fratris
persona desperat’;[955] ‘Vitare ista, dilectissimi, per singulos gradus
forte difficile est, et laboriosum multis simul hostibus per diversos
errores occurrere’; or Alliteration: ‘Ita _e_st _e_rgo, ut in te antiqui
iuris districtio nihil habeat potestatis, si ea quae legis _p_lenitudo
_p_ostulat, _o_bedienter _o_bserves’.[956] ‘Et _n_ullus _p_rofecto adhuc
_p_oenae finis _n_isi Christus _n_oster cruentis _l_egibus o_l_eum
_m_isericordiae _m_iscuisset.’[957] ‘Sic erit ut _h_omo de _h_umiliore
_l_oco ad ce_l_siora perveniat et remuneratus honore _c_ondigno,
_c_aelestis gratiam potestatis adquirat.’[958]
The rhetorical tradition, therefore, lived on; and it survived the more
easily because of the controversial nature of Christianity at this time
and the importance of preaching. The change from the rhetor’s ‘cathedra’
to the pulpit was often merely one of place and subject: the method was
the same. And so the ideal of the orator persisted. In education it
persisted for the further obvious reason that the monasteries had not yet
organized themselves round the model of St. Benedict, and that very often
Christian parents had to send their children to the pagan schools—in
spite of Tertullian’s warnings.[959]
The triumph of rhetoric among the Christians, however, was only partial.
When the Christian Fathers observed their congregations of simple and
unlettered folk, and remembered the injunction of Christ[960] and the
teaching of St. Paul,[961] they began to feel the need of a more direct
style of speech. Largely, too, it was a natural reaction, springing from
the opposition between Christian and pagan, and the ascetism which the
monasteries preached.
This reaction is noticeable chiefly in the Church Fathers. In their
prefaces it became the customary thing to proclaim their ‘rusticity’, and
to hide (sometimes with false modesty) the traces of their rhetorical
training.[962] So much was this the tendency, that Sidonius, with all
his highly refined artificiality, must needs talk about his ‘countrified
style’ (‘Si quid stilo rusticante peraravero’,[963] ‘in hoc stylo cui non
urbanus lepos inest sed pagana rusticitas’[964]). Partly, of course, this
was due to the over-courteous ways of high society at that time, as we
may see from the correspondence of Symmachus or of Ausonius, and to an
idea (never carried out by these gentlemen) that letter-writing ought to
be careless and natural.[965] But the reaction against rhetoric was very
strong. None of the Christian clergy dared to defend the rhetoricians
openly. Lactantius, who did so,[966] was a layman.
The inscriptions reflect this tendency, or at any rate one of its
causes—the simplicity and ignorance of the people. The Christian
epitaphs, though influenced now and then by rhetorical floridness, as in
the case of those composed by Sidonius,[967] are much shorter and simpler
than the pagan ones. Sometimes they consist merely of a cross with the
name of the person.[968] Sometimes the words ‘pax tecum’ are added. The
increase in Christian education is indicated by the fact that there are
only four inscriptions dating from the fourth century and fifty-four from
the fifth.
How constantly the Church Fathers strove to check the rhetorical tendency
in themselves and in the clergy may be seen from their frequent protests.
Jerome remarked reprovingly of Hilary of Poitiers that he was affected
by the tragic and turgid vein in the Gallic character, and too much
adorned with the ‘flowers of Greece’, so that his long periods were not
understood by the simple friars.[969] And Vincent of Lérins had to warn
that a priest’s language must be ‘disciplined and grave’.[970] ‘Docente
te in ecclesia’, said Jerome elsewhere,[971] ‘non clamor populi sed
gemitus suscitetur.’ Gallus, in Sulpicius Severus,[972] expresses his
contempt for flowery language. ‘For if you call me a disciple of Martin
(the stern saint of Tours) you must also allow me the right of following
him in despising vain ornamental speech and verbal embellishment’
(_sermonum faleras et verborum ornamenta_). In a sermon on Rebecca,
attributed to Caesarius,[973] the preacher proclaims the principle
of adaptability: ‘The educated must accommodate themselves to the
ignorance of the simple. If, in expounding holy Scripture we desired the
arrangement and the eloquence of (certain) holy fathers, ... the food of
doctrine could reach only a small band of scholars (there is a secret
satisfaction in having had a superior training), while the remaining
masses of the people would go unfed. And therefore I humbly ask that the
ears of the learned bear patiently the words of simplicity (_rustica
verba_) if only the whole flock of God may partake of spiritual food by
means of speech unadorned and (if I may say so) pedestrian.’ Ruricius,
Bishop of Limoges, and a contemporary of Sidonius,[974] speaks of his
‘ineptia rusticitatis’,[975] his ‘rusticus sermo’.[976] ‘Rusticitatem
meam’, he says, ‘malo prodere quam perdere caritatem’.[977]
This prevalent cultivation of ‘rusticitas’ was, as has been said,
partly a reaction, and like all reactions it had a tendency to go too
far. It is not surprising to find men like Jerome protesting (though
with self-condemnation) against the bald style of certain Christian
writings.[978] Heyne, after describing the ‘verborum fucos, concinnos
et calamistrum’ of the rhetoricians, remarks on the uncultured and
disgusting lack of style into which the later writers fell. It was
natural, he says, that, having thrown eloquence overboard, they should
fall into ‘barbaries’ and subjects vulgar and essentially trivial
(_per se tenuia_). The charge of ‘barbaries’ is admitted. But the
subject-matter was not always ‘per se tenuia’; it was essentially the
reverse: and the ‘horrida oratio’ into which the Christian writers fell
had the compensation of sincerity and the capacity of rising into genuine
eloquence.
We have, then, these two facts: the persistence in Christian thought of
rhetoric, and the reaction in the direction of simplicity. But we must
ask what the Christian attitude was towards pagan education as a whole,
for on this attitude largely depended the nature of the Christian schools.
Sulpicius Severus is uncompromisingly harsh. All literature except the
Bible and theological writings are utterly vain. ‘For what did the pagan
writers themselves gain by a literary glory that was to perish with
their generation? Or what profit was it to posterity to read of Hector’s
battles or Socrates’ philosophy? Not only is it folly to imitate those
writers, but not to attack them with the utmost fierceness is sheer
madness....’[979] The pagan philosophy has been a mighty bane. ‘Qui
quidem error humanus (pagan philosophy) litteris traditus in tantum
valuit ut multos plane aemulos vel inanis philosophiae vel stultae
illius virtutis invenerit.’[980] Tertullian, Arnobius, and Lactantius
on entering the Church abjured the heathen literature,[981] and Jerome
conceived of the difference between the two groups of writers as that
between light and darkness.[982] Philosophy was regarded as dangerous,
and extensive secular reading deprecated.[983] Poetry was banned because
it inflamed passion,[984] and Claudius Victor of Marseilles went so far
as to trace the misfortunes of his day to the pagan schools and authors.
‘Is not ours the blame?’ he wails: ‘Paul and Solomon are neglected and
the Vergil who wrote of Dido and the Ovid who described Corinna are
recited, the verses of Horace are applauded and the scenes of Terence,
and it is we, we who are at fault, we who basely feed those flames.’[985]
Paulinus writes to his old master Ausonius who is much concerned because
his pupil has deserted the Muses, and declares with pathetic firmness
that the Christian heart must needs say ‘No’ to Apollo and the Muses.
‘New is the force and greater the god that now moves the soul, and he
permits not leisure in work or play for the literature of fable.’[986]
To him the education and the literature of the pagan world is nothing
but ‘the clever influence of a sophist, the knack of a rhetor, the false
imagination of a bard’, and its professors men who miss the truth,
Qui corda falsis atque vanis imbuunt
tantumque linguas instruunt;
nihil adferentes ut salutem conferant,
quod veritatem detegat.[987]
In order to understand this exclusive spirit we must remember the
circumstances: the tenacity of paganism, which had taken its last stand
in the public amusements,[988] the persecutions, the close connexion
between the schools and the old religion. The Gallic panegyrists (most of
them teachers) ostentatiously proclaim the gods of ancient Rome even to
Christian emperors like Theodosius.[989] ‘Di boni’ and ‘Di immortales’
appear everywhere, the emperor is divine, and the school at Autun is
‘aedes Herculis atque Musarum’.[990] The rhetorical education had the
immense advantage of being traditional. Then, as now, the argument
carried great weight. Libanius in his defence of dancing asks indignantly
(and the method of his protest is typical) whether the settled opinion
of the ancients in this matter is to be upset: ἆρ’ οὖν πρᾶγμα ἀρχαῖον,
καὶ παρὰ τοῖς οὕτω γενναίοις οὕτω γενναῖον καὶ καλὸν εἶναι δοκοῦν, εἰκῆ
καὶ ῥᾳδίως ἡμεῖς τῶν φαύλων εἶναι πιστεύσομεν;[991] Everything that was
not cut according to the traditional pattern, according to the opinions
handed down with hardly any criticism, from one teacher to another,[992]
tended to be despised, and this was the attitude towards the Christians
in the educational world of the day.[993] Moreover, the old system was
properly organized, and Christians in being compelled to send their
children to pagan masters felt the danger. For the subject-matter of
both the grammatical and the rhetorical schools was largely the pagan
mythology, which was next door to religion. Even contemporary literature
proclaimed pagan ideas: the fourth-century comedy _Querolus_ is permeated
by the heathen conception of fate.
To all these causes of opposition and bitterness towards the pagan
culture, there were added the desperate earnest of these early Christians
to whom salvation and perdition were piercing and vivid realities, and
the bitter scorn of pagans like Rutilius Namatianus. As he returned to
his native country, Gaul, he saw in the growth of monachism one of the
causes of Rome’s decline—Rome who had all his devotion, whose magistrate
he was proud to have been.
Squalet lucifugis insula plena viris,
he says of Capraria,[994] where a monastery had been started. Pride and
prejudice make the monks an inexplicable problem to him:
Munera fortunae metuunt, dum damna verentur.[995]
Either they are really criminals forced to live this sort of life, or
else the slaves of black bile. To him, too, the youth who becomes a monk
is ‘impulsus furiis’.[996] Such was the temper towards the Christians
even as late as the fifth century, and the counterpart of this
bitterness is seen in the murder of Hypatia in Alexandria (A.D. 415).
The attitude of the ‘extreme’ Christians towards pagan literature is not,
therefore, entirely inexplicable. But all were not extreme. The better
spirits like Augustine, realizing that Christian education inevitably
depended largely on the nobles who had come to the Church from the
rhetorical schools, went on the principle of ‘spoiling the Egyptians’,
of taking from pagan education and literature whatever was good and
useful. Jerome protests against the narrow standpoint with considerable
emphasis. He criticizes those who neglect style, and flares up at the
suggestion that he is afraid of the pagan training of his opponents
in controversy.[997] Ignorance, he says, is not holiness, and lack of
culture is unfitting in a student of the Apostles. ‘Nec rusticus et
tantum simplex frater ideo se sanctum putet si nil noverit, nec peritus
et eloquens in lingua aestimet sanctitatem.’[998] He felt the need of
rhetoric as a weapon against opponents. A holy ignorance, he argued, is
a gain only to itself (he is curiously reluctant either to accept pagan
learning entirely or to condemn it utterly), but all it builds up of the
Church of Christ is lost if it does not meet its opponents.[999]
So, too, Paulinus of Nola and Prudentius ‘quidquid e paganis operibus
novae fidei non adversabatur laudabant et servabant’.[1000] Sedulius,
again, refused to draw the rigid line which the extremists drew: he
wants to retain the culture of his time, but in a Christianized form. In
the dedication of his _Carmen Paschale_ to Macedonius he argues that he
writes in verse because ‘there are many who, owing to their training in
secular studies, are attracted rather by the delights of verse and the
pleasures of poetry’; and that the Church must make use of this artistic
tendency in people (_horum mores non repudiandos aestimo_). They will
remember divine truths better if they are pleased with the form in which
they are presented, and everybody must be freely won for God along the
line of his particular bent (_ut quisque suo magis ingenio voluntarius
acquiratur Deo_). The way in which you approach the faith does not
matter so long as you get there and remain there.[1001] It is clear that
he stands for liberalism in this matter and does not object to pagan
literature if only the object in view is the right one.
Thus the wiser among the Christians opposed the policy of exclusiveness.
They foresaw that though bigoted zeal and a natural antipathy might keep
out pagan letters for a time, in the end they could not do so; and they
realized that it was one of the functions of the Church to hand down what
was good in the old culture. So the two Apollinarii (fourth century),
Christian teachers of Laodicea, turned the Old Testament into heroic
verse and the New Testament into Platonic dialogues;[1002] Juvencus put
the gospels into metre, and Nonnus wrote out St. John in hexameters. In
order to appeal to the intellectual classes the Christian writers were
bound to follow the pagan models, and so a virtue was made of necessity:
for amid the distraction of the failing Empire it was the Church alone
that could have saved the form and content of the ancient culture by
providing scribes for the one and thinkers for the other. It would have
been interesting to have Paulinus of Nola’s Panegyric on Theodosius.
‘Quid interfuerit tum inter Christianum oratorem, et oratorem, in
scriptis saltem, paganum’ (says Monnard[1003]) ‘diiudicare liceret,
nisi temporis invidia Panegyrico Theodosii, quem Paulinus scripserat,
quemque cum Ausonii Panegyrico conferre potuissemus nos privavisset.’ We
should also have been able to see how far he followed the pagan model,
especially in view of his extreme statements to Ausonius[1004] on the
subject of pagan literature. Probably he was just as rhetorical as Hilary
in his Demosthenic denunciation of Constantine. This supposition is
confirmed by the words of Jerome, who is enthusiastic in his praise of
the speech. ‘If the author’, he says, ‘surpasses others in the beginning
of his oration, towards the end he excels himself. His style is brilliant
with Ciceronian purity, yet copious in thought.’[1005] There was a
certain amount of hypocrisy in the railing of the Christian writers
against the pagan authors.
In spite of her criticism and antipathy, therefore, the Church listened
to her leaders in their wiser moods and saved pagan culture. She set
her monks to copy the ancient authors.[1006] Augustine ‘brought Plato
into the (Christian) schools under his bishop’s robe’, and even Jerome
expounded lyric and comic poets to the children at Bethlehem.[1007]
Vergil, in particular, was admitted on account of the prophecy supposed
to be contained in the fourth _Eclogue_. Roman law, of which Bossuet said
that good sense, the master of human life, reigned throughout it, was
regarded by the Church as a reflection of divine justice, and studied
more particularly on account of its supposed similarity to the law of
Moses.[1008] Through the Church it passed to the barbarians, and so
became a heritage of the civilized world.
This ultimate attitude of the Church is the determining factor of
Christian education, and it forms the background without which that
education cannot be rightly studied. Kaufmann maintains that towards
the end of the fifth century the rhetorical school lost its pedagogic
significance,[1009] but his statement needs modification. The number
of the rhetorical schools in Gaul certainly decreased as Christianity
advanced during the fifth century: their spirit, their importance and
meaning for education survived and, to a large extent, still survives.
3. THE RISE OF CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS IN GAUL
One of the ways in which Christianity supplemented paganism was the
development of elementary schools. It began with the masses, where
knowledge was small and opportunities few, but these common people it
inspired with a desire to learn and made them potential scholars, who,
though backward, were yet not decadent, and who shared their spiritual
possessions with one another just as much as their material property.
In touching this kind of man Christian education did what the pagan
schools had neglected to do, as we have seen, on account of the rigid
class-distinctions. In paying particular attention to elementary
education the Church followed her own needs and Christ’s example of
sympathy with children. In so far as the Church applied the Pauline
teaching of the essential brotherhood and equality of man these hard
distinctions tended to disappear, and education became more generally
diffused. There was a real democratization of letters, but the masses
had so long been neglected that the diffusion was very slow. Caesarius
knew prominent business men who could not even read or write.[1010] Their
culture consisted largely in folk songs and tales handed down by word of
mouth. And besides, the Church was not always true to her principles: the
pagan influence, backed as it was by education, proved too strong when it
came to organization. The old relation of simple sincerity between clergy
and congregation had long passed away, and the fifth century was a time
of ecclesiastical dissensions. The bishops were chosen more and more from
the aristocracy, and the sort of church ‘cursus honorum’ which had been
instituted soon created barriers. In theory the government of the Church
was democratic, but Sidonius gives us a picture of the practice at the
episcopal elections, which shows how unstable the democracy was. On one
occasion there was a great tumult caused by the contending candidates:
one boasts of his ancient see, one relies on the attractiveness of his
kitchen, a third has a secret arrangement whereby he will allow his
followers to pillage the church property if he is elected. Finally, the
bishops, Euphranius and Patiens, take the matter into their own hands,
nominate an obscure worthy man, a ‘reader’ called John, and proclaim
him their colleague.[1011] So, too, at Bourges, Sidonius is asked by
the faction-wearied people to nominate them a bishop.[1012] In fact,
the general impression, derived from reading the account of bishops and
their elections in Sidonius, is that they would have said with Horace,
in exactly the same pagan spirit (though they might have resented being
connected with a pagan name), ‘Odi profanum vulgus et arceo’. They go in
for charities,[1013] but these are often only a form of patronage.
Thus, in attempting to provide for plebeian education, Christianity had
to contend with many difficulties. The first appearance of organized
Christian education is represented by the catechumen schools which
sprang up everywhere after the establishment of Christianity. The most
prominent one was that of Alexandria,[1014] dating at least from the
second century. The bishop, or, more frequently, a subordinate church
official, following the Apostolic example,[1015] would go to some
lecture-hall after the sermon and expound the doctrine of the Church to
all who cared to come, or would gather his disciples round him in some
private house. The school was therefore intended for adults. It had no
formal organization nor was it of a permanent character. It was a kind
of missionary movement that spread to all parts of the Empire. Among
the first attempts in the direction of Christian elementary education,
apparently, was the school at Edessa, where Lucian, a presbyter of the
third century, who became famous as a teacher at Antioch,[1016] was
educated.[1017] It was a place worthy of being a cradle of Christian
education; its church was martyred in the second century, its teachers
Protogenes and Eulogius were driven into banishment in the fourth, and
in the fifth it became famous for its active share in the Nestorian
controversy.
But in the West it was that ‘invasion from the South’, which Montalembert
referred to, that was the instrument of Christian education. Tradition
said that Athanasius introduced the idea of monasticism into Gaul (where
it spread more rapidly than anywhere else in the West[1018]) during his
exile at Trèves (336-7). This influence issued in action with Martin of
Tours (the most popular saint of the Gallic Church), when he founded
the monastery of Ligugé near Poitiers, and a second and larger one,
Marmoutier (‘maius monasterium’) near Tours, about the middle of the
fourth century. When he died, at the end of that century, there were
numerous monasteries not only in the province of Tours but in Rouen and
what afterwards became Normandy and Picardy.
The work of Martin influenced two men of Gaul, both of the upper classes,
and both educated in all the learning of the day—Sulpicius Severus,
‘vir genere et litteris nobilis’,[1019] and Paulinus of Nola, the
pupil of Ausonius. These men made monasticism fashionable—so much so
that even Sidonius patronized it.[1020] At the beginning of the fifth
century Cassian founded the monastery of St. Victor near Marseilles, and
Honoratus the famous cloister of Lérins. About 450 Romanus established a
monastery at Condat on the Jura, and around these centres there grew up a
network of abbeys.
Now at this time there were no orders of monks, and the Rule of the
Abbeys depended mainly on the choice of the abbot. The monasteries were
merely groups of people who had come to live the common life (κοινόβιοι)
and to discuss matters of common interest. Thus educational development
was stimulated, and we find a much stronger intellectual life among the
simple Christians than in the form-bound school of the rhetor. Whenever
there was a dangerous heresy abroad in Gaul, Jerome or Augustine would
write a refutation which was circulated throughout the country,[1021] and
Sulpicius’s _Life of Martin_ was eagerly read everywhere, and was much in
demand at Rome.[1022]
This intellectual activity presently overflowed the boundaries of the
monastery. Catechumens had to be trained for the Church, and it was
found necessary to establish informal schools for them, where, besides
religious training, they also received a smattering of the seven liberal
arts. These were the forerunners of those cathedral schools which became,
in the Middle Ages, the main intellectual support of the country.
The most famous episcopal school was at Arles, where Hilary taught a
large number of students.[1023] Among his pupils were Cyprian, Bishop
of Toulouse, Firminius, Bishop of Usez (Ucetia), and Bishop Vivencius.
The interest of the Fathers in education may be illustrated from the
life of Caesarius.[1024] ‘Who can describe how great and pleasing was
the zeal that shone forth from him, when he discussed the Scriptures
and expounded difficulties? His greatest delight was to be challenged
to discuss a problem, and he himself very often urged his class, saying
to us: “I know you don’t understand everything: why don’t you ask,
that you may know?”’ Whatever may be said as to the extent of their
teaching, it must be admitted that they showed the proper spirit of
education in thus stimulating knowledge. At Arles, also, taught Pomerius,
‘scientia rhetor, Afer genere’,[1025] whose interest in literature and
rhetoric was great,[1026] and whose lectures Caesarius attended. Another
famous Christian teacher of the fifth century, versed particularly in
ecclesiastical matters, was Victorius of Marseilles.[1027]
The monastery of St. Victor at Marseilles,[1028] built in the woods
over the grotto where the martyr Victor, a Roman legionary, had been
buried at the end of the third century, became a school for training the
clergy, though not at once, for the motto of its founder was to flee
all bishops and women.[1029] It did good work, but its fame is almost
entirely eclipsed by that of the older monastery at Lérins, the nursery
of bishops. Vincent the theologian,[1030] Patrick of Ireland, Cassian
the founder of St. Victor, Hilary of Arles, Faustus the bishop of the
_via media_ in theological controversy,[1031] Lupus, called by Sidonius
‘episcopus episcoporum’,[1032] Eucherius, and many other celebrities
were sons of Lérins. From Lérins and St. Victor were drawn almost all
the educated clergy of Gaul during the fifth century. ‘En général’,
says Fauriel,[1033] ‘ce furent ces évêques ou ces prêtres, sortis des
cloîtres de Lérins ou de Saint-Victor, qui formèrent la partie érudite et
savante du clergé ou de l’épiscopat gallo-romain....’ The _Chronologia
Lerinensis_[1034] likens Lérins to a trailing vine which fills the earth
with its fruits and extends, by the grace of God, beyond the rest. Among
the many other references to the monastery in the Chronicle, there are
numerous verse panegyrics extolling its congenial surroundings and
indicating a real love of learning. Sidonius, too, is enthusiastic in
its praise;[1035] and his commendation, imbued as he was with rhetorical
culture and prejudiced in its favour, says much for the educational
standard reached by Lérins. So famous was its school that Lupus, ‘the
prince of prelates’, came to study there for a year, before he went to
spread its spirit of study and piety. For, like most of these monks
from the aristocracy, ‘he had ... a cultivated mind and took an active
interest in intellectual development. He was anxious about schools
and educational facilities in his diocese, and gave protection to all
who encouraged learning.’[1036] Indeed, we may say that all the most
literary and philosophic men of the time, as well as the most religious,
flocked to the island-quiet of Lérins. It is no wonder that Mamertus, in
describing the failing culture of the fifth century, mentions Lérins as
an exception.
4. THE PRACTICE OF CHRISTIAN EDUCATION
In the _Chronologia sacrae insulae Lerinensis_[1037] we find a concrete
example of a monastic school.
‘At the time when the studies of the monastery of Lérins flourished in
the regions of Gaul, the Christian religion ... began to grow everywhere
and _to commit itself to the study of letters_. In this place there was
an excellent abbot, a holy man, Caesarius, the servant of Christ, who
afterwards became bishop of Arles.’ Amid the general flocking of people
to Lérins for education or edification (‘cumque ad eum omnes unanimiter
concurrerent _pro salute animarum sive studiis litterarum_’), there came
an Italian soldier and his son Siffredus, earnestly craving admittance.
The soldier became a monk, and his son was put to school (‘filius
vero _litterarum studiis traditur_’), and in a short time he attained
proficiency in ‘grammar’, rhetoric, and dialectic.
Similarly, Salvian sends a fellow countryman of his to be educated
at Lérins,[1038] and we may judge from the Regula of Caesarius that
many boys went there for instruction. Laymen were not excluded. In 480
St. Melanius attended a school at Rennes controlled by priests, yet
apparently attached to no monastery.[1039] That such semi-theological
schools existed in Gaul, at least from the beginning of the fifth
century, we may judge from the fact that the sons of Eucherius,
Veranius and Salonius, were taught at Lérins in subjects religious
and profane[1040] during the first years of that century.[1041] Not
unjustifiable, therefore, is the statement of Barralis that Lérins was
‘litterarum et virtutis emporium’.[1042]
But while the existence of Christian schools cannot be questioned, their
extent and organization in Gaul during the fifth century are vague and
undefined. St. Benedict’s example had not yet brought about an ordered
system of monasteries, and there was still much that was erratic and
irregular. Though the leaders of the Church in the main allowed the use
of pagan studies in Christian teaching, yet in practice the methods
employed must have depended on the sympathy and the inclination of the
autonomous abbot. Now where an abbot had enjoyed a rhetorical training,
we can hardly doubt that he imparted it to his pupils: for it requires
a great deal of intellectual development in a master not to teach as he
has been taught. But only a certain proportion of abbots could have had
this training. There were many brilliant monks, many perhaps of whose
distinction we do not know. But they could not have directed all the
monasteries of fifth-century Gaul. The temper of the people, too, was
all against literary studies. The number, therefore, of such schools as
Lérins, in which secular and religious studies were simultaneously kept
up, was probably not large. In the following century the division between
secular and religious schools became progressively marked, chiefly owing
to the influence of Cassiodorus. The division between one Christian
school and another was naturally far from rigid; we read of Honoratus
sending three of his scholars at Lérins to hear the lectures of Paulinus
at Nola.[1043]
The children who came to the monastery schools were of two kinds: the
_oblati_,[1044] who remained and became monks, and those who attended
the _schola exterior_ and lived a secular life after their education.
The age at which they were admitted was an early one. Ennodius says
that Epiphanius became a ‘lector’ at eight,[1045] and Sidonius that
Bishop John of Châlons-sur-Marne was ‘lector ab infantia.’[1046]
Nunneries, like the one at Arles, took children at six or seven—‘ab
annis sex aut septem, quae iam litteras discere et obedientiae possit
obtemperare’.[1047]
Classes were generally held in the body of the church (_in inferiori
Basilicae navi_[1048]) and the twenty-fourth canon of the fourth Council
of Toledo (seventh century) probably represents the regular practice of
our period. It provides that the children of the clergy should all be
kept in one room to be trained in the ways of the Church, and that they
should be entrusted to a senior person of approved character who was to
give them both moral and intellectual instruction.[1049]
We hear of a head master variously called in later times ‘Scholasticus’,
‘scholaster’, ‘capischola’ (_caput scholae_) ‘Decanus’, ‘Cancellarius’.
‘Cum igitur Levitas feceris’, wrote Remigius, ‘Archidiaconum institueris
Primicerium scholae clarissimae.’[1050] A sixth-century inscription
of Lyons[1051] reads: ‘In hoc tomolo requiescit famolus D̅I̅ Stefanus
primicirius scolae lectorum....’
Private teaching, which had always gone side by side with the schools,
increased in the fifth century among Christian parents for three
reasons: the opposition of pagan to Christian education, which, amid the
unorganized state of the monastery schools, often forced home-education
upon parents; the fact that the pagan schools catered chiefly for the
upper classes and that Christianity was now inspiring the masses with a
desire for instruction; and the influence of the monastic ideal which
shunned public contact for fear of contamination.
In so far as the Christian writers refer to the detailed practice of
Christian teaching, they deal chiefly with the elementary school,
which is what we should expect. Protogenes, when banished from Edessa
in the latter part of the fourth century, set up a school at Antinoe
(_Antinoopolis_), on the Nile. τόπον εὑρὼν ἐπιτήδειον καὶ τοῦτον
διδασκαλεῖον καὶ παιδευτήριον ἀποφήνας, μειρακίων κατέστη διδάσκαλος, καὶ
... γράφειν τε εἰς τάχος ἐδίδασκε καὶ τὰ θεῖα ἐξεπαίδευε λόγια.[1052]
Writing then (including shorthand), and scripture lessons (especially
the Psalms and the Doctrine of the Apostles), formed the substance of
his teaching. And the same general scope was found in the West. With
considerable elaboration Jerome expounds to Laeta the method by which
she is to teach her daughter the alphabet. She is to be supplied with
letters carved of wood or ivory and be encouraged to play with them, for
in playing she will learn.[1053] In this, as in most other educational
matters, he follows the mighty authority of Quintilian.[1054] He
deprecates a fixed order of the letters so that only the sequence is
remembered. The child must mix the letters frequently, and then put them
together for herself, ‘in order that she may learn to recognize them by
the eye as well as by the ear’. Seneca’s motto[1055] about the visual
being stronger than the acoustic memory seems to have held an important
place in the education of the day.[1056] Elsewhere Jerome explains his
method for learning to read. ‘Itaque Pacatula nostra hoc epistolium post
lectura suscipiat. Interim modo litterarum elementa cognoscat, iungat
syllabas, discat nomina, verba consociet.’[1057] He advocates the usual
method of proceeding from letters to syllables, from syllables to words,
from words to sentences. Again Quintilian is followed.[1058] Modern
experimental psychology inclines to the view that the analytic method,
which proceeds from sentences and words to syllables and letters, may be
the more profitable.
Reading was a specially important subject on account of the ‘lectores’
who read the lessons in church. Originally they were charged with the
reading of Scriptures, but later their duties became more general. The
‘lectores’ formed the second of the minor orders, and the office demanded
a certain amount of education, though sometimes the ‘lectores’ seem to
have been no more than choir boys. Isidore of Seville states that any one
who is promoted to this office must be trained in books and learning,
and well equipped with a knowledge of words and their meanings.[1059]
The eighth canon of the fourth Council of Carthage describes the solemn
ordination of a ‘lector’.[1060] Sometimes qualifications of birth and
rank added to the dignity of the office. Julian, the emperor, and his
brother Gallus were admitted as readers into the church of Nicomedia,
and Paulinus of Nola tells us that St. Felix was a ‘lector’.[1061] The
readers stood, as has been indicated, under a ‘primicerius’, who was
also the head of all the minor orders. ‘Ad primicerium’, said Gregory,
‘pertinent acolythi et exorcistae, psalmistae atque lectores.’[1062]
On the teaching of writing Jerome again follows Quintilian in
recommending a tracing of the letters on the wax for the help of the
pupil.[1063] ‘Cum vero coeperit trementi manu stilum in cera ducere,
vel alterius superposita manu teneri regantur articuli, vel in tabella
sculpantur elementa ut per eosdem sulcos inclusa marginibus trahantur
vestigia....’[1064] These wax-tablets, dating from ancient Roman times,
go on into the eleventh century.[1065] Copying was, of course, an
important part in the monastic writing activities, and Sulpicius Severus
says that it was assigned to the ‘brethren of younger years’.[1066] Such
was the importance attached to it, that in the less advanced cloisters,
like that of Martin, no other art was practised.[1067] Even the nuns
practised it. We find Caesarius exhorting them to vary their reading
and psalm singing with transcribing, under the supervision of the
abbess,[1068] and it was so that Rusticula, abbess of Arles, trained her
nuns.[1069]
One of the borrowings from the pagan schools which the Church found most
useful was shorthand. The bishops had their ‘notarii’ just as much as
the officials of the imperial Civil Service. They were employed to take
down the proceedings of the Councils, the _acta_ of the martyrs,[1070]
and the speeches and sermons of the prominent clergy. Their prevalence
has been the plague of commentators, and has contributed much to the
formlessness of Christian writing. For the scribe would take down the
bishop’s speech verbatim and copy it out as it stood. There was no
revision or rearrangement, and many errors and much diffuseness was
the result, as in the Homilies of Hilary of Poitiers.[1071] Hilary of
Arles, Honoratus tells us, used to have a ‘notarius’. ‘Sedili mensaque
apposita liber ingerebatur et retia,[1072] adstante notario. Liber
praebebat animo cibum, manus nectendi velocitate currebant, notarii simul
ferebantur articuli et oculus paginam percurrebat.’[1073] Evidently the
possession of a ‘notarius’ did not mean a decrease in activity, mental
or otherwise. Similarly, Jerome on a certain occasion was compelled by
his friend Ausonius to send for his secretary and dictate a letter to the
bereaved Julian, and ‘as the words fell swiftly from his lips, they were
swiftly overtaken by the hand of the writer’.[1074] Again, he describes
the vigour of his secretarial department in terms of martial ardour and
excitement: ‘ecce noster Ausonius coepit schedulas flagitare, urgere
notarios, et hinnitu ferventis equi, ingenioli mei festinus arguere
tarditatem’.[1075] That shorthand was connected with the schools is clear
enough from Prudentius.[1076] He tells us of a tablet in a church at
Forum Cornelii representing the martyr Cassianus who had been a teacher
of stenography.
Praefuerat studiis puerilibus, et grege multo
saeptus magister litterarum sederat.
verba notis brevibus comprendere multa peritus
raptimque punctis dicta praecipitibus sequi.
Transcribers of books were patronized by wealthy families, and apparently
sent from one house to another. Sidonius[1077] recommends to Ruricus
one who had copied out the Heptateuch, and had on sale also a copy of
the Prophets, which he had edited. The man was evidently of low social
standing, for Sidonius leaves it to Ruricus to fix the price of the work;
yet he must have had a considerable education to have been able to edit
the Prophets. We hear also of a citizen of Clermont who had wormed out
of the copyist or bookseller (_scriba sive bibliopola_) of Remigius at
Rheims a copy of the latter’s Declamations,[1078] which shows that the
scribe was sometimes also the librarian.
In arithmetic, the strict monastic rules for silence, which made it
necessary, for example, to ask for things at meals by signs,[1079]
increased the Roman tendency to finger-computation. How elaborate
a system was thus worked out we may see from Bede’s work on the
subject.[1080] Great stress was laid on the ‘Computus’, a set of
tables for calculating astronomical events and the movable dates of
the calendar. It was regarded by Cassiodorus as indispensable for the
clergy.[1081] The ‘calculus’ of Victorinus of Aquitaine, who invented
a new Paschal calendar about the middle of the fifth century, was
frequently used.[1082] The idea of mystical numbers, derived from
Pythagoras, led to much fanciful nonsense in the Middle Ages, as we may
see from Alcuin’s letter to his pupil Gallicellulus,[1083] in which he
compared the numbers mentioned in the Old Testament with those of the New.
We have seen that monastic education, where, as at Lérins, the abbot was
sympathetic, extended beyond the range of theological or church subjects.
The Chronicle of Lérins insists on this,[1084] and its statements are
borne out to a certain extent by the inscriptions, which show how
strongly Vergil’s influence survived among the Christians. Several times
we find on the tombstones:
Abstulit atra dies et funere mersit acerbo,
and the words ‘Subiectasque videt nubes et sidera caeli’[1085] in
an inscription on a Bishop of Arles recall the verse describing the
apotheosis of Daphnis. An inscription of Narbonne, belonging, probably,
to the fifth century, has the phrase ‘summi rector Olimpi’.[1086] As for
the Fathers, they are constantly bursting forth into Vergilian language.
Paulinus, in the midst of his tirade against the pagan Muses, in the heat
of his appeal to turn to the Christian God, slips into ‘inania murmura
miscent’,[1087] and Jerome, while urging Julianus to become a monk, ends
with a Vergilian quotation: he must follow the example of the Holy Vera,
‘et sit tibi tanti dux femina facti’.[1088] Thus the Christian writers by
their own words prove the folly of the extreme anti-pagan point of view,
even when they themselves have held it.
We may take it, then, that Vergil was read. We hear also of the fables
of Avianus, who lived under the Antonines,[1089] and the fourth-century
_Disticha Catonis_, a collection of moral rules. The former work remained
in the schools till the tenth century, while the latter was among the
commonest of elementary school-books as late as the sixteenth and
seventeenth century.[1090] The text-books of the grammarians were no
doubt freely used. Sidonius praises the ‘discipline’ of Agroecius[1091]
(fifth century), who wrote a famous work on Orthography, intended to
supplement a book on the same subject by Flavius Caper. It is significant
that the work is dedicated to Bishop Eucherius. As we go into the sixth
century the traces of the mediaeval trivium and quadrivium begin to
appear.[1092] The fifth century was a transition period, in which the
doctrine of the extreme monastic party (if we may speak of a party when
so many eminent men spoke now on the one side and now on the other),
and the teaching of the liberals, were represented in the schools in
fluctuating and uncertain proportions. By the time of Gregory of Tours
(sixth century) the extremists had so far given way that he allowed his
theological students to pass through the seven arts of Capella, and to
write poetry, which, however, was still suspect, and had fallen from its
previous prominence to a precarious place at the end of the list.
‘Quod si te, sacerdos Dei, quicumque es, Martianus noster
septem disciplinis erudiit, id est si te in grammaticis docuit
legere, in dialecticis altercationes propositiones advertere,
in rhetoricis genera metrorum agnoscere, in geometris terrarum
linearumque mensuras colligere ... si in his omnibus ita
fueris exercitatus ut tibi stylus noster sit rusticus, nec sic
quoque deprecor ut avellas quae scripsi sed si tibi in his
quiddam placuerit, salvo opere nostro, te scribere versu non
abnuo.’[1093]
When we take all this into account we cannot fail to see a certain
exaggeration in Kaufmann’s[1094] statement that the training of the
monastic school was entirely religious and moral. These elements were
doubtless predominant, but they were not all.
During the fifth century, however, subjects for reading and discussion
came to be taken more and more from the Bible. The Bible, introduced
as literature in the schools, started its career of enormous influence
on the speech and writings, and so on the education, of all centuries.
The hexameters into which Claudius Marius Victor of Marseilles (fifth
century) turned the book of Genesis were meant for use in schools, and
represented a sort of compromise: Christian matter and pagan form. Psalm
singing and lessons in scripture and church ritual were naturally given a
fairly prominent place. Exegesis became the main subject of study, as we
may see, e.g. from Eucherius’s _Formularum spiritualis intelligentiae_,
_Instructionum libri_, _Dialogorum liber_. Scripture, he says, is to
be discussed and explained ‘secundum historiam, secundum tropologiam,
secundum anagogen’.[1095] ‘Historia’ is given a wide definition: all
that comes under ‘veritatem factorum ac fidem relationis’. ‘Tropologia’
is to lead to the improvement of life and of the mystic intellect, and
‘Anagoge’ leads ‘ad sacratiora caelestium figurarum’. These two sides,
which are speculative and philosophical, are developed at the expense of
‘Historia’; and falsely developed by abundant reference to allegorical
explanation, which becomes a regular solvent of obscure questions.[1096]
Stress is also laid on the etymological side, which is rather
unfortunate. Greek and Hebrew are studied to some extent, though the
answers which Eucherius, following the example of Jerome, wrote to the
questions of his son Salonius on these subjects suggest rather a low
standard. Curious as this catechism is, some of the theological questions
indicate considerable thought:
‘Scribitur in Genesi tentavit Deus Abraham, quasi ignorabat Dominus an
fidelis Abraham foret.’
‘Si Deus hominem immortalem fecerit, quemadmodum potuit mori?’
‘Quomodo accipiendum est quod legimus Regnum Dei intra vos est?’
‘Cum nulla esse ignorantia apud Deum possit, quomodo ipse in libro
Geneseos in exordiis dicit Dominus: Adam, ubi es?’[1097]
This part of Christian education as reflected in the Books of Instruction
stands in sharp contrast to the part which deals with language, and
suggests that the theological training far overshadowed the rest. Even at
Lérins the distinctly pagan education was given very little prominence.
Ennodius, of all people, forgetting his debt to pagan letters, and
all unconscious of his enslavement to rhetoric, pompously states the
superiority of ‘religious’ over ‘secular’ studies, thus advising Camilla
about the education of her son: ‘The Lord of salvation rejects not those
who hasten to him from secular teachings, but he refuses to let any one
leave his glory for these. If you have already withdrawn the child from
the world, you would not seek a worldly style in him. I blush to resort
to the polish of secular embellishments in the education of one who
professes to serve the Church.’[1098]
That there were different grades of advancement in the Christian schools
is implied in the words of Eucherius when he reminds his son that
his education was begun by Hilary but finished off (_consummatum_) by
Vincentius and Salvian.[1099] But the general standard was undoubtedly
low. To the remark of Caesarius that many business-men in his time
could not write, we may add the testimony of the inscriptions. On four
monuments of Briord we read:
‘Abstuta passiens dulcissema apta’,
‘Abstutus argus dulcissimus artus’,
‘Abstuti passiens dulcissimi aptu’,
‘Abstutus passiius dulcissernus aptus’,
all for ‘Astutus largus patiens dulcissimus aptus’. And there are many
variations of the lines inscribed by Jerome on Paula’s tomb:
Aspicis augustum praecisa in rupe sepulcrum,
hospitium Paulae est caelestia regna tenentis,
which proclaim the ignorance of the inscribers.[1100] This does not
mean that these people would have been better educated under the pagan
system: there are many instances of mistakes in pagan inscriptions too.
It merely means that Christianity was beginning to reach the simple folk,
who otherwise would probably not have had the ability or the ambition
even to make a wrong copy of a line of verse. In the pagan schools it is
the upper classes that are prominent: in the Christian schools it is the
lower.
Higher education, therefore, hardly appears at all in the Christian
writers. The former rhetorical school, with its declamations and its
applause, fell away, though its influence survived. The rules of rhetoric
may have been illustrated by examples which were applied in the pulpit,
but there was no separate school for the art of speaking. Yet the germ
of the modern university—as far as intellectual search for truth is
concerned—was found in some of the monasteries, and there is at least one
subject in which they had a contribution to make to higher education,
philosophy.
The curious way in which the Christian and pagan schools supplement and
oppose one another is evident throughout. The Christian elementary school
developed further the pagan system for lower education: the monastic
studies formed an antithesis to the social atmosphere of the Bordeaux
University; and, in particular, the study of philosophy and theology
supplemented that lack of thought which we have seen in Ausonius and the
fourth century in general. For it is in the fifth century that the most
flourishing period of Gallic theology begins. All the greatest minds of
the day busied themselves with the philosophy of religion.
The main thought-currents need here only be named. First and foremost
there was Pelagianism, with its questions of grace and free will, which
raised the central problem of personality. More directly connected with
Gaul (for its leaders were Cassian and Faustus) was Semi-Pelagianism,
which sought a middle way between the predestination implied in Augustine
and the free will of Pelagius. Then there were the questions about the
nature of the soul—whether it was corporeal, as Faustus argued, or
spiritual as Mamertus Claudianus maintained. There was also Neoplatonism,
which was never strong in the West, but appears here and there in
Hilary of Poitiers.[1101] How prevalent its incidental accompaniments
of Daemonology and Divination were appears from the decree of Valens
and Valentinian against magicians.[1102] Finally, there were minor
theological questions and points of worship and church discipline, for
example in the controversy between Vigilantius and Jerome.
Philosophy was divided by Eucherius into three parts: ‘Sapientia mundi
huius philosophiam suam in tres partes divisit: Physicam, Ethicam,
Logicam’,[1103] which includes metaphysics and theology. This was
the traditional division alluded to by Seneca: ‘Philosophiae tres
partes esse dixerunt et maximi et plurimi actores: moralem, naturalem,
rationalem.’[1104] Of these, the part called ‘ethica’ or ‘moralis’ was
naturally most popular, but the sort of theological discussion that came
under ‘Logica’ was most developed by the thinkers of the time. Foremost
in this department stands Claudianus, Bishop of Vienne, whose work _De
Statu animae_ was a real contribution to the thought of his age. ‘These
ideas’, says Guizot, referring to this work, ‘are deficient neither in
elevation nor in profundity: they would do honour to the philosophers
of any period; seldom have the nature of the soul and its unity been
investigated more clearly or described with greater precision.’[1105]
This is high praise, but it is justified in the main. Claudianus was at
least no mere compiler. He draws largely on Augustine and the Pythagorean
authors like Philolaus, Architas, and Hippo Metapontinus (known to him,
perhaps, only in extracts), whose works are now lost.[1106] Plato and
the later Platonists, too, are extensively quoted. We feel that there
is a great deal of vague metaphysics in his work, ‘purement négative,
impuissante à pénétrer dans la nature intime des phénomènes’.[1107] As
an example of this sort of thing we may quote the passage[1108] where he
is referring to the work of Philolaus περὶ ῥυθμῶν καὶ μέτρων, and talks
about the mystic number and the spiritual law according to which the soul
enters the body, using this thesis as a satisfactory basis for argument.
He is content to quote the ‘ipse dixit’ of Philolaus alone. ‘Memet’ (he
declares) ‘causa auctoritatis in medium tanti testimonium philosophi
iecisse sufficiet.’ There was an idea (not unnaturally) that the study
of philosophy was prejudicial to religion, but Claudianus was one, says
Sidonius, ‘qui ... indesinenter _salva religione_ philosopharetur’.[1109]
Plato was the main inspiration. Most of the Gallic Platonists were
Christians, though Sidonius says that those who attack Faustus for
his mystic philosophy will find ‘ecclesiae Christi Platonis academiam
militare’.[1110] From Sidonius and Claudianus we should judge that
Aristotle—especially the _Ethics_ and the _Categories_—was fairly
prevalent in Gaul.[1111]
_Methods and Masters._
Ennodius in his lines on ‘Grammatica’[1112] maintains that even in
teaching philosophy a joke with the class is permissible, and that strict
discipline must not always imply terror, and Sulpicius Severus writes to
Bishop Paul[1113] commending his success in dealing with pupils without
threats or force. But, on the whole, the pagan tradition of discipline
was not mellowed by Christianity. It was rather reinforced by the ascetic
spirit of the monasteries, and intensified by the added religious
motive of mortification. The text ‘Quem enim diligit Dominus, increpat:
flagellat autem omnem filium quem recipit’, was literally and extensively
applied. Jerome talks quite naturally of education as equivalent to
‘manum ferulae subducere’,[1114] and the severe training of Lérins is
indicated by the phrase of Sidonius; ‘post desudatas militiae Lerinensis
excubias’ (the sweated vigils of your campaign at Lérins).[1115]
Valerianus, in his homily ‘De bono disciplinae’,[1116] illustrates
the ideas of the time on this subject, and strengthens the impression
that we get from reading the various ‘Regulae’ for the cloisters. He
expatiates on the disciplined order of nature, and everywhere thinks of
‘disciplina’ as equivalent to ‘castigatio’, which is always assumed to
be the corner-stone of teaching and the condition of progress on the
part of the pupil. The militarism of the Roman Empire lingers on in
seemingly uncongenial surroundings. Great stress is laid on fear. Fear
has the great virtue of always obeying. It therefore knows how to avoid
threatening dangers, or the wrath of judgement. Because of this estimable
quality it has the power of keeping you safe. ‘All vices are prostrate
before fear.’ He appeals to the word of the Prophet: ‘servite Domino in
timore et exultate ei cum tremore’. The Old Testament harshness suits
the temper of these disciplinarians very well, and appears far more
frequently than the gentleness of Christ or the humanity of common sense.
Part of this idea of mortification and discipline was worked out in the
manual labour which the monasteries made, and consistently have made, of
considerable importance in their educational scheme. Partly, too, it was
a reaction against the extreme artificiality of the rhetorical schools,
and it was also undoubtedly an attempt to follow Christ and his Apostles
in their adoption of some craft or trade. Mabillon shows[1117] how much
this practical side was insisted on, and he speaks of a tradition which
started in Gaul during our period. The correspondence between word and
deed was made a vital point—a fact which proved a healthy corrective
to the attitude apt to be produced by the rhetoric of the pagan
schools. ‘Qui si volunt lectioni vacare ut non operentur, ipsi lectioni
contumaces existunt, quia non faciant quod ibi legunt’,[1118] said
Isidore of Seville, and his ‘Rule’, like that of Caesarius, expressed
the thought of the fifth century as well as of the seventh. We find that
at Lérins Hilary of Arles worked in the fields, and that it was the
duty of Caesarius when he first entered that monastery to provide for
the bodily needs of the brethren.[1119] Cassian made a strong point of
manual labour. It prevents many faults,[1120] and we have the example
of St. Paul[1121] and the precept of Solomon.[1122] The East, which
gave the impulse to monasticism, emphasized this point, for example in
Egypt,[1123] and there is the story of the Abbot Paul who burnt every
year the work of his hands lest he should ever lack work.[1124]
Thus in its development of elementary education, in its ‘rusticitas’, in
its greater concentration on thought, and in its emphasis on practical
work, Christian education in fifth-century Gaul was in reaction against
the brilliant but superficial schools of the previous century. That this
was so, and that the movement was strong enough to make itself felt
against the whole weight of the traditional education, was partly due to
skilful leadership. How far was this effective leadership general in the
Christian schools?
Eucherius in a letter to Valerianus[1125] gives a list of men who have
become monks. Clemens, ‘omni scientia refertus, omniumque liberalium
artium peritissimus’; Gregorius, ‘philosophia primus apud mundum et
eloquentia praestans’; another Gregorius, ‘litteris et philosophiae
deditus’; Paulinus of Nola, ‘peculiare et beatum Galliae nostrae
exemplum—uberrimo eloquentiae fonte’; Basilius, a rhetor and a learned
man; and many others. Of Eucherius himself Claudianus says: ‘ingenio
subtilissimus, scientia plenus, eloquii profluens’.[1126] There was,
therefore, considerable learning in the monasteries towards the end of
the fourth century. We have seen how many of the aristocracy brought
pagan culture into the cloisters; we have also seen that the Christians
were not without their rhetors (and rhetorical ability implied the
liberal education of the day), nor without their theologians and
philosophers. Of Hilary of Arles, whose eloquence Honoratus praises,
Gennadius says: ‘Ingenio vero immortali aliqua et parva edidit, quae
eruditae animae et fidelis linguae indicio sunt’.[1127] Even where a man
did not have the initial advantage of education and birth, he often had
the ambition and the opportunity to remedy his ignorance in the cloister.
Vincentius, who had come to Lérins after having been a soldier, studied
with such zeal that he became one of the tutors of Eucherius’s sons and
wrote in a style praised by Gennadius.[1128]
Now all these men became the teachers of the Christian schools. They
taught unceasingly and with great eagerness. They had within them the joy
of the pioneer, and the inspiration of a great ideal. And if one does
not agree entirely with their theory of education, it must be admitted
that intellectually they were in most cases better equipped than the
professors of Ausonius, and that they did more to inspire a true love
of education and to preserve the triumphs of culture. When Gaul was
separated from the Empire, it was the schools, and mostly the Christian
schools (for imperial protection of education failed with the failing
Empire), that saved civilization in Gaul and helped to perpetuate Rome’s
great contribution to the world—her Law. Dull and uninteresting as
their educational labours often were, they were often, like Browning’s
Grammarian, possessed by a real love of learning. The pedestrian quality
of the work—the jealous watching over the text of Vergil, the copying of
manuscripts, the relentless monastic routine—was perhaps the best service
that could have been rendered to humanity. What the world wanted, in view
of the dark times that were to follow, was a tenacious watch-dog type of
loyalty to letters, not the brilliant genius who needs somebody to look
after his manuscripts. Not only books but garden art, architecture, wood-
and stone-carving, and pottery were preserved by these watch-dogs. The
dull lack of appreciation with which we sometimes think of their work,
forgetting its true perspective, is well expressed by Kaufmann:[1129]
‘Der auf Unkenntniss gegründete Hochmuth moderner Bildung
glaubt freilich mit dem einen Worte “Scholastik” über die
Arbeit dieser Mönche hinweggehen zu können, als über eine Summe
nutzloser Versuche ... allein schon die eine Beobachtung, dass
in den wichtigsten Fragen schon damals dieselben Gegensätze
aufeinanderplatzten, welche heute die Geister trennen, schon
diese Beobachtung zeigt dass die kirchlichen Fesseln das
geistige Leben nicht erstarren liessen.’
PART IV
CERTAIN EDUCATIONAL IDEAS AND INFLUENCES
While we have looked at the actual curricula and surroundings of the
schools, it has been possible to treat Christian and pagan education
apart. But there remain certain questions which do not directly or
entirely belong to the schools, and yet are of importance for education
because of the general educational principles underlying them (as in the
case of history or the teaching of a strange language), or because of
the ideas by which they moulded the individuality of people (as in the
case of morality and art). Here the interplay of influences is such that,
in the brief treatment which we propose, a strict division had better
not be attempted. For not only would such a division be tedious within
so limited a compass, but the merging into one another of customs and
ideas makes it almost impossible. The questions we have indicated will
therefore be regarded as common to either side of society.
1. MORAL EDUCATION
To get an insight into the moral state of a bygone age is difficult for
two reasons. The first is that the subject is one on which people are
most tempted to be hypocrites in their own case, while they delight in
expatiating on the wickedness of others, and the second, that there is
an extraordinary tendency for particular cases to fill the horizon and
prevent us from taking a general view. In our period we have to reckon
with a special form of these difficulties: the preaching habit, which,
though it was essential to Christianity, was nevertheless as much open to
abuse as pagan rhetoric was, especially when it was a means of combating
paganism. ‘The world is wide’, said Stevenson in one of his essays,
‘and so are morals.’ But there is a standard—that of the Sermon on the
Mount—which presents an ideal, though it does not give the right to
condemn. In trying to follow this ideal the Christians saw pagan morality
in a lurid light. How far were they justified?
The traditional trait of impulsiveness in the Gallic character suggested
to many writers a proneness to immorality.[1130] Florus represents
Livy as saying that the Insubrian Gauls, though brutal in spirit and
abnormally large, were like their own Alpine snows: the glow of battle
dissolved them into sweat, and even slight exertion thawed them like
the sun. From this account Ammianus differs widely when he describes
the Gauls of the fourth century as excelling in vigour and endurance
irrespective of age.[1131] Yet he speaks of the ‘mollities’ of the
Aquitanians.[1132] Perhaps in his description of their hardiness he was
thinking chiefly of the northern Gauls, as opposed to their slacker
brothers in the south. For it is against the south and against Aquitaine
in particular that Salvian launches all the thunder of his denunciation.
The Aquitanians need the chastisement of the barbarian invasions to
kill off the worst among them and to reform the others.[1133] He rails
at length against the prevailing corruption. The theatres ‘are so
scandalous that no one can with modesty speak out about them’.[1134]
The performances consisted of farces, ‘cotidianae obscenitates’,[1135]
‘restes dégénérés et méconnaissables du théâtre antique’ as Fauriel calls
them.[1136] The Christian clergy lose no opportunity of condemning them.
In contrast to pagan immorality, Salvian describes the chastity of the
Goths. This he exaggerates for the sake of effect, but that there was a
considerable element of truth in his description is proved by the _Codex
Visigothorum_.[1137]
If the preacher gives a discouraging picture of the moral state of Gaul,
so does the writer of comedy. In the fourth-century _Querolus_ much of
the moral corruption pictured is due to imitation of Plautus, and we must
remember that it was a comedy. Yet we can detect a strain of satire which
is a criticism of existing conditions. Stealing, lying, adultery, perjury
are treated as exceedingly common peccadilloes which the household god
(Lar) is only too ready to pardon in a pleasing and jolly offender.
Between the Plautine conception of the relation of slaves to their
masters and that here portrayed we can detect no advance. On both sides
morality is simply non-existent.
But if we must discount the evidence both of the preacher and of the
comedy-writer, we may find a more impartial guide than either in the
Law. The Theodosian Code shows that the aspect of a crime changed with
the social status of the criminal. There was no consistent ethical
standard. If the wife of a tavern-keeper was taken in adultery, she could
be publicly accused; but if her servant girl was so taken, she might
be dismissed as too cheap to worry about (_pro vilitate_).[1138] If a
guardian corrupted his ward, he was punished by deportation and total
confiscation of his goods.[1139] But a woman who had committed adultery
with her slave was put to death, and the slave burned. So terrible did
this interference with class-distinction seem that even slaves were
allowed to give information.[1140] Again, in bringing a charge of treason
which he cannot prove, an ordinary man is subject to torture, but a slave
or a freedman is denied an audience and crucified.[1141] If a slave or
freedman brought an accusation against his master (except in the case of
treason), he was to be beheaded _before his charge was examined_. ‘Vocem
enim funestam intercidi oportet potius quam audiri.’[1142] Again, in
the law of extortion, judges who have been convicted lose the marks of
imperial favour, are stripped of their office, and ranked with the worst
and lowest class in the State.[1143]
In the opinion of the law, and therefore of the mass of the people, being
‘pessimus’ means belonging to the plebs, and the punishment of crime
comes to consist in loss of ‘caste’.[1144] That is to say, morality
becomes a matter of social position, and the corollary is that anything
may be done by those whose status is high, as long as they manage to
maintain that status, while those at the bottom, having no status to
lose, hardly care what they do. However much we may disregard particular
descriptions of moral degeneracy, the _Codex Theodosianus_ supplies a
very damning commentary on the ethical standards of the time. Nor did the
Christians effect any improvement in this legal respect of persons.
We have, of course, men like Paulinus of Pella who speak of the
‘sollers castorum cura parentum’[1145] which shielded him from every
evil influence, and the _Parentalia_ of Ausonius indicates happy
home-conditions. Lavisse notes this,[1146] and makes much of the domestic
felicity and the tender love reflected by these writers and by the
inscriptions.[1147] But, apart from the fact that Ausonius and Paulinus
were at the top of society, it is dangerous to presume too much from
epitaphs. Then, as now, convention played a great part, and the stock
phrase ‘Coniugi Karissimae’ may be as formal as the constantly recurring
‘memoriae aeternae’. It was the fashion to write epitaphs in which the
superlative was prominent.[1148] Besides, in most of these inscriptions
there is no clue as to the dates.
We must conclude, then, that there was much for the Christians to
educate, in society and in themselves, if they wanted to fulfil the
Christian code of morals.
Turning to the question how far an attempt was made in the pagan schools
to train the moral nature, we find that it is precisely this side of
pagan education that Juvenal and Tacitus criticized. The old Roman
tradition of strict moral education at home was impaired under the Empire
by the influx of foreign elements, and the decline is familiar from the
authors of the first century A.D. Seneca could see in the education of
his day no moral element,[1149] and his criticisms apply to the scholars
of Gaul as much as to those of Rome. How could there be (he argued), when
the masters were so utterly corrupt? ‘The grammarians’, he said, ‘taught
merely antiquarian stuff, not ethics. They asked whether Homer was older
than Hesiod, and inquired into the ages of Patroclus and Achilles, or
the wanderings of Ulysses.’ ‘Quid horum ad virtutem viam struit?’ The
geometricians teach how to survey estates, but ‘what does it profit me to
know how to divide a plot of land, if I do not know how to share with my
brother? You know what a straight line is. What good is it, if you do not
know what is straight in life? O man of learning, let us be content with
the simpler title: man of virtue.’[1150] The burden of the cry is for
perspective, for an ethical basis, without which education was seen to be
like an anchorless storm-tossed ship.[1151]
This need continues to be felt through the following centuries. We have
seen what stress Julian laid on the moral qualifications of the teacher.
His ideal was Hellenic purity. Before him, Eumenius, on whom the imperial
injunction was laid: ‘ut ... ad _vitae melioris_ studium adulescentium
excolas mentes’,[1152] proclaimed the ideal of practical morality
advocated by Cicero. Similarly, the emperor in his zeal for education
stressed the moral side as well as the intellectual (so at least his
panegyrist maintained), and realized that letters were the basis of
virtue.[1153] These virtues, he says, grow up in youth, and in manhood
form the strong support of all the various duties of citizenship, whether
in peace or war. And so letters are the cradle ‘of all diligence and all
praise’.
To a certain extent this demand for moral education was met in the pagan
schools. When Paulinus speaks of learning ‘dogmata Socratus’ at the age
of five, what he probably means is a selection of well-known sentences
chosen for their moral teaching.[1154] The didactic nature of the fables
and rhetorical exercises has been noticed, and we cannot doubt that they
played a considerable part in the moral theory of the pagan schools.
An inscription of Limoges, belonging probably to the second century,
contains the figure of a man with a scroll in his right hand, and the
following words:
‘Artis Grammatices Doctor Morumqꝫ Mag .. ter Blaesianus
Biturix’.[1155]
The inference is that the popular conception of the grammarian’s task
included moral training. We find that ‘Grammatica’ was regarded as the
nurse of the virtues. A training is obtained through it for practical
life. Not only the orator but the soldier was supposed to be thus
formed. It is the school of the grammarian that trains the soldier whom
the Campus Martius receives. ‘Grammar’ has fired him with imaginary
battles, taught him courage by accustoming him to the apparatus of war
even among the blandishments of peace, and so will make him obedient
to the actual trumpet call.[1156] All this is claimed for the school.
Such was the theory, but what sort of training was given in practice?
It was of little use that fables with moral tags were put before the
child if there was not at the same time the living example. And Seneca’s
objection to the character of the ‘grammatici’ seems to have held to
some extent in Gaul during our period. The disgusting picture of social
vice which Ausonius gives in the latter part of the _Epigrams_ applies
in part also to the teachers. Eunus, the pedagogue, figures prominently
in the list, and Ausonius himself speaks quite naturally about things
that directly contradict the Christian morality which he professed. There
was a hollowness in the teaching of the ‘grammaticus’ which logically
followed from the attempt to maintain the precept without the example.
The objections to the low ethical standard of the gods in Homer, which
were urged in the fifth century as in the time of Plato and Cicero,
were unheeded by the teachers, says Augustine, even when a man of their
own school (_ex eodem pulvere_) proclaimed that Homer had transferred
human qualities to the gods.[1157] A barbarism or a solecism was of
more account than a moral offence: to forget the _h_ in _homo_ was more
serious than to forget to love a fellow man.[1158]
‘Liberales Artes’, Seneca had said, ‘non perducunt animum ad virtutem,
sed expediunt.’[1159] We must be content if the school-training merely
creates a disposition of mind favourable to virtue. The Christian schools
went further. They insisted on correlating theory and practice, and
prescribed definite lines of action. As against the hollowness of the
pagan moral teaching (and here again we can detect a reaction), the
Christian teachers on the whole not only tried to practise what they
taught, but saw to it that their pupils carried out their commands.
They were exhorted to do so in the Canons of the Church. They put
before men a personal ideal, and, if their methods of striving after
it were sometimes crude and exaggerated, their sincerity can hardly be
doubted. So obsessed were they with the idea of working out their own
salvation that their teaching tended to become oppressively moral. The
long disquisitions of Jerome or Tertullian on the minute points of moral
behaviour are sometimes positively unhealthy. But we must remember that
they represented a reaction from an extreme. And in this reaction the
seeds of a higher ethical standard were being sown. Not as the lightning
lighteth the heavens, but as the growth of the mustard-tree, the stern
teaching of the monks who saw a higher vision and fled the world for its
sake penetrated and leavened the mass of society, whether that society
called itself Christian or not. Already in the fifth century a better
public opinion was being formed. We find Sidonius, half-pagan as he
was, commending his villa at Avitacum because of the absence of immoral
pictures and scenes—‘non hic per nudam pictorum corporum pulchritudinem
turpis prostat historia, quae sicut ornat artem sic devenustat
artificem.... Absunt lubrici tortuosique pugilatu et nexibus palaestritae
(wrestlers) quoram etiam viventum luctus, si involvantur obscenius casta
confestim gymnasiarchorum virga dissolvit.’[1160] So in his letter to his
son,[1161] he praises him for loving purity and adopts the tone of the
moral educator.
It is not suggested that the pagan efforts to advocate morality were
worth less than the Christian, or that there was a steady and abiding
advance in morals from this time onwards. Only, there are two facts to
bear in mind: the moral state of Gaul was bad, and paganism as a motive
to morality had failed. Where then was the incentive to come from?
Without claiming for the Church any special virtue, and realizing its
many grievous errors, we must answer that the moral inspiration for the
future came at this time through Christianity. And the Church and her
schools were the channels by which this inspiration reached the people.
Thus once more Christian education supplemented the work of the pagan
schools.
* * * * *
One of the ways in which Christianity exercised its moral influence
consisted in raising the status of women; and this was done, to a large
extent, by making education more general among them.
In answering the question whether girls attended the schools at Bordeaux,
Jullian[1162] says that this was probably the case. We may omit the
‘probably’. It would have been strange indeed if this had not been the
case, seeing that at Rome girls’ schools go back possibly to the time
of the unfortunate Virginia[1163] (449 B.C.), while in the Ciceronian
period Hortensia belonged to the orators, Lesbia wrote poetry, and
girls are mentioned as attending school with the boys by Martial[1164]
and Ovid.[1165] Moreover, Ausonius says quite plainly to his grandson,
referring to the ordinary school course:
Haec olim genitorque tuus _genetrixque_ secuti ...[1166] and tells us
that his aunt was a student of medicine, though he indicates that this
was not the usual thing (_more virum_ medicis artibus experiens).[1167]
Sometimes the mother taught her daughter literature:
Latios nec volvere libros (says Claudianus of the bride),[1168]
desinit aut Graios, ipsa genetrice magistra.
But such home-education was probably rare and confined to the upper
classes. We hear of no such instance in Gaul. Yet we know that there was
sufficient interest in the classics and in knowledge generally on the
part of the Gallic women to elicit a lament from Claudius Marius Victor.
For among the signs of corruption of his day he notes their preference
for pagan authors. Moreover, they show a knowledge of abstruse questions
and a desire to know which is truly monstrous:
Quae ... Deo tantum sunt nota, recondita cunctis,
scire volunt (heu grande nefas!) et scire videntur.
But it is all the fault of the men, he says (_sunt nostri crimina
sexus_). Without the example of the husband, the wife would never have
strayed into such ways of wickedness:
Sic exempla virum uxores accepta sequuntur.[1169]
Eulalia, the wife of Probus, was fond of reading the involved writings
of Sidonius,[1170] who does not think it too much to expect from a wife
that she will be interested in literature. For he reminds a friend that
marriage need not interfere with his studious habits: have not Marcia,
Terentia, Calpurnia, Pudentilla, Rusticiana, and many others ‘held the
light for those who read’?[1171] We may conclude, therefore, that while
a large number of girls received a home-education, chiefly in spinning
and household crafts,[1172] many of them attended the schools and became
interested in literature.[1173]
If there was an increasing liberalism about women’s education in pagan
circles (to take the references from Ausonius and Sidonius under this
head), the principle of a woman’s right to education assumed much wider
and more active proportions among the Christians.
The spread of monasticism naturally affected a large number of women.
Marcella was the first of the noble ladies at Rome to take the veil, and
set an example which was so extensively followed that by 412 Jerome could
boast ‘crebra virginum monasteria’.[1174] Avitus in 517 called together a
Church Council at Epao (a small village south of Vienne), which regulated
in one of its canons the admission to the ‘monasteria puellarum’,[1175]
and he refers elsewhere to the cloister founded by Leonianus where
Remilia was brought up (_sub regulari disciplina nutrita_).[1176] The
nuns learnt weaving and spinning,[1177] but the various ‘Regulae’, though
somewhat later than our period, make it probable that a portion of their
time, at least, was spent in reading and writing.
From these scattered data the point that emerges is that there was a
change of attitude towards the education and intellectual capacity of the
ordinary woman.
Jerome showed quite clearly that he had no contempt for the feminine
mind as such. He considers Paula and Eustochium competent judges of
his Latin translation of the Bible, and treats their suggestions as
coming from intellectual equals.[1178] The number of books dedicated to
them is remarkable, though not when we remember that they inspired the
translation.[1179] They, and many other women like Blaesilla, Felicitas,
and Fabiola were adepts in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, and frequently
consulted Jerome on points of interpretation, as did women from all parts
of the Empire, including Gaul. For if the rhetorical tradition was one
and universal in the West, Christian teaching in the fifth century was
almost more so. ‘If Augustine from his retreat at Hippo dictated a new
treatise against the heresies of his time, all the churches of Italy, of
the Gauls and of Spain listened with attention. Thus, at first sight, we
can only discover one sole Latin Literature which, so to speak, began the
education of all the races of the West.’[1180]
Sedulius, who had taken the side of liberalism in the matter of pagan
literature, when discussing the dedication of his _Carmen Paschale_ makes
Macedonius mention many learned presbyters. ‘Nor need you be ashamed’,
he continues, ‘to follow the example of Jerome the interpreter of the
divine law, the student of the library of heaven (_caelestis bibliothecae
cultoris_), in submitting to women, high born and of known high
character, women in whose minds the passion for sacred reading has built
the sober home of wisdom, the documents of your inmost reasoning. Who
would not wish, would not be ambitious, to please the superb judgement
of a Syncletice...?’ And he goes on to describe Perpetua, whose wisdom
(_gemina resplendens lampade_) lends lustre to that of her sister.[1181]
Ennodius also testifies to the intellectual activity of women at the
close of the fifth century. In counselling his correspondents to leave
grammar and rhetoric, he recommends certain teachers. Among these he
mentions with enthusiasm ‘domna Barbara, Romani flos genii’. She seasons
her speech with a simplicity that is at once natural and artistic, and
her eloquence is enhanced by her clarity of thought. There is also
Stephania ‘splendidissimum catholicae lumen ecclesiae’.[1182] One of the
points that emerge in the _De Ordine_ of Augustine is that ‘Monica is not
to be kept from discussing philosophy because of her sex’.[1183]
On the whole, we must say that though there had been an Aspasia in
the time of Pericles, and though Hypatia taught at Alexandria at the
beginning of the fifth century, there had never been such a general
interest in education on the part of women as in the Christian circles
of the Western Empire at this time. The references to educated women
in pagan authors is slight when compared with those in the Church
Fathers. Of all Symmachus’s letters not one is addressed to a woman, and
neither Ausonius nor Sidonius (except for one letter to his wife) had a
female correspondent; whereas not only Jerome, but Augustine, Cyprian,
Tertullian, Ambrose, all followed Christ’s example when he taught the
woman of Samaria. Yet when all is said, we feel that the extent of female
education is still small, and that Ovid’s words still apply:
Sunt tamen et doctae, _rarissima turba_, puellae.
But we also feel that there is an interest which contains a promise for
the future:
Altera non doctae turba, _sed esse volunt_.[1184]
2. HISTORY
If a consideration of the state of moral education is necessary to show
how far teaching had an ethical basis, we may find in an inquiry into
the position and purpose of history in the schools an indication of the
political basis of education. We have seen that in the pagan schools
education as a whole was directed by, and aimed at the fulfilment
of, the imperial policy. In considering the sort of value attached to
historical study, we may see in greater detail how far the scientific
attitude of mind was entertained, and how far it was abused for the sake
of politics. For there is no subject which illustrates more clearly these
two possibilities.
The general outlook of history in our period was not very encouraging.
There were no historians except Ammianus. It was a time when a writer
like Suetonius was taken as a model. There were, however, numerous
compilations. Eutropius, for example, wrote an abbreviated history of
Rome towards the close of the fourth century. Chronography was a science
started by Sextus Julius Africanus early in the third century, and his
example was widely followed. Eusebius, and his translator and expander
Jerome, carried on the tradition. Prosper of Aquitaine took up the record
where Eusebius had left off, and Prosper’s work was continued by Idatius.
Sulpicius Severus illustrated the same tendency, while Rufinus, the
adversary of Jerome, did important work in translating and continuing
the ecclesiastical history of Eusebius. Dry and formless as these
chronographies were, they had the merit of giving a truer perspective of
history by introducing the cold lucidity of dates.
Corresponding to this activity there had appeared on the Christian
side the records of the _Acta Martyrum_. Many of these Acta were of a
legendary character, and though they were useful for their local colour,
they are certainly less valuable from a scientific point of view than the
bare chronicles.
This was the general position of history. Its position in the Gallic
schools was not more satisfactory. Throughout the ancient educational
tradition, from the ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία, of Posidonius to the ‘seven
liberal arts’, there had been no place for the study of history. From
Dionysius Thrax to Quintilian it is consistently treated as a side
issue.[1185] Blümner says that when Quintilian assigned ‘historias
exponere’ as one of the tasks of the grammarian, it only meant that the
teacher commented on such historical facts as turned up in the course of
his reading, since history was not a school-subject.[1186] Yet this is
not always true.[1187] For from what Ausonius says in the _Protrepticon_,
it appears that at Bordeaux, at any rate, history determined the course
of the reading and not vice versa, and that it was a school-subject to
this extent that definite books were included in the course for its
sake. For Ausonius prescribes for his grandson certain periods of Roman
history: the conspiracy of Catiline, the twelve years after the events
connected with Lepidus and Catulus, the Sertorian war.[1188] Among the
encyclopaedic attainments of Staphylius, the Bordeaux teacher, is a
knowledge of Livy and Herodotus.[1189] In the library of Ausonius there
are
ὀκτὼ Θουκυδίδου, ἐννέα Ἡροδότου,
and in his invitations to Paulinus he advises him to leave behind
Historiam, mimos, carmina....[1190]
We must, however, be careful how we interpret ‘historia’. It was an
elastic term. In the _Technopaegnion_, for example, Ausonius has a
piece ‘de historiis’,[1191] but the subject-matter is almost entirely
in the shadowy realm of mythology—the ‘history’ of Narcissus, Juno, and
Philomela; and when the grammarians Crispus and Urbicus are said to be
‘callentes mython plasmata et historiam’, we feel that the juxtaposition
of the two subjects is significant. ‘History’, Quintilian had said,
‘is akin to the poets, a sort of prose poetry.’[1192] The interest in
the actual facts of history and their meaning is small. A teacher
like Ausonius takes very little notice of contemporary events. He
refers vaguely to ‘tempora tyrannica’,[1193] and to the residence of
Constantine’s brothers at Toulouse.[1194] But of all those contemporary
events which we should have expected a man in Ausonius’s position to
mention, the declaration as emperor in Gaul of the German Magnentius
(350), the campaigns of Julian against the invading Franks (357-8), the
crossing of Maximus to Gaul after having been declared emperor in Britain
(383), and the affair of Arbogast and Eugenius (392)—these and many other
contemporary events of importance do not appear in the pages of Ausonius.
If mythology was a danger for history on the one side, there was
antiquity on the other. In the former the tendency was to wander
away from facts altogether, in the latter there was a temptation to
concentrate on bare facts too much. The historical facts which Sidonius
sometimes enumerates sound very much like an inventory.[1195] Staphylius,
who is noted for his knowledge of history, was steeped in the six
hundred volumes of Varro,[1196] and the antiquarian Victorius dug deep
into the musty documents of antiquity, spending on unexplored fields a
keen intellect and a tenacious memory.[1197] Ausonius remarks that this
meticulous encyclopaedism had made Staphylius neglect Cicero and Vergil,
et quidquid Latia conditur historia.[1198]
Victorius had the scientific spirit, but no use can be made of it
for history, which, to Ausonius, means something much nearer to the
brilliance of the rhetor than to the patient study of a Victorius or a
Staphylius, whom he regards with an airy smile of contempt. The ‘prompta
studia’ of the ordinary teacher who glibly talked the traditional stuff
are separated with an air of respectability from the work of such cranks
as indulge in dusty research.[1199] Rocafort rightly suspects that
these students ‘irrisioni, sicut Ausonio, ita cunctis Burdigalensibus
fuisse’.[1200] A practical sign of this is the low position which
Victorius held: he was not even a grammarian but merely an assistant
(_subdoctor sive proscholus_),[1201] poorly paid, ‘exili nostrae fucatus
honore cathedrae’. The subsidiary position of history is indicated by
Augustine when he says that it was an accessory to ‘Grammar’, and its
mythological and artificial character is criticized in the remark that it
was more worked at by grammarians than actual historians.[1202]
It is quite clear that history was studied in a very haphazard way.
Even a teacher of sufficient prominence to deliver several[1203]
panegyrics before the emperor, such as the Gallic author of the speech
to Constantius, talks in a very vague way about some of the best-known
statements of Herodotus. ‘Xerxes, _ut audio_, _Persarum rex potissimus_,
pedicas iecit aureas in profundum....’ Unfamiliarity with Greek history
is implied both on the part of the speaker and on the part of the
audience. When Ausonius tells us that he wrote a Roman History for his
son (_ignota aeternae ne sint tibi tempora Romae_[1204]), we get the
impression that he did it largely because his name appeared in the list
of consuls, and to urge his son to follow his footsteps.
Scire cupis qui sim? titulum qui quartus ab uno est
quaere: leges nomen consulis Ausonii.
And,
Exemplum iam patris habes, ut protinus et te
adgreget Ausoniis purpura consulibus;[1205]
and again, to Proculus:
Mille annos centumque et bis fluxisse novenos
consulis Ausonii nomen ad usque leges.[1206]
It is a pity that the main part of the work is lost, but probably its
author merely followed the tendency of the age to epitomize, as he did in
the summary of Suetonius’s lives of the Caesars. The study of history,
in fact, was merely ancillary: ‘ut aliquid nitoris et copiae orationi
afferrent (_sc._ _historiae studia_) et aliquid materiae carmini.’[1207]
The models followed by the historians are chosen chiefly for their
literary brilliance. Sallust is the most famous, and he plays a large
part in Ausonius’s syllabus. Orosius was greatly influenced by Tacitus,
and Arnobius by Lucretius.
The truth is that the ancients always regarded history more as an art
than as a science. The books of Herodotus came to be called by the names
of the Muses, Sallust and Tacitus strove predominantly after stylistic
effectiveness, and even Thucydides gave oratorical technique a much
more important place than would now be accorded to it. Rhetoric had
cast her spell over the historians as over all the other intellectuals.
Polybius alone resisted, and suffered, in consequence, at the hands of
the critics. ‘The only ancient historian’, Norden writes of him,[1208]
‘who opposed with all his might the influence of rhetoric on the
writing of history, and who, therefore, is most closely related to the
modern point of view, belongs, according to the judgement of Dionysius
of Halicarnassus ... to those dull authors whom nobody can bear to
read through.’ So far had rhetoric asserted its sway over history,
that Cicero, to whom we look for the sane and balanced conception of
rhetorical education, could say that it was permissible for a rhetor
to falsify history for the sake of style,[1209] and could describe the
function of the historian as essentially rhetorical (_unum ... oratorium
maxime_).[1210] A custom that gave special scope to this view of history
was the insertion of imaginary speeches such as we find in Herodotus,
Thucydides, Sallust, and Tacitus. And not only speeches, but letters and
documents were set down in a fictitious form. Against this practice
Quintilian, like Polybius, had warned. The orator’s task, he maintained,
was different from that of the historian. ‘Id quoque vitandum, in
quo magna pars errat, ne in oratione poetas nobis et historicos, in
illis operibus oratores aut declamatores imitandos putemus. Sua cuique
proposita lex, suus cuique decor est.’[1211] But the warning was in vain.
The historians were still trained in the rhetor’s school, and the rhetor
frequently used historical subjects. When Ammianus wrote his history, he
stood in the great tradition of Asiatic rhetoric. Thus history continued
to wear the fetters of oratory.
As time went on these fetters became more and more galling. Just as the
Athenians ceased to produce genuine history when their day of national
greatness passed with the failing Empire and the inefficient democracy,
leaving their learning and their civilization to be overgrown by the
weeds of rhetoric and sophistic, so now the Gauls of the transition
choked whatever history there was with an abundant growth of words. When
the panegyric becomes fashionable in Gaul, we see how history develops
into an instrument of imperial policy. Not merely beauty of form and the
following of traditional rules, but the narrower purpose of praising the
emperor becomes the goal. The facts of history are loosely and wildly
used.[1212] Alexander the Great (with the old argument that he conquered
merely ‘imbelles Asiaticos’), Hannibal, Augustus, are great names for
these Epigoni to juggle with and to mingle promiscuously with the incense
of adulation. Of Caesar it is said: ‘ille Graeculos homines adortus est,
tu (Constantine) Subalpinos’.[1213] So far did the travesty of history go.
‘There’, said Eumenius of the Maeniana, ‘let the flower of our youth
learn ... to praise the deeds of the mighty emperors—_quis enim melior
usus eloquentiae?_’[1214] The school must teach them the proofs, varying
with the different places, that establish the exploits of the prince;
and as the news of victory comes hotly in from time to time, the teacher
must point out the land concerned on the map—the double river of Persia,
the parching fields of Libya, the curving ‘horns’ of the Rhine, the
many-flowing mouths of the Nile. All these several exploits must mould
the mind of youth to a sense of imperial greatness, while he envisages
the Pax Romana throughout the erstwhile troubled world, ‘for now, now at
length we may look at the map of the world with joy, seeing in it naught
that is foreign’.[1215]
This imperialistic use of history made men afraid to tamper with it,
lest indiscretion should mar their fortunes. In the fifth century there
was no longer a Domitian to put historians to death, but there was a
tradition to bind and intimidate. When Leo, the minister of Euric,
advised Sidonius to occupy himself with history during his banishment,
the reply was: ‘turpiter falsa, periculose vera dicuntur’.[1216] In this
sort of work, says Sidonius, the mention of the good wins scant credit,
the mention of the great, unbounded enmity. ‘The writing of history’,
he maintains, ‘seems to be the last thing a man of my class ought to
undertake, for to begin it means envy, to continue it, trouble, and the
end of it is hatred.’ The attitude of mind which made men write to order
was spreading: Ausonius is an outstanding example. At the same time the
rhetorical tradition in history was persisting. Sidonius wants Leo to
undertake a history and the argument for his fitness refers merely to
style: ‘nemo te celsius scripserit’.[1217]
The all-pervading imperial atmosphere, therefore, was not encouraging for
the historian. We hear of histories begun but never finished. Symmachus
tells of one Protadius, a nobleman, who set about writing a domestic
history.[1218] Sidonius had been asked by Bishop Prosper to write a
history of the war with Attila, and actually set to work on it but gave
it up.[1219] It was not only on the tax-payer that the Empire weighed
heavily.
It may be, too, that the emperors interfered with the selection of the
material for the historical course, such as it was. In the list given
by Ausonius (Jung remarks) much stress was laid on the history of
insurrections, and this was done by way of an object-lesson to the Gauls
‘quo magis rebellionem audientes detestarentur’.[1220] Whether this was
actually the case, or whether the remark is a mere scholastic refinement,
we cannot with certainty say. The imperial authorities were quite capable
of such an act, but, on the other hand, the evidence is not conclusive.
We are inclined to give the emperors the benefit of the doubt.
With the reaction against the superfluities of rhetoric in the Christian
schools, there followed important results for history. Christian writers,
as we have seen, reinforced and developed, especially in Gaul, the
tendency towards chronography. This was part of the reaction against
the domination of Form in historical writing, and it proved to be a
valuable antidote from the historian’s point of view. But another and a
greater service resulted. The Christian reaction, as we saw, affected
thought as well as style, and the Christian historians, with their
renewed interest in theology and philosophy, began to look for first
principles in the series of events. The universality of the Christian
religion made them look not only to single nationalities (though the
Church fostered nationalism),[1221] but to the whole world. They tried to
see all things in relation to their conception of the divine. Thus they
tended to produce a philosophy of history, which, though often distorted
and biased, set history on a much more markedly philosophic basis than
before. As instances we may remember Augustine’s _City of God_, which
was written to justify the fall of Rome, and the universal history of
Orosius (who wrote with far less balance than his master Augustine),
which attempted to prove that ‘there’s a Divinity that shapes our ends’.
Filled with the same note, and poignantly real, are the _de Providentia
Dei_ and the _ad Uxorem_, written in Gaul after the great invasion at
the beginning of the fifth century had forced men to reconsider their
philosophy of life.
We can hardly claim, however, that the Christian elementary schools
were much affected by these contributions of Christianity. History was
still very much of a subsidiary subject and its standard was low. Yet
its extent was widened by the addition of Bible-history, which often,
no doubt, ousted pagan history altogether; but the interest of men like
Augustine in secular history, and the use they made of it to reinforce
Christianity, would have prevented its disappearance from the more
advanced Christian schools. Bible-history had the advantage, moreover,
of not having an imperial policy behind it, and the greater simplicity
and sincerity of the Christian ideal must have produced something nearer
to historic truth (the absence of which Augustine deplores in the pagan
schools) than the frills and draperies of rhetoric would generally allow.
Bias and misrepresentation, born of the fervour of conversion, were
responsible for a great many distortions, and the growing formlessness
did much damage to the artistic side of history; but it cannot be denied
that there was a greater desire for truth in the eager questions of the
early Christian than in the smug complacence of the glib rhetorician.
History, in the hands of a skilful master, may become one of the
very finest instruments of education. It has a legitimate use in
inspiring patriotism. The deeds of a man’s ancestors become part of his
individuality, and may be a source of high and noble action. Similarly,
in proportion as a man realizes his national unity with his people,
their history may become a motive and a driving force in his life. Now
the Roman Empire set before the schoolboys of Africa and Italy and Gaul
the events of the Roman republic and the deeds of the emperors. But the
area was too wide. The Gallic schoolboy could not feel the value and the
force of things so far distant, different from his own conditions, and so
slightly connected with them. He could not feel that he was a responsible
member of an Empire which could not defend him. Moreover at this time
nationality was coming to be more and more clearly realized under the
influence of the Church:[1222] each province sought to uphold the
specific doctrines of its leaders, and bishops waged fierce controversial
warfare for the traditions of their country,[1223] especially in Africa.
There is a dim individuality to be seen in Spain,[1224] and Salvian’s
attacks on the Empire had an aspect which pointed to the beginning of
Gallic nationality. The Roman Empire was beginning to feel the strain of
national individuality. In these circumstances, history, being hedged in
as we have seen by imperial persons and questions, must have become more
and more artificial. The lack of citizenship which was so prevalent at
this time increased for lack of an inspiring national or international
ideal. And such an ideal might have come partly through a method by which
history would have become more vivid and real to the children in the
schools.
Another possibility that was missed was that of using history to see
the logical and psychological connexion between events. With the narrow
conception of the subject that was entertained at the time this was
impossible. The only sort of causal chain that the student was induced to
see was that, if you did not please the emperor, so much the worse for
you. Not only the reason, but also the critical faculty, was thus left
undeveloped in this age of adulation and prescription.
In the same way the moral significance of history was overlooked, and
here again the cause was restriction. For in order to realize the
influence of character on the march of events, a wide, and, if possible,
a comparative study of the subject must be undertaken, and the values
attached must not depend on a gilded imperial figure, but on ethical
truth. Again, it was impossible to judge of the various aims and theories
of men in the past age, to form some sort of opinion of the development
of political theory, to be interested in truth and progress, as long as
rhetoric, the handmaid of a rigid Imperialism, reigned supreme.
3. THE POSITION OF GREEK
When Ephorus called the Celts philhellenes,[1225] he was doubtless
thinking of the Greek influence which Massilia (as we have seen) so
effectively spread in Gaul. This influence survived in the south as late
as the seventh century and even later,[1226] but Massilia’s influence
had long been waning. During the fourth and fifth centuries Latin had
more and more become the language of the upper classes,[1227] so that
the impetus to Greek studies from this quarter was becoming almost
negligible. But tradition still counted for something. The Aquitanians,
who boasted of the legend which connected their origin with Greece and
Bordeaux, kept up commercial relations with Greece[1228] during the
fourth century. It is they who are the most faithful to Greek and among
whom we find most traces of Hellenism.
Now Julian had created a sort of contrast between Greek learning and
Christianity. Hellenism came to be identified with paganism, and so
tended to fall into disrepute as Christianity gained ground in the fifth
century. The inscriptions show remarkably few traces of Greek. Where they
occur they are usually very short, as in the case of the one found in the
Alps near Vienne and belonging probably to the fourth century:
Εὔστοχι (vocat. case) ζήσαις,[1229]
or else they refer to some foreigner, as the one at Trèves Οὺρσίκινος
ἀνατολικός[1230] (i.e. from the land of the rising sun, eastern), who was
probably one of those traders called in a general way ‘Syrians’.[1231]
Conrad Celtes speaks of Greek inscriptions in Gaul which he had seen
there in the fifteenth century:
Graecis vidi epitaphiis
inscripta busta,
but these could not have been very many. Altogether we have only nine
Greek Christian inscriptions in Gaul.[1232] Nor are the Greek remains
on the pagan side more numerous. That Greek was declining is abundantly
evident from other sources too. The Greek of Autun in the north shows
signs of decadence even at the end of the third century. But it needed
less than a century for the neglect to spread even to the Grecized south.
Eumenius found it necessary in a formal and imperial speech to explain
the word ‘Musagetes’ to his audience.[1233] He himself, of course, and
many of his fellow teachers were familiar with Greek. Greek forms like
‘Heraclen’, ‘Pythiados’ are often used, and the orator of Oration VI,
who was a Gaul, could quote Homer.[1234] Ausonius says in his quaint
mythological style of Harmonius, professor of Greek at Trèves, that he
was the only one who mingled Greek wine with Italian.[1235] But the
subject was fast becoming a schoolmaster’s acquisition. By A.D. 376 it
was not even that; for the emperors, in speaking of the appointment of
a Greek rhetor, add dubiously ‘if any one worthy of the post can be
found’.[1236] It was partly this neglect of Greek, no doubt, that made
Julian refer so often to ἡ τῶν Κέλτων άγροικία.[1237]
As the grandfather of Eumenius was an Attic Greek,[1238] we cannot
suppose that it was the un-Greek atmosphere of his surroundings, but
rather personal disinclination or disability that allowed Greek to
dwindle in the schools. Ausonius says that his father’s Latin was halting:
Sermone impromptus Latio, verum Attica lingua
suffecit culti vocibus eloquii,[1239]
and the verses are a commentary on the swiftness of the decline.
Ausonius himself, in spite of his confession that he neglected Greek at
school,[1240] is quite familiar with the language, and loves to display
his knowledge of it—‘magnopere sibi videtur placere graecissando’.[1241]
He drags it in pedantically in his epistles and the capers he cuts with
it are merely annoying.[1242] But whenever he addresses the general
public he finds it necessary to translate even the simplest words
and phrases, as in the _Ludus septem sapientum_ when the pantomime
player (_ludius_) speaks.[1243] And he admits that Greek was not very
successfully taught, though the Greek grammarians were industrious
enough.[1244] There was not much enthusiasm for the language and its
literature, as there had been in past times. To Citarius, the Sicilian
teacher of Greek, Ausonius says that he would have gained as much glory
for learning as Aristarchus or Zenodotus among the Greeks were it not
that the scale of values had changed.[1245]
Still lower did Greek sink in monastic education. There was opportunity
in the south for learning Greek, but it was exceptional to do so. About
the middle of the fifth century Eugendus came as a scholar to the
monastery at Condat on the Jura mountains, and the record says of him
that he learned the Greek authors as well as the Latin, _such was his
enthusiasm for study_.[1246] But a certain elementary knowledge of Greek
was necessary. The ‘Litterae formatae’, letters of commendation given to
travelling priests by their bishops, according to the councils of Nicea
(325), Laodicea (366), and Milevis (402), were sometimes drawn up in
Greek. The decrees of the bishops were marked with certain Greek letters
to indicate their authenticity. The work of Dositheus (Ἑρμηνευμάτων
libri III), a sort of motley lexicon interspersed with extracts and
dialogues, chiefly of a juridical character, was used by those who, like
the Northern Gauls, found Greek difficult. We have referred to the low
standard of the Books of Instruction written by Eucherius for his son
Salonius, who was neither very young (about twenty) nor very stupid (he
was made bishop, and could, as we have seen, ask profound theological
questions). As far as the study of language is concerned, we need to
remember that philology is a comparatively modern science: but such
exposition (consisting mostly of mere translation) as that of talentum,
obol, drachma, Theos, Christus, Hagios, Angelus, &c., under the heading
‘Quaestiones difficiliores’, must point to a surprising ignorance of
Greek even among the intellectuals of the day.
It was not only in Gaul that schoolboys of that age found Greek
difficult. Augustine had the same trouble in Africa, and his complaint
in the _Confessions_ is well known.[1247] He was by nature romantic, and
instinctively hated drudgery. The hateful repetition of the elementary
school ‘unum et unum duo, duo et duo quattuor’ bored him beyond words.
What he liked was to read about the wanderings of Aeneas and the distress
of Dido. But this was not the whole reason for his difficulty with
Greek. The prevailing conception of discipline made things unpleasant.
He was urged ‘saevis terroribus ac poenis’. Yet this does not explain
the matter, for it applied to Latin as well. He himself could hardly
understand what was wrong. Why should he have hated Greek so much? ‘Quid
autem erat causae cur Graecas litteras oderam quibus puerulus imbuebar,
nec nunc quidem exploratum est’;[1248] and again ‘Cur ergo Graecam ...
grammaticam oderam?’[1249] The difference between Greek and Latin could
not lie in the different material of the books read, because they were
Vergil and Homer; and if he liked Aeneas why did he not like Odysseus?
Rocafort,[1250] in his study of the life of Paulinus of Pella, is struck
with the extent of Greek in the curriculum of the Bordeaux schools. ‘Here
too we must note how great a place was given to Greek literature in that
scheme of studies. For from the Greek poets, orators, and philosophers
the children learnt poetry, eloquence, and philosophy at one and the same
time as from the Latin; or rather, they learnt from the Greek first.
To such an extent had the conquered captured the conqueror.... Of the
public schools in Gaul, not a single one neglected Greek (_publicarum
scholarum, quae in illa provincia_ (Gallia) _erant, non fuit una in qua
Graecae litterae neglectae fuerint_). The schoolboys of that time, he
argues, must have been well versed in Greek ‘because in the schooldays
of Ausonius there were those who could compare the Greek verses of the
schoolmaster Citarius with those of Simonides, and the Greek speeches of
Urbicus, also a schoolmaster, with those of Ulysses and Nestor’.[1251]
But the author forgets that the official acceptance of a tradition, the
mere inclusion of Greek-texts in the syllabus, the mere following out
of the traditional order, does not indicate thoroughness or efficiency.
Paulinus talks of studying ‘dogmata Socratus’ at the age of five, but
this does not mean that the wealth of Greek philosophy was opened up for
the scholar. Indeed, we have evidence that the reverse was the case.
And where we learn from both scholars and teachers (as we do) that the
results of Greek study were barren and fruitless, it is surely wrong to
draw from the prominence of Greek books in the school the inference that
Greek studies were in a flourishing state. Moreover, if Paulinus seems
to have appreciated his Greek, we must remember that he was born at
Pella, and that when he came to Gaul the household servants habitually
spoke Greek to him.[1252] He is therefore a special case in the sense
that Greek was his mother-tongue. The fact that the literary products of
Citarius and Urbicus were compared to those of great men need not mean
anything. We have seen with what elaborate and artificial courtesy the
‘litterati’ of Gaul treated one another at this time. They called one
another Ciceros and Vergils on the slightest provocation.[1253] As for
the argument that Greek was taught first, it may appear that this was to
its detriment rather than in its interest. The quite abnormal difficulty
which Augustine found in learning the new language (he compares it to
gall embittering the sweetness of the poem) is not explained.
Nor can we very well account for Augustine’s distaste for the language by
reference to national antipathies. ‘He detested the Greeks by instinct’,
says M. Bertrand.[1254] ‘According to Western prejudice, these men of
the East were all rascals or amusers. Augustin, as a practical African,
always regarded the Greeks as vain, discoursing wits.... The entirely
local patriotism of the classical Greek authors further annoyed this
Roman citizen, who was used to regard the world as his country: he
thought them very narrow-minded to take so much interest in the history
of some little town.... It must be remembered that in the second half
of the fourth century the Greek attitude ... set itself more and more
against Latinism, above all, politically.’ This may be all very well for
the educated citizen who could appreciate the considerations of politics
and cosmopolitanism, but it hardly applies to the time of life at which
we find the complaints against Greek, namely childhood. What we should
expect from this thesis is that in later life, with a fuller realization
of these things, the men of the West would have shunned Greek. Yet
we know that it was precisely then that Ausonius took to Greek, and
Augustine, judging from his frequent references to Greek authors, must
have done the same.
We need some other explanation, and we begin to find one when we realize
that it was not so much the intrinsic difficulty of Greek as the way of
teaching the _second language_ that was the real problem. The relation of
the one to the other is pronounced unsatisfactory by Paulinus of Pella,
who was educated at Bordeaux. He complains that this ‘double learning’
is all very well for the more powerful minds to whom it gives a ‘double
glory’, but in the case of the duller boy like himself this scheme is too
difficult.[1255]
A proof of this unsatisfactory training we find in the verses he writes.
There are many _anacolutha_, and, as his editor Brandes remarks,
‘metricae artis ita expertem se praestiterit ut nullam paginam foedis
maculis non conspergeret’,[1256] though much of this must be attributed
to the illness which put a stop to his studies at fifteen,[1257] just
when he was beginning to make good progress.[1258]
What, then, exactly was wrong with the teaching of the second language?
Partly it undoubtedly was (as has been indicated) that stupid
concentration on the dry bones of grammar which persists up to the
present day in the teaching of a strange language. The assumption is that
learning a language must necessarily be a synthetic process in which you
pass from the details to the whole, instead of being rather analytic, a
process in which you pass from an appreciation of the general rhythm and
sense and structure to the details of construction, which only have a
meaning in so far as they are related to the larger thing. But there was
a deeper cause. Augustine gets the root of the matter when he says that
it was _unnaturalness_. The reason why Latin was not to him the drudgery
that Greek was lay in the fact that it came to him naturally and easily
and pleasantly, ‘inter blandimenta nutricum et ioca arridentium et
laetitias alludentium’. He learnt with an interest that was natural and
delightful ‘not from lessons but from conversations with those in whose
ears I longed to pour out all I felt’. It is interest and not force that
produces the best results. ‘Hinc satis elucet’, he says, ‘maiorem habere
vim ad discenda ista liberam curiositatem quam meticulosam necessitatem.’
Now naturalness means giving scope to the individuality, and developing
that sane curiosity which can be elicited by proper methods from every
child. Its practice in education, therefore, must mean a protest against
the militaristic disciplinarian, and as such Augustine mainly intended
it. But it contains, also, a reproof for the thoughtless and unscientific
teacher who regards the child as a receptacle for external and ready-made
ideas, a protest against the spiritual militarist who does not start with
what there is in the child’s mind, but begins by introducing alien matter
and perverting the natural resources.
This was exactly what Roman education had always done. It had taken the
Latin-speaking child, and, instead of starting with his knowledge of
Latin, it began as a rule by cramming in a foreign language, Greek. When
Augustine speaks of the Greek studies ‘quibus puerulus imbuebar’,[1259]
he is merely affirming that his school followed the ordinary Roman
tendency to put Greek first. Greek influence had early captured the
Roman schools, and had been widely spread at various times by Scipio and
his circle,[1260] by Hadrian,[1261] and by Julian. That easy acceptance
of the Greek example, especially in matters of culture, which Plutarch
notices,[1262] called for the strong protest of patriots like Cicero on
more than one occasion.[1263] But here, as in the matter of rhetoric,
the protest was unavailing. We can trace the hellenizing influence as
the Empire goes on. Pliny is quite ready to admit the charge of ‘egestas
patrii sermonis’ which Cicero is always denying,[1264] and Seneca writes
at length on the subject (_Quanta verborum nobis paupertas_).[1265] To
a certain extent, of course, this was true, but it is the spirit of the
writer that is significant. Whereas Cicero tried to coin philosophical
terms[1266] to enrich his language, the later writers merely criticize,
or advocate the substitution of Greek. Suetonius quotes Cicero’s letter
to Titinius: ‘I remember how, in our boyhood, a certain Plotius was the
first to teach Latin. He obtained numbers of pupils ... and I grieved
that I could not go too. But I was restrained by the opinion of the
experts who thought that the intellect could be better nourished by a
Greek training.’[1267] How far national pride had declined is indicated
by a comparison of Cicero’s _Dream of Scipio_ which Macrobius has
preserved for us, and the notes of the commentator. In Cicero’s text the
heaven depicted is pre-eminently for patriots; in Macrobius’s commentary
entry into public life is a hindrance rather than a help.[1268] And the
failure of patriotism meant increased readiness to adopt and ape the
foreign thing simply because it was foreign. It meant that education came
to be identified with a knowledge of Greek.
Pliny, in spite of his leaning to Hellenism, complained that in the legal
profession young men begin with the civil suits of the centumviral court,
just as in the schools they begin with Homer,[1269] and his comment is in
the nature of a criticism: ‘For here, as there, they start with what is
most difficult.’ Suetonius[1270] indicates the Greek tradition in Roman
education when he says that grammar at first made no great progress,
since the first teachers, who were at once poets and semi-Greeks,
explained none but Greek authors to their pupils, merely reading out to
them an occasional Latin composition of their own. And Julius Capitolinus
in the life of Maximinus Junior[1271] mentions the Greek training and
the Greek grammarian in such a way as to indicate that Greek was taught
first. This is distinctly maintained by Petronius:
Det primos versibus annos
Maeoniumque bibat felici pectore fontem.
mox et Socratico plenus grege mutet habenas
liber et ingentis quatiat Demosthenis arma.
_hinc_ Romana manus circumfluat, et modo Graio
exonerata sono mutet suffusa saporem.[1272]
Homer and Socrates and Demosthenes come first: then Latin literature
adds the final flavour. Finally, it was Quintilian’s injunction that the
orator must begin his education with Homer.[1273] Jung thinks that Latin
and Greek were probably taught together; but he bases his argument on the
slender proof that Crispus and Urbicus are called ‘Grammatici Latini et
Graeci’.[1274]
This strong tradition was adopted in Gaul, largely, no doubt, on
the authority of Quintilian. Paulinus, who went through the regular
school-course at Bordeaux, started with ‘dogmata Socratus (Σωκράτους) et
bellica plasmata Homeri’.[1275] In Ausonius’s scheme of studies for his
grandson, Homer and Menander came first.[1276] And Jerome advises this
order for the education of Laeta’s little daughter: ‘ediscat Graecorum
versuum (of the Bible) numerum: sequatur statim Latina eruditio.’[1277]
‘L’Hellénisme’, says Jullian[1278] of the Bordeaux schools, ‘est la
sauvegarde des esprits et le salut des âmes. C’est l’idéal de l’École,’
and again, ‘les œuvres d’Homère étaient les premières livres qu’on
mettait aux mains d’un enfant, qu’il fût Grec ou Romain.’
This is the point, ‘Greek _or_ Roman’. Educational experience has shown
that a school-system must be elastic and accommodate itself to the
psychology and the needs of the child. Wherever there have been bilingual
countries the problem has arisen. What is educationally the soundest
principle of manipulating the language question? At first it was thought
that the language of the higher culture should be enforced on all. It
would save time and expense and trouble; moreover (so men argued), it
would be in the interest of the child whose mother-tongue was thus
disregarded, for he would have so much more time to learn the language
of the ‘superior culture’. Your own language, they told the other party,
you know already and your children need not spend time on it at school.
Better, therefore, to have a uniform language throughout.
Now such a course (looking at it from the educational point of view)
has been proved over and over again to be utterly unsound. The verdict
of history has been to uphold, even at the cost of money and time and
trouble, the principle of mother-tongue instruction. You must, as
Augustine implied, start with what is natural to the child. If you begin
with what is strange and has no connexion with his thoughts and speech,
you are merely delaying his progress. You will, no doubt, develop his
memory, but his thought will remain untouched. Inspectors in the schools
of South Africa have reported repeatedly the case of Dutch children
who have been started on English, that they read and spell perfectly,
but are quite unable to explain the meaning of an English sentence.
The consequence is that they take twice as long to pass the elementary
standards as they normally would. The same has been found in Quebec and
in India and Burma. Teachers and missionaries everywhere have discovered
that the mother-tongue principle is the only fruitful one. They have
found that where it is applied progress follows in an unexpected way.
Once the child has learned to use, to analyse, to understand his own
language, once his thought has been set going, he will learn the second
language more quickly than the child who started with the second
language. He is therefore ahead in three respects: his thought has been
stimulated, he has learned his own language, he has learned another
language, whereas the other has not been induced to think, knows his own
language superficially and the second language imperfectly. This can be
substantiated by many cases from the experience of teachers in bilingual
countries.
May we not, then, find the ultimate cause of the failure of Greek in
the schools of our period, in this mistaken policy of starting with the
second language? At a time when Latin was becoming more and more the
household tongue of Gaul, and Greek proportionately strange, the effect
of beginning with the latter could not but lead to sterile results.
There seems to have been an idea, which we find also in Jung,[1279] that
they should clear the second language out of the way first, ‘quo postea
linguam suam plenius ac melius ... ediscerent’. They seem to have thought
that whatever you learn last has the strongest influence, and therefore,
if you _must_ learn Greek, do so first, lest it mar your Latin. How far
this peculiarly Roman and unpsychological attitude failed is a question
which needs no further comment.
4. ART
In a survey of Gallic education art must be mentioned, but the space
given to it must of necessity be very limited. Only in its possible
effect on education can it be briefly touched on, and even then not as a
school-subject, but rather as an influence behind official teaching.
The Gauls were by nature fond of art. That eager curiosity and
excitability which Caesar noticed[1280] in them were the basis of an
artistic temperament. Ausonius, in his epigrams, refers frequently to
works of art,[1281] and his enthusiasm over the sculptured calf of Myron
is remarkable.[1282] He maintains the advanced doctrine that art is
greater than nature. Of Myron’s heifer he says:
Fingere nam similem vivae, quam vivere, plus est;
nec sunt facta dei mira, sed artificis.[1283]
In the ‘poems added by Thaddaeus Ugoletus to the epigrams of Ausonius’
the same statue is referred to in three epigrams,[1284] and we have one
‘on the marble statue of Niobe’, expressing a certain amount of artistic
appreciation. We hear of one of Sidonius’s friends who was a student of
Vitruvius,[1285] and Patiens was much interested in the adornment of the
churches of Lyons.
But there were two considerations that affected this natural love of art
in the Gauls: the Roman element in them, and the fact that art, like
literature, was becoming a matter of form. Just as beauty of style had
once been a living and inspiring thing to the Greeks, but became in our
period a juggling with phrase and rule, so art had lost its true and
inner meaning. And just as the Greek influence of Massilia had encouraged
the artistic instinct of the Gauls, so the harder Roman spirit proved an
impediment. Sidonius illustrates this fact admirably. Surrounded by all
the luxury of his time, he felt bound to include art products among his
possessions, and liked to talk about them, with the comfortable assurance
that it was a respectable and cultured thing to do. But he shows little
real appreciation. Purgold has shown[1286] that most of the descriptions
in his poems referring to art are borrowed from Claudian and other Roman
poets. In his account of the castle of Pontius Leontius we have a list
of artistic productions[1287] in the usual Roman encyclopaedic style,
and similarly his acquaintance with sculpture is merely conventional.
He knows the stock attitudes that sculptors give to philosophers,[1288]
and this is the order of his artistic attainments. In describing the
churches of Patiens at Lyons[1289] and of Perpetuus at Tours,[1290] he
is much more interested in the inscriptions[1291] he wrote for them
than in the architecture. And this in spite of the fact that Perpetuus
had employed a style in rebuilding the church at Tours in 470 which was
new to Gaul, and had introduced a form of choir which was the point of
departure from which the ‘chevet’ of French, Romanesque, and Gothic
architecture developed.[1292] This lack of appreciation was part of the
general decline in art at this time. In the triumphal arch of Constantine
(early fourth century) part of the design is inserted from the arch of
Trajan, and has, therefore, little original artistic value, while the
other part, which is contemporary, illustrates the decay of aesthetic
taste. Similarly, the contemporary part of the discus of Theodosius is
merely profuse and conventional.[1293]
Art in Gaul, as at Rome, was largely produced by foreigners. The great
statue of Mercury of Auvergne, the only Gallic piece of sculpture we
know, was executed by the Greek Zenodorus, who sold his work for 400,000
sesterces, and was then called to Rome to make a statue of Nero. Of the
statues found at Martres, near Toulouse, the oldest belonged to the first
century, the more recent to the third and fourth. Why is it that so many
were found in the same place? Lavisse thinks that the Christians, in the
height of their anti-pagan fury, collected, mutilated, and threw them
together in some out-of-the-way spot. Now it is commonly held, as we have
seen,[1294] that the sort of marble of which they were made is the same
as that of the neighbouring quarries, especially that of Saint-Béat on
the Upper Garonne. It is therefore probable that they were produced in
the neighbourhood, and the thought is suggested that perhaps, for all
we know, they may represent some school of sculptors which flourished
during our period. Of Gallic sculpture and its relation to Greek art,
the influence of Alexandria, the centre of Hellenistic art in the first
century, the industrial art of Gaul and its relation to Greece, a sound
and recent summary will be found in Lavisse.[1295]
The splendour of public buildings both at Trèves and at Autun is
often expatiated on by the panegyrists.[1296] The descriptions show
considerable interest in architecture, and this interest when presented
externally in a building like the Maeniana must have had an educative
value for those who attended the institution. But it was Christianity
that accomplished most in this field. When Christian art began to develop
it took for its first church model the basilica which was already seen in
the chapels of the catacombs. We hear of bishops of Gaul who got workmen
to come over from Italy in order to build churches after this style.
The basilicas of Constantine and Theodosius, the sepulchral bas-reliefs
at Rome, Ravenna, and Arles, and at many other places, are well known.
‘Before the fall of the Empire’, says Ozanam, ‘there was to be seen
that Romanesque and Byzantine architecture which was soon to cover with
monuments the shores of the Loire, Seine and Rhine, and which, from the
broken arch of its vault, was to produce all the beauties of the pointed
Gothic.’[1297] That the interest which Sidonius and his friends showed
(though superficially) in architecture did not die with them is proved
by the letter of Cassiodorus (at the beginning of the sixth century)
to the prefect of Rome.[1298] He is anxious to have a competent man in
charge of the public architecture. ‘Romanae fabricae decus convenit
peritum habere custodem’, who must be an expert and a student: ‘Det
operam libris antiquorum, instructionibus vacet.’ There were within the
church a large number of narrow and uneducated zealots, who, like Martin
of Tours, banished all art. ‘Ars ibi’, says Sulpicius Severus of Martin’s
monastery, ‘exceptis scriptoribus, nulla habebatur.’[1299] Even the books
were assigned only to the younger brethren: ‘maiores orationi vacabant’.
In his theory of education Augustine allows pictures and statues and
such-like to be used for instruction. But, except for strictly scientific
purposes, they must be looked on as otiose: ‘hoc totum genus inter
superflua hominum instituta numerandum est, nisi cum interest quid eorum,
qua de causa, et ubi et quando et cuius auctoritate fiat.’ Cassiodorus
expresses the view of the more liberal and enlightened Christian teachers
when he sees that art may be used to improve the works of the ancients
by avoiding their mistakes, to clothe the new in the glory of the
old.[1300] Similarly in Paulinus of Nola we find the motto of ‘Spoiling
the Egyptians’ in regard to art, and the note of ‘Soli Deo gloria’. To
art conceived in this way he has no objection; rather, he seeks it out
with enthusiastic eagerness. ‘Videamus autem aedificantes quid de nostra
fragili terrenaque substantia dignum divino fundamento superaedificare
possimus, ut ipso principali lapide unificati lapides in fabricam templi
caelestis optemur.’[1301] Thus, while there was much in the conception of
Christianity at the time which made for a philistinism in art, there were
also encouraging elements.
In the catacombs, too, we find traces of other artistic developments.
Ignorant and untrained as those early Christians were, they had within
them a strong emotion based on sincere conviction, and this emotion found
an outlet in verse and painting, sculpture and mosaic, which, though
often of the most rudimentary order, represented the beginnings of new
artistic movements. A glass patera found at Cologne has gold figures on
a white background, representing the vision of Ezekiel, and it belongs
to the first few centuries of our era.[1302] Gilt glasses, frequently
produced at Cologne, and decorated with the heads of Christ and the
apostles, have come down to us from the early Christian centuries. There
are also finely wrought and figured lamps and linens. But most striking
are the ivories, of which a large number is now in the British museums.
They are extremely beautiful and belong to a school of the fourth and
fifth centuries. Pilate washing his hands, Peter’s denial, Judas hanging
himself, Christ bearing the Cross—such are the themes portrayed on them,
possibly by Eastern carvers.[1303] At Arles there is a large collection
of paintings which show that the passage of the Red Sea was a favourite
subject. And Paulinus of Nola, in his long letter to Severus,[1304] shows
clearly that it was a common thing to have paintings in the churches. He
describes the prominent picture of Martin, ‘qui etiam in splendoribus
sanctorum conspicua claritate praefulget’, and mentions another of
himself on an adjoining wall. Numerous verses are addressed to Severus on
the subjects of his pictures, and his skill is praised as worthy of his
themes:
Digna sacramentis gemina sub imagine pinxit.
He describes various church pictures representing the Trinity, the Good
Shepherd, the Baptism of Christ, the Crucifixion,[1305] and so on, in
the church of Nola. Similarly the pictures in the church of Fundana are
described. The elaboration of the scene strikes us as a harbinger of
mediaeval art. In a single picture we have the themes of God in paradise,
Christ and the Cross, the Spirit and the Father crowning Him, and the Day
of Judgement.[1306]
This elaboration is found, too, in the architecture and in the general
adornment of the churches. Paulinus describes arches, chambers, fonts,
&c., in detail, as, for instance, those of the church at Nola.[1307]
Similarly the church at Fundana is described.[1308] Now the church was
the place where the mass of the people met, and if we must recognize it
at this time as the religious, the moral, and the intellectual teacher of
the people, we must also recognize in its training, to some extent, an
element of artistic education.
But the form of art that was most commonly cultivated by the men of
this time was music. There is an epitaph of Vienne to one Nicias a
citharoedus,[1309] and another of Nemausum to Avidius Secundus, a maker
of musical instruments (_musicarius_).[1310] Gaul had inherited all the
musical devices and appliances of Rome, and like Rome had used them
chiefly for frivolous pleasures. But Sidonius notes that Theodoric II
cared only for serious music. Hydraulic organs and dancing girls he
dispensed with.[1311] Still more did the Christians dispense with such
things. But if they would not and could not develop the instrumental
side, they certainly made a speciality of singing. There is a doubtful
but interesting legend which says that when the Empress Justina
threatened to deliver the basilica of Milan to the Arians, Ambrose and
his congregation spent a day and a night in the building. To pass the
time he introduced hymn-tunes, already adopted by the Eastern Church.
Augustine testifies to the impression which these hymns made on him at
Milan. They were the means of bringing the truth home to him. ‘Quantum
flevi in hymnis et cantibus tuis, suave sonantis ecclesiae tuae vocibus
commotus acriter! Voces illae influebant auribus meis et eliquabatur
veritas in cor meum, et exaestuabat inde affectus pietatis, et currebant
lacrimae, et bene mihi erat cum eis.’[1312] He had doubts at first as to
the propriety of such sense-seducing music, but his scruples did not long
survive. He himself showed considerable interest in the art and wrote six
books _De Musica_ in a didactic strain.
Nor was the interest confined to him. Everywhere in the Christian schools
choristers were trained. Jerome speaks of hymn-singing or chants in the
schools, where the little ones sing of Pharaoh’s disaster in the Red Sea
and the triumph of the just.[1313] Claudianus Mamertus trained a choir
for his brother, the Bishop of Vienne[1314] (_instructas docuit sonare
classes_). Antiphonal singing (i.e. the older practice of the alternate
singing of psalms) is often mentioned. Sidonius speaks of the monks and
priests who chant psalms with alternating sweetness,[1315] and we have
seen how Caesarius, when he became bishop, made his congregation sing in
this way. In the clerical training singing came to be very important. It
was forbidden by Gregory to take orders without it. Columban complains of
the harsh discipline which accompanied it.[1316]
The beginnings of hymn-singing in this period have a particular interest
for Gaul because they are connected with Hilary of Poitiers. We have
Jerome’s statement ‘Hilarius in hymnorum carmine Gallos indociles
vocat’,[1317] which seems to mean more than the remark he makes
elsewhere[1318] that among the works of Hilary was _Liber hymnorum et
mysteriorum_. For it suggests that Hilary tried to introduce hymn-singing
into Gaul and did not meet with great success. This is supported by the
definite statement of Isidore of Seville ‘Hymnorum carmine (Hilarius)
floruit _primus_’.[1319] With Ambrose, Hilary shares the distinction of
being a pioneer in this department. So important was their work that the
Fourth Council of Toledo (633) in its Thirteenth Canon referred to their
hymns (‘quos beatissimi doctores Hilarius atque Ambrosius ediderunt’).
These hymns were regarded as having a sort of direct spiritual influence
which effected the routing of a personal devil[1320]—a conception which
appears throughout the Middle Ages and in _Faust_. But they had their
value for literature as well. Apart from the beauty of some of Ambrose’s
hymns, the metres which they popularized formed a point from which the
development of specifically modern metres can be traced. The influence of
these hymns which the mass of the people, unprejudiced by an elaborate
training in classical metres, daily heard and sang, must have been
enormous in forming a public opinion on the technique of poetry. For
there are few things that grip the popular imagination more than tunes of
this kind.
Bulaeus[1321] states that Nicetius, Bishop of Lyons in the latter half
of the sixth century, was the first to introduce hymn-singing into the
church at Lyons. He refers to the epitaph which we find in the Bollandist
records:[1322]
Psallere praecepit, normamque tenere canendi
_primus_ et alterutrum tendere voce chorum.
But the reference of Sidonius, quoted above,[1323] to the choir-singing
in the church of Lyons in the fifth century, makes it probable that what
is here referred to is either a revival of the old part-singing which had
become usual in Hilary’s time, or else some specialized form of chant
which was slightly different from the ordinary style. In any case we may
safely conclude that Gaul played no unimportant part in the development
of church-singing during the fourth century.
PART V
THE DECLINE OF EDUCATION
1. GALLIC STUDENTS ABROAD
We have traced the main branches of study that were pursued in Gaul, and
the question naturally arises: ‘How far did the Gauls give and receive
education outside the boundaries of their country?’
Modern parallels suggest, at first sight, that a liberal education would
not have been considered complete in the provinces unless the student
had attended the imperial universities. But Gaul at this time held so
prominent a position in the educational and political world that the
analogy fails. The professors appointed, both in Gaul and elsewhere, were
frequently men who had had all their education in that province. There is
no trace that Ausonius ever studied at Rome or Constantinople: he came
into contact with the imperial house while studying at Toulouse, where
Constantine’s brothers were staying.[1324] Minervius[1325] was a popular
teacher at Rome and at Constantinople, where Arborius also was famous as
a rhetor.[1326] The son of Sedatus, rhetor at Toulouse, taught at Rome:
Et tua nunc suboles morem sectata parentis,
Narbonem ac Romam nobilitat studiis.[1327]
Even the poor Victorius went to Sicily and to Cumae, presumably to study
and to teach,[1328] while Dynamius became a rhetor in Spain.[1329] To
some extent that wandering and eclectic spirit of learning which broke
out anew in the movement that has been called ‘Die zweite Sophistik’, and
which appears in the professors and students of Philostratus, Lucian,
and Apuleius, was still operative. But more important was the prominence
of Gallic studies which not only created a demand for the teachers of
Gaul in Rome and Constantinople, but drew men from Sicily[1330] for the
comparatively unimportant position of grammarian.
Yet there was a certain number of Gallic students who went to study at
Rome, chiefly in jurisprudence. It was there that Ambrose, born in all
probability at Trèves about 340, studied law.
Of the conditions under which he and students like him studied the
Theodosian Code has much to say. The decree of Valens and Gratian in
370[1331] prescribed that any provincial student who wanted to take a
course at Rome must apply for leave to the provincial judges, and must,
on his arrival in Rome, show his letter of permission, which mentioned
the town to which the student belonged, his relations, and connexions, to
the Master of the Census. The regulation about getting special permission
from the governors of the provinces is an instance of the usual coercion
of the individual in the Roman Empire; but it is also based on the rigid
economic system of the emperors, and it may have had its good side in
preventing students from coming over too young. Of a piece with it, and
illustrating the utilitarianism of the Roman mind, is the rule that no
one may remain in Rome as a student after the age of twenty, for no one
must escape the public burdens longer than that (‘ne diutius his patria
defraudetur, muneraque adeo publica declinent’).[1332]
During the student’s residence in the imperial city he stood under strict
supervision and drastic discipline. He must state clearly what his
special subject is so as to waste no time, and the Censuales must know
where he lives and keep an eye on his studies. His public conduct and
associations are carefully watched. Shows, theatres, and late banquets
are specially mentioned as snares and delusions in the path of youth. Any
one who behaves in unseemly fashion is to be publicly whipped and shipped
home to his province. So far did the coercive Roman spirit in education
go. For the Romans always looked on education as a discipline which must
serve some external end, and not (like the Greeks) as a development of
the human spirit valuable for its own sake.
But while we cannot justify this drastic interference with individual
development, we must remember that the strictness of the moral discipline
was probably wholesome and necessary. The state of Rome, which Ammianus
twice in his history describes with considerable care,[1333] and the
account which Augustine gives of the ‘eversores’, or bands of rowdy
students,[1334] in the contemporary African schools of rhetoric warrant
such a supposition. We must reflect, moreover, that the custom and
temptations of life in a metropolis were probably new to most of the
provincial students and apt to have disconcerting results.
There is a curious inscription of Lyons which bears on the question of
Gallic students abroad. It reads as follows:
Memoriae A. Vitelli Valeri
hic annorum X in studiis
Romae de(cessit) parentes
Nymphi(us) et Tyche
uni(co) et carissimo fil(io).[1335]
It is evident that the translation must be something like this: ‘To the
memory of Aulus Vitellius Valerius. He died at the age of ten while
studying at Rome. His parents Nymphius and Tyche (set up this stone) to
their beloved and only son.’ But how a boy of Lyons could reasonably
be a student in Rome at the age of ten is less clear. We may arrive at
an explanation by supposing that ‘X’ is wrong; more especially as the
editors quarrel over it, some omitting it altogether, while others find
a variant reading. On this assumption the only way of making it fit in
with the facts known about Gallic students at Rome is to read ‘XX’. The
student would then have come over at the usual age, and have been in the
last year of his studies at the time of his death. If the reading ‘X’
is adhered to, on the grounds that it is much the clearest, we suggest
that ‘in studiis’ here means in the office of the imperial secretary ‘a
studiis’, who did researches for the emperor when he had a difficult
rescript to compose involving historical or legal research, and that
the boy was a sort of Bodleian boy employed in fetching and carrying
books.[1336] It is not inconceivable, however, that he may merely have
been sent to a grammarian at Rome as a sort of junior boarder.
2. THE INVADERS
But in spite of the extent and the fame of Gallic studies there come
to us, every now and then, hints of decadence in education. The
fourth-century Ammianus says that even the few homes in which the
studious atmosphere of earlier days had survived were in his day given
over to vanity. All they abound in is the trifling of sluggish idleness,
while they resound with voices and the wind-borne tinkling of the lute.
The singer replaces the philosopher, and instead of the orator they
summon the actor to give them amusement.[1337] In the fifth century we
find Sidonius frequently referring to the decline of culture,[1338] and
Paulinus of Pella says of his former studies that they have all ceased
to flourish, because, as all know, they have fallen on evil days.[1339]
Claudianus Mamertus, in the letter to the learned Sapaudus, after a
eulogy on Greece as ‘Disciplinarum omnium atque artium magistra’, uses
strong language about the failing culture of his age: ‘Bonarum artium
... facta iactura, et animi cultum despuens’, ‘deliciis et divitiis
serviens et ignaviae et inscitiae famula’, ‘pessum dedit cum doctrina
virtutem’.[1340] There is no progress and creative genius: hardly any
one wants to learn. It cannot be, he reflects, that the nature of the
human mind changes: history testifies to the contrary. No, the truth is
that there is no enthusiasm or application. ‘Nostro saeculo non ingenia
deesse, sed studia.’ A mark of decadence is the barbarization of the
Latin language.[1341] Barbarism and solecism are the tyrants that reign.
Rhetoric (conceived in the Ciceronian sense) is too big for the petty
compass of these present-day Epigoni. Music, geometry, and arithmetic
call forth only their violent hate, and philosophy is utterly despised.
The emphasis laid on oratory makes us suspect that the truth of some of
his statements rather suffers from that ‘declamationum suavitas’ which
he finds in Sapaudus.[1342] But in the main he was undoubtedly right.
No matter how enthusiastic the fifth-century ‘litterati’ were about
letters, the stern march of economic and political events inevitably
made for a decline. At the end of the fourth and the beginning of the
fifth century the Salian Franks, who were destined to conquer Gaul, were
established in Toxandria in the north; and in ceasing to recognize the
supremacy of Rome they slipped away from Roman civilization and from
Christianity.[1343] In the south the Goths were settled in the second
Aquitaine and Toulouse under their own king in 419, and the step was
significant of the decentralization of the Empire. More and more the
Teutonic element encroached. ‘The process of history in the Western
Empire during the period which lies between the death of Alaric (410)
and the fall of Romulus Augustulus (476) is toward the establishment of
Teutonic Kingdoms.’[1344] However imperialistic Gaul might be, the Goths
in the south-west, the Franks in the north, the Burgundians in Savoy,
the Alemanni on the upper Rhine, and the Alani at Valence and Orleans in
the middle years of the fifth century proved an effective barrier to the
direct advance of Roman civilization. This civilization might advance,
ultimately, _through_ the barbarians: but meantime there was a transition
period in which the shock of nations produced confusion and darkness.
Euric aspired to dominion over Gaul, and by 476 he had attained his
desire.
But more direct in their effect upon education than these large political
movements, and swifter than the ‘barbarization’ of Latin as it passed
into the Romance languages, were the invasions. Pagan and Christian alike
testify to their horror. Rutilius Namatianus gives us a description of
Gaul, piteously defaced by long wars, when he returned thither in 416
after having been prefect at Rome.
Illa (Gallica rura) quidem longis nimium deformia bellis,
sed quam grata minus, tam miseranda magis.[1345]
...
iam tempus laceris post saeva incendia fundis
vel pastorales aedificare casas.[1346]
So terrible were the injuries inflicted that dumb objects seemed to urge
him on when the violence of his lament abated:
Ipsi quin etiam fontes si mittere vocem
ipsaque si possent arbuta nostra loqui,
cessantem iustis poterant urgere querellis.[1346]
This is the description of the spectator after the event. More poignant
are the words of those who actually suffered:
Nos autem tanta sub tempestate malorum
invalidi passim caedimur et cadimus,
cumque animum patriae subiit fumantis imago
et stetit ante oculos quidquid ubique perit,
frangimur, immodicis et fletibus ora rigamus.[1347]
The invasions are like some immense tidal wave that sweeps all before it:
Si totus Gallos sese effudisset in agros
Oceanus, vastis plus superesset aquis.[1348]
All strongholds have given out against the barbarian arms—‘ultima
pertulimus’. The author of the _ad Uxorem_ writes in the same strain:
Ferro peste fame vinclis algore calore,
mille modis miseros mors rapit una homines
... pax abiit terris, ultima quaeque vides.[1349]
What is the good of the winding, gushing river, the woods which outlive
the ages, the flowery meads which the season renews?
Ista manent, nostri sed non mansere parentes;
exigui vitam temporis hospes ago.[1350]
‘Respice’, says Orientius, referring to the same invasions,
Respice quam raptim totum mors presserit orbem,
quantos vis belli perculerit populos,
non densi nemoris, celsi non aspera montis
flumina non rapidis fortia gurgitibus,
non castella locis, non tutae moenibus urbes....[1351]
Added to these troubles from without was the internal commotion caused
by robber bands like the notorious Bagaudae, who, in spite of periodical
repressions,[1352] continued to exist.[1353] So formidable were they that
in 407 Sarus, the general of Honorius, was obliged to buy from them his
passage into Italy with a rich portion of spoil.[1354] The oppression
of officials swelled their ranks,[1355] and in the middle of the fifth
century they established a commonwealth which took a prominent part in
the fighting in Spain at that time. Thus they were a constant source
of disturbance, and the prolongation of this unrest is mirrored in the
pages of Sidonius. In a letter to Lupus,[1356] he tells of a woman who
has been carried away by bandits, the local Vargi who were the spiritual
descendants of the Bagaudae. The attacks of the Goths towards the end
of the fifth century made travelling dangerous, and Sidonius postpones
writing to Eutropius on this account.[1357] He sends his messenger only
after he hears that ‘the treaty-breaking race’ (_foedifragam gentem_)
has returned within its borders. We hear of a man who had fled with his
family into the diocese of Bishop Censorius ‘depredationis Gothicae
turbinem vitans’. Sidonius asks Censorius to treat him indulgently and to
remit the glebe-dues in his case, so that he may have the whole harvest
for himself.[1358] And so it went on. There were constant disputes,[1359]
and whenever there was an invasion the Arvernians suffered: ‘huic semper
irruptioni nos miseri Arverni ianua sumus.’[1360]
We can hardly wonder that this constant unrest made men despair of final
peace. Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, writes to Aurelian in a pessimistic
strain.[1361] The evils of the time, he thinks, are not really healed.
At best they cannot be said to be more than kept within bounds, so that
the peace which coyly appears is fictitious. The mind is lulled to rest
with a false security only until there comes the recrudescence of a worse
fear and the faltering sobs of grief. ‘Wherefore, my good friend, cease
to hope for the end of our evils in the midst of fiery ills, and when
a change comes and the storm has abated and the face of ever so small
a calm shows itself, do not delight in the altered events; make use of
them.’
The effect of this upon the social fabric, and so on education, is
obvious. Even if, as Freeman thinks, the youth of Gaul were not much
concerned in the defence of their country, which was left mainly to such
allies as the Franks,[1362] education must have shared in the general
disorganization of society. The material means of instruction was
frequently removed by the impoverishment of families.
Qui centum quondam terram vertebat aratris,
aestuat ut geminos possit habere boves.
vectus magnificas carpentis saepe per urbes,
rus vacuum fessis aeger adit pedibus.
ille decem celsis sulcans maria ante carinis
nunc lembum exiguum scandit et ipse regit.[1363]
The roads, which had promoted education by linking up towns and spreading
civilization, were now (as we have seen) uncertain and unsafe. Centres,
consequently, which had previously teemed with life, now became isolated,
torpid, despairing. Schools and books were neglected.
Maxima pars lapsis abiit iam mensibus anni
quo scripta est versu pagina nulla tuo.[1364]
The sum total of education was decreased materially by the slaughter of
children:
Quid pueri insontes? Quid commisere puellae
nulla quibus dederat crimina vita brevis?[1365]
Yet there is the spark which kept alive the flickering torch of learning
in the dark ages, the interest in literature surviving material ruin.
For, in spite of the crash of circumstances and although times are sad,
there is a feeling that the mind, even when oppressed by misfortune,
should keep unconquered its interest in education:
Invictum deceat studiis servare vigorem.
There is much of rude and rushing violence in this ‘barbarization’ of
Gaul. One of the writers likened it to a flood, and as far as the time
at which he wrote is concerned he was right. But, regarded as a whole,
the process was gradual and persistent. Gaul became de-Romanized ‘not
as a valley is ravaged by a torrent, but as the most solid substance is
disorganized by the continual infiltration of a foreign substance’.[1366]
So Rutilius says of Rome, referring to Stilicho’s German followers:
Ipsa satellitibus pellitis Roma patebat,
et captiva prius quam caperetur erat.[1367]
But subtler still than gradual infiltration of foreigners in producing
the decline of culture were the ideas and ideals that lay at the root of
the imperial and the rhetorical systems. While on the one hand the Empire
made the schools of Gaul its proper care, it was, by its economic system,
calling into life the subversive power of Bagaudae bands.[1368]
While the schools were fostering education and creating a love of
learning, they were at the same time killing the true spirit of education
by the methods they employed. It was a matter of ends and ideals, and
these we must now briefly consider.
3. IDEALS
Ἐν οὐρανᾥ ἴσως παράδειγμα ἀνάκειται τῷ βουλομένῳ ὁρᾶν, καὶ
ὁρῶντι ἑαυτὸν κατοικίζειν.
Plato, _Republic_ 592 B.
The rhetorical system of education, much praised and universally
accepted, had many points in its favour. It seemed to be the only method,
backed as it was by a great tradition. It was regular and well organized
and stable by reason of its imperial support. It had produced many great
men in the past and had the blessing of mighty names. That was enough
for the fourth-century Gaul, who did not trouble to make distinctions.
For the voices of protest had long died down, and this was the time of
‘Rhetorica triumphans’.
It was also undoubtedly a necessary means of training men for public
speaking, popular because the emperor so substantially encouraged the
imperial orator. The service of the State was a laudable aspiration.
Moreover, the rhetorical exercises produced ingenuity and nimbleness of
wit. They were very laudable, also, for creating lucidity of thought,
by insisting-on clear-cut arrangement in every theme. The ‘Panegyrici
Latini’ are an example of this. To themselves they could have applied
the saying of Voltaire: ‘nous sommes comme les petits ruisseaux: sommes
clairs parce que nous sommes peu profonds’.[1369] They have neither the
formlessness of the Fathers nor the complexity of Sidonius. Further,
there was a good side to all the concentration on form that is so
prominent in this period. It kept the language pure at a time when it
was feared that Latin would be utterly barbarized.[1370] It preserved
the grammar, and did much to preserve the form. When we find Rome
tenaciously keeping for herself the teaching of law, and standardizing
education by connecting the teachers directly with the emperor, it is
because she realizes that the Latin language is the medium through which
she rules, and that uniform obedience depends on her subjects uniformly
understanding her commands.
There was also a physical aspect. Proper exercise of the organs of speech
is regarded by medical opinion as comparable to walking and swimming.
In modern times we lay stress on the exercise of all parts of the body,
but tend to neglect the proper cultivation of elocution. If we developed
it more we might hear less of such prevalent things as ‘minister’s’ and
‘schoolmaster’s’ sore throat. Medical evidence goes to show that better
exercise of the vocal organs is far more effective than surgical remedies.
More important was the aesthetic side. We to-day have largely lost the
sense of beauty in speech. Language has become to us for the most part
a matter of the written word. We have ceased to feel as vividly as
Isocrates did in his letter to Philip[1371] the need of the living voice
to express the soul of which the letters are the body. The artistic
joy which is found in the form and arrangement of words, in the sound
given to them by a dramatic speaker, in the gestures of an accomplished
orator—this joy has largely disappeared. Yet we feel that it was there
in the Latin panegyrists. We may say that theirs is ‘a tale of little
meaning’, but we must admit that ‘the words are strong’—strong and
beautiful. To read their productions is like looking on a piece of
mediaeval art, a stained-glass window, where the figures are grotesque
and the fable futile, but the richly blended colours bind us by their
beauty. They knew and lived for the inner loveliness of words. And
perhaps they would say to us: ‘You who read so widely and know so much,
you think you understand. But in order really to understand you must
hear the word pronounced so that its sound as well as its form calls up
a picture to the mind. It is only when you conceive of the study of a
language as artistic both in sound and in form that it becomes the key to
poetry. Do you not sometimes neglect the sound in your studies?’
They might also have said that there was an inarticulateness in modern
times which led to misunderstanding: that if men had been taught to
express their thoughts better there would be less strife and less dumb
agony. And to a certain extent they would have been right.
But against them we can urge serious charges. The simplest and most
fundamental objection to the rhetorical system is that it neglected the
search for truth. It thought too much of means and too little of ends.
Lessing stated in his _Laocoon_ the eternal aim of science. ‘The ultimate
object of the sciences is truth. Truth is necessary to the soul, and in
the satisfaction of this essential need it is tyranny to employ even the
slightest check.’[1372] The words apply to the education of our period.
For the teachers of that time did not make truth their chief end, and
how much tyranny there resulted for the soul of man we have had some
opportunity of seeing.
The ancients felt this themselves. They recognized the force of
Seneca’s dictum: ‘Scholae non vitae discimus’. Tacitus had criticized
the system in his _Dialogue_, and Petronius is very outspoken in his
condemnation. He considers that the school produces in its pupils not
wisdom but folly, seeing that what they hear or see there has no bearing
on practical life. ‘It is for ever pirates standing in chains on the
beach, tyrants writing edicts in which they order sons to cut off their
fathers’ heads, oracles to avert a pestilence demanding the sacrifice of
three or more virgins, verbal honey-balls, all words and acts sprinkled,
as it were, with poppy seed and sesame. Children brought up in these
surroundings can no more be sensible than those who live in a kitchen can
be fragrant.’[1373]
The school-exercises which Aphthonius prescribed clearly illustrate
these objections. The artificiality of obeying all the rules at all
times for a certain type of subject is apparent even in the models. In
a little essay on ‘Poverty’, introduced by two verses of Theognis, the
poet, under the heading ἐγκωμιαστικόν, is praised at length for seeing
what an exaggerated emphasis poets lay on myths, and turning to serious
moral teaching.[1374] He is also praised for observing metrical rules,
which is at any rate less harmful than the sentiment expressed in the
text that it is better to die than to be poor. Under the heading ‘cause’
it is alleged that poverty is incompatible with virtue. Those who are
rid of poverty grow up fine men and do glorious deeds and entertain the
poor. Look at Irus, the beggar (under the heading παραδείγματα)—he was
so poor that he had even to change his name: for formerly he was called
Arnaeus. And think of all the woes of Ulysses himself when he came home
in the disguise of a beggar. How terrible it is to be poor! For all this
a verse must be found from some poet (under the heading μαρτυρία παλαιῶν)
in order to give the seal of respectability. This quotation is generally
chosen quite irrespective of the main theme, Euripides being quoted on
this occasion to the effect that poverty cannot change nobility of birth.
Truth is made to consist in the nature of the charge brought, and not
sought in the human facts of the case. Thus, in the stock example of
a speech against a tyrant,[1375] we have a ‘_conjectural_ attack on
the man’s past life’, and an ‘exclusion of pity’ worked up with the
utmost artificiality. Ingenuity, not truth, is the object. And the
same can be said of the ‘Encomium’, in which we find the germ of the
panegyric. Of all these exercises those which fall under the heading
of ‘Description’[1376] are the only ones which possess any kind of
naturalness.
The reflection of this unnaturalness is abundantly seen in the
literature of the day. Almost any work of Ausonius could be taken as an
illustration. He consciously opposes grace to strength, and the result
is disappointing. ‘Si qua tibi in his versiculis videbuntur ... fucatius
concinnata quam verius, et plus coloris quam suci habere, ipse sciens
fluere permisi, venustula ut essent magis quam forticula.’[1377] He takes
nineteen lines to express the number six,[1378] and fourteen lines to say
that there were thirty oysters.[1379] Such a ‘numerum doctis involutum
ambagibus’ seems to have been a common way of expending ‘poetic’ energy.
Then, as if this were not enough, he goes on to expound the ‘doctae
ambages’ in the baldest possible way (_Septenis quater adde et unum et
unum, etc._) in twelve more lines. Similar examples could be indefinitely
multiplied. Nor were they just the whim of an idle humour. We meet them
everywhere. Bishop Sidonius at the age of fifty says, in a serious
estimate of a man’s poetic abilities, that he was good at ‘echoing’ and
‘recurrent’ verses, and at ‘anadiplosis’[1380] (i.e. resuming a verse
with the end phrase of the previous one). Asked by a correspondent as to
recurrent verses, he gives a stock example (_antiquum_), which shows that
the literary practice was of some standing. The point of such a verse was
that it could be read backwards letter for letter without altering the
sense:
Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor,
while in a ‘versus echoicus’ the first part of the first verse was the
same as the second part of the second. He adds another kind which he had
composed while delayed by a swollen river, and here the merit was that
the words could be read backwards retaining the order of the letters in
each word, without prejudice to the sense:
Praecipiti modo quod decurrit tramite flumen
tempore consumptum iam cito deficiet.[1381]
His appreciation of Remigius’s declamations show the same emphasis
on formal and external merits.[1382] The point is not so much that
responsible poets went in for writing verses of the kind quoted, but that
they attached so much importance to them.
It is striking how many of Ausonius’s poems have to do with the
dead[1383] or the unreal.[1384] Even his letters are full of
artificialities. In the same way Sidonius and Avitus of Vienne are always
writing epitaphs. Their interest is with the past, of which they are
the conscious imitators;[1385] and if Ausonius was genuinely interested
in the living present when he wrote the _Mosella_, that is his one poem
which has commended itself to readers of every age. In general, we may
say that the ‘litterati’ of this time imitated the past in style and
language to a degree that destroyed individuality. Though Sidonius
criticizes Titianus for copying people not of his age,[1386] his own
writings abound in archaisms.[1387] He praises Claudianus Mamertus[1388]
and Leo, the minister of Euric,[1389] for their imitation of antiquity.
Claudianus Mamertus recommends as models of style Naevius, Plautus,
Cato, Varro, Gracchus, and ‘Chryssiphus’, Fronto and Cicero, adding that
even the modern writers of note did not read the moderns: attention must
therefore be concentrated on the ancients, for they are the source of
modern merit.[1390] Nor was this merely theoretical advice. How extensive
the worship of the ancients was, from the scrupulous imitation of Cicero
in Eumenius and the panegyrists[1391] to the plagiarism of Vergil by
everybody, has been fully demonstrated by the various editors.[1392] All
this meant a turning away from the living language, the creation of a
scholastic tongue, the intellectualization of education. So, when Greek
literature lost its vitality, we find a rigid and senseless Atticism
appearing in Dionysius of Halicarnassus during the first century B.C.;
the dual was brought up from the underworld; and language, instead of
developing its resources, was stretched on the Procrustes-bed of a
standard that had ceased to be natural.[1393] So, too, when the living
genius of Petrarch and Dante arose, it broke away from the half-dead
Latin and turned to Italian. The problem here involved arises to-day
in many countries. In Holland the growing Flemish Movement headed by
Stijn Streuvels and others has compelled recognition; in Norway there
is a similar movement; and in South Africa the Education Department is
increasingly recognizing the use of Afrikaans in the schools. For the
more education disregards the form of the language that lives in the
hearts of the people, the less will it understand and be able to teach
them effectively. In other words, an undue archaism means artificiality,
means a wandering from the truth.
The result was (as we may judge from the complaints of the critics) that
the product of the rhetorical system often found himself in the position
of a fire-brigade without a fire. He had all the machinery, and had used
it all in mock alarms, but had missed that contact with reality which
makes for understanding. He had come to look on facility of speech (to
which the Gauls were particularly prone)[1394] as an end in itself. He
had been taught to think that everything was a matter of rule,[1395] and
often found too late that life demanded a different and a deeper method.
Why was it that the rhetorical system, with all its virtues, failed
in this way? To put it quite shortly, we should say that it failed
because it did not aim at the best. Ennodius indicates its aims in two
brief sentences. ‘Nos vitae maculas tergimus artis ope’[1396]—polish,
style, external refinement; ‘Qui nostris servit studiis, mox imperat
orbi’—imperial service. These were the two main objects, both of them
good and desirable in themselves, but not the highest. And it was
because the abuse of these two aims led to a conflict between them
and the highest aim, truth, because the rhetorical system was content
with a second best[1397] which could not remain uncorrupted except in
connexion with the best, it was for this reason that, ultimately, failure
inevitably ensued. Other and more material causes may easily be argued,
but this is the inherent and fundamental cause.
How far did the Christian ideal prove a truer inspiration to education?
It has been remarked that paganism had no idea of progress. The note of
pessimism in Roman literature is typified in such passages as Horace’s:
Aetas parentum peior avis tulit
nos nequiores, mox daturos
progeniem vitiosiorem.
But with the Gospels, when the watchword of ‘Estote perfecti’ turned
men’s backward glances forward to the light, the doctrine of progress
began to establish itself more firmly.[1398]
Now progress depends on the truth and the vividness of the ideal in view,
and there can be no doubt that the Christians of our period felt their
ideal as a much more living and constant inspiration than the pagans
felt theirs. Paulinus of Pella illustrates this. His poem is alive with
sincere devotion, and the usual dryness of the author draws a vigour and
an inspiration from religious emotion which makes the work, in spite of
its lack of literary formalities, compare favourably with the Panegyrists
or the semi-Christian writers.[1399] His ardour and singleness of
purpose[1400] are also seen in the _De Providentia_ and the _Ad Uxorem_.
In spite of all the sufferings of the ten-years’ slaughter (_caedes
decennis_), there is the clear-eyed calmness of one who sees an ideal
whose brightness and steadiness are undimmed by the storm.
Iniusti tumeant, et tuta pace suorum
laetentur scelerum; nonque illos vinea fallat,
non ager: et noceant illaesi, et crimine crescant:
nos quibus in Christo sunt omnia non capiant res
occiduae.[1401]
Nor is the result of this a sighing resignation: the ideal inspires
vigorous action:
Sed si quis superest animi vigor, excutiamus
peccati servile iugum, ruptisque catenis,
in libertatem et patriae redeamus honorem;[1402]
and again
Nec quia procidimus fusi certamine primo,
stare et conflictum vereamur inire secundum;[1403]
and throughout there is the note of joyful confidence, the certainty of
ultimate victory:
... omnem
vincendi nobis vim de victore petamus
... sine quo non stant qui stare videntur.
All this is found again in the _Ad Uxorem_. In spite of fire, torture,
chains, the final note is a cry of joy:
Semper agam grates Christo, dabo semper honorem:
laus Domini semper vivet in ore meo.[1404]
There can be no doubt that these men were genuine. We feel without being
told that the verses are
sincerum vivo de fonte liquorem.
The ideal was deeply felt and widely spread. Even Sidonius could say
of Lupus: ‘tota illi actionum suarum intentio ... Christus est’.[1405]
There was a conscious strength in the idealism of these men which counted
for much. ‘The Roman world crashes into ruin’, wrote Jerome, in another
connexion, ‘yet our heads are upright and unbowed.’[1406]
This ideal had its effect on oratory. When Augustine wrote the Christian
theory of eloquence,[1407] though he bases the technical part of it
entirely on Cicero and though his sermons abound in parallelism,
homoioteleuta, and even word-play, yet he made a great advance in
declaring that eloquence was not dependent on rhetorical rules but
based, rather, on genuine knowledge and true wisdom.[1408] He felt
keenly the lack of truth in the rhetorical system. Of its teachers he
says that truth was found constantly on their lips but never in their
lives: ‘Dicebant Veritas et Veritas, et multum eam dicebant mihi, et
nusquam erat in eis, et falsa loquebantur.’[1409] And he laid down his
professorship of rhetoric so that he should not be guilty of selling
material for the madness of the youths who studied the foolish falsehoods
and practised the quibbling disputations of the rhetorical system.[1410]
In the _Principia Rhetorices_ he lays stress on understanding the
case,[1411] and maintains that the end of oratory is not merely ‘bene
aut vere dicere’ (as the later rhetoricians certainly thought), but
‘persuadere’.[1412] Thus he brings out the Christian conception of the
essential relation of oratory to man—an ideal which Isocrates and Cicero
had preached, but which had gradually been lost.
Similarly, in his theory of Christian education, the influence of the
ideal is seen. In his scheme of learning, philosophy must make us
understand ‘the order of things’, and help us to distinguish two worlds
and Him who is the Father of the Universe.[1413] The whole perspective is
determined by the Divine. Everything is related to it. And it is not a
mere philosophical abstraction but a real and life-giving centre.
Jung, having described the barrenness of pagan studies, says: ‘Studia
eadem in scholis clericorum’,[1414] and proves from Isidore and Gregory
that the old Roman scheme of education was accepted throughout by the
Christians. But there is something more to be said. The Christian
schools, in so far as they did not fall into utter formlessness,
accepted the scheme of Martianus Capella and of pagan education. But,
in many cases at any rate, there was a change for the better in method
and spirit. The Christians used their rhetoric in a living cause,
their dialectic to probe questions crowded with contemporary interest;
their Livy and Sallust to develop a philosophy of history, their
literature to understand and spread the cause of truth for which they
had been martyred. The pagans, on the other hand, used their rhetoric
for fictitious cases (_falsas lites_), their dialectic for ingenious
trifling, their history as the handmaid of rhetoric, their literature
to imitate Cicero or Fronto or Pliny, to write freakish verses, or to
flatter the emperor. A sign of the advance made by the Christians in the
search for truth is that criticism begins to awake in a world on which
traditional ideas had lain
Heavy as frost, and deep, almost, as life.
Vigilantius in Gaul criticizes the rites of the Church and Pelagianism,
Priscillianism, the questions about the spirituality of the soul—all
point to a new stimulation of the intellect.
Yet Christian education also failed in its search for truth. As we
have seen, the exigencies of the time drove its exponents to a zealous
narrowness whose watchword was stated by Claudianus Mamertus, when,
in his _Contra vanos poetas_, he said that the divine _alone_ must be
studied:
Incipe divinis tantum dare pectora rebus.
By limiting the meaning of ‘divina’ to dogma, the Church imposed fetters
on the seeker after truth which, though not very prominent in our period,
became exceedingly galling in the times that followed. Eucherius (to
take a final example) writes to Valerian appealing to him to lay aside
the love of the world and the study of worldly philosophy, to turn to
the study of true piety and true philosophy.[1415] The key-note of the
letter is: ‘Quid enim prodest homini si mundum universum lucretur, animae
vero suae detrimentum patiatur?’ with a special connotation of ‘mundum’.
The incompatibility between secular and sacred literature is emphasized,
and illustrated by edifying stories about Clement, Gregory, and Paulinus
of Nola. The conclusion is: ‘Quin tu, repudiatis illis philosophorum
praeceptis ... ad imbibenda Christiana dogmatis studia animum adicis?...
In illis namque eorum praeceptis vel adumbrata virtus vel falsa
sapientia....’ The position is not that the philosophers should be read
and then rejected, but that they should not be read at all.
Thus, the leaders of Christian education in Gaul, however excusable their
attitude at the time, established that regrettable dichotomy between
secular and sacred knowledge which has been the bane of succeeding ages.
While, on the one hand, they made an advance towards truth by stimulating
thought and criticism, on the other, they did not, perhaps could not,
succeed in recognizing that truth is one and indivisible, and that her
seekers know of no such divisions.
And so we are forced back on our ever-recurring problem: how is man,
his emotions and environment being what they are, to attain to the
scientific attitude of mind? Socrates long ago saw the difficulty of
having a body which fills us with ‘passions and desires and fears and
all sorts of fancies and foolishness’, and makes it impossible for us
to be single-minded in our pursuit of the truth.[1416] Yet he, and
the great teachers of mankind throughout the ages, have insisted with
an earnestness that reached to martyrdom, that such an unswerving and
disinterested quest is the one result in education that truly matters,
that it is the condition of progress and the criterion of culture. And
if the way is long and the battle fierce, we must choose the dust and
heat rather than lose sight of the ideal. καλὸν γὰρ τὸ ἆθλον καὶ ἡ ἐλπὶς
μεγάλη.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Cf. Freeman, _Methods of Historical Study_, pp. 31 ff.
[2] e.g. Bury, _Roman Empire_, Introd., p. vii; Freeman, _Western Europe
during the Fifth Century_, p. 260.
[3] Cf. Lavisse, _Histoire de France_, I. ii. 325 and 326, ‘Chrétiens et
païens s’accordaient pour reconnaître ‘en lui un sauveur’.
[4] Pacatus (_Pan. Lat._ ii. 28) celebrates his loyalty, while Prosper
condemns it (Bury-Gibbon, iii. 138). Hodgkin, i. 380, accepts his
fidelity.
[5] ‘An ego nunc receptas virtute tua Gallias, barbariam omnem subactam,
pergam quasi nova et inaudita memorare? Quae in hac Romani imperii
parte gloriosissima sint famae laude celebrata....’ _Pan. Lat._ iii. 3.
Baehrens reads _sint_, though the indicative would seem more natural.
[6] Ibid., § 7.
[7] Ibid., § 4.
[8] ‘Tu, tu, inquam, maxime imperator ... extincta iam litterarum studia
flammasti, tu philosophiam paulo ante suspectam ... non modo iudicio
liberasti sed amictam purpura, auro gemmisque redimitam in regali solio
conlocasti.’ Ibid., § 23.
[9] The phrase is Freeman’s. Syagrius fled to Toulouse after the battle
of Soissons (486). But he was pursued by Alaric II, whose protégé he had
been, and handed over in chains to the victorious Franks. Greg. Tur.,
_Historia Frankorum_, ii. 27.
[10] Jullian, ‘Les Premières Universités Françaises’, _Rev. internat. de
l’Enseignement_, 1893.
[11] Freeman, _Historical Essays_, vii. 164.
[12] Ammianus, xv. 9. 7 (ed. Gardthausen). Cf. Plut. _Solon_, ii. 15;
Pausan. x. 8. 6 (ed. Dübner). So Isidore of Seville, Migne, _Patr. Lat._
lxxxii. 537. Cf. Mela, ii. 77.
[13] Athen. xiii. 576a (ed. Kaibel).
[14] Lucan, _Phars._ ii. 298; v. 53 (Phocis), as against the majority,
e.g. Strabo, iv. 1. 5 (Phocaea).
[15] Thuc. i. 13. 6; Seneca, _Ad Hel._ vii. 8; Silius Ital. xv. 168 ff.;
Jerome, Praef. Lib. II, _Ep. ad Galat._, &c.
[16] Head, _Historia Numorum_ (1911), p. 7.
[17] _Pro Fonteio_, 15. 34 ‘Urbs Massilia ... fortissimorum
fidelissimorumque sociorum’. Cf. Phil. viii. 6. 18, 19 for a glowing
tribute to Massilia’s friendship.
[18] Strabo, iv. 4. 5 τὴν πρὸς Ῥωμαίους φιλίαν, ἦς πολλὰ ἄν τις λάβοι
σημεῖα.
[19] Ammianus, xv. 11. 14. Cf. Justinus (following Trogus), _Hist._
xliii. 4 ff. (ed. Benecke), on the traditional friendship of Massilia
with Rome at the time of the battle of the Allia.
[20] Liv. xxi. 20, 25, 26; Polyb. iii. 95.
[21] Caesar, _Bellum Civile_, i. 34. Cf. Dio Cassius (ed. Boissevain),
xli. 19; _Paneg. Lat._ (ed. G. Baehrens), vi. 19, 3; Orosius, vi. 15. 6,
7 (ed. Zangemeister).
[22] Caesar, _Bell. Civ._ ii. 22; Dio Cassius, _l.c._
[23] Jullian, _Hist. de la Gaule_, i. 216, 217, 407.
[24] Justin, xliii. 5. 2; Thuc. i. 13. 6.
[25] Desjardins, _Géograph. hist. de la Gaule Romaine_, ii. 148.
[26] Strabo, iii. 2. 9 τὸν δὲ κασσίτερον ... καὶ ἐκ τῶν Βρεταννικῶν δὲ
εἰς τὴν Μασσαλίαν κομίζεσθαι.
[27] ‘De Lapidibus’ in Bouquet’s _Recueil des Hist._, p. 654.
[28] Plin. _Nat. Hist._ xviii. 7. 12.
[29] Mela, iii. 2. 17.
[30] _Pro L. Flacco_, 26. 63 ‘Neque vero te, Massilia, praetereo ...
cuius ego civitatis disciplinam atque gravitatem non solum Graeciae, sed
haud scio an cunctis gentibus anteponendam iure dicam’. The Rhodians in
Livy (xxxvii. 54) say that they have heard that the Romans respect and
honour the Massilians as much as though they were the centre of Greek
culture (_umbilicum Graeciae_).
[31] Cf. Strabo, iv. 1. 5.
[32] Strabo, iv. 1. 5. Cf. Jullian, ‘Les Premières Universités
Françaises’ (_Rev. internat. de l’Enseignement_), 1893.
[33] ‘Sedem ac magistram studiorum ... habuit, locum Graeca comitate
provinciali parsimonia mixtum ac bene compositum’, Tac. _Agr._ 4.
Augustus sends L. Antonius, his sister’s grandson, to Massilia, ‘ubi
specie studiorum nomen exilii tegeretur’, Tac. _An._ iv. 44.
[34] _Casina_, V. iv. 1.
[35] Val. Max. ii. 7.
[36] Strabo, iv. 1. 5.
[37] In later times it fell into effeminacy. Justin, xii. 523 c; Polyb.
iii. 79; Liv. xxii. 2, xxxvii. 54.
[38] Livy, xxxvii. 54.
[39] Mela, ii. 77.
[40] _Pol._ 1321 a 37; Strabo, iv. 1. 5.
[41] Justin, xliii. 4. Cf. Macrob. _Somn. Scip._ ii. 10. 8.
[42] Strabo, iv. 1. 5 πάντες γὰρ οἱ χαρίεντες πρὸς τὸ λέγειν τρέπονται
καὶ φιλοσοφεῖν, ὥσθ’ ἡ πόλις μικρὸν μὲν πρότερον τοϊς βαρβάροις ἀνεϊτο
παιδευτήριον, καὶ φιλελληνας κατεσκεύαζε τοὺς Γαλάτας (Gauls), ῶστε καὶ
τὰ συμβόλαια Ἑλληνιστὶ γράφειν.
[43] Ammianus, xv. 9.
[44] Justin, _l.c._
[45] Livy, xxxviii. 17.
[46] Strabo, iv. 1. 5 σοφιστὰς γοῦν ὑποδέχονται τοὺς μὲν ἰδίᾳ, τοὺς δὲ
κοινῇ μισθούμενοι καθάπερ καὶ ἰατρούς.
[47] Lucan, iii. 592.
[48] Cf. Bulaeus, _Hist. Univ. Paris._ 19.
[49] _Controvers._ ii. 5. 13.
[50] Ibid. ii. 6. 12.
[51] _Moralia_, 897 (ed. Dübner).
[52] Gräfenhan, _Gesch. der Philol._ i. 276.
[53] Monnard, _de Gallorum oratorio ingenio_, p. 3; Wolf, _Prolegom._ 39,
p. 174.
[54] Isidore, _Etymolog._ xi; Jerome, Prolog. in Lib. II, _Ep. ad
Galat._, both of them quoting Varro.
[55] e.g. Neapolis (Napoule), Antipolis (Antibes), Athenopolis (Antea).
[56] _Histoire littéraire de la France_, i. 59, 60.
[57] ‘Compulit ut laicorum popularitas psalmos et hymnos pararet ... alii
Graece alii Latine prosas antiphonasque cantarent’, _Vita Caesarii_,
Migne, _Pat. Lat._ lxvii. 1008.
[58] Jung, _Romanische Landschaften_, 210. Cf. also Inscriptions,
Le Blant, _Nouveau Recueil_, 60, 150, 326, 374, and _L’Épigraphie
chrétienne_, p. 43.
[59] Justin, xliii. 3.
[60] Cf. Jullian, _Hist. de la Gaule_, iii. 33 ff.
[61] Suet. _Tib._ 4. Cf. _C. I. L._ xii. 689.
[62] Lavisee, _Histoire de la France_, I. ii. 210.
[63] Cf. Holmes, _Christian Church in Gaul_, 293, 381.
[64] Justin, xliii. 5. Cf. Strabo, i. 41.
[65] _Recueil des Hist._, Introd., xxv.
[66] Keil, _Gram. Lat._ i. 202.
[67] _B. G._ vi. 17. Cf. Minuc. Felix, vi. 1; xxx. 4.
[68] _C. I. L._ xiii. 1. 1, 2606. Cf. further _C. I. L._ xiii. 1. 1,
2607, 2608, 2609, Chalon-sur-Saône; 2631, 2636, near Autun; 2830, N. of
Prov. Lugdun.; 3011-13, Melun; 3020, Troyes; 3183 ff., Berthouville;
3250, Caleti.
[69] _C. I. L._ xiii. 1. 1, 1125.
[70] _C. I. L._ xiii. 1. 2, _passim_.
[71] _C. I. L._ xiii. 1. 1, 3100.
[72] That the Gallic Mercury resembled his Roman namesake in this
respect is proved by the fact that one of the names of the Celtic
Mercury was Visucius, which comes from the root VID = know (Robert
and Cagnat, _Épigraphie de la Moselle_, p. 59). And Caesar noted as
one of the characteristics of the Gallic Mercury that he was ‘omnium
inventorem artium’ (_Bell. Gall._ vi. 17), though in later times he
comes to be connected chiefly with commerce (cf. Caesar, _l.c._). See
Daremberg-Saglio.
[73] _Polit._ 1269 b 26, 1324 b 9.
[74] _Var. Hist._ xii. 23.
[75] Ἐμπειρίᾳ τῇ ἐς τὰ πολεμικὰ ἀπέδεον. They charge μετὰ οὐδενὸς
λογισμοῦ αθάπερ τὰ θηρία, Pausan. x. 21.
[76] Strabo, iv. 4. 4.
[77] Ael. _Var. Hist._ xii. 23.
[78] Athenaeus (quoting Posidonius), vi. 46 (ed. Kaibel).
[79] v. 31.
[80] _B. G._ vi. 13. 4.
[81] _Hist. Litt._ i. 41, 42.
[82] ‘Disciplina in Britannia reperta atque inde in Galliam translata
esse existimatur, et nunc qui diligentius eam rem cognoscere volunt
plerumque illo discendi causa proficiscuntur’, Caesar, _B. G._ vi. 13. 11.
[83] Caesar, _B. G._ vi. 14.
[84] Desjardins, _Géog. hist. de la Gaule_, ii. 214, note.
[85] Caesar, _l.c._, and Diodor. v. 28.
[86] Caesar, _l.c._, and Diodor. v. 31.
[87] _De Divin_, i. 41 (90).
[88] iii. 2 (19).
[89]
Solis nosse Deos et caeli numina vobis
aut solis nescire datum: nemora alta remotis
incolitis lucis.—_Phars._ i. 452 ff.
[90] _Hist. Litt._ i. 41, 42.
[91] ‘Huius Gallorum philosophiae, quam Valerius Maximus (ii. 6. 11)
“avaram et faeneratoriam” nuncupat, tenebras dissipavit lux e Graecia
allata in Phoceensium coloniam, Massiliam’. _De Gallorum Orat. Ingen._ 2.
[92] _Cambr. Mediaev. Hist._ i. 185.
[93] Tac. _Hist._ iv. 54.
[94] Cf. Jung, _De Scholis Rom. in Gall. Comata._ 2.
[95] ‘Druidarum religionem apud Gallos dirae immanitatis, et tantum
civibus sub Augusto interdictam, penitus abolevit (_sc._ Claudius)’,
Suet. _Claudius_, xxv. 5.
[96] _De Caes._ iv.
[97] _Nat. Hist._ xxx. 1. 4 ‘Namque Tiberii Caesaris principatus sustulit
Druidas’.
[98] _Nat. Hist._ xvi. 249; xxiv. 103; xxx. 13.
[99] _Script. Hist. Aug._ xxvi. 44 ‘Sciscitantem utrum apud eius posteros
imperium permaneret’.
[100] Ibid. xxx. 14.
[101] _Hist. de la Gaule mérid._, i. 541.
[102] Lavisse, _Hist. de la France_, I. iii. 385.
[103] Caesar, _B. G._ vi. 14.
[104] iv. 1. 12.
[105] Migne, _Patrologia Graeca_, vii. 444.
[106] _Script. Hist. Aug., Alex. Sev._ 60.
[107] Auson. _Prof._ iv. 7; x. 27.
[108] Ausonius may be using ‘Belenus’ for ‘Apollo’ in a playful mood,
as Mommsen thinks; but the name Belenus was exceedingly well known in
Gaul, and indicates that Celtic civilization had left its mark. See
Pauly-Wissowa, s.v.
[109] _Technop._ xiv.
[110] _Ep._ iii. 3. 2.
[111] His use of _quia_ and _quod_ instead of the infinitive
construction; abstract for concrete nouns; the growing importance of
prepositions; peculiar words like _fatigatio_ (banter), _eventilare_
(search through), _humanitas_ (hospitality). See Dalton’s preface to his
translation of Sidonius, and Baret’s introduction to his edition (pp. 106
ff.).
[112] Comment. in _Ep. ad Galat._ Migne, _Pat. Lat._ xxvi. 357.
[113] _Historical Essays_, Series III, pp. 74 ff.
[114] _Hist. de la France_, I. iii. 388.
[115] _Revue celtique_, 1870-2, p. 179.
[116] _Gaule romaine_, p. 129.
[117] Freeman, _Western Europe in the Fifth Century_, p. 143.
[118] e.g. _lox_ (_la ruche_), hive; _alauda_, Fr. _alouette_; _carrum_,
Fr. _char_; *_cambitâ_, Fr. _jante_ (felly) (Körting, _Lat.-roman.
Wörterb._, 1778); _betullus_, O.F. _booul_, M.F. _bouleau_ (birch);
_braca_, M.F. _braie_; _camisia_, M.F. _chemise_; _landâ_, Fr.
_lande_ (Körting, _op. cit._, 5419); probably _jambe_ and _javelot_.
See Schwan-Behrens, _Grammaire de l’Ancien Français_, p. 5. Paris,
Fischbacher, 1913.
[119] _C. I. L._ xiii. 2638.
[120] Pirson, _La Langue des Inscriptions lat. de la Gaule_, p. 237.
[121] _Romanische Landschaften_, p. 272.
[122] Gröber, _Grundriss der roman. Philol._, i. 383.
[123] Lavisse, _Histoire de France_, ii. 1. 2, p. 59.
[124] Gothofredus, _C. Th._ ix. 23. 1, refers to a law by which ‘in
Gallia vetita auri et argenti extra regnum exportatio’. So _C. Th._ vii.
16. 3 ‘Ne merces illicitae ad nationes barbaras deferantur’. ‘Merces
illicitae’ are defined by Gothofredus as ‘vinum, oleum, liquamen (lye),
ferrum, frumentum, sales, cos’ (mill-stone).
[125] _Pan. Lat._ vi. 6 ‘Ut in desertis Galliae regionibus collocatae
(nationes) et pacem Romani imperii cultu (agriculture) iuvarent et arma
dilectu’. Cf. viii. 9 ‘Arat ergo nunc mihi Chamavus et Frisius’.
[126] Gröber, _Grundriss der romanischen Philologie_, p. 383 (article by
F. Kluge. A certain allowance must be made for nationalist bias).
[127] H. Paul, _Grundriss der germanischen Philologie_, i. 328 ff.
[128] _De Bissula_, iii.
[129] _Cod. Theod._ iii. 14. 1, ed. Mommsen and Meyer.
[130] _Histoire de France_, ii. 1. 2, p. 59. Cf. Süpfle, _Gesch. des
deutschen Cultureinflusses auf Frankreich_, i. 1. 1.
[131] Oros. vii. 32, quoted Bury-Gibbon, iii. 350 _n._
[132] Cf. Fauriel, i. 541.
[133] ‘Id tu Brute iam intelliges, quum in Galliam veneris: audies tu
quidem etiam verba quaedam non trita Romae, sed haec mutari dediscique
possunt’, Cic. _Brutus_, 171.
[134] ‘Tantum increbruit multitudo desidiosorum ut, nisi vel paucissimi
quique meram linguae Latiaris proprietatem de trivialium barbarismarum
robigine vindicaveritis, eam brevi abolitam defleamus interemptamque’,
Sid. _Ep._ ii. 10. 1.
[135] _Ep._ iv. 17. 2.
[136] e.g. _Franko_ (Fr. _franc_), _Alaman_ (O.F. _Aleman_), &c.;
_sturm_, O.F. _estour_; _wahta_, O.F. _guaite_ (watch); _helm_, &c.;
_siniskalk_, Fr. _sénéchal_; _marahskalk_, Fr. _maréchal_; _alod_,
O.F. _aleu_ (freehold); _sparwâri_, O.F. _esparvier_; _haring_, Fr.
_hareng_; _wald_, O.F. _gualt_; *_hapja_, Fr. _hache_ (hatchet); _want_,
Fr. _gant_ (glove); _bald_, O.F. _balt_; _spëhon_, O.F. _espier_, &c.
_Affre_ < Old Low Frank. _aibhor_ (Körting, _op. cit._, 384); _hâte_
(Eng. _haste_), Germ. *_haist-_ (Körting, 4459); _guise_ (Eng. _wise_),
Germ. _wīsa_ (Körting, 10403); _orgueil_, Germ. _urgōlī_ (Körting,
9914). Schwan-Behrens, _op. cit._, p. 6. For the traces of Germanic in
inscriptions see Pirson, _op. cit._, p. 236.
[137] Sidon. _Ep._ i. 2. 1.
[138] _Ep._ i. 2. 6.
[139] Ibid.
[140] _Ep._ ii. 1. 2.
[141] _Ep._ iv. 17.
[142] _Ep._ i. 2. 5 (§ 8).
[143] Ennod., _Script. Eccles. Lat._, p. 353.
[144] The acts and decrees of the Visigothic and Burgundian kings were in
Latin, and they chose their secretaries from the Latin rhetoricians and
poets. Sidonius speaks of documents drawn up by himself for the Gothic
king (_Ep._ viii. 3). Thus the star of rhetoricians and grammarians rose
high at the court of Theodoric.
[145] Cf. _Camb. Mediaev. Hist._, p. 291.
[146] Cf. Fauriel, _Hist. de la Gaule mérid._, i. 466.
[147] _Ep._ ii. 5; viii. 1.
[148] Sid. _Ep._ v. 7.
[149] Paulin. _Euchar._, verse 304.
[150] Paulin. _Euchar._, verses 289, 290.
[151] _Vide_ 306:
Cum iam in republica nostra
cernamus plures Gothico florere favore,
tristia quaeque tamen perpessis antea multis,
pars ego magna fui quorum....
and cf. 311 ff.
[152] _Paulin de Pella_, p. xxiii.
[153] Cf. Sidon. _Ep._ v. 14.
[154] Fauriel, _op. cit._, i. 559.
[155] ‘Ut ... populos Galliarum ... teneamus ex fide etsi non tenemus
foedere’, _Ep._ vii. 6. 10.
[156] Gröber, _Grundriss der röm. Phil._, i. 387. In order to indicate
the nature of the barbarous Gothic with which he is surrounded, the
poet contemptuously quotes some Gothic that came into his mind. The
interpretation is not certain. Massmann (_Zeitsch. f. d. Altertum_, i.
379 ff.) suggests ‘Hail! provide us with meat and drink’. In any case,
their language is incompatible with Latin poetry.
[157]
Ex hoc barbaricis abacta plectris
spernit senipedem stilum Thalia
ex quo septipedes videt patronos.—_Carm._ xii.
[158] _Ep._ vii. 14. 10.
[159] _Ep. ad Diversos_, lvii (ed. Peiper).
[160] i. 44.
[161] Cf. Boissier, _La Fin du Paganisme_, ii. 59 ff.; Fauriel, _Hist._
i. 440.
[162] Tac. _An._ xi. 24; Dessau, _Inscrip. Lat. Sel._ i. 212.
[163] Ammian. xv. 11. 5 ‘Aquitani ... facile in dicionem venere Romanam’.
[164] Even the inscriptions give no help, for they are drawn up in formal
phrases.
[165] Cf. Lavisse, _Hist. de France_, i. 3. 338.
[166] Tac. _Hist._ iv. 55-9.
[167] _Historical Essays_, iii. 80.
[168] iv. 4. 2.
[169] Trebellius, _Script. Hist. Aug._ xxiii. 4 ‘Galli ... quibus insitum
est, leves ... et luxuriosos principes ferre non posse’.
[170] Ammian. xv. 6. 4.
[171] _Script. Hist. Aug._ xviii. 60. 6.
[172] Zos. vi. 5 ὁ Ἀρμόριχος ἅπας καὶ ἕτεραι Γαλατῶν ἐπαρχίαι ...
ἐκβάλλουσαι μὲν τοὺς Ῥωμαίους ἄρχοντας, οἰκεῖον δὲ κατ’ ἐζουσίαν
πολίτευμα καθιστᾶσαι....
[173] ‘Galliaque quae semper praesidet atque praesedit huic imperio
... se suasque vires non tradidit, sed opposuit Antonio’, _Phil._ v.
13. 37. Cf. iv. 4, and _Ep. ad Fam._ xii. 5 ‘totam Galliam tenebamus
studiosissimam Reipublicae’.
[174] _Nat. Hist._ iii. 4.
[175] _De Consul. Stilich._ iii. 53.
[176] _Carm. Min._ 30. 61. Cf. _In Eutrop._ ii. 248.
[177] _Pan. Lat._ v. 2 ff.
[178] ‘Constituta enim et in perpetuum Roma fundata est, omnibus qui
statum eius labefactare poterant cum stirpe deletis’, _Pan. Lat._ iv. 6
and 31.
[179] _De Reditu_, i. 19 ff.
[180] Bury-Gibbon, iii. 234.
[181] i. 51 ff.
[182] i. 95.
[183] _De Consul. Stil._ i. 192.
[184] _Pan. Lat._ v. 7.
[185] It must, however, be admitted that the local provenance of the
marble at Martres Tolosanes is disputed by some authorities, e.g.
Espérandieu, _Les Bas-reliefs de la Gaule romaine_, vol. ii, p. 29.
[186] Déchelette, _Les Vases céramiques ornés de la Gaule romaine_.
[187] Cf. Pichon, _Études sur la Litt. lat. dans les Gaules_, i. 110 ff.
[188] Cf. Constantine’s treatment of the Franks, _Pan. Lat._ vi. 10. 12.
[189] ‘Terram Bataviam ... a diversis Francorum gentibus occupatam,
omni hoste purgavit, nec contentus vicisse, ipsas in Romanas transtulit
nationes, ut non solum arma, sed etiam feritatem ponere cogerentur’,
_Pan. Lat._ vi. 5.
[190] _Pan. Lat._ vi. 6.
[191] _Life and Letters in the Fourth Century_, p. 3.
[192] E. W. Watson, _Hilary of Poitiers_, Introd., ii.
[193] _Ep._ ix. 11. 2.
[194] _Ep._ viii. 6. 9 (Seeck).
[195] ‘Romanum denique eloquium non suis regionibus invenisti, et ibi te
Tulliana lectio disertum reddidit ubi quondam Gallica lingua resonavit.
Ubi sunt qui litteras Latinas Romae, non etiam alibi asserunt esse
discendas? ... mittit et Liguria Tullios suos’, _Variarum_, viii. 12;
Migne, _Pan. Lat._ lxix, p. 745.
[196] ‘Neque enim ignoro quanto inferiora nostra sint ingeniis Romanis.
Siquidem Latine et diserte loqui illis ingeneratum est ... ex illo fonte
et capite imitatio nostra derivat’, _Pan. Lat._ xii. 1. 2.
[197] As we gather from his references to the Rhine defences (§ 2).
[198] According to G. Baehrens.
[199] Cf. Freeman, _Historical Essays_, Ser. III, 119: ‘The panegyrist,
at all events in addressing princes, some of whom were certainly very
far from fools, is not likely to venture on much in the way of mere
invention. He will leave out a great deal, he will exaggerate a great
deal, he will pervert his own moral sense to praise a great deal that
ought to be blamed: but the main facts which he asserts are pretty sure
to have happened much as he states them. He is a fairly good authority
for positive facts, bad for negative ones.’ Cf. Pichon, _Études sur la
Litt. lat. dans les Gaules_, i. 74.
[200] Suet. _Gram._ 3.
[201] Ritter has pointed out that Maternus was a Gaul in his 1848 edition
of _Dialog._, ch. 10.
[202] Suet. _Gram._ 7.
[203] Suet. _Gram._ 11 ‘peridoneus praeceptor maxime ad poeticam
tendentibus’.
[204] In the list of rhetors left by Suetonius, incorporated by Jerome in
his translation of Eusebius’s _Chronicle_, which also includes Pacatus
and Gabinianus who taught in the first century A.D. under Tiberius and
Augustus at Massilia, Statius Ursulus of Toulouse, famous as a rhetor
under Nero, and his contemporary Domitius Afer of Nîmes.
[205] _Recueil des Hist._, i, Intro., p. lxxvii.
[206] Cf. Bulaeus, _Hist. Univ. Paris_. i. 19.
[207] ‘Les Prem. Univ. Franç.’, _Rev. intern. de l’Enseignement_, 1893.
[208] Tac. _An._ xi. 24.
[209] Mart. _Epigr._ ix. 99. Cf. Auson. _Parent._ iii. 11; _Prof._ xix.
4; Sidon. _Carm._ vii. 437.
[210] _Epigr._ vii. 88:
Me legit omnis ibi, senior iuvenisque puerque,
et coram tetrico casta puella viro.
[211] _Agric._ 21. Cf. Juv. xv. 111 ‘Gallia causidicos docuit facunda
Britannos’.
[212] i.e. ‘The Britons had a natural capacity superior to that of the
Gauls ... they only needed the same training to make them better orators’
(Furneaux, _ad loc._).
[213] _Praef. Herac._ 8.
[214] _Noct. Att._ xv. 1.
[215] ‘Quasi ex lingua prorsum eius capti prosequebamur,’ ibid. xvi. 3.
[216] _Noct. Att._ xviii. 5.
[217] Ibid. xvii. 5.
[218] Monnard, _De Gallorum Oratorio Ingenio_, 37.
[219] Monnard, _l.c._
[220] Elegantiora studia ... novas quasi receperunt vires, et insignem
recuperandam linguae promiserunt dignitatem, quod in eius (Latinae
linguae) cultum et optimas litteras perpoliendas propagandasque cum
veteribus magistris sanctioris doctrinae praesides conspirarent’,
Funccius, _De Vegeta Latinae Linguae Senectute_.
[221] ‘Rhetoribus et philosophis per omnes provincias salaria et honores
detulit’, _Script. Hist. Aug._ iii. 11. 3.
[222] C. Fronto, _Reliquiae_, ed. Niebuhr, 271.
[223] _Histoire litt. de la France_, i. 309.
[224] Ibid. 314.
[225] _Script. Hist. Aug._ xxviii. 30. 31.
[226] Ibid. 44. 4. He favoured the study of law in the provinces.
[227] _Pan. Lat._ ii. 4 ‘Florentissimas quondam antiquissimasque
urbes barbari possidebant. Gallorum ita celebrata nobilitas aut ferro
occiderat, aut immitibus addicta dominis serviebat. Porro aliae, quas a
vastitate barbarica terrarum intervalla distulerant, iudicum nomine a
nefariis latronibus obtinebantur.... Nemo ab iniuria liber, nemo intactus
a contumelia.’
[228] ‘Ab arcanis sacrorum penetralium ad privata Musarum adyta’, Eum.
_Pro Instaurandis Scholis_, _Pan. Lat._ ix, § 6 ff.
[229] _An._ iii. 43.
[230] _Pro Inst. Schol._ 4 ‘Latrocinio Bagaudicae rebellionis obsessa
(civitas)‘.
[231] The origin of the name is doubtful. Bulaeus (_Hist. Univ. Paris._
i. 25) thinks that there may have been a founder Maenius, or that it
may have been near the town wall (_prope moenia_). Lavisse favours
_moenianum_ in the sense of a portico on which were displayed maps of the
Empire (_Hist. de France_, i. 3. 367). Lewis and Short give _Maenianum_,
gallery, balcony (Cic. Suet.).
[232] Lipsius, quoted Bulaeus, _Hist. Univ. Paris_, i. 25 ff.
[233] Ibid.
[234] Cf. Jullian, ‘Les Prem. Univ. Franç.’, _Rev. intern. de
l’Enseignement_, 1893.
[235] Ibid.
[236] _Antike Kunstprosa_, ii. 631. Cf. Dill, _Roman Society during Last
Century of Western Empire_, p. 406; Guizot, _Hist. of Civilization_
(transl. Hazlitt), i. 349.
[237] The struggles of Julian, Valentinian I, and Gratian against the
barbarians were confined to the North and did not affect the main centre
of Gallic education—Aquitaine.
[238]
Factio me sibi non, non coniuratio iunxit:
sincero colui foedere amicitias.—_Domest._ iv. 21.
[239] _Bissula_, Praef.
[240] ‘Les Prem. Univ. Franç.’, _Rev. internat. de l’Enseignement_, 1893.
[241] _Pan. Lat._ iii. 20 ‘multi laboris et minimi usus negotium’.
[242] ‘Fuligine et aranearum telis omnia Romae templa cooperta sunt
... dii quondam nationum cum bubonibus et noctuis in solis culminibus
remanserunt ... iam et Aegyptius Serapis factus est Christianus ...
de India, Perside et Aethiopia monachorum cotidie turbas suscipimus;
deposuit pharetras Armenius, Huni discunt psalterium, Scythia frigora
fervent calore fidei ...’, Jer. _Epist._ cvii. 1, 2.
[243] Ibid.
[244] Cf. Speck, _Quaestiones Ausonianae_, pp. 3 ff.; Glover, _Life and
Letters in the Fourth Century_, pp. 109 ff.; and almost every writer on
Ausonius.
[245] _Pro Instaur. Scholis_, 11 ‘Hoc ego salarium ... expensum referre
patriae meae cupio, et ad restitutionem huius operis ... destinare’.
[246] _Domes._ iv.
[247] _Parent._ iv. 17-20.
[248] _Parent._ vi.
[249] _Prof._ xi.
[250] _Parent._ iii.
[251] _Pan. de Quarto Consulatu Honorii_, 582 (ed. Koch):
Inlustri te prole Tagus, te Gallia doctis
civibus et toto stipavit Roma senatu.
[252] _Ep._ vi. 34, ed. Seeck.
[253] _Ep._ ix. 88 ‘Gallicanae facundiae haustus requiro’.
[254] _Chronicon_ (Migne, _Pat. Lat._ xxvii. 687) ‘A.D. 358 Alcimus et
Delphidius rhetores in Aquitania florentissime docent’, and in the same
year ‘Minervius Burdigalensis rhetor Romae florentissime docet’.
[255] _Ep._ 125. 6.
[256] Ebert, _Gesch. des Mittelalters_, p. 365, ‘der offenbar mit vielem
Erfolg die noch immer hervorragenden Schulen seiner Heimath besucht
hatte’.
[257] _Ep._ v. 5. 1 (Oxford Trans. by O. M. Dalton).
[258] ‘Quae ille propositionibus aenigmata, sententiis schemata, versibus
commata, digitis mechanemata fecit!’ _Ep._ i. 9. 1.
[259] _Ep._ i. 11. 11.
[260] _Ep._ ii. 1. 2.
[261] _Ep._ iii. 3. 2 ‘nunc etiam Camenalibus modis imbuebatur’.
[262] Cf. Fauriel, _Hist. de la Gaule_, i. 407: ‘Dans ce siècle (5ᵉ)
comme aux précédents, les Gallo-Romains cultivèrent toutes les branches
du savoir et du génie romains.’
[263] Mayor, _Latin Heptateuch_, p. liv.
[264] Cf. Jerome, _Ep._ 83.
[265] _Ep._ ii. 8. 2; ii. 10. 3; iii. 12. 5, &c.
[266] _Ep._ iv. 8. 4.
[267] _Ep._ ii. 10. 5.
[268] _The Monks of the West_, v. 105. He quotes Mabillon, _Traité_, i.
13, 14.
[269] Ibid., p. 108. Montalembert adds Arabic, but this would be
an anachronism for our period. He quotes Bede, _Hist. Eccl._ iv. 2
(sixth cent., but true of our period also) ‘Litteris sacris simul et
saecularibus abundanter ambo erant instructi ... ita ut etiam metricae
artis astronomiae et arithmeticae ecclesiasticae disciplinam inter
sacrorum apicum (_writings_) volumina suis auditoribus contraderent.’
[270] _Ep._ 120 and 121.
[271] _Ep._ 107.
[272] _Reg. ad Monachos_, Migne, _Pat. Lat._ lxvii. 1100, rule xiv.
[273] e.g. Augustine on Pelagianism, and Pomerius on the nature of the
soul. Kaufmann, _Rhetoren und Kloster-Schulen_, p. 56.
[274] Migne, _Pat. Lat._ l. 773.
[275] Cf. Salonius’s exposition of the Proverbs to Veranius, and the
letters of Jerome.
[276] Cf. _Life of Martin_, 1.
[277] Cf. Sulpic. Sever. _Dial._ i. 23.
[278] Cf. Meyer, _Die Legende des heiligen Albanus_, p. 5, on the
hagiographical literature of the early Church: ‘Die glänzenden Gedanken
und die glänzende Darstellung der Cecilialegende entspricht der feinen
Kultur Roms im 5. Jahrhundert.’
[279] _C. I. L._ xii. 1921 (_grammati_ probably = γραμματεῖ).
[280] _C. I. L._ xii. 2039.
[281] Boissieu, _Inscrip. de Lyon_, p. 548.
[282] _Ep._ v. 17.
[283] Migne, _Pat. Lat._ xxvii. 687.
[284] ‘Sed dum cogito me hominem Gallum inter Aquitanos verba facturum,
vereor ne offendat vestras nimium urbanas aures sermo rusticior’, _Dial._
i. 27.
[285] _De Gub. Dei_, vii. 8 ‘Aquitanos ... medullam fere omnium
Galliarum’.
[286] _Ep._ ix. 44 (ed. Seeck).
[287] _Prof._ xx.
[288] _Ep._ xi (Iculisma).
[289] _Prof._ x.
[290] _Epigr._ x.
[291] _Parent._ iii.
[292] Cf. Jullian, _Rev. internat. de l’Enseignement_, pp. 24 ff.
[293] Strabo, iv. 190.
[294] Jung, _Roman. Landschaften_, p. 231.
[295] Jullian, _Hist. de Bordeaux_, p. 42.
[296] _Rev. internat. de l’Enseignement_, 1893, pp. 25 ff.
[297] Cf. Jung, _De Scholis Romanis in Gallia Comata_, p. 5.
[298] _Prof._ xxv. 8.
[299] _Praef._ 2.
[300] Lavisse, _Hist. de France_, I. ii. 395.
[301] _Pro Instaur. Schol._ 5. Cf. 20 ‘antiqua litterarum sede’.
[302] Cf. Lavisse, _Hist. de France_, _loc. cit._
[303] _Mosella_, 383.
[304] _Misopogon_, 342, ed. Hertlein: ἡ Κελτῶν ... ἀγροικία.
[305] _Mis._ 348 C, and compare 349 D.
[306] ὥσπερ τις κυνηγέτης ἀγρίοις ὁμιλῶν καὶ συμπλεκόμενος θηρίοις, ibid.
359 Β.
[307] Ibid. 350 D.
[308] _Epigr._ ix. 32.
[309] Mart. _Epigr._ v. 1. 10 ‘et tumidus Galla credulitate fruar’.
Strabo, iv. 4. 2, speaks of the race as ἁπλοῦν (_ingenio simplici_).
[310] Migne, _Pat. Lat._ xxvi. 355.
[311] Jullian, _Rev. intern. de l’Enseignement_, 1893.
[312] _Orat._ iii. 124.
[313] _B. G._ vii. 22.
[314] Diodor. v. 31.
[315] _Stromatum_ lib. i; Migne, _Pat. Graeca_, viii. 776, 777.
[316] _Pan. de Quarto Consul. Honor._ 392 ‘animosa tuas ut Galli a leges
audiat’.
[317] _Bell. Gall._ iv. 5. Cf. vii. 42.
[318] _Epigr._ viii ff.
[319] _Prof._ x.
[320] Jung, _De Scholis Roman._, p. 15.
[321] Cf. Tac. _Agric._ 11; Strabo, iv. 4. 2.
[322] Liban. _Orat._, ed. Reiske, iii. 255 ff., and cf. _Or._ 32 πρὸς τὰς
παιδαγωγοῦ βλασφημίας.
[323]
Et te de genetrice vagientem
tinxerunt (_sc._ Musae) vitrei vado Hippocrenes,
tunc hac mersus aqua loquacis undae
pro fluctu mage litteras bibisti.
_Carm._ xxiii. 206 (vitrei. He apparently regards ‘Hippocrene’ as masc.
as in _Carm._ ix. 285).
[324] Ibid. 210-14.
[325] Ibid. 439.
[326] Ibid. 490.
[327] _Ep._ iv. 12. 1.
[328] Cf. verses 89 ff. and 121 ff.
[329]
Studiumque insigne parentum
permixtis semper docta exercere peritum
blanditiis, gnaramque apto moderamine curam
insinuare mihi morum instrumenta bonorum,
ingenioque rudi celerem conferre profectum.—(_Eucharisticon_, verse 60,
ed. Brandes.)
[330] _Euchar._ 65.
[331] Probably his early teaching was in the hands of a household slave.
Cf. Rocafort, _Paulin de Pella_, p. 32.
[332] Rocafort, _Paulin de Pella_, xi, thinks the reference is merely to
‘locutions inusitées’. ἀκοινονόητα is read by Brandes, though ἀκοινώνητα,
except for metrical difficulties, would seem better.
[333] Verse 66.
[334] _l.c._ 79.
[335] Not eighteen, as Rocafort says.
[336] _l.c._ 117.
[337] Gilbert Murray, _Religio Grammatici_, pp. 10 ff.
[338] _Protrepticon_, 45 ff.
[339] Cf. Quintilian’s emphasis on starting with Homer (_Inst._ x. 1.
46). He is the poet _par excellence_: ‘omnibus eloquentiae partibus
exemplum et ortum dedit’. Not to be able to read him is a mark of utter
ignorance. Cf. viii. 5. 9; xii. 11. 21.
[340] Ibid. 46, 47.
[341] Verses 56-60.
[342] _De Idol._ 10. Cf. Aug. _Confess._ i. 14. 23.
[343] He had read Vergil ‘unum omnium maxime veterum auctorum atque haud
scio an unicum’. Brandes, _Corp. Scriptt. Lat. Eccl. Paul. Pell._, p. 279.
[344] _Ep._ i. 9. 8; ii. 2. 2; iii. 13. 1; iv. 12. 1; _Carm._ xxiii. 147;
xiii. 36.
[345] _Ep._ i. 11. 1; _Carm._ ix. 225; xxiii. 452.
[346] _Ep._ i. 9. 8; _Carm._ xxiii. 149.
[347] _Ep._ iv. 12. 1; _Carm._ ix. 213; xxiii. 130.
[348] _Protrep._ 61 ff.
[349] _Prof._ xxvi.
[350] Rocafort, _De Paul. Pell. Vita et Carmine,_ 33.
[351] _Prof._ xxvi, Platonicum Dogma.
[352] The traditional Roman order is here assumed. The relation of (1)
and (2) in Gaul will be discussed later.
[353] _Prof._ i. 2.
[354] _Mosella_, 403.
[355] Ep. 125 (Migne, _Pat. Lat._ xxii. 1079) ‘post Quintiliani acumina’.
[356] ‘Num quid fas est adversus Quintilianum nisi pro veritate dicere?’
_Dictio_, xxi.
[357] _Carm._ ix. 314. Cf. _Carm._ ii. 191; _Ep._ v. 10. 3.
[358] _Ep._ 70 (Migne, _Pat. Lat._ xxii. 668).
[359] _Instit._ i. 1. 27.
[360] Cf. Seneca, _Ep._ 94. 54.
[361] Mart. iv. 86. 11.
[362] Juv. x. 117.
[363]
Afranio clari lib. Graphico
doctori. librario. lusori
latrunculorum etc.—_C. I. L._ xiii. 1. 444.
[364] _Das Privatleben der Römer_, p. 151.
[365] Cf. Blümner, _Röm. Privatalterthümer_, 321. He quotes Bücheler,
_Carm. Epigr._ 219
Puer ... iam doctus in compendio
tot litterarum et nominum
notare currente stilo
quot lingua dicens diceret.
[366] _Ephem._ 7 ‘puer, notarum praepetum sollers minister’.
[367] Sid. _Ep._ v. 17. 10.
[368] _Instit._ i. 1. 24.
[369] Migne, _Pat. Lat._ xc. 686. He does not set out to write specially
for dumb people, as one might think from the title, but ‘ut cum maximam
computandi facilitatem dederimus tum paratiore legentium ingenio ad
investigandam ... computando seriem temporum veniamus’, Praef. Cf.
Macrob. vii. 13. 10, and Quintil. _Inst._ i. 10. 35. Pliny (_N. H._
xxxiv. 7) tells of a statue of Janus ‘digitis ita figuratis ut CCCLXV
dierum nota per significationem anni, temporis et aevi esse deum
indicent’.
[370] Auson. _Prof._ xxii.
[371] Cf. e.g. Diocletian’s Edict, A.D. 301 (Mommsen, _Berichte der_ ...
_Sächs. Gesellschaft_, iii. 56).
[372] Cf. Macrob. i. 24. 5 ‘videris enim mihi (says Symmachus to
Evangelus, whom he accuses of shallowness in a Vergilian discussion)
ita adhuc Vergilianos habere versus, qualiter eos pueri magistris
praelegentibus canebamus’; and Suet. _Gram._ 16.
[373] Cf. Quintil. i. 8. 1.
[374] Rutherford, _History of Annotation_, p. 12, quoted Murray, _Religio
Grammatici_, p. 16.
[375] Ibid.
[376]
Tu flexu et acumine vocis
innumeros numeros doctis accentibus effer
adfectusque impone legens. Distinctio sensum
auget, et ignavis dant intervalla vigorem.’—_Protrep._ 47 ff.
[377] Quint. i. 8. 13; Aug. _Confess._ i. 14. 23.
[378] Hor. _Ep._ ii. 1. 71.
[379] Ozanam, _Hist. of Civilization in Fifth Century_, i. 202.
[380] Walde, _Lat. etymol. Wörterb._, 1910, derives it from _tendo_.
[381] Cf. Murray, _Religio Grammatici_, pp. 16 ff., for Dionysius’s six
departments of Grammatikê.
[382] _Aen._ i. 45.
[383] Aul. Gell. xiii. 21. 10-11, 16.
[384] _Aen._ x. 18.
[385] _Aen._ i.
[386] Cf. Keil, _Gram. Lat._ iv, Praef. xxxvi.
[387] _Hier. Chron._, _An._ 358; Migne, _Pat. Lat._ xxvii. 687.
[388] Keil, _Grammatici Latini_, iv. 353 ff. Cf. Quintil. i. 8. 14.
[389] Ozanam, _op. cit._, i. 203.
[390] _Ep._ v. 16. 3. He may be the same as the Argicius or Agricius of
Auson. _Prof._ xvi. 6.
[391] Keil, _Gram. Lat._, Supplement, p. 187.
[392] Keil, _op. cit._, vii. 376 ff. Krumbacher speaks of its text as
‘durch den Schulgebrauch jedenfalls vielfach abgeschliffen’, _Rhein.
Mus._ xxxix, p. 352.
[393] Migne, _Pat. Lat._ xxiii. 952 ‘Legamus Varronis de Antiquitatibus
libros et Si(se)nnii Capitonis ... caeterosque eruditissimos viros’.
Capito was probably a junior contemporary of Varro. See Hertz, _Sinnius
Capito_, pp. 6-13.
[394] Funaioli, _Gram. Rom. Frag._ (1907), p. 457. Cf. Gell. v. 21. 6.
[395] Funaioli, _op. cit._, p. 461.
[396] _Op. cit._, p. 459; Keil, _Gram. Lat._ v. 110.
[397] Funaioli, _op. cit._
[398] _Op. cit._ 462 ‘Hoc versu Lucili significari ait Sinnius Capito’,
&c.
[399] _Op. cit._ 464.
[400] _Op. cit._ 460.
[401] _Op. cit._ 465.
[402] _Op. cit._ 462.
[403] See Teuffel-Schwabe, transl. Warr, pp. 538 ff.
[404] Cf. Keil, _Gram. Lat._ vii. 49, 51, 80, 266.
[405] _Gram._ 19.
[406] _Privatalterthümer_, p. 328.
[407] _Grundriss der röm. Litt._, p. 721.
[408] _De Re Rustica_, i. 2. 1.
[409] ‘Cogor et e tabula pictos ediscere mundos’, v. 3. 37.
[410] _Nat. Hist._ ii. 75.
[411] Bulaeus, _Hist. Univ. Paris._ i. 19.
[412] So Agrippa made a map of the world (Plin. _N. H._ iii. 2) which
was put up in the Porticus Vipsania ‘tempore Augusti’, and it is thought
that he wrote geographical commentaries which became the basis of Pliny’s
remarks on the subject. See Cantor, _Die röm. Agrimensoren_, p. 84.
[413] ‘Videat praeterea in illis porticibus iuventus et cotidie spectet
omnes terras et cuncta maria et quidquid invictissimi principes urbium,
gentium, nationum, aut restituunt aut virtute devincunt aut terrore
devinciunt’, _Pan. Lat._ xi. 20.
[414] Cf. Seneca, _Ep._ i. 6.
[415] _Pan. Lat._ xi. 20. Cf. 21 ‘Orbem spectare depictum’.
[416] Ch. 2.
[417] _Voyage dans le Midi de la France_, i. 340.
[418] _Parent._ iv. 17.
[419] Sid. _Ep._ iv. 3. 5.
[420] _Carm._ xxii, Intro.
[421] ‘Cuius collegio vir praefectus non modo musicos quosque, verum
etiam geometras arithmeticos et astrologos disserendi arte supervenit, si
quidem nullum hoc exactius compertum habere censuerim quid sidera zodiaci
obliqua, quid planetarum vaga ... praevaleant’, _Carm._ xxii, Intro.
[422] Quintil. i. 4. 4 ‘nec si rationem siderum ignoret poetas
intelligat’.
[423] Jullian, _Rev. internat. de l’Enseignement_, 1893, p. 43.
[424] Cf. Auson. _Prof._ xxvi ‘poeticus stylus’, and the productions of
the _Panegyrici Latini_. The _Grammatici Latini_, on the other hand,
amply illustrate the prosiness of the grammarian.
[425] Cf. Denk, _Gallo-fränk. Unterrichts- u. Bildungswesen_, p. 133.
[426] _Confess._ i. 17.
[427] _Dictiones_, xxviii.
[428] Ibid. xxvi.
[429] Ennodius, _Dict._ xx.
[430] ‘Titianus et Calvus ... qui themata omnia de Vergilio elicuerunt
et deformarunt ad dicendi usum, in exemplo controversiarum has duas
posuerunt adlocutiones, dicentes Venerem agere statu absolutivo,
cum dicit Iunoni “causa fuisti periculorum his quibus Italiam fata
concesserant”; Iunonem vero niti statu relativo, per quem ostendit
Troianos non sua causa laborare sed Veneris’, _Verg._ x. 18.
[431] _Artis Rhetoricae_ lib. iii.
[432] _Institutiones Oratoriae._
[433] ‘Contuli in ordinem ea quae fere de oratoria arte traduntur,
secundum institutum magistrorum meorum ... ita tamen ut ex arbitrio meo
aliqua praeterirem, pleraque ordine immutato referrem, non nulla ex aliis
quae necessaria videbantur insererem’, Pref. (Teuffel-Schwabe, ii, § 427.
6).
[434] Cf. the _Suasoriae_ with the _Dictiones_ of Ennodius.
[435] e.g. Liban. _Ep._ 1313, ed. Reiske.
[436] Philostrat. _Via Soph._, p. 8, ed. Kayser.
[437] Seeck’s ed. of the _Letters_, p. 309.
[438] I owe the suggestion that the _Rhetores Graeci_ might serve as
illustrations of the rhetorical methods of the time to Prof. J. A. Smith
of Magdalen.
[439] Quintil. i. 9.
[440] Blümner, _Privatalterthümer_, 327.
[441] Quintil. i. 10. 1.
[442] Theon. _Prog._ i. Cf. Quintil, i. 9 ‘Adiciamus eorum (i.e.
Grammaticorum) curae quaedam dicendi primordia, quibus aetates nondum
rhetorem capientes instituant’.
[443] _Ep._ 985.
[444] _De Theone Hermogene Aphthonioque Progymnasmatum Scriptoribus_, p.
14.
[445] Ibid., p. 34.
[446] Ibid., p. 24.
[447] Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. Aphthonius.
[448] _Rhetores Graeci_, vol. ii, ed. Spengel.
[449] _Instit._ ii. 4.
[450] Strange. Perhaps the meaning is bright like flowers, brilliant,
pointed. But more likely, as Prof. Murray has pointed out to me, the
author is thinking of embroidery. The boy’s composition must be rich like
a gold-embroidered cloth, but also compact like a pattern.
[451] Conringius, _De Antiquis Academiis_, i. 17; Gothofredus, _Ad
Rescriptum Gratiani Anni_ 376; Ritter, _Ad Cod. Theod._ xiii. 3. 11.
[452] _Scriptt. Hist. Aug._ iii, ch. 11, ed. Peter.
[453] _Euchar._ 67.
[454] _Prof._ xxvi.
[455] _Prof._ xv.
[456]
Hinc etiam placidis schola consona disciplinis
dogmaticas agitat placido certamine lites,
hinc omnis certat dialectica turba sophorum.—_Eclog._ iv. 15.
[457] _Ep._ ix. 9. 15.
[458] _Carm._ xv. 41.—Cf. ii. 156 ff.
[459] _Ep._ iv. 1. 2.
[460] ‘Voluptuosissimum reputans si forte oborta quarumpiam quaestionum
insolubilitate labyrinthica scientiae suae thesauri eventilarentur’,
_Ep._ iv. 11.
[461] _Ep._ iv. 9. 1. Cf. iii. 6. 2 ‘Vos consectanei vestri Plotini
dogmatibus inhaerentes ad profundum intempestivae quietis otium
Platonicorum palaestra rapuisset’. _Carm._ xiv, Intro. ‘tibi et
complatonicis tuis nota sunt’.
[462] _Ep._ ix. 9. 13.
[463] _Hist. de la France mérid._ i. 410.
[464] _Carm._ xiv, Intro.
[465] E. W. Watson, _Hilary of Poitiers_, p. iv (Nicene and post-Nicene
Fathers).
[466] Ibid.
[467] Tac. _Agr._ 4.
[468] Puech, _De Paulini Nolani Ausoniique Epistolarum Commercio_.
[469] _Eclog._ ii.
[470] e.g. _Prof._ xxiii. 13 ‘sensus si manibus ullus’; xxvi. 7 ‘si qua
functis cura viventum placet’.
[471] _Carm._ xiv, Intro., ‘Igitur, quoniam tui amoris studio inductus,
_homo Gallus_ scholae sophisticae intromisi materiam, vel te potissimum
facti mei deprecatorem requiro’.
[472] ‘Lecturus es hic etiam novum verbum id est, essentiam; sed scias
hoc ipsum dixisse Ciceronem’, Ibid.
[473] Jung, _De Scholis Rom. in Gallia Comata_, Paris, 1855, pp. 8 ff.
[474] _Sat._ vii. 147 and xv. 111.
[475] _Toxaris_, 24.
[476] _Prof._ xxvi.
[477]
Exesas tineis opicasque evolvere chartas
maior quam promptis cura tibi in studiis.—_Prof._ xxii.
[478] _Hist. de la Gaule_, i. 407. Of the state of Roman law in the fifth
century and its relation to Christianity, Ozanam gives a fine but biased
account, _History of Civilization in the Fifth Century_, i. 152 ff.
[479]
Quo bis sex tabulas docente iuris
ultro Claudius Appius lateret
claro obscurior in decemviratu.—_Carm._ xxiii. 447.
[480] Ibid. 465.
[481] Sidon. _Ep._ ii. 5; v. 1; viii. 1.
[482] _Ep._ viii. 69. Cf. v. 14 ‘Lectissimorum iuvenum Titiani atque
Helpidi praeceptor adseruit ... esse in illis scientiam iuris idoneam
nimis in omnes usus iudiciarii et forensis officii’.
[483] _Ep._ i. 6. 2.
[484] _De Reditu_, i. 77.
[485] Cf. _De Reditu_, ii. 55, 59 ‘Hic (Stilicho) immortalem, mortalem
perculit ille (Nero)’.
[486] _De Reditu_, i. 134 ‘Solaque fatales non vereare colos’.
[487] Cf. i. 157 ‘Regerem cum iura Quirini’.
[488] _De Reditu_, i. 209. Cf. Aug. _Confess._ vi. 8 ‘Romam praecesserat
ut ius disceret’.
[489] ‘Atque ut in eum perfectio literarum plena conflueret, post
auditoria Gallicana intra urbem Romam iuris scientiam plenitudini
perfectionis adiecit’, _Vita S. Germani_, _Bolland_, July, vii, p. 202.
Cf. Cassiodor. _Var._ x. 7.
[490] Cf. Ritter, _Comment. on Cod. Theod._ xiv. 9. 1.
[491] His name is generally given as Mamertinus. He was probably a Gaul
like the other panegyrists, for Gaul was the usual residence of Maximian
at the time. § 9 shows that the orator is speaking in a northern province.
[492] _Pan. Lat._ xi. 9.
[493] _De Scholis Rom. in Gallia Comata_, p. 8.
[494] Cf. Fauriel, _op. cit._, i. 407.
[495] ‘Summa itaque ope et alacri studio has leges nostras accipite et
vosmet ipsos sic eruditos ostendite ut spes vos pulcherrima foveat, toto
legitimo opere perfecto, posse etiam nostram rempublicam in partibus eius
vobis credendis gubernare’, _Proem. Iustin. Instit._, ed. Krueger, vol.
i. Cf. _Inst._ ii. 7. 20 ff. Imperial titles reserved for advocates when
they cease to practise, &c. For an account of the teaching of law see
Modderman, _Handboek voor het Romeinsch Recht_ (3rd ed.), i. 42, 60.
[496] Bury-Gibbon, ii. 172.
[497] _Antecessor_, used in late Latin in the sense of ‘teacher’. Cf.
Tertull. _Adv. Marcionem_, i. 20 ‘ab illo certe Paulo qui ... tunc primum
cum antecessoribus apostolis conferebat’ (_Corp. Script. Eccl. Lat._
xlvii, p. 315).
[498] Cf. Aul. Gell. _N. A._ xiii. 10.
[499] Justin. _Digest._ I. ii.
[500] Justinian, _Corpus Iuris Civilis_, vol. ii, ed. Krueger, ii. 7. 11.
[501] _Corp. Iur. Civ._, _l.c._, 23 ff.
[502] xxx. 4. 8 ff.
[503] Ibid.
[504] _Ep._ ii. 1. 2.
[505] _Ep._ vi. 3.
[506] _Gesch. des gallo-fränk. Unterrichts- u. Bildungswesens_, p. 78.
[507] The Schola Medicorum on the Esquiline (_C. I. L._ vi. 5. 978) is
rejected by Reinach, _Dict. des Antiquités_, s.v. Medicus.
[508] _Prof._ xxvi.
[509] ‘Crinas quidam, Nerone Claudio imperatore, primus, ut creditur,
medicinae scientiam atque usum in schola Massiliensi provexit: et ita in
eo studio profecit ut si cum aliis eiusdem artis professoribus conferatur
longe omnes superasse videatur’, Bulaeus, _Hist. Univ. Parisiensis_,
i. 19. See also Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xxix. 1. 5, where he also mentions
Charmis, another Massilian. Cf. Galen, viii. 727, xiii. 855, for the
Massilian oculist Demosthenes.
[510] Galen, vol. xiv, p. 177 (ed. Kühn), περὶ ἀντιδότων. Cf. περὶ
συνθέσεως φαρμάκων, vol. xiii, p. 71.
[511] ‘Nec solum veteres medicinae artis auctores ... cui rei operam
uterque Plinius et Apuleius ... aliique non nulli, etiam proximo tempore
illustres nonoribus viri, cives ac maiores nostri Siburius, Eutropius
atque Ausonius commodarunt, lectione scrutatus sum ...’, Marcellus, _De
Medicamentis_, ed. Helmreich. For the power which these doctors had at
the imperial court v. _Hist. litt. de la France_, ii. 49.
[512] Cf. Galen, vol. xiv, p. 459 (ed. Kühn).
[513] See Geyer on ‘Traces of Gallic Latin in Marcellus’, _Archiv für
lat. Lexicographie_, viii. 4, p. 419.
[514] _Hist. litt. de la France_, ii. 52.
[515] _Parent._ vi.
[516] Daremberg-Saglio, s.v. Medicus.
[517] _Cod. Theod._ xiii. 3. 3.
[518] See p. 87, _supra_, n. 3.
[519] _Nat. Hist._ xxix. 1. 8.
[520] _Ep. ad Traian._ v, ed. Kukula.
[521] Ael. Spart. _Vita Hadr._ 25.
[522] ‘Medicinae autem ... ita studia augentur in dies ut, licet
opus ipsum refellat, pro omni tamen experimento sufficiat medico ad
commendandam artis auctoritatem, si Alexandriae se dixerit eruditum’,
Ammian. xxii. 16. 18.
[523] Quoted Denk, _op. cit._, p. 139.
[524] Cf. Martial, v. 9, to the doctor after treatment: ‘non habui
febrem, Symmache, nunc habeo’.
[525] Cantor, _Die röm. Agrimensoren_, p. 139.
[526] _Cod. Theod._ ii. 26. 1 (A.D. 330); ii. 26. 4 (A.D. 385).
[527] _Cod. Theod._ vi. 34 (A.D. 405).
[528] Mommsen, in _Die Schriften der röm. Feldmesser_, ii. 174.
[529] Ibid. i. 50. So Aggenus Urbicus, who probably lived in the fourth
century.
[530] Ibid. i. 29. Gaul is frequently mentioned in the writings of these
_agrimensores_, e.g. i. 29, 136, 307, 353, 368, &c.
[531] _Ecl._ x. Cf. another version, _Ecl._ xi.
[532] _Ecl._ xiii.
[533] _Ecl._ xiv.
[534] _Ecl._ xv.
[535] _Ecl._ xix.
[536] _Ecl._ xx, xxi.
[537] _Ecl._ xxv.
[538] _Ecl._ ii. 184 (ed. Peiper).
[539] _Ecl._ iii, ibid.
[540] _Ecl._ iv, ibid.
[541] _De Orat._ ii. 86.
[542] _Instit._ xi. 2. 1.
[543] _De Orat._ ii. 87.
[544] e.g. _Carm._ ix. 260 ff.
[545] Cf. Denk, _op. cit._, p. 134.
[546] _Protrep._, p. 261.
[547] _Instit._ xi. 2. 34.
[548] _Instit._ xi. 2. 21.
[549] _Instit._ xi. 2. 18 ff.
[550] _Prof._ i. 21-30.
[551] _Prof._ xvi. 13.
[552] Cf. Newman, _Idea of a University_, p. 127, ‘Memory is the first
developed of the mental faculties’, and ff.
[553] _Ep._ 1119. Cf. _Orat._ iii, p. 436 (ed. Reiske). It is interesting
to compare in this connexion Athenian school records of the classical
period, in which there is no evidence that children were beaten, with the
mime of Herondas, in which the flogging of a boy is elaborately described.
[554] _Confess._ i. 8 ff.
[555] Ch. 12.
[556] Cf. also _Confess._ i. 16, 17.
[557] Cf. _Mosella_, 85 ff.
[558]
Ergo notas scripto, tolerasti, Pergame, vultu,
et quas neglexit dextera, frons patitur.—_Epigr._ xxxvi, p. 325.
[559] _Protrep._ 5.
[560] _Protrep._ 9.
[561] This is the accepted reading, though the ‘o’ of Chiron should of
course be long. There is a _varia lectio_ ‘Achillea Chiron’. Glover
remarks that Ausonius was prone to metrical blunders.
[562] _Sat._ vii. 210 ‘metuens virgae iam grandis Achilles’.
[563]
Tu quoque ne metuas, quamvis schola verbere multo
increpet et truculenta senex gerat ora magister ...
... nec te clamor plagaeque sonantes
nec matutinis agitet formido sub horis.—_Protrep._ 24.
[564] _Protrep._ 33. The flogging tradition persisted in the schools of
Europe more or less unaltered at least thirteen centuries after Ausonius.
[565] _Ep._ ii. 10, v. 5.
[566] _Ep._ iv. 1. 3.
[567] _Or._ i, p. 171 (Reiske).
[568] Aug. _Confess._ i. 17.
[569] Libanius complains of the conduct of his students, _Or._ i. 199.
The lecture was often interrupted by cries, i. 63. Cf. _Ep._ 348 ἐγένετο
θόρυβος καὶ κρότος.
[570] Sievers, _Das Leben des Libanios_, p. 36, quoting Greg. Naz. _Or._
xx.
[571] _Protrep._ 70.
[572] _Eucharisticon_, 55 ff.
[573] Auson. _Ep._ xxx. 30 ff.
[574] Ibid. 39. Cf. the rest of the poem.
[575] _Carm._ ix. 312.
[576] _Ep._ iii. 1. 1.
[577] See Grasberger, _Erziehung und Unterricht im klass. Alterthum_, i.
28-163.
[578] _Confess._ i. 19.
[579] _Euchar._ 145.
[580] _Confess._ i. 9.
[581] _Saint Augustin_, transl., p. 39.
[582] Bertrand, _op. cit._, p. 42.
[583] _Confess_, i. 10.
[584] _Confess._ ii. 9.
[585] _Ep._ i. 2.
[586] _Ep._ ii. 9. 4.
[587] _Ep._ iii. 2. 3.
[588] _Euchar._ 122-34.
[589] _Ep._ i. 2. 5.
[590] viii. 6. 12.
[591] _Ep._ iii. 3. 2.
[592] _Ep._ ii. 2. 12; ii. 12. 1.
[593] _Carm._ xxi.
[594] _Ep._ ii. 2. 19.
[595] _Ep._ ii. 2. 15.
[596] _Ep._ ii. 9. 4.
[597] _Ep._ v. 17. 7.
[598] On the various forms of ball games, as far as they are known, see
Grasberger, _op. cit._, i. 89-96.
[599] _C. I. L._ xii. 4501.
[600] Sid. _Ep._ i. 11. 10.
[601] ‘(Ex quorum usur)is omnibus annis ... (ludi) athletar(um) aut
circen(ses ederen)tur’, _C. I. L._ xii. 670.
[602] _C. I. L._ xii. 1585.
[603] _C. I. L._ xii. 410.
[604] _Ep._ iv. 22.
[605] Cic. _Tusc._ iv. 33 (70).
[606] _Rep._ iv. 4. Cf. Plutarch, _Cato_, xx. 7.
[607] _Ep._ lxxxviii. 18 ‘luctatores et totam oleo ac luto constantem
scientiam expello ex his studiis liberalibus’.
[608] _Instit._ i. 11. 15.
[609] Pliny, _Pan._ 13.
[610] _Gallo-fränk. ... Bildungswesen_, p. 93.
[611] _Hist. Univ. Par._ i. 29.
[612] Ibid. p. 25. He says of Autun _before the Romans came_: ‘Ibi etiam
nobiles adulescentes cum schola coniunctam palaestram habebant’.
[613] _Ann._ iii. 43.
[614] _Ep._ ii. 2. 6.
[615] _Ep._ viii. 7. 2.
[616] _Instit._ i. 11. 15 ff.
[617] _Ep._ i. 5. 10, i. 6. 2.
[618] _Gesch. der Erziehung_, i. 481.
[619] ‘Spectavit assidue exercentes ephebos, quorum aliqua adhuc copia ex
vetere instituto Capreis erat’, Suet. _Aug._ 98.
[620] Cf. Cramer, _l.c._
[621] Eumen. _Pro Instaur. Scholis_, 7. For a detailed discussion of the
site see Bulaeus’s _Hist. Univ. Par._ i. 33. Cf. Denk, _Gallo-fränk.
Unterricht_, p. 91.
[622] Wissowa, _Röm. Mittheilungen_, v. 1890; i. p. 3.
[623] Eumen., _op. cit._, 21.
[624] Sen. _Ep._ i. 6.
[625] Blümner, _Röm. Privatalterthümer_, p. 320. Cf. Hettner, _Führer
durch d. Provincialmuseum zu Trier_, p. 21.
[626] _Euchar._ 65 ff.
[627] _Ep._ v. 4.
[628] Jullian, _op. cit._, p. 30. Cf. _Cod. Theod._, _passim_.
[629] _Scriptt. Hist. Aug._ iv. 2.
[630] Prima creterra litteratoris rudimento excitat, secunda grammatici
doctrina instruit, tertia rhetoris eloquentia armat. Hactenus a plerisque
potatur’, _Florida_, 20 (ed. Helm).
[631] _Confess._ i. 13.
[632] verses 63 ff.
[633] _Prof._ x.
[634] Cf. _Prof._ x. 5-10.
[635] Cf. Glover, _Life and Letters in Fourth Century_, 106, who quotes
Suet. _Gram._ 4; Gell. xvi. 6; Macrob. _Sat._ v. 19, 31.
[636] _Prof._ xxii. Cf. Cic. _ad Fam._ ix. 18 ‘Sella tibi erit in ludo
tamquam hypodidascalo proxima’. Aug. _Confess._ viii. 6 ‘Nebridius autem
amicitiae nostrae cesserat ut ... verecundo ... grammatico _subdoceret_’.
[637] _Prof._ xxii. 17.
[638] _Prof._ i.
[639] _Revue intern. de l’Enseignement_, 1893, pp. 31 ff.
[640] _Euchar._ 72.
[641] _Protrep._, _l.c._, ‘lactantibus annis’.
[642] _Euchar._ 121.
[643] MSS. have _invitus_, _impurius_. Cole (_Later Roman Education_,
1909) conjectures _imperitus_, which certainly gives much better sense.
[644] _Cod. Theod._, ed. Mommsen and Meyer, xiv. 9. 1.
[645] Ritter, _ad Cod. Theod._ xiv. 9. 1.
[646] _Prof._ xvii.
[647] ‘Grammaticus circa curam sermonis versatur, et, si latius evagari
vult, circa historias, iam ut longissime fines suos proferat, circa
carmina (i.e. metrical studies: “Versuum lex ac modificatio”)’, Sen.
_Ep._ xiii. 3. 3.
[648]
Quot commissa viris Romana Albanaque fata,
quotque doces horis quotque domi resides.—_Ep._ xviii. 9. 10.
[649] ‘Jeder trieb was er wollte, wie er wollte, in vielen oder wenigen
Stunden’, _op. cit._, p. 122.
[650] Sievers, _Libanios_, p. 23.
[651] ‘Antemeridianas horas discipuli occupant’, _Confess._ vi. 11.
[652] _Cod. Theod._ xiv. 9. 1.
[653] Sidon. _Ep._ ii. 2.
[654] _Confess._ i. 16.
[655] Liban. _Ep._ 304.
[656] _Ep._ iv. 11. 1.
[657] _Protrep._ 1 ff.
[658] _Ep._ ii. 2.
[659] _Eclog._ xxiv.
[660] _De Spectac._ 7.
[661] Bulaeus, _Hist. Univ. Par._ i. 41 ff.
[662] Sid. _Ep._ viii. 6. 5.
[663] _Ep._ v. 17. 6.
[664] Daremberg-Saglio, s.v. Feriae.
[665] _Cod. Theod._ ii. 8. 1.
[666] _Cod. Theod._ ii. 8. 18.
[667] ‘Illos tantum manere feriarum dies fas erit quos geminis mensibus
ad requiem laboris indulgentior annus accepit, aestivis fervoribus
mitigandis aut autumnis fetibus decerpendis. Kalendarum quoque
Ianuariarum consuetos dies otio mancipamus. His adicimus natalicios dies
urbium maximarum Romae atque Constantinopolis....’, _Cod. Theod._ ii. 8.
19.
[668] _Cod. Theod._ ii. 18. 20. Cf. _Cod. Theod._ ii. 8. 23, 25 (A.D.
409).
[669] _Cod. Theod._ ii. 2. 21; ii. 18. 19.
[670] Cf. the Christian Calendar 448, _C. I. L._ i, p. 335. Dedicated by
Polemius Silvius to Eucherius. It shows nineteen pagan festivals.
[671] Cf. Aug. _Confess._ vi. 2. Monnica still practises pagan rites.
[672] Cf. the marks ‘N’ (_nefastus_), ‘NP’ (= N. F. P., _Nefas, feriae
publicae_), put opposite the festival days in the calendar.
[673] Aug. _Confess._ ix. 2. Jullian includes the Vindemia in his
calendar for the fourth century. Gothofredus (_ad Cod. Theod._ ii. 8. 18)
notes that these holidays were movable. ‘Statae hae feriae non fuerunt
verum ex consuetudine cuiusque loci praesides provinciarum has ferias
statuebant.’
[674] Martial, x. 62.
[675] Liban. _Or._ i. 199; _Ep._ 382.
[676] Liban. _Ep._ 394; Sievers, _op. cit._, pp. 26 ff.
[677] Liban. _Or._ ii. 277. It was regarded as part of the boy’s
education to learn how to behave at funerals.
[678] Liban. _Or._ ii. 271.
[679] Sidon. _Ep._ i. 5. 10.
[680] _Ep._ i. 9. 1.
[681] Aul. Gell. _N. A._ i. 9. 12. Bulaeus’s reference to a law of
Charondas in this connexion rests on a false interpretation of Diodor.
xii. 13.
[682] _Rhetor._ 6.
[683] ‘Nullius boni sine socio iucunda possessio est ... plus ... tibi
et viva vox et convictus quam oratio proderit.... Zenonem Cleanthes
non expressisset si tantummodo audisset: vitae eius interfuit, secreta
perspexit, observavit illum, an ex formula sua viveret’, _Ep._ i. 6. 4.
[684] Gell. _N. A._ iii. 19.
[685] ‘Sicuti nuperrime aput mensam cum legerentur utraque simul Bucolica
Theocriti et Vergilii, animadvertimus reliquisse Vergilium quod Graecum
quidem mire quam suave est, verti autem neque debuit neque potuit’, Gell.
_ib._ ix. 9.
[686] Bulaeus, _Hist. Univ. Par._ i. 77.
[687] Suet. _Gram._ 17.
[688] _Epigr._ v. 56.
[689] Strabo, iv. 181. Cf. Jung, _De Scholis Romanis in Gallia Comata_,
p. 20.
[690] ‘Oratoribus viginti quattuor annonarum e fisco emolumenta donentur,
grammaticis Latino vel Graeco duodecim annonarum, deductior paulo numerus
ex more, praestetur, ut singulis urbibus quae metropoles nuncupantur
nobilium professorum electio celebretur, nec vero iudicamus liberum
ut sit cuique civitati suos doctores et magistros placito sibi iuvare
compendio’, _Cod. Theod._ xiii. 3. 11.
[691] Annona, a day’s ration, ἡμερήσιον. A common way of reckoning
salaries. Cf. Ammian. xxii. 4 ‘Tonsor quidam interrogans quid haberet in
arte compendii, vicenas diurnas respondit annonas’.
[692] _Cod. Theod._ xiii. 3. 5.
[693] These are treated together here because they always appear together
in the Theodosian Code.
[694] _Ep._ i. 79, v. 35 (Seeck) ‘Romanae iuventutis magistris subsidia
detracta’, Cassiodor. _Var._ ix. 21.
[695] _Op. cit._, p. 122.
[696] Cf. Cassiodor. _Var._ ix. 21 ‘Cognovimus ... aliquorum nundinatione
fieri ut scholarum magistris deputata summa videatur imminui’.
[697] _Prof._ xviii.
[698] _Prof._ xix.
[699] _Prof._ xvii.
[700] _Pro Instaur. Schol._ 11.
[701] _Prof._ xvii. 7.
[702] Cf. the Strenae to Ursulus, _supra_.
[703] iii. 2. 18. Referred to by Bulaeus, _op. cit._, i. 72.
[704] vii. 165.
[705] _Op. cit._, i. 72.
[706] _Prof._ xvii:
Pueros grandi mercede docendi
formasti rhetor.
[707] Liban. _Or._ ii, p. 279.
[708] Ibid. i. 199; Sievers, _Liban._, p. 26.
[709] _Cod. Theod._ xiv. 9. 3.
[710] _Cod. Theod._ xiii. 3. 11.
[711] ‘Dagegen findet man nirgends eine Spur von einem Schuldirektor
unter dessen Leitung die Lehrer ein bestimmtes Ziel in gemeinsamer Arbeit
verfolgt hätten’, _op. cit._, p. 122.
[712] Caesar, _B. G._ vi. 13 ‘His autem omnibus Druidibus praeest unus’.
[713] _Op. cit._, p. 43.
[714] _Prof._ x. 11.
[715] _Prof._ viii. 10.
[716] _Parent._ iii. 9, 10. Cf. verse 19 ‘postquam _primis_ placui tibi
traditus _annis_’.
[717] _Parent._ iii. 15; _Prof._ xvi. 15, 17.
[718] _Prof._ i. 11, 25, 38.
[719] _Prof._ iii. 1.
[720] _Prof._ ii. 28 ‘amoris hoc crimen tui est’.
[721] _Prof._ v. 3.
[722] _Prof._ xx. 5.
[723] Except his tutor Arborius.
[724] _Prof._ vii-xiii, xviii, xxi, xxii, xxiv.
[725] _Prof._ xv.
[726] _Prof._ x. 51 ‘gloriolam exilem ... perdidit in senio’.
[727] _Op. cit._
[728] Cf. _Prof._ xxiv. 6 ‘meque dehinc facto rhetore,’ etc.
[729] _Op. cit._, p. 122.
[730] Trans. Hazlitt, i. 291.
[731] _Cambridge Mediaeval History_, i. 30.
[732] As the _Notitia Imperii Romani_ shows.
[733] _Cambridge Mediaeval History_, i. 48.
[734] _Prof._ i.
[735] For instances see _Cambridge Mediaeval History_, i. 396.
[736] Guizot, _op. cit._, i. 301 ff. Cf. Denk, _op. cit._, p. 164.
[737] Cf. the frequent flight of curiales, and the laws in the _Cod.
Theod._ about it. Also the harsh personal restrictions. A curial could
not sell slaves or land except by permission of the governor of the
province, _Cod. Theod._ xii. 3. 1. He could not bequeath his fortune to
a man in another curia except by payment of a heavy duty to his original
curia, _Cod. Theod._ xii. 1. 107. Emperors condemn miscreants, e.g. men
who have rendered themselves unfit for military service by chopping off
their thumbs, to enrolment in a curia, _Cambridge Mediaeval History_, i.
555.
[738] _Cambridge Mediaeval History_, i. 547; cf. p. 51, ‘Egress from
inherited membership was inhibited by the Government except in rare
instances’.
[739] _Cambridge Mediaeval History_, i. 70.
[740] Cf. the description of Seronatus who descends on the pale
country folk ‘ceu draco e specu’, Sidon. _Ep._ v. 13. Even the rich
have officials and taxes on the brain. At the feast of St. Just it is
specially mentioned as a blessing (_beatissimum_) that there was no talk
‘de potestatibus aut de tributis’, Sid. _Ep._ v. 17. 5.
[741] _Cambridge Mediaeval History_, i. 51.
[742] _Cod. Theod._ xiv. 9. 1.
[743] Guizot, _op. cit._, i. 315. Cf. Vinogradoff in _Cambridge Mediaeval
History_, i. 567.
[744] ‘Singulis quibusque dignitatibus certum locum meritumque
praescribsit (_sic_). Si quis igitur indebitum sibi locum usurpaverit,
nulla se ignoratione defendat, sitque plane sacrilegii reus, qui divina
praecepta neglexerit’, _Cod. Theod._ vi. 5. 2.
[745] _Leges Visigothorum_, ed. Zeumer, e.g. v. 4. 11, 7. 10, 7. 17.
[746] Jullian, _op. cit._, pp. 33 ff.
[747] ‘Toutes les classes se retrouvaient égales quand il s’agissait
d’apprendre ou d’enseigner; les rangs se nivelaient à l’école’, ibid.
[748] Denk, _Gallo-fränk. Unterrichts- u. Bildungswesen_, p. 165.
[749] _Röm. Gesch._ i. 892.
[750] _Hist. de France_, i. 3. 391.
[751] Aus. _Ep._ xiv. 95.
[752] _Protrep._ 40.
[753] _l.c._ The students at Autun are ‘frequentia _honestissimae_
iuventutis’, _Pro Instaur. Schol._ 5.
[754] ‘Libertinae condicionis homines, numquam ad honores vel palatinam
adspirare militiam permittemus’, _Cod. Theod._ iv. 10. 3.
[755] e.g. _Cod. Theod._ xii. 19. 3. The heads of the classes (_ordines_)
are warned not to let fugitives from the ‘curiae’ or ‘collegia’ hang
about.
[756] _Cod. Theod._ xiv. 1. 1.
[757] _Cod. Theod._ iv. 6. 3, A.D. 336. For an illustration of these
marriage laws in practice see the instance in Sidon. _Ep._ v. 19. The
most heinous offence, of course, was the marriage between a slave and
his mistress, the penalty being death (_Cod. Theod._ ix. 9. 1). Cf. the
marriage laws in the Southern States of America.
[758] Special privileges are given to those who remain thirty years
without a break in one place. ‘Eum, qui curiae vel collegio vel burgis
ceterisque corporibus per triginta annos sine interpellatione servierit
res dominica (imperial) vel intentio privata non inquietabit ... sed in
curia vel corpore in quo servierit remaneat’, Justin. xi. 66. 6. _Cod.
Theod._ xii. 19. 2, to the prefect of the Gauls, A.D. 400. Cf. xii. 19.
3, also to the prefect of the Gauls. For the ‘coloni’ see _Cod. Theod._
v. 17 and 18.
[759] Vinogradoff in _Cambridge Mediaeval History_, i. 553.
[760] _Cod. Theod._ xiv. 9. 1 ‘his dumtaxat exceptis qui corporatorum
sunt oneribus adiuncti’.
[761] ‘Si quis originarius intra hos triginta annos (i.e. within a period
of thirty years before the passing of the law) de possessione discessit,
sive per fugam labsus seu sponte seu sollicitatione transductus, ... eum,
contradictione submota, loco cui natus est cum origine (family) iubemus
sine dilatione restitui’, _Cod. Theod._ v. 18. 1.
[762] ‘Ipsos etiam colonos qui fugam meditantur, in servilem condicionem
ferro ligari conveniet, ut officia quae liberis congruunt merito servilis
condemnationis compellantur implere’, _Cod. Theod._ v. 17. 1.
[763] _Cod. Theod._ vi. 20.
[764] Sidon. _Ep._ v. 17 ‘Cum passim varia ordinum corpora
dispergerentur’.
[765] _Pro Instaur. Scholis._ 15 (_ad fin._) and 16.
[766] _Ep._ i. 6. 4.
[767] Cf. the studious Hesperius, who, from his friends, must have been a
nobleman, and is contrasted with the ‘turba imperitorum’, _Ep._ ii. 10. 6.
[768] ‘Plebeiam numeros docere pulpam’, _Ep._ xiv. 95. Cf. Introd.
of Griphus dedicated to Symmachus. The author omits all antiquarian
treatment of his subject ‘et quidquid profanum vulgus ignorat’.
[769] _Ep._ viii. 2. 2.
[770] _Op. cit._, p. 48.
[771] Cf. the instance of the workman at Silchester who scratched the
word ‘satis’ on his work at the end of the day. ‘Casual scratchings on
tiles or pots, which can often be assigned to the lower classes, prove
that Latin was both read and spoken easily in Silchester and Caerwent’
(fourth century). Haverfield, _Cambridge Mediaeval History_, i. 375.
[772] Large, but hardly disproportionate. In England to-day the number of
elementary teachers compared with post-elementary is about ten to one.
[773] Cf. _Cod. Theod._ xiv. 9. 3. Eight ‘rhetores’ and twenty
‘grammatici’. This, however, was at Constantinople. At Trèves the numbers
were about equal, _Cod. Theod._ xiii. 3. 11.
[774] Sievers, _Liban._, p. 39.
[775] _Italorum Epigram._ xv.
[776] _Prof._ ii. 15.
[777]
Comis convivis, nunquam inclamare clientes,
ad famulos nunquam tristia verba loqui.—_Prof._ iii. 11.
[778] _Prof._ i. 31.
[779]
Nullo felle tibi mens livida, tum sale multo
lingua dicax blandis et sine lite iocis.—_Prof._ i. 31.
Patera is ‘Salibus modestus felle nullo perlitis’, _Prof._ iv. 19.
[780]
Facete comis animo iuvenali senex
cui felle nullo, melle multo mens madens.—_Prof._ xv. 1.
[781] _Prof._ vii.
[782] _Prof._ ix.
[783] _Pro Instaur. Schol._ 14 ‘gratitatem morum’.
[784] _Prof._ xxi. 7 ‘creditus olim fervere mero’.
[785] p. 198 (ed. Peiper).
[786] _Ep._ vi.
[787] _Ep._ xvi.
[788] ‘Quem locupletavit coniunx Hispana latentem’, _Prof._ xxiii. 5.
[789] Ibid.
[790] _Prof._ vi. 35 ‘connubium nobile’.
[791] _Prof._ xiii.
[792] _Cod. Theod._ vi. 21. 1 ‘si laudabilem in se probis moribus vitam
esse monstraverint, si docendi peritiam ... se habere patefecerint, hi
quoque cum ad viginti annos observatione iugi ac sedulo docendi labore
pervenerint, iisdem ... dignitatibus perfruantur’.
[793] _Prof._ ix:
Et te, quem cathedram temere usurpasse locuntur
nomen grammatici nec meruisse putant.
[794] _Prof._ vii. 9.
[795] _Prof._ x. 35 ff., 42 ff., ‘doctrina exiguus’, ‘tenuem ...
grammaticum’.
[796] _Epigram._ vi.
[797] Ibid. viii ff.
[798] Ibid. vii.
[799] _De Scholis Romanis_, p. 16.
[800] Like Glabrio, _Prof._ xxiv; Alcimus, _Prof._ ii; Delphidius, &c.
[801] _Cod. Theod._ xiii. 3. 5.
[802] Cf. Jullian, _op. cit._, p. 36.
[803] _Pro Instaur. Scholis._ 14.
[804] Cf. Tac. _Agr._ 4.
[805] Suet. _Rhet._ 1.
[806] Cf. Lucius Apuleius, _Apologia_ iv ‘accusamus apud te philosophum
formosum et tam graece quam latine—pro nefas—disertissimum’.
[807] Lampridius, _Life of Alex. Sever._ xliv. 4. Cf. _Scriptt. Hist.
Aug._ i. 16. 8, on Hadrian’s patronage of professors.
[808] _Pan. Lat._ ix; _Pro Instaur. Scholis_, 14.
[809] Ibid. 3.
[810] Ibid. 4 ff.
[811] Ibid. 18. 3 ‘ad conspectum Romanae lucis emersit’.
[812] Ibid. 19.
[813] ‘Per omnem dioecesim commissam magnificentiae tuae, frequentissimis
in civitatibus, quae pollent et eminent claritudine, praeceptorum optimi
quique erudiendae praesideant iuventuti: rhetores loquimur et grammaticos
Atticae Romanaeque doctrinae’, _Cod. Theod._ xiii. 3. 11.
[814] _Cod. Theod._ xiii. 3. 6.
[815] _Cod. Theod._ xiv. 9. 1.
[816] ‘Magistros studiorum doctoresque excellere oportet moribus primum,
deinde facundia. Sed quia singulis civitatibus adesse ipse non possum,
iubeo, quisque docere vult, non repente nec temere prosiliat ad hoc
munus, sed iudicio ordinis probatus, decretum curialium mereatur,
optimorum conspirante consensu. Hoc enim decretum ad me tractandum
referetur, ut altiore quodam honore nostro iudicio studiis civitatum
accedant’, _Cod. Theod._ xiii. 3. 5.
[817] _Cod. Theod._ xiii. 3. 6.
[818] Bulaeus, _Hist. Univ. Par._ i. 77.
[819] Suet. _Aug._ 46. Cf. _C. I. L._ x. 50, 56.
[820] Aurel. Victor, _Ep._ 12.
[821] _C. I. L._ ix. 1455; xi. 1147.
[822] Ael. Spart. _Hadrian_, § 7. Cf. Plin. _Pan._ 26-8; _Ep._ vii. 18.
[823] Pertinax could not pay all the ‘alimenta’ standing over from the
reign of Commodus, _Scriptt. Hist. Aug. Pertin._ 9. 3.
[824] _Cod. Theod._ xi. 27. 1, A.D. 315.
[825] _Cod. Theod._ xi. 27. 2.
[826] _Pro Instaur. Schol._ 6. 4. ‘divina illa mens Caesaris, quae tanto
studio praeceptorem huic conventui iuventutis _elegit_’.
[827] Liban. _Or._ i. 54. 120.
[828] e.g. _Cod. Theod._ xiii. 3. 5.
[829] ‘Litterarum quoque habuere dilectum, neque aliter quam si equestri
turmae vel cohorti praetoriae consulendum foret, quem fortissimum
praeficerent, sui arbitrii esse duxerunt ...’, _Pro Instaur. Scholis._ 5.
[830] _Pan. Lat._ vi. 23. Cf. Symmachus, _Ep._ i. 20 ‘Iter ad capessendos
magistratus saepe litteris promovetur.’
[831] _Pro Instaur. Scholis_, 5. 4 ‘ne ... veluti repentino nubilo ...
deprehensi incerta dicendi signa sequerentur’.
[832] _Prof._ xvii. 4.
[833] _Prof._ ii. 13.
[834] _Cod. Theod._ xiii. 3. 1.
[835] ‘Ne autem litteraturae, _quae omnium virtutum maxima est_, praemia
denegentur, eum qui studiis et eloquio dignus primo loco videbitur
honestiore faciet nostra provisio sublimitate’, _Cod. Theod._ xiv. 1. 1.
Cf. Napoleon’s scheme of education for the service of the State.
[836] Heynius. _Opusc. Acad._ vi. 91.
[837]
‘Sive panegyricis placeat contendere libris,
in Panathenaicis tu memorandus erit.’—_Prof._ i. 13.
[838] _Pan. Lat._ vi. 23.
[839] _Ep._ ix. 16; _Carm._ viii. 8.
[840] _Ep._ i. 9. 8.
[841] ‘In ius etiam vocari vel pati iniuriam prohibemus, ita ut, si quis
eos vexaverit, centum milia nummorum aerario inferat, a magistratibus
vel quinquennalibus exactus, ne ipsi hanc poenam sustineant: servus eis
si iniuriam fecerit, flagellis debeat a suo domino verberari ...’, _Cod.
Theod._ xiii. 3. 1.
[842] _Cod. Theod._ xiii. 3. 3. Cf. xiii. 3. 7.
[843] ‘Grammaticos, oratores adque philosophiae praeceptores, nec non
etiam medicos, praeter haec quae retro latarum sanctionum auctoritate
consecuti sunt privilegia immunitatesque, frui hac praerogativa
praecipimus, ut universi qui in sacro palatio inter archiatros militarunt
cum comitiva primi ordinis vel secundi, nulla municipali, nulla curialium
conlatione, nulla senatoria vel glebali describtione vexentur, ... sint
ab omni functione omnibusque muneribus publicis immunes, nec eorum domus
ubicumque positae militem seu iudicem suscipiant hospitandum. Quae
omnia filiis etiam eorum et coniugibus inlibata praecipimus custodiri,
ita ut nec ad militiam liberi memoratorum trahantur inviti. Haec autem
et professoribus memoratis eorumque liberis deferenda mandamus’, _Cod.
Theod._ xiii. 3. 16. Confirmed by xiii. 3. 18.
[844] _Pro Instaur. Scholis_, 18. Cf. _Pan. Lat._ iv. 38 ‘Omnia foris
placida, domi prospera annonae ubertate ... exornatae mirandum in modum
ac prope de integro conditae urbes’, &c., &c.
[845] _Pan. Lat._ v. 5 ff.
[846] Ibid. § 9.
[847] Ibid. § 11.
[848] xxviii. 1.
[849] ‘At Valentinianus, magna animo concipiens et utilia, Rhenum omnem a
Rhaetiarum exordio ad usque fretalem Oceanum magnis molibus communiebat,
castra extollens altius et castella turresque adsiduas per habiles locos
et opportunos, qua Galliarum extenditur longitudo: nonnunquam etiam ultra
flumen aedificiis positis subradens barbaros fines’, ibid. 2.
[850] Ὠιήθη δεῖν καὶ τῆς εἰς τὸ μελλον ἀσφαλείας τῶν Κελτικῶν ἐθνῶν
ποιήσασθαι προνοίαν, iv. 12 (ed. Mendelssohn).
[851] Ibid. vi. 3.
[852] _Pan. Lat._ xi. 19. He was probably a Gaul, § 9. Maximian, to whom
the speech was addressed, frequently stayed there.
[853] Cf. Pichon, _Études sur l’Hist. de la Litt. lat. dans les Gaules_,
i. 123, ‘L’Empire romain ... souffre d’une hypertrophie de l’organe
central’, and ‘la cour absorbe tout sans rien distribuer’.
[854] Cf. esp. Mamertinus, _Grat. Act. Iuliano_.
[855] _Grat. Act. Iuliano_, i. ‘non minus exitialibus quam pudendis
praesidentum rapinis’.
[856] Pottier in Daremberg-Saglio, _Dictionnaire des Antiquités_, s.v.
Education.
[857] ‘Universos, qui usurpantes sibi nomina magistrorum in publicis
magistrationibus cellulisque collectos undecumque discipulos circumferre
consuerunt, ab ostentatione vulgari praecipimus amoveri, ita ut, si qui
eorum post emissos divinae sanctionis adfatus, quae prohibemus adque
damnamus iterum forte temptaverit, non solum eius quam meretur infamiae
notam subeat, verum etiam pellendum se ex ipsa ubi versatur inlicite urbe
cognoscat. Illos vero, qui intra plurimorum domus eadem exercere privatim
studia consuerunt, si ipsis tantum modo discipulis vacare maluerint,
quos intra parietes domesticos docent, nulla huiusmodi interminatione
prohibemus. Sin autem ex eorum numero fuerint, qui videntur intra
Capitolii auditorium constituti, ii omnibus modis privatorum aedium
studia sibi interdicta esse cognoscant, scituri quod, si adversum
caelestia statuta facientes fuerint deprehensi, nihil penitus ex illis
privilegiis consequentur, quae his, qui in Capitolio tantum docere
praecepti sunt, merito deferuntur’, _Cod. Theod._ xiv. 9. 3.
[858] _Cod. Theod._ xiii. 3. 5.
[859] e.g. _Pan. Lat._ xii. 19, 20, 25, 26. Cf. the scene in heaven, vi.
7. Cf. _Pro Instaur. Scholis_, 6. 2. ‘caelestia verba et divina sensa
principum’, &c.
[860] _Pan. Lat._ ii, _ad fin._ Cf. xi. 6, 7, 10, 11, 14, &c.
[861]
Quem pluris faciunt novem sorores
quam cunctos alios, Marone dempto.—Dedication of the _Eclogues_.
[862] _Prof._ xiv.
[863] _Pan. Lat._ iv. 5.
[864]
Non habeo ingenium: Caesar sed iussit: habebo.
...
Non tutum renuisse deo.—_Praefat._ iv. 11.
[865] _Grat. Act._ iii.
[866]
Diligo Burdigalam, Romam colo....
... cunae hic, ibi sella curulis.—_Ordo urb. nob._ xx. 39.
[867] _Euchar._ 37.
[868] Ibid. 70, 145.
[869] Ibid. 424.
[870] Ibid. 44.
[871] ‘Reddatur unusquisque patriae suae, qui habitum philosophiae
indebite et insolenter usurpare cognoscitur ... turpe enim est ut patriae
functiones ferre non possit, qui etiam fortunae vim se ferre profitetur’,
_Cod. Theod._ xiii. 3. 7.
[872] Cf. Ammianus, xiv. 9. 5 ‘Epigonus ... amictu tenus philosophus’.
Symm. _Ep._ i. 28 mentions his contemporary Barachus among those ‘qui
philosophiam fastu et habitu metiuntur’.
[873] _Pro Instaur. Scholis_, 16. Cf. ‘Equidem ipsos patriae deos testor,
tanto me civitatis istius amore flagrare, ut quocunque oculos circumtuli,
ad restitutionem operum singulorum ita gaudio ferar ut spiritum identidem
meum pro illorum salute devoveam, quorum iussu opibusque reparantur’.
There is more than rhetoric in his words.
[874] Source book of the _Hist. of Education_, p. 395.
[875] Cf. _Cod. Theod._ xiv. 1. 1.
[876] _De Scholis Roman._, p. 13.
[877] _Epigr._ xv.
[878] Cf. Guizot, _Hist. of Civilization_, i. 320 ff.; Montalembert,
_Monks of the West_, i. 187 ff.
[879] _Cod. Theod._ xvi. 2. 4 ‘Habeat unus quisque licentiam sanctissimo
catholicae (sc. _ecclesiae_) venerabilique concilio decedens bonorum quod
optavit relinquere’. So in 434 Theodosius and Valentinian enacted that
the intestate property of a Church official should go to his church or
monastery, _Cod. Theod._ v. 3. 1.
[880] ‘Qui religiosa mente in ecclesiae gremio servulis suis meritam
concesserint libertatem, eandem eodem iure donasse videantur quo civitas
Romana solemnitatibus decursis dari consuevit’, _Cod. Theod._ iv. 7. 1,
A.D. 321.
[881] ‘Qui divino cultui ministeria religionis impendunt ... ab omnibus
omnino muneribus excusentur’, _Cod. Theod._ xvi. 2. 2 _et passim_.
[882] _Cod. Theod._ xvi. 2. 41.
[883] Ambrose and Augustine complain of their heavy judicial duties; cf.
_Camb. Med. Hist._ i. 566.
[884] Sidon. _Ep._ vii. 7; so Lupus had successfully negotiated with
Attila for Troyes; see Lavisse, _Hist. de Gaule_, ii. 1. 1, pp. 21 ff.,
L’Épiscopat en Gaule au IVᵉ et au Vᵉ Siècle. Cf. Rambaud, _Histoire de la
civilisation française_, i. 74, and the whole of Bk. I, chap. iv (_Gaule
chrétienne_) for a useful summary of the activities and relations of the
Gallic Church at this time.
[885] Cf. St. Martin’s opposition to Avitianus and Valentinian. Hilary
of Arles declared the prefect unworthy of the sacrament, and he had to
retire.
[886] e.g. Epictetus and the Stoics, who taught the equality of mankind.
[887] _Cod. Theod._ iv. 8. 5.
[888] _Cod. Theod._ iv. 8. 6; iv. 8. 9; iv. 9. 1.
[889] _Cod. Theod._ ii. 25. 1.
[890] Cappadocia was practically the only place where slaves were still
bred for export to Rome.
[891] _Cod. Theod._ xv. 5 ‘de spectaculis’, A.D. 425.
[892] _Cod. Theod._ xv. 5. 7.
[893] _Cod. Theod._ xv. 7. 4, A.D. 380.
[894] ‘Scaenici et scaenicae, qui in ultimo vitae ac necessitate cogente
interitus imminentis, ad dei summi sacramenta properarunt ... nulla
posthac in theatralis spectaculi conventione revocentur’, _Cod. Theod._
xv. 7. 1, A.D. 371.
[895] _Cod. Theod._ xv. 12. 1.
[896] _Cod. Theod._ xv. 12. 2, A.D. 357.
[897] _Cod. Theod._ ix. 40. 8, A.D. 365.
[898] Theodoret, _Hist. Eccles._ v. 26.
[899] Glover, _Life and Letters_, p. 161. Cf. Sym. _Ep._ iv. 12, ix. 126.
[900] Cf. Sidon. _Ep._ vi. 12. 1, 5.
[901] _Cod. Iust._ xi. 26. Cf. _Cod. Theod._ xiv. 18. 1.
[902] It is true that pagan philosophers like Epicurus had women among
their intimates, but their recognition was as much of an anomaly in the
ancient world as they themselves were. With Christianity the recognition
claimed a more general acceptance, though the claim was subsequently
disregarded and never fully admitted.
[903] Cf. _Camb. Med. Hist._ i. 168.
[904] ‘Indecens visum. Repudiatis fiscalibus, propriis cum sumptibus
vivere maluerunt’, Sulpic. Sever. _Chron._ ii. 41.
[905] Sid. _Ep._ vi. 1, viii. 11, ix. 11.
[906] Sid. _Ep._ iv. 17.
[907] _Ep._ iv. 17. 3 ‘Lupus ... Auspicius quorum doctrinae abundanti
eventilandae nec consultatio tua sufficit’.
[908] _Ep._ vi. 12; ii. 10. 2; iv. 25. 5.
[909] _Ep._ ix. 3.
[910] _Ep._ vii. 1; iv. 9. 6; v. 14. 2.
[911] _Ep._ vi. 8; vii. 2. 7, 11; ix. 4.
[912] _Ep._ vii. 9; iv. 18.
[913] Montalembert, _Monks of the West_ (transl.), i. 205.
[914] _Antidosis_, 231. See Hubbell, _The Influence of Isocrates on
Cicero, Dionysius, and Aristides_.
[915] Ibid. 276. The subjects must be καλὰς καὶ φιλανθρώπους καὶ περὶ τῶν
κοινῶν πραγμάτων.
[916] Pichon, _Études sur l’histoire de la litt. lat._ i. 42, is too
severe on Isocrates’ theoretical and unpractical judgement.
[917] Gilbert Murray, _Ancient Greek Literature_, p. 344.
[918] Ὅσῳ περ ἄν τις ἐρρωμενεστέρως ἐπιθνμῇ πείθειν τοὺς ἀκούοντας,
τοσούτῳ μᾶλλον ἀσκήσει καλὸς κἀγαθὸς εἶναι, καὶ παρὰ τοῖς πολίταις
εὐδοκιμεῖν, _Antidosis_, 278 (ed. Blass).
[919] _Antidosis_, 253.
[920] ‘Illa vis autem eloquentiae tanta est, ut omnium rerum virtutum
officiorum omnisque naturae quae mores hominum, quae animos quae vitam
continet, originem vim mutationesque teneat, eadem mores leges iura
describat, rem publicam regat, omniaque ad quamcumque rem pertineant
ornate copioseque dicat’, _De Oratore_, iii. 20. 76.
[921] Ibid. iii. 15. 57. In Homeric days ‘neque diiuncti doctores, sed
idem erant vivendi praeceptores atque dicendi’. Cf. 59 ‘ancipitem _quae
non potest esse seiuncta_, faciendi dicendique sapientiam’.
[922] Ibid. i. 6. 20.
[923] Ibid. iii. 23. 87, 89.
[924] Boissier, in blaming Quintilian for this change in rhetoric,
seems somewhat unfair (_La fin du paganisme_, i. 219 ff.). He says
Quintilian regarded the grammarian as an intruder, but Quintilian is
merely protesting against the assumption of the rhetor’s duties by the
grammarian (ii. 1. 2-6) and is quite willing to give him his due (ii.
1. 13). However, he does seem to attach an exaggerated importance to
rhetoric (e.g. ii. 20) as opposed to general knowledge.
[925] § 3 ἕλκει ἐκ τῶν ὤτων ἄπαντας δεδεμένους.
[926] ‘Neque ego unquam facundiam exercui, et populus Romanus virtutem
armis adfirmavit: sed quoniam apud vos verba plurimum valent....’, Tac.
_Hist._ iv. 73. Cf. the commentator Pithoeus, _In Quintil. Declam._, p.
415, ‘etiam infelicissimis temporibus superfuisse Galliae oratores suos,
cum urbi ipsi deessent’.
[927] Comment. on _Ep. to Galatians_, ii; Migne, xxvi. 355.
[928] _C. I. L._ xii. 1941. Cf. ibid. 1949, 2039, 2058; xiii. 1. 1. 128
(a fifth-century stone with twenty-four lines of poetry); xiii. 1. 1.
2395, 2397.
[929] Jerome, _Ep._ 125. 6; Migne, xxii. 1075 ‘ubertatem Gallici
nitoremque sermonis’.
[930] _Ep._ 372 (ed. J. C. Wolf, Amsterdam, 1738).
[931] Ibid.
[932] _Ep._ iv. 17. 1.
[933] ‘Heiden von hervorragender Stellung werden seit 450 in Gallien
nicht mehr erwähnt, und unter den Christen gewann die strenge
Mönchspartei einen immer grössern Einfluss und verdammte die Studien der
Rhetoren’, _Kloster- u. Rhetorenschulen_, p. 31.
[934] _De Idol._ x.
[935] _Ep._ 21; Migne, xxii. 386.
[936] ‘Ambrosio et Beato’ (_Corp. Scriptt. Eccl. Lat._ vi. 406) ‘ante
scipiones et trabeas est pomposa recitatio’.
[937] Ibid.; _Euchar._, p. 395.
[938] ‘Ego illa quae vel commuto si sunt facta vel facio: quantisvis
actionum tenebris involuto lux sufficit, quam legendo contulero. Ego sum
per quam expectant homines reatum de turbida et innocentiam de serena
... ad meum compendium ubicumque est Romanus invigilat: fasces divitias
honores si non ornamus, abiecta sunt: nos regna regimus’, ibid. ‘Ambrosio
et Beato’, p. 407.
[939] _Antidosis_, 253.
[940] Ibid. 255 τοὺς κακοὺς ἐξελέγχομεν καὶ τοὺς ἀγαθοὺς ἐγκωμιάζομεν.
[941] _De Orat._ ii. 9. 35 ‘vituperare improbos ... laudare bonos’.
[942] ‘Quid quod declamationum nostrarum oblectatio vincit universa quae
sapiunt, et opinionem quam conciliamus (perhaps a Vergilian reminiscence
of _urbem quam statuo_) aeterna est?... De virorum fortium factis quod
volumus creditur; actum nemo aestimat quod silemus. Poetica, iuris
peritia, dialectica, arithmetica, cum me utantur quasi genetrice, me
tamen adserente sunt pretio’, Ennod. _l.c._ Cf. Dictio XII. Rhetoric is
the mainspring of literature.
[943] ‘Istae (virtutes) tamen prae foribus quasi nutricem ceterarum
anteponunt Grammaticen, quae adulescentium mentes sapore artificis
et planae locutionis inliciat, et ad Tullianum calorem scintillis
praefigurati vaporis adducat’, ibid., p. 405.
[944] Ibid., p. 401.
[945] Ibid., p. 305.
[946] _Euchar._, p. 395. Cf. p. 396 ‘Sic dum me concinnationis superfluae
in rhetoricis et poeticis campis lepos agitaret, a vera sapientia
mentitam secutus abscesseram, nihil cupiens nisi auris vanae laudationis
adsurgere’.
[947] Migne, x. 577.
[948] Cf. Watson, _Hilary of Poitiers_, Intro. xxviii (Nicene and
post-Nicene Fathers).
[949] Cf. Constant. 11 ‘At nunc fructus operum tuorum, lupe rapax, audi
... Levius te putas, sceleste, Iudaeorum impietate peccasse?’ § 25 ‘O tu
sceleste, qui ludibrium de Ecclesia facis’, &c.
[950] Cf. e.g. § 12 _de Seleuciae Synodo_.
[951] _Vita Hilarii_ (by Honoratus), Migne, _Pat. Lat._ l. 1231.
[952] Ibid. ‘non doctrinam, non eloquentiam, sed nescio quid super
homines consecutum’.
[953] _Chronologia Lerinensis_, i. 33.
[954] Hom. I.
[955] Hom. XX.
[956] Hom. XIII.
[957] Hom. XIII.
[958] Hom. XIV.
[959] _de Idol._ x.
[960] Matt. xii. 34-7; Mark xiii. 11. Cf. Glover, _The Jesus of History_,
p. 83.
[961] 1 Cor. i. 17.
[962] Cf. Salvian, _De Gubern. Dei, praef._ 3 ‘rerum magis quam verborum
amatores’. Cassian, _Instit., praef._ 3 ‘me quoque elinguem et pauperem
sermone et scientia ... quamvis imperito digeram stilo’. _Vita Caesar._,
_praef._ 2 ‘quod stylus noster videtur pompa verborum et cautela artis
grammaticae destitutus’.
[963] _Ep._ vii. 2. 1.
[964] _Ep._ viii. 16. 3.
[965] Cf. Sym. _Ep._ vii. 9 ‘ingeniorum varietas in familiaribus scriptis
neglegentiam quandam debet imitari’.
[966] _Institut. Divin._ i. 1. 10.
[967] e.g. _Ep._ ii. 8; vii. 17. Cf. Le Blant, _Nouveau recueil_, No. 311
(fifth cent.) and 441.
[968] Le Blant, _Inscrip. chrét. de la Gaule_, No. 215. Cf. No. 256.
[969] ‘Sanctus Hilarius Gallico cothurno attollitur et quum Graeciae
floribus adornetur longis interdum periodis involvitur, et lectione
simplicium fratrum procul est’, Migne, _Pat. Lat._ xxii. 585; _Ep._ 58.
Cf. ibid. 395 ‘Nulla est in hoc libello adulatio ... nulla erit rhetorici
pompa sermonis’; and ibid. 459 ‘Sint alii diserti ... mihi sufficit sic
loqui ut intelligar’.
[970] _De vita contempl._ xxiii.
[971] _Ep._ 52. 8; Migne, _Pat. Lat._ xxii. 534.
[972] _Dialog._ i. 27.
[973] Appendix, Augustine, _Serm._ 10; Migne, xxxix. Cf. Aug. _in Psalm._
36. _Serm._ 3. 6 ‘melius in barbarismo nostro vos intellegitis quam in
nostra disertitudine vos diserti estis’.
[974] Cf. Sid. _Ep._ iv. 16; v. 15; _Carm._ xi.
[975] Ruric. i. 4.
[976] ii. 18.
[977] ii. 38.
[978] Jerome, _Ep._ xxii (Migne, _Pat. Lat._ xxii. 416) ‘Si quando ...
prophetas legere coepissem, sermo horrebat incultus’.
[979] _Vita Martini_, i.
[980] Ibid.
[981] Cf. Ozanam, _Hist. of Civilization_, i. 88 ff.
[982] _Ep._ 22, § 30 ‘Quae enim communicatio lucis ad tenebras? Quid
facit cum psalterio Horatius? Cum Evangeliis Maro? Cum Apostolis Cicero?’
His struggles with his passionate love for pagan letters, and the story
of the angel in his dream who told him he was a Ciceronian and not a
Christian (Migne, xxii. 416) are well known.
[983] Hilar. Pict., Migne, ix. 502.
[984] Aug. _Confess._ i. 16; Migne, _Pat. Lat._ lxxxiii. 685.
[985]
Non vitium nostrum est? Paulo et Salamone relicto
quod Maro cantatur Phoenissae et Naso Corinnae,
quod plausum accipiunt lyra Flacci aut scena Terenti?
nos horum, nos causa sumus: nos turpiter istis
nutrimenta damus flammis.—Migne, lxi. 970.
[986]
Nunc alia mentem vis agit, maior deus
...
vacare vanis, otio aut negotio,
et fabulosis litteris
vetat....—_Ep._ xxxi. 29 ff.
[987] Ibid. 37 ff.
[988] See Ozanam, _op. cit._, i. 87 ff.
[989] Pacatus, _Pan. on Theod._, § 42, A.D. 389.
[990] Cf. vii. 13; vi. 3, 9; v. 13; ix. 10, 16, 20, &c.
[991] _Pro Saltatoribus_, 18, Libanius, ed. Foerster.
[992] Cf. Keil, _Gram. Lat._, _passim_. The authority, not the truth, of
a dogma is the main point to the grammarian.
[993] e.g. Macrobius’s _Saturnalia_ is an example of what a youth’s
education should be. All kinds of subjects are treated, but Christianity
is not once mentioned. Symmachus and Capella, both representative of
culture in their day, are silent about Christianity. There was always
the suspicion, even between two contending Christians, that the other
might not have had the rhetorical or philosophical training necessary
for argument. Cf. Jerome to Vigilantius: ‘Scilicet et gloriari cupis ...
me non potuisse respondere eloquentiae tuae et acumen in te Chrysippi
formidasse’ (Migne, xxii. 604).
[994] _De Reditu_, i. 440.
[995] Ibid. 443.
[996] Ibid. 521.
[997] _Ep._ lxi. 3; _Ep._ 1. 2.
[998] _Ep._ lii. 9. Cf. _Ep._ lvii. 12 ‘qui sermone se dicit imitari
apostolos, prius imitetur in vita’.
[999] ‘Sancta rusticitas solum sibi prodest et, quantum aedificat ex
vitae merito ecclesiam Christi, tantum nocet si destruentibus non
resistat’, _Ep._ liii. 3.
[1000] Rocafort, _De Paul. Pell. vita et carm._, p. 75. Cf. Ozanam,
_Hist. of Civilization in Fifth Cent._, i. 233.
[1001] Sedul. _Carm. Pasch._, Dedicatio, Migne, xix. 538.
[1002] Socrates, _Hist. Eccles._ iii. 16; Migne, _Pat. Graeca_, lxvii.
418; Sozomen, v. 18; Migne, _Pat. Graeca_, lxvii. 1270.
[1003] _De Gallorum oratorio ingenio_, 93.
[1004] _Ep._ xxxi. 22 ff.
[1005] ‘Cumque in primis partibus vincas alios, in penultimis te ipsum
superas ... et cum Tulliana luceat (_sc._ genus eloquii) puritate,
crebrum est in sententiis’, _Ep._ lviii, Migne xxii. 584.
[1006] e.g. Jerome made his monks copy Cicero.
[1007] Ozanam, _op. cit._, i. 27. Cf. his plea for using the pagan
writings, _Ep._ lxx, Migne xxii. 665 ‘Quis enim ignorat et in Moyse et in
Prophetarum voluminibus quaedam assumpta de Gentilium libris’.
[1008] Cf. the fifth-century compilation ‘collatio legum Mosaicarum et
Romanarum’.
[1009] _Kloster- u. Rhetorenschulen_, p. 54.
[1010] _Maxima Bibliotheca Patrum_, vol. viii, p. 840. _Homiliae_, 20
‘negociatores, qui cum litteras non noverint, requirunt sibi mercenarios
litteratos’.
[1011] Sid. _Ep._ iv. 25.
[1012] _Ep._ vii. 9.
[1013] _Ep._ vi. 12.
[1014] Euseb. _Hist. Eccl._ v. 10. (Migne, _Pat. Gr._ xx. 456.)
[1015] Acts xix. 9. The school of Tyrannus.
[1016] Theodoret, _Hist. Eccl._ i. 3.
[1017] Suidas, _s.v._ Λουκιανὸς ὁ μάρτυς.
[1018] Cf. Ozanam, _op. cit._, i. 30, ‘Gaul—the peculiar land for the
cenobitic life’.
[1019] Gennad. _Vir. ill._ xix.
[1020] _Ep._ vii. 16.
[1021] e.g. Jerome against Vigilantius.
[1022] Sulpic. _Sev. Dial._ i. 23. Cf. Jerome’s constant answers to
inquirers on theological questions (the women of Gaul, _Ep._ 120, 121)
and Eucherius’s answers to his son.
[1023] _Vita Hilarii_, Migne, li. 1229.
[1024] _Vita Caes._ i. 5, Migne, _Pat. Lat._ lxvii. 1020 ‘In disserendis
autem Scripturis’, &c.
[1025] _Vita Caes._, Migne, _Pat. Lat._ lxvii. 1004.
[1026] Cf. Ennod. _Ep._ ii. 6.
[1027] _Hist. litt. de la France_, ii. 245.
[1028] Cf. Paulin. Pell. _Euchar._ 521.
[1029] Cassian, _Instit._ ix. 18.
[1030] Gennad. _de Script. Eccles._ 65.
[1031] Cf. Sidon. _Ep._ ix. 9.
[1032] Sid. _Ep._ vi. 1.
[1033] _Hist. mérid. de la Gaule_, i. 403.
[1034] ‘(Deus) per orbem uberes palmites ampliavit, multiplicatisque eius
tentoriis, fecit suos funiculos prae caeteris monasteriis longiores’, i.
22.
[1035] _Carm._ xvi. 109 ff. ‘quantos illa insula plana miserit in caelum
montes’. Cf. _Ep._ vii. 7. 3; viii. 14. 2; ix. 3. 4.
[1036] Guizot, _Histoire de la civilisation en France_, i. 93.
[1037] ii. 130.
[1038] Salvian, _Ep._ i.
[1039] Bolland, _Acta Sanctorum_, Jan. 6, i. 328, § 2. Cf. Kaufmann,
_Kloster- u. Rhetorenschulen_, 75.
[1040] Migne, _Pat. Lat._ lxvii. 1109 ‘Omnes litteras discant: omni
tempore duabus horis lectioni vacent’. A brother of Sidonius was educated
by Faustus (_Carm._ xvi. 72), but whether at Lérins or afterwards at Riez
is doubtful.
[1041] Migne, _Pat. Lat._ l. 773 _eloquentia_ and _sapientia_ are
mentioned among the subjects.
[1042] _Chron. Ler._ i. 321.
[1043] Denk, _op. cit._, p. 187.
[1044] For a full treatment see Seidl, _Die Gottverlobung der Kinder oder
de pueris oblatis_.
[1045] Ennodius, _Vita Epiphan., Corp. Scriptt. Eccl. Lat._, p. 332.
[1046] _Ep._ iv. 25.
[1047] Caesarius, _Regula ad Virgines_, Migne, _Pat. Lat._ lxvii. 1107.
[1048] Bulaeus, _Hist. Univ. Par._ i. 82.
[1049] ‘Quicunque in clero puberes aut adulescentes existunt _omnes in
uno conclavi atrii_ commorentur ut ... in disciplinis ecclesiasticis
agant, deputati probatissimo seniori, quem et magistrum doctrinae et
testem vitae habeant’, Hefele, _Conciliengesch._ iii. 82.
[1050] Remig. _Ep._ 4; Migne, _Pat. Lat._ lxv. 969.
[1051] Cf. _C. I. L._ xiii. 1. 1, 2385.
[1052] Theodoret, _Hist. Eccl._ iv. 15; Migne, _Pat. Gr._ lxxxii. 1157.
[1053] ‘Fiant ei litterae vel buxeae vel eburneae et suis nominibus
appellentur: ludat in eis, ut et lusus eius eruditio est’, _Ep._ cvii. 4.
[1054] _Inst._ i. 1-26.
[1055] _Ep._ i. 6.
[1056] Cf. Eumen. _Pro Instaur. Schol._ 20, § 3.
[1057] _Ep._ cxxviii. 1.
[1058] _Inst._ i. 1. 30. He protests against a hurried introduction of
reading or writing.
[1059] ‘Qui autem ad huiusmodi provehitur gradum, iste erit doctrina et
libris imbutus, sensuumque ac verborum scientia perornatus’, _De Eccl.
Offic._ ii. 11. 2; Migne, _Pat. Lat._ lxxxiii. 791.
[1060] ‘Lector cum ordinatur, faciat de illo verbum episcopus ad plebem,
indicans eius fidem ac vitam atque ingenium. Post haec, spectante
plebe, tradat ei codicem de quo lecturus est, dicens ad eum: Accipe, et
esto verbi Dei relator, habiturus, si fideliter et utiliter impleveris
officium, partem cum eis qui verbum Dei ministraverunt’, Migne, _op.
cit._ lxxxiv. 201.
[1061] _De Felice_, iv. 108.
[1062] Boissieu, _Inscrip. de Lyon_, p. 584.
[1063] _Instit._ i. 1. 27.
[1064] _Ep._ cvii. 4.
[1065] Denk, _op. cit._, quotes Mabillon, _An._ i. 352.
[1066] _Life of Martin_, x.
[1067] Ibid.
[1068] _Regula ad Virgines_, Migne, lxvii. 1109.
[1069] Bolland, _Acta Sanctorum, August._ 11, p. 657.
[1070] These _acta_ were originally _acta proconsularia_, i.e. the
official record of proceedings at the trials of Christian martyrs.
Sometimes the Christians themselves would make notes on the trial,
sometimes they would purchase from the clerks copies of the official
report. Having obtained an account in either of these ways they usually
embroidered the facts with mystic and visionary embellishments. For two
examples of the original official protocols see Hardy, _Studies in Roman
History_, p. 151.
[1071] Cf. Watson, _Hilary of Poitiers_, Intro. xl. Origen is a case in
point.
[1072] Adopting the emendation of Salinas.
[1073] _Vita Hilarii_, Migne, l. 1232.
[1074] ‘Apposito notario, cogebat (_sc._ me Ausonius) loqui quae
velociter edita velox consequeretur manus ...’, _Ep._ cxviii.
[1075] _Ep._ cxviii.
[1076] _Peristeph. Hymn._ ix. 21-4; Migne, lx. 434.
[1077] _Ep._ v. 15.
[1078] _Ep._ ix. 7. 1.
[1079] Cassian, _Inst._ iv. 17; Caesarius, _ad Monachos_ 49, _ad
Virgines_ 16.
[1080] ‘De loquela per gestum digitorum et temporum ratione’. Cf. p. 59.
[1081] _De artibus Donati_, 4.
[1082] Cantor, _Ueber die Gesch. der Mathematik_, i. 450.
[1083] Alcuin, _Ep._ 103, _De comparatione numerorum Veteris et Novi
Testamenti_; Migne, _Pat. Lat._ c. 476. An example of the strained way
in which the comparison was worked out is the following: ‘Quatuor eunt
elementa quibus mundi ornatus maxime constat. Quatuor sunt virtutes
quibus minor mundus, id est, homo ornari debet.’
[1084] Cf., besides the case already quoted, ii. 135, ‘viguit
in Grammaticae artis disciplinis rationalibus ac dialecticorum
praedicamentorum argumentis exilibus et Aristotelicis definitionibus, nec
non Rhetoricorum protelationibus’, and ii. 328. Aygulpus is instructed
at Blesium in ‘Grammatica, Rhetorica, Dialectica omniumque scientiarum
genere’.
[1085] Le Blant, _Épigraphie chrétienne en Gaule_, p. 73.
[1086] Le Blant, _Nouveau Recueil_, No. 331.
[1087] Aus. _Epist._ xxxi.
[1088] _Ep._ cxviii _ad fin._ (Migne, xxii. 966).
[1089] For a discussion of his date see Pauly-Wissowa, _s.v._
[1090] They were prescribed by the statutes of all the leading mediaeval
schools in England, and among their numerous editors were Brinsley (1612)
and Hoole (1659). They dealt with Stoic morals, enmity and friendship,
adversity and prosperity, avarice and adulation, &c., and were obviously
unsuited to young children. Watson, _English Grammar Schools to 1660_, p.
122, quotes the following as a favourable specimen:
Cum te quis laudet, iudex tuus esse memento;
plus aliis de te, quam tu tibi, credere noli.
officium alterius multis narrare memento;
atqui aliis cum tu benefeceris, ipse sileto.
[1091] _Ep._ x. 3 ‘Eius scripta summam quandam litterarum Gallicarum eo
saeculo continent’. He may be the same as the Agricius or Argicius of
Ausonius, _Prof._ xvi. 6.
[1092] e.g. in Cassian’s _Instituta divin. et secular. litterarum_ and
Isidore of Seville’s _Etymologiae_.
[1093] Migne, lxxi. 572.
[1094] ‘Die Zeitgenossen sprechen von dem Kloster als einer _schola_;
von den Mönchen als den _discipuli_; sie bezeichnen damit die
religiös-sittliche Erziehung’, _op. cit._, p. 62.
[1095] Migne, _Liber Instructionum_, l. 728.
[1096] Cf. Migne, _l.c._, l. 775 ff. and 730 ff.
[1097] Migne, l. 775 ff.
[1098] ‘Properantes ad se de disciplinis saecularibus salutis opifex
non refutat, sed ire ad illas quemquam de suo nitore non patitur. Iam
si eum mundo subtraxeras, mundi in eo schemata non requiras: erubesco
ecclesiastica profitentem ornamentis saecularibus expolire’, _Ep._ ix. 9.
(_Corp. Scriptt. Eccles. Lat._ vi. 234.)
[1099] _Ad Salonium Prolog._ Migne, l. 773.
[1100] Le Blant, _Épigraphie chrétienne_, p. 70.
[1101] Harnack says that it was introduced into the West under the cloak
of church-doctrine and through the medium of Augustine, _Cambridge
Mediaeval History_, i. 568.
[1102] _Cod. Theod._ ix. 16. 7 (A.D. 364); 16. 8 ‘cesset mathematicorum
tractatus’. Learning and teaching the subject are forbidden on pain of
death (370). As late as 409 we find such a law (16. 12).
[1103] _Praef. Formulae._
[1104] _Ep._ xiv. l. 17.
[1105] _Hist. of Civilization_, i. 402.
[1106] Cf. ‘quin hoc idem senserint scriptoque prodiderint Arcippus
... et omnes Pythagorae posteri, quorum videlicet nominum ne dicam
sententiarum multitudine, si eadem prodita velim, volumen efficerem’. He
had evidently made a special study of the Pythagoreans.
[1107] Fauriel, _Hist. de la Gaule_, i. 412.
[1108] ‘Anima inditur corpori per numerum et immortalem eandemque
incorporalem convenientiam’, _De Statu animae_, ii. 7.
[1109] _Ep._ iv. 11.
[1110] _Ep._ ix. 9. 13.
[1111] Cf. _Ep._ iv. 1. 3 ‘inter Aristotelicas categorias’; and _Ep._ iv.
3. 6; ix. 9. 14; _Carm._ ii. 174.
[1112]
Cum pusillis et iocamur inter ipsa dogmata
nam iubet rigor magister ne per omne terreas,
‘Ambrosio et Beato’, p. 406, _Corp. Scriptt. Eccl. Lat._ vi.
[1113] _Ep._ iv. The authorship of this letter has been questioned.
[1114] _Ep._ xxxii. 33 ‘Ergo frustra tanto tempore studuimus et saepe
manum ferulae subduximus’. Cf. _c._ _Rufin._ iii. 6 ‘Nec tibi, ut dicis,
ferulas adhibeo neque athenogeronta (_Senem discipulum_) meum scutica et
plagis litteras docere contendo’.
[1115] Sidon. _Ep._ vi. 1.
[1116] ‘Bene in omnibus causis timor obtemperat disciplinae: qui pro hoc
ipso, quod imminentes periculorum causas aut iras iudicum cavere novit,
potestatem conservandae salutis obtinuit.... Omnia sub metu disciplinae
vitia iacent’, Hom. I, La Bigne, _Patrologia Patrum_, vol. viii.
[1117] _Acta SS. Ordin. Benedict._, Praef., lix. ff.
[1118] Isidor. _Regula_, 6; Migne, _Pat. Lat._ lxxxiii. 874.
[1119] _Vita Caesarii_, i. 9; Migne, lxvii. 1003.
[1120] _Instit._ x. 14.
[1121] Ibid. 17, 18; Ephesians iv. 28.
[1122] Cassian, _Instit._ 21; Proverbs xxviii. 19.
[1123] Cassian, _Instit._ 22.
[1124] Ibid. 24.
[1125] Migne, l. 718.
[1126] _De Statu animae_, ii. 9. Erasmus praised the purity of his style
in his dedicatory letter to the works of Eucherius (1531).
[1127] _Gen._, ch. 70, ed. Herdingius.
[1128] Ch. 65. Cf. Ebert, _Gesch. der christ. lat. Literatur_, iii. 18.
[1129] _Op. cit._, p. 85.
[1130] ‘Alpina corpora umente caelo educata habent quiddam simile nivibus
suis’, Florus, _Epitome de Tito Livio_, i. 20, ed. Halm; Caesar, _B. G._
iii. 19. Cf. Dio Cass. _Excerpta_, τῆς Γαλατίας τὸ κοῦφον καὶ τὸ δειλὸν
καὶ τὸ θρασύ, and Livy vii. 12. 11.
[1131] ‘Ad militandum omnis aetas aptissima, et pari pectoris robore
senex ad procinctum ducitur et adultus, gelu duratis artubus et labore
assiduo multa contemptura et formidanda’, xv. 12.
[1132] xv. 11. 5.
[1133] _De Gub. Dei_, vii. 12.
[1134] Ibid. vi. 3.
[1135] Ibid.
[1136] _Histoire de la Gaule_, i. 438.
[1137] The laws against rape are many and severe. A man who abused a girl
was delivered over to her as a slave with all his goods after receiving
two hundred blows, _Cod. Vis._ iii. 3. 1. If a woman marries her paramour
both are put to death, iii. 3. 2. An instance of their sense of honesty
is the Goth who sent Paulinus, living in poverty and banishment at
Marseilles, the price for his captured property, _Euchar._ 570 ff.
[1138] _Cod. Theod._ ix. 7. 1 (A.D. 326).
[1139] ‘Deportatione plectatur adque universae eius facultates fisci
viribus vindicentur’, _Cod. Theod._ ix. 8. 1.
[1140] Ibid. ix. 9. 1.
[1141] ‘Denegata audientia patibulo adfigatur’, ibid. ix. 5 (A.D. 314).
[1142] Ibid. ix. 6. 3 (A.D. 397).
[1143] ‘Iudices qui se furtis et sceleribus fuerint maculasse convicti,
ablatis codicillorum insignibus et honore exuti inter pessimos quosque et
plebeios habeantur’, ix. 27. 1.
[1144] Cf. ix. 19. 1. A Curial is to lose his social status as a
punishment.
[1145] _Euchar._ 87.
[1146] _Hist. de France_, i. 3. 421.
[1147] _C. I. L._ xiii. 1. 1, 1862, 2200, 2205; xii. 2039, &c.
[1148] Cf. those of Sidonius and Ausonius.
[1149] _Ep._ 88.
[1150] _Ep._ 88 ‘Quid mihi prodest scire agellum dividere ... simus hoc
titulo rusticiore contenti: O virum bonum’.
[1151] Cf. the modern controversy about religious education, and the
criticism that the dry facts are brought out in scriptural teaching
rather than the spirit of the Bible.
[1152] _Pro Instaur. Scholis_, 14.
[1153] ‘Credo igitur, tali Caesar ... instinctu, tanto studium litterarum
favore prosequitur, ut non minus ad providentiam numinis sui existimet
pertinere bene dicendi quam recte faciendi disciplinas, et pro divina
illa intelligentia mentis aeternae, sentiat litteras omnium fundamenta
esse virtutum, utpote continentiae, modestiae, vigilantiae, patientiae
magistras’, _Pro Instaur. Scholis_, 8. Cicero’s actual words in _de
Orat._ iii. 15. 57 ‘illa doctrina ... et recte faciendi et bene dicendi
magistra’.
[1154] Cf. Horace, _Ars Poet._ 310 ff.
[1155] _C. I. L._ xiii. 1. 1. 393.
[1156] ‘Fabricatum Martius Campus militem suscipit, quem simulacrum
mentitae dimicationis animavit nec pedem retorquet a classicis cui
bucinarum clangor et ministeria belli inter pacis blandimenta crepuerunt.
Usu enim virtus nutrita grandescit et de institutione nascitur
periculorum tolerantia’, Ennodius, ‘Ambrosio et Beato’ (_Corp. Scriptt.
Eccles. Lat._ vi. 405).
[1157] _Confess._ i. 16.
[1158] Ibid. i. 18.
[1159] _Ep._ 88, § 20.
[1160] _Ep._ ii. 2. 6.
[1161] _Ep._ iii. 13. 1.
[1162] _Op. cit._, p. 35.
[1163] Liv. iii. 44.
[1164] _Epigr._ viii. 3.
[1165] _Trist._ ii. 369.
[1166] _Protrep._ 33.
[1167] _Parent._ vi.
[1168] _De nuptiis Honor._ 232.
[1169] Victor, rhetorician at Marseilles towards the end of the fifth
century. _De perversis aetatis moribus ad Salmonem epistola_, Migne, lxi.
970.
[1170] So he says, _Carm._ xxiv. 95.
[1171] _Ep._ ii. 10. 5.
[1172] _Ep._ ii. 2. 9 ‘frons triclinii matronalis’. _Carm._ xv. 144 ‘Hoc
opus (of a work of embroidery) virgineae posuere manus’.
[1173] Sidonius mentions the place set apart for the women in the
library, _Ep._ ii. 9. 4.
[1174] _Ep._ 127.
[1175] _Mon. Germ. Hist._ vi. 2, p. 173, Canon 36.
[1176] Ibid., p. 182.
[1177] Aug. _de Mor. Eccles. Cath._ i. 70.
[1178] e.g. in the second Preface to his translation of the Psalms,
Migne, xxix. 118.
[1179] Daniel, the twelve Minor Prophets, Isaiah, Psalms, Esther, Samuel
and Kings, and to Eustochium alone (after Paula’s death) Joshua, Judges,
and Ruth.
[1180] Ozanam, _Hist. of Civilization in the Fifth Century_, i. 246.
Cf. for Jerome’s connexion with Gaul, _Ep._ v. 2; _Ep._ 117, 120, 121.
_Adv. Iovianum_, ii. 7 (acquaintance with Hilary). For Augustine, Holmes,
_Christian Church in Gaul_, pp. 383 ff. For Ambrose, E. W. Watson,
_Hilary of Poitiers,_ p. xi.
[1181] Migne, xix. 542.
[1182] ‘Ambrosio et Beato’ (_Corp. Scriptt. Eccl. Lat._ vi. 409).
[1183] _De Ord._ i. 11; Migne. xxxii. 992.
[1184] _Ars Amat._ ii. 281.
[1185] Wilamowitz, _On Greek Historical Writing_ (trans. G. Murray), p.
16, ‘The Greeks and Romans had no education in history’; p. 18, ‘No man
in antiquity ever gave lectures on history’. Chassang remarks that there
was no separate ‘chair’ for history, _Le Roman dans l’antiquité_, p. 98.
Glover, _Life and Letters_, p. 106.
[1186] _Röm. Privatalt._, p. 328, note 3.
[1187] Aus. _Prof._ xxvi. 3:
_Historia_ si quos vel poeticus stylus,
Forumve fecit nobiles.
This seems to indicate that history was conceived of as a separate
subject.
[1188] _Protrep._ 61.
[1189] _Prof._ xx. 8 ‘Historiam callens Livii et Herodoti’.
[1190] Aus. _Ep._ x. 32. 22.
[1191] _Tech._ x.
[1192] _Instit._ x. l. 31 ‘Historia est proxima poetis et quodam modo
carmen solutum’. Cf. Wilamowitz’ Oxford lecture on Greek historical
writing (trans. G. Murray, p. 4). ‘The ancients were even further from a
genuine science of history than from a genuine science of nature.... The
method of historical research which we regard as an imperative duty is
scarcely a century old.... And yet ... the first thing is to recognise
that all our historical writing rests on foundations laid by the Greeks,
as absolutely as does all our natural science.’
[1193] _Ep._ xx. (title).
[1194] _Prof._ xvi. 11.
[1195] _Carm._ ix. 240 ff.
[1196] _Prof._ xx. 9.
[1197]
Memor, celer, ignoratis
adsidue in libris, nec nisi operta legens,
exesas tineisque opicasque evolvere chartas
maior quam promptis cura tibi in studiis.—_Prof._ xxii. 1.
[1198] _Prof._ xxii. 14.
[1199] Ibid. 3, 4.
[1200] _De Paul. Pell. vita et carmine_, p. 33.
[1201] Cf. Dill, _Rom. Soc._, p. 424.
[1202] _De Ordine_, ii. 12; Migne, xxxii. 1012 ‘huic disciplinae
(Grammaticae) accessit historia ... non tam ipsis historicis quam
grammaticis laboriosa’.
[1203] _Pan. Lat._ viii. 1.
[1204] _Libri de Fastis_, iii. 3 (p. 194, Peiper’s ed.).
[1205] Ibid. i. 8.
[1206] Ibid. iv. 3.
[1207] Puech. _De Paulini ... Ausoniique epistolarum commercio_, p. 11.
[1208] _Antike Kunstprosa_, p. 81.
[1209] ‘Concessum est rhetoribus ementiri in historiis, ut aliquid dicere
possint argutius’, _Brut._ 42.
[1210] _De leg._ i. 5 (quoted Norden).
[1211] _Inst._ x. 2. 21.
[1212] e.g. _Pan. Lat._ xi. 10.
[1213] Ibid. xii. 5.
[1214] _Pro Instaur. Schol._ 10.
[1215] ‘Ibi (in the school), fortissimorum imperatorum pulcherrimae
res gestae per diversa regionum argumenta, recolantur, dum calentibus
semperque venientibus victoriarum nuntiis, revisuntur gemina Persidos
flumina et Libyae arva sitientia, et convexa Rheni cornua et Nili ora
multifida, dumque sibi ad haec singula intuentium animus adfingit,
aut sub tua, Diocletiane Auguste, clementia, Aegyptum, furore posito,
quiescentem, aut te Maximiane invicte, perculsa Maurorum agmina
fulminantem.... Nunc enim, nunc demum, iuvat orbem spectare depictum, cum
in illo nihil videmus alienum’, Ibid. 21.
[1216] _Ep._ iv. 22. 5.
[1217] Ibid.
[1218] Symm. _Ep._ iv. 32. Cf. iv. 18; Symmachus refuses the request that
he should write a history.
[1219] _Ep._ viii. 15. 1.
[1220] _De Scholis Rom. in Gallia Comata_, p. 29.
[1221] See Woodward, _Christianity and Nationalism in the later Roman
Empire_, p. 5. Cf. the saying of Donatus ‘quid est imperatori cum
ecclesia?’
[1222] Cf. Woodward, _Christianity and Nationalism in the later Roman
Empire_ (1916).
[1223] Ibid., p. 5.
[1224] Orosius, v. 2. 1 (quoted Dill, _op. cit._, p. 315).
[1225] Strabo, iv. 4.
[1226] See p. 9. Lucian in the second century found a Gallic philosopher,
ἀκριβῶς Ἑλλάδα φωνὴν ἀφιείς, Herak. iv.
[1227] Cf. Fauriel, _Hist. de la Gaule_, i. 432.
[1228] Jullian, _Revue internat. de l’Enseignement_, p. 37 (1893). Cf.
Jullian, _Histoire de Bordeaux_, pp. 27, 28.
[1229] Le Blant, _Nouveau Recueil_, No. 150. Cf. No. 326 (Narbonne)
νιψάμενος προσεύχου and the Christian signs; the labarum, with α and ω.
[1230] Ibid., No. 374.
[1231] Cf. Jerome, _Ep._ 130 ‘negotiatoribus et avidissimis mortalium
Syris’, and Eumen. _Pro Instaur. Schol._ 12 ‘Syrus mercator’.
[1232] Le Blant, _Épigraphie chrétienne_, p. 43.
[1233] _Pro Instaur. Schol._ 7.
[1234] ‘Genitor ille deorum oceanus’ = _Iliad_ Ξ 201 of which 178 appears
in ‘Iovi et Iunoni recubantibus novos flores terra submisit’. Cf. Brandt,
_Eumenios von Augustodunum_, 20.
[1235]
Cecropiae commune decus Latiaeque camenae
_solus_ qui Chium miscet et Ammineum.—_Ep._ xxxi. 31.
[1236] _Cod. Theod._ xiii. 3. 11.
[1237] e.g. _Misopogon_, 342 (see Hertlein). One of the boasts of
Favorinus of Arles (second century) was that, though a Gaul, he could
write and speak Greek, Philostratus, _Vita Soph._ i. 206 (ed. Kayser).
[1238] _Pro Instaur. Schol._ 17.
[1239] _Domest._ iv. 9.
[1240] _Prof._ viii:
Obstitit nostrae, quia, credo, mentis
tardior sensus, neque disciplinis
adpulit Graecis puerilis aevi
noxius error.
The _credo_ seems to be ironical, and more a criticism of the masters
than of himself.
[1241] Stahl, _De Ausonianis studiis poetarum Graecorum_, ad init.
[1242] e.g. _Ep._ viii ‘πολύ cantica τέκνα’, etc.; ‘nunquam ipse torquet
αὔλακα’ _Ep._ vi. 10.
[1243] e.g.
οἱ πλεῖστοι κακοί
quod est Latinum: plures hominum sunt mali.
[1244]
Sedulum cunctis studium docendi,
fructus exilis tenuisque sermo.—_Prof._ viii. 5.
[1245]
Esset Aristarchi tibi gloria Zenodotique
Graiorum, _antiquus si sequeretur honos_.—_Prof._ xiii. 3.
[1246] Bolland, i, Jan., p. 50, _vita Eugendi_ ‘Lectioni namque se in
tantum die noctuque ... dedit et intendit ut praeter Latinis voluminibus
etiam Graeca facundia redderetur instructus’.
[1247] i. 13. Cf. _Contra Petilianum_, i. 91 ‘Graecae linguae perperam
assecutus sum et proprie nihil’.
[1248] _Confess._, _l.c._
[1249] Ibid. 14.
[1250] _De Paul. Pell. vita et carmine_, p. 34.
[1251] Ibid. 35.
[1252] _Euchar._ 77.
[1253] Cf. Auson. to Drepanius, _Eclog._ i. 11:
Quem pluris faciunt novem sorores,
quam cunctos alios Marone dempto.
[1254] _Saint Augustin_, p. 57 (transl.).
[1255]
Quae doctrina duplex (i.e. the study of the two languages) sicut est
potioribus apta ingeniis, geminoque ornat splendore peritos,
sic sterilis nimium nostri, ut modo sentio, cordis
exilem facile exhausit divisio (of the languages) venam.—_Euchar._ 81.
Cf. 117 ‘Argolico pariter Latioque instante magistro’.
[1256] _Corp. Scriptt. Eccl. Lat._ xvi. 1. 277.
[1257] _Euchar._ 119-21.
[1258] Ibid. 115-18.
[1259] _Confess._ i. 14.
[1260] Cf. Frank, _Roman Imperialism_, 186 ff., also 149, 191, 220.
[1261] Cf. Giles, _Roman Civilization_, p. 11.
[1262] _Aemil. Paul._ 6, 7. Cf. Ussing, _Erziehung bei den Griechen und
Römern_, p. 123.
[1263] _De Fin._ i. 3, ‘hoc tam insolens domesticarum rerum fastidium’.
Cf. _Tusc._ ii. 15; iii. 5, 8, 10; _Pro Caecina_, 18; Sen. _Ep._ 58.
Cicero’s repeated and emphatic protests show how strong the hellenizing
tendency was in his day.
[1264] Plin. _Ep._ iv. 18.
[1265] Seneca, _Ep._ lvii. 1.
[1266] e.g. _De Fin._ i. 6.
[1267] _De Rhet._, § 2.
[1268] Glover, _Life and Letters in the Fourth Century_, p. 188.
[1269] ‘Sic in foro pueros a centumviralibus causis auspicari ut ab
Homero in scholis’, _Ep._ ii. 14.
[1270] ‘Initium quoque eius (Grammaticae) mediocre exstitit, siquidem
antiquissimi doctorum qui iidem et poetae et semigraeci erant ...
_nihil amplius quam Graecos interpretabantur_ aut si quid ipsi Latine
composuissent praelegebant’, _De Grammaticis_, § 1.
[1271] _Scriptt. Hist. Aug._ xix. 27 (2).
[1272] _Satyr._ 5.
[1273] _Instit._ x. 1. 46.
[1274] _Prof._ xxi; Jung, _De Scholis Rom. in Gallia Comata_, p. 25.
[1275] _Euchar._ 72.
[1276] _Protrep._ 45.
[1277] _Ep._ cvii. 9.
[1278] _Revue internat. de l’Enseignement_, 1893, p. 38.
[1279] _Op. cit._, p. 24.
[1280] _B. G._ lv. 5.
[1281] _Epigr._ lxvii and the eight following epigrams.
[1282] _Epigr._ lxxi. It must be remembered, however, that such
enthusiasm was very often conventional. The work was very famous in
literature (cf. Pliny, _N. H._ xxxiv. 57 ‘Myronem ... bucula maxime
nobilitavit celebratis versibus laudata’) and Ausonius’s appreciation
may be worth little more than that of the thirty-six epigrams on Myron’s
heifer preserved in the Greek Anthology. That the appreciation of an
epigram, however, need not necessarily be artificial is proved, e.g. by
iv. 54 of the Anthology of Planudes.
[1283] p. 433, Peiper’s ed. Cf. Petron. 88 ‘Myron, qui paene hominum
animas ferarumque aere comprehenderat’.
[1284]
Habet sepulcrum non id intus mortuum,
habet nec ipse mortuus bustum super;
sibi sed est ipse hic sepulcrum et mortuus.
(_Carmina a Thaddaeo Ugoleto Ausoni Epigrammaton libro inserta._)
[1285] _Ep._ viii. 6. 10 ‘cultor aliquis e primis architectusque’. Cf.
_Ep._ vi. 12. 3.
[1286] _Claudianus und Sidonius_; Dalton, Introd. to Sidonius, p. 101.
[1287] _Carm._ xxii.
[1288] _Ep._ ix. 14.
[1289] _Ep._ ii. 10.
[1290] _Ep._ iv. 18.
[1291] Ibid.
[1292] Dehio, _Die kirchliche Baukunst des Abendlandes_, i. 21; Dalton,
ii. 233.
[1293] See for example Reinach’s collection of sculptures.
[1294] Cf., however, p. 31, note. The excellence of the Gauls in pottery
has been referred to, ibid.
[1295] _Histoire de France_, i. 3. 407.
[1296] e.g. _Pan. Lat._ vi. 21.
[1297] _Hist. of Civilization in the Fifth Century_, i. 70 ff.
[1298] _Variarum_ lib. vii. 15 ‘Formula ad praefectum urbis de architecto
publicorum’.
[1299] _Vita S. Martini_, 10.
[1300] ‘Ut et facta veterum, exclusis defectibus, innovemus et nova
vetustatis gloria vestiamus’, _Var._ vii. 15.
[1301] _Ep._ xxxii. 24.
[1302] Le Blant, _Nouveau Recueil_, No. 87.
[1303] Cf. _Cambridge Mediaeval History_, i. 604 ff.
[1304] _Ep._ xxxii. 2 (_Corp. Scriptt. Eccl. Lat._ xxix. 257 ff.).
[1305] Ibid., § 10:
Pleno coruscat Trinitas mysterio;
stat Christus agno, vox patris caelo tonat
et per columbam Spiritus Sanctus fluit.
[1306] Ibid., § 17 ff.
[1307] ‘Totum vero extra concham basilicae spatium alto et lacunato
culmine geminis utrimque porticibus dilatatur, quibus duplex per singulos
arcus columnarum ordo dirigitur. Cubicula intra porticus quaterna longis
basilicae lateribus inserta, secretis orantium ... accommodatos ad pacis
aeternae requiem locos praebent. Omne cubiculum binis per liminium
frontibus versibus praenotatur ..., ibid., § 12.
[1308] Ibid., § 17.
[1309] _C. I. L._ xii. 1923.
[1310] _C. I. L._ xii. 3344.
[1311] _Ep._ i. 2. 9.
[1312] _Confess._ ix. 6.
[1313] ‘In mari rubro transisse iustos, et Pharaonem cum suo exercitu
demersum, etiam in scholis cantant parvuli’, Migne, xxiii; _Adv.
Iovianum_, ii. 22.
[1314] Sid. _Ep._ iv. 11. 6.
[1315] ‘Alternante mulcedine monachi clericique psalmicines’, _Ep._ v.
17. 3.
[1316] _Regula_, Migne, lxxx. 213.
[1317] _Comm. in Ep. ad Galat._ ii, praef.
[1318] _Vir. Illust._, ch. 100. The common reference to this passage
to prove that Hilary was the _first_ to introduce hymns into Gaul is
therefore not quite correct.
[1319] Vide Dreves, _Lat. Hymnendichter des Mittelalters_, p. 3.
[1320] Hilary, _Homily on Psalms_, 65, § 1; cf. Watson, _Hilary of
Poitiers_, p. xlvi.
[1321] _Hist. Univ. Par._ i. 64. He was a teacher of boys. ‘Studebat ut
omnes pueros ... statim litteras doceret ac psalmis imbueret’, Greg. Tur.
_Vitae Patrum_, 8. 2; Migne, _Pat. Lat._ lxxi, 1042.
[1322] April 2, p. 95.
[1323] _Ep._ v. 17. 3.
[1324] _Prof._ xvii. 10.
[1325] _Prof._ i. 4.
[1326] _Prof._ xvi. 14 ff.
[1327] _Prof._ xix. 11.
[1328] _Prof._ xxii. 19.
[1329] _Prof._ xxiii. 6.
[1330] _Prof._ xiii.
[1331] _Cod. Theod._ xiii. 9. 1.
[1332] Ritter, _Comment. on Cod. Theod._ xiii. 9. 1.
[1333] xiv. 6: xxviii. 4.
[1334] Cf. _Confess._ v. 8 (14) ‘Apud Carthaginem foeda est et
intemperans licentia scholasticorum: inrumpunt inpudenter et prope
furiosa fronte perturbant ordinem, quem quisque discipulis ad
proficiendum instituerit. Multai niuriosa faciunt mira hebetudine et
punienda legibus....’ He complains that Carthage is much worse than Rome.
The tradition of colonial rowdiness seems to have lasted to our own time.
[1335] _C. I. L._ xiii. 1. 1. 2040.
[1336] I owe this suggestion to the late Mr. H. J. Cunningham of
Worcester College.
[1337] ‘Paucae domus studiorum seriis cultibus antea celebratae, nunc
ludibriis ignaviae torpentis exundant, vocali sonu, perflabili tinnitu
fidium resultantes. Denique pro philosopho cantor, et in locum oratoris
doctor artium ludicrarum accitur’, xiv. 6. 18.
[1338] _Ep._ ii. 10; iv. 18; viii. 2.
[1339]
Quarum iamdudum nullus vigeat licet usus
disciplinarum, vitiato scilicet aevo.—_Euchar._ 68.
[1340] _Epist. posterior doctissimo viro Sapaudo_ (_Corp. Scriptt.
Eccles. Lat._ x. 203).
[1341] ‘Video enim os Romanum non modo neglegentiae sed pudori esse
Romanis’, ibid.
[1342] Cf. the criticisms of education in Juvenal and Seneca (_Ep. Mor._
xv. 3. 23; _Ep._ lxxvi. 4; _Ep._ cviii. 6). To rant about education has
been a temptation in all ages.
[1343] _Cambridge Mediaeval History_, i. 296.
[1344] Ibid. 392.
[1345] _De Reditu_, i. 21.
[1346] Ibid. i. 29 ff.
[1347] _Carmen de Providentia Dei_, 13; Migne, _Pat. Lat._ li. 618.
[1348] Ibid. 27.
[1349] Migne, li. 611, vs. 25.
[1350] Ibid., vs. 37 ff.
[1351] _Commonitorii_ ii. 165 (_Corp. Scriptt. Eccles. Lat._ xvi. 234).
[1352] e.g. by Maximin towards the end of the third century, _Pan. Lat._
iii. 5.
[1353] Ammianus, xxviii. 2, 10.
[1354] Zosimus, vi. 2.
[1355] Salvian, _De Gub._ v. 6, 24.
[1356] _Ep._ vi. 4. 1, A.D. 472.
[1357] _Ep._ vi. 6. 1, A.D. 472. Cf. _Ep._ vii. 10. 2, A.D. 474 ‘Si
commeandi libertas pace revocetur’, and _Ep._ vii. 11. 1.
[1358] _Ep._ vi. 10. 1, A.D. 473.
[1359] _Ep._ ix. 3. 2. Cf. _Ep._ ix. 5. 1.
[1360] _Ep._ vii. 1.
[1361] ‘Nam idcirco tantum incommodis calamitatum circumecribendis potius
quam sanandis pax quaedam videtur adludere, ut mentes fallaci securitate
laxatas, instaurato gravius metu succiduus gemitus adficiat’, _Ep. ad
Diversos_, xxxvii, ed. Peiper.
[1362] _Hist. of Europe in the Fifth Century_, p. 27.
[1363] _Ad Uxorem_, 7; Migne, li. 611.
[1364] _De Prov. Dei_, Migne, li. 618.
[1365] Ibid.
[1366] Guizot, _Hist. of Civilization_ (trans. Hazlitt), i. 439.
[1367] _De Reditu_, ii. 49.
[1368] Salvian, _De Gub._ v. 24 ‘De Bagaudis nunc mihi sermo est qui
per malos iudices et cruentos spoliati afflicti necati, postquam ius
Romanae libertatis omiserant, etiam honorem Romani nominis perdiderunt
... vocamus rebelles, vocamus perditos quos esse compulimus criminosos’.
Salvian was a preacher and loved vividness. But, as Hodgkin remarks
(I. i. 2, pp. 920 ff.), he was a truthful man, and had an enthusiasm
for justice, and as such he saw that there was much to be said on the
anti-Roman side. Cf. ‘... inciperent esse quasi barbari, quia non
permittebantur esse Romani’.
[1369] Pichon, _Études sur la Litt. lat._ i. 55.
[1370] Sidon. _Ep._ ii. 10. 1; iv. 17. 2.
[1371] Letter to Philip, 5, 10; Murray, _Religio Grammatici_, p. 18.
[1372] ‘Der Endzweck der Wissenschaften ist Wahrheit. Wahrheit ist der
Seele nothwendig, und es wird Tyrannei, ihr in Befriedigung dieses
wesentlichen Bedürfnisses den geringsten Zwang anzuthun.’
[1373] ‘Et ideo ego adolescentulos existimo in scholis stultissimos
fieri, quia nihil ex iis quae in usu habemus aut audiunt aut vident’,
_Satyr._ i. 1 and 2.
[1374] Aphthon. _Progym._ 4. 10.
[1375] Ibid. 7.
[1376] Ibid. 12.
[1377] _Ep._ xxii.
[1378] _Ep._ xiii. 6 ff.
[1379] _Ep._ xv. 24 ff. Cf. his trifling with Greek words, _Ep._ viii.
[1380] _Ep._ viii. 11. 5.
[1381] _Ep._ ix. 14. 4.
[1382] _Ep._ ix. 7. 2.
[1383] Professores, Epitaphia, Ludus, Caesares, Periochae, &c.
[1384] Eclogae, Cupido, Technopaegnion, Griphus, Cento, &c.
[1385] Cf. Sid. _Ep._ iv. 22. 2 ‘et ego Plinio discipulus assurgo’.
[1386] _Ep._ i. 1. 2.
[1387] Cf. Baret’s ed., p. 115.
[1388] _Ep._ iv. 3. 3.
[1389] _Ep._ iv. 22. 6.
[1390] ‘Quisquis enim recentiorum aliquid dignum memoria scriptitavit,
non et ipse novitios legit. Illi ergo reventilandi memoriaeque mandandi
sunt de quibus isti potuere proficere quos miramur’, _Ep. Posterior_
(_Corp. Scriptt. Eccles. Lat._, vol. x, p. 206).
[1391] See especially Brandt, _Eumenius von Augustodunum_, pp. 18, 19.
Cf. Pichon, _Études sur la Litt. lat._ i. 36 ff.
[1392] It must be remembered, however, that the ‘litterati’ of the day
very often posed as familiar with authors whom they only knew from
extracts or anthologies. The rarer authors here prescribed were known,
probably, only in this superficial way.
[1393] Cf. Wackernagel in _Kultur der Gegenwart_, i. 8. 389.
[1394] Jer. _Ep._ 125. 6.
[1395] Sidonius gives as the special mark of the grammarian his love of
rule (_regulare_), _Ep._ iv. 1. 2.
[1396] ‘Ambrosio et Beato’ (_Corp. Scriptt. Eccles. Lat._, vol. vi, p.
408).
[1397] Cf. Aulus Gellius, N. A. i. 6. 4 ‘Rhetori concessum est sententiis
uti falsis, audacibus, versutis, subdolis, captiosis, si veri modo
similes sint....’
[1398] Ozanam, _Hist. of Civil. in the Fifth Century_, i. 3.
[1399] Cf. Rocafort, _Paulin de Pella_, p. xl; Ebert, _Geschichte der
Litteratur des Mittelalters_, p. 409.
[1400] Praef. § 1 ‘me scilicet _totam_ vitam meam deo debere’; _Euchar._
590 ff. ‘hoc unum ipse bonum statuens, hoc esse tenendum conscius,
hoc toto cupiens adquirere corde.... Te praefando loqui, Te meminisse
silendo’.
[1401] _De Prov._ 935; Migne, li. 618.
[1402] Ibid. 941.
[1403] Ibid. 958.
[1404] Migne, li. 611.
[1405] _Ep._ vii. 13.
[1406] _Ep._ 60; Migne, xxii. 600 ‘Orbis Romanus ruit et tamen cervix
nostra erecta non flectitur’.
[1407] _De Doctrina._
[1408] Ibid. iv. 2.
[1409] _Confess._ iii. 6.
[1410] ‘Ne ulterius pueri meditantes ... insanias mendaces et bella
forensia mercarentur ex ore meo arma furori suo’, ibid. ix. 2.
[1411] _Prin. Rhet._ i.; Migne, xxxii. 1439 ‘Oratoris officium est ...
primum ipsam (quaestionem) intellegere’. Cf. _De Ordine_, ii. 17, talking
of barbarisms and solecisms of which he confesses he himself may be
guilty, he says to his mother: ‘sed tu, contemptis istis vel puerilibus
rebus vel ad te non pertinentibus, ita grammaticae divinam fere vim
naturamque cognoscis _ut eius animam tenuisse, corpus reliquisse disertis
videaris_’.
[1412] Ibid., ch. 2. Cf. Isidore of Seville, _Etymol._ ii. 1 ‘Rhetorica
est scientia ... ad persuadenda iusta et bona’. Migne, lxxxii. 125.
[1413] ‘Hic est ordo studiorum sapientiae per quem fit quisque idoneus ad
intelligendum ordinem rerum, id est, ad dignoscendos duos mundos et ipsum
parentem Universitatis’, _De Ord._ ii. 18. Cf. i. 9; ii. 16.
[1414] _De Schol. Rom._, p. 43.
[1415] _Chron. Ler._ ii. 57; Migne, l. 718.
[1416] _Phaedo_, 66 C.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
I. ORIGINAL AUTHORITIES.
(_a_) Pagan.
(Teubner Series, unless otherwise stated.)
Ammianus.
Aulus Gellius.
Ausonius (for a full bibliography to Ausonius see _Prolegomena to an
edition of the works of D. M. Ausonius_, Sister M. J. Byrne, 1916).
Caesar.
Cicero (esp. _De Oratore_ and _Brutus_).
Claudius Claudianus.
_Codex Theodosianus_, ed. Mommsen and Meyer, with the old but
valuable commentaries of Gothofredus and Ritter.
Diodorus (Dübner).
Galen, ed. Kühn.
_Grammatici Latini_, ed. Keil (esp. Servius).
_Grammaticae Romanae Fragmenta_ (1907).
Horace.
Isocrates.
Justinus, ed. Benecke.
Juvenal, with Mayor’s _Commentary_.
_Leges Visigothorum_ (_Monumenta Germaniae Historiae_).
Libanius, _Orations_, ed. Reiske.
Libanius, _Letters_, ed. Seeck.
Lucian.
Macrobius.
Martial.
_Panegyrici Latini_ (1911).
Petronius, ed. Littré.
Pliny, _Naturalis Historia_.
Pliny, _Panegyric_, _Letters_.
Plutarch, _Lives_.
Quintilian.
Rhetores Graeci.
Rutilius Namatianus.
_Die Schriften der römischen Feldmesser_, ed. Mommsen.
_Scriptores Historiae Augustae._
Seneca, _Suasoriae et Controversiae_.
Seneca (the philosopher), _Epistulae_.
Sidonius, with Dalton’s Introduction to his translation of the
_Letters_.
Strabo (Dübner).
Suetonius, _De Grammaticis_, _De Rhetoribus_.
Symmachus, ed. Seeck.
Tacitus.
(_b_) Christian.
(Migne’s Series, unless otherwise stated.)
_Ad Uxorem._
Augustine, _Confessions_, ed. Knöll; and esp. _De Ordine_, _De
Doctrina_, _Principia Rhetorices_.
Avitus, _Monumenta Germaniae Historiae_.
Caesarius.
Cassian.
Cassiodorus, _Variae_.
Claudianus Mamertus (_Corpus Scriptt. Eccles. Lat._).
_De Providentia Dei._
Ennodius (_Corpus Scriptt. Eccles. Lat._).
Eucherius.
Gennadius, _De viris illustribus_.
Hilary of Arles.
Hilary of Poitiers.
Isidore of Seville.
Jerome, esp. _Letters_.
Paulinus of Nola (_Corpus Scriptt. Eccles. Lat._).
Paulinus of Pella (_Corpus Scriptt. Eccles. Lat._).
Prudentius.
Remigius.
Salvian.
Sedulius.
Socrates.
Sozomen.
Tertullian.
Theodoret.
Victor of Marseilles.
(_c_) Inscriptions.
Boissieu, _Inscriptions de Lyon_.
_Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum._
Le Blant, _Nouveau Recueil de l’Épigraphie chrétienne_.
Pirson, _La Langue des Inscriptions latines de la Gaule_.
II. MODERN AUTHORITIES.
(_a_) Works of Reference.
_Archiv für lateinische Lexicographie_, ed. Wölfflin.
Blümner, _Römische Privatalterthümer_.
Boquet, _Recueil des Historiens_, tom. 1.
Cramer, _Geschichte der Erziehung_.
Daremberg-Saglio, _Dictionnaire des Antiquités_.
Desjardins, _Géographie historique de la Gaule_.
Dreves, _Lateinische Hymnendichter des Mittelalters_.
Ebert, _Geschichte der Litteratur des Mittelalters_.
Espérandieu, _Les bas-reliefs de la Gaule Romaine_.
Grasberger, _Erziehung u. Unterricht im klassischen Alterthum_.
Gröber, _Grundriss der romanischen Philologie_.
Head, _Historia Numorum_ (1911).
Hefele, _Conciliengeschichte_.
_Histoire littéraire de la France._
Marquardt, _Das Privatleben der Römer_.
Paul, _Grundriss der germanischen Philologie_.
Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencyclopädie_.
Schanz, _Geschichte der römischen Litteratur_.
Teuffel-Schwabe, _History of Roman Literature_ (transl. Warr).
(_b_) Other Works.
_Acta Sanctorum Ordinis Benedictini_ (Bolland).
Barralis, _Chronologia Sanctorum et aliorum virorum illustrium atque
abbatum sacrae insulae Lerinensis_ (1613).
Bertrand, _Saint Augustin_ (transl.).
Boissier, _La Fin du Paganisme_; _Tacite_.
Bulaeus, _Historia Universitatis Parisiensis_.
Bury, _Roman Empire_.
_Cambridge Mediaeval History_.
Cantor, _Die römischen Agrimensoren_.
Denk, _Geschichte des gallo-fränkischen Unterrichts- u.
Bildungswesens_.
Fauriel, _Histoire de la Gaule méridionale_.
Frank, _Roman Imperialism_.
Freeman, _Historical Essays_.
Freeman, _Methods of Historical Study_.
Freeman, _Western Europe during the Fifth Century_.
Gibbon, _Decline and Fall_, ed. Bury.
Glover, _Life and Letters in the Fourth Century_.
Guizot, _History of Civilization_ (tr. Hazlitt).
Hodgkin, _Italy and her Invaders_.
Holmes, _Christian Church in Gaul_.
Jullian, _Histoire de Bordeaux_.
Jullian, _Histoire de la Gaule_.
Jullian, _Les Premières Universités françaises_ (_Rev. internat. de
l’Enseignement_, 1893).
Jung, _De Scholis Romanis in Gallia Comata_.
Kaufmann, _Rhetoren- u. Klosterschulen in Gallien während des 5. und
6. Jahrhunderts_.
Lavisse, _Histoire de France_.
Monnard, _De Gallorum oratorio ingenio_.
Montalembert, _The Monks of the West_ (transl.)
Norden, _Die antike Kunstprosa_ (2nd ed.).
Ozanam, _History of Civilization in the Fifth Century_ (transl.).
Pichon, _Études sur l’Histoire de la littérature latine dans les
Gaules_.
Puech, _De Paulini Nolani Ausoniique epistolarum commercio_.
Rocafort, _Paulin de Pella_.
Speck, _Quaestiones Ausonianae_.
Watson, E. W., _Hilary of Poitiers_ (_Nicene and Post-Nicene
Fathers_).
Woodward, _Christianity and Nationalism in the later Roman Empire_
(1916).
INDEX
(_For names of persons see subjects connected with them._)
_A._
Abacus (for arithmetic), 60.
Actors, 127, 154.
Administration, imperial, 119 ff.
Aesop, fables of, 73.
Afrikaans in South African schools, 255.
Age for beginning school, (pagan), 106;
(Christian), 181.
_Agrimensores_, 89.
Agroecius, text-book of, 64.
Alexandria, Christian schools at, 176.
doctors of, 89.
Alimenta, 138.
Ambrose, hymns of, 237, 238.
Analogists, 62.
Annonae, 113.
Anomalists, 62.
_Antecessores_, 85.
ἀντιθέσεις (rhetorical), 78.
Antioch, school-life at, 52.
Sophists of, 72.
school-exercises at, 72 ff.
Antiquities, 64, 65.
ἄπαξ εὶρημένα and provincialisms, preserved by Marcellus, 88.
Appointment of teachers, 113, 149.
Aquitaine, connexion with Greece of, 220.
distinction of, 46 ff.
first to be Romanized, 27.
morals of, 199.
peacefulness of, 39.
Archaism, prevalent in our period, 254.
effect on education, 255.
_Archiatri_, 88.
Architecture at Trèves and Autun, 102, 234.
Christian, 234.
Arena, 154.
Arithmetic, in Christian schools, 186.
in pagan schools, 59.
Art, in Catacombs, 235.
natural to Gauls, 231.
how modified in Gaul, 31, 232.
Martin and Cassiodorus on, 234, 235.
naturalistic in choice of subject, 31.
possible school of, at Martres, 233.
paintings, 236.
produced by foreigners, 233.
references in Ausonius, 231, 232.
remains of in Gaul, 30.
tendency to artificiality of, 232, 233.
vases, ivories, &c., 235, 236.
Artificiality, 160, 251-4.
Astronomy, needed for poetry, 41, 67, 68.
Authority, educational, of Quintilian, 57 ff., 183, 184.
Autun (Augustodunum, Flavia Aeduorum), 28, 37, 38 ff., 102 ff., 136.
eclipsed by Trèves, 48.
soon Romanized, 38.
_B._
Bagaudae, 37, 246, 249 and n.
Barbarians, imperial attitude towards, 25, 26, 32.
imperial policy towards, 31.
invasions of, 142, 143, 243 ff.
Bards among the Celts, 12.
Bede on finger-computation, 59.
Bible as text-book, 189, 229.
influence on history, 218.
Bishops, growth of power of, 153.
Book-copying, (pagan), 58;
(Christian), 186.
Bordeaux, educational importance of, 46 ff.
fortunes of, 47.
Greek teachers of, 222.
intellectual capital of Gaul, 46.
Breves (reports on work of students), 107.
Buildings, Roman, in Gaul, 30.
at Autun, 102, 234.
_C._
Capella, Martianus, seven acts of, 60.
in Christian schools, 188.
Cassiodorus, conception of art of, 235.
Catacombs, art in, 235.
Catechumen schools, 176, 178.
Cathedra, 103.
Celtic, survival of, 10 ff., 161.
plant-names in, 88.
Celts, boorishness of, 49 ff.
character of, 12 ff., 199.
worship Mercury, 11, 12.
oratorical gift of, 12.
priests of, 13.
exclusive educational system of, 13, 14.
Censure, ψόγος (rhetoric), 77.
Centralization, effect of, on education, 144, 145.
Charities, 155.
Chreia (rhetoric), 73.
kinds of, 74.
Chronography, 210, 217.
Church, adornment of, 232, 234, 235.
contains aristocrats and intellectuals of the time, 156, 157.
art in, described by Paulinus of Nola, 236.
enthusiasm for education of, 40, 42, 54, 177 ff., 197.
government of, 175.
does not create new education, 162.
gains individuality, 155.
influence of, 153, 256.
music in, 237.
political significance of, 152 ff.
reaction in, against paganism, 195.
does not transform Roman Empire, 157.
sincerity of, 257, 258.
Church schools, rise of, 175 ff.
scattered and indefinite, 181.
not exclusively moral, 188.
methods of, 193 ff.
Citizenship, 128, 148, 218.
Civil power, growth of, 119.
Class distinction in society, 124 ff.
Jullian’s statement concerning, 125 ff.
Mommsen’s, 128.
effect on education, 131.
Class-rooms, 102, 182.
Collegia, 127 ff.
Coloni, 129.
Comparison, σίγκρισις (rhetoric), 77.
Confirmation, κατασκευή (rhetoric) 76.
Conplatonicorum collegium, 80.
Controversia de loco (surveying), 89.
Controversiae, 69.
Contubernium, 111, 112.
Convictus, 111.
Corporati, 127 ff.
Cosmographia, of Aethicus Hister, 66.
Courses, length of, 106.
Courts, ecclesiastical, 152.
Criticism, literary, 62.
Curiales, 121, 126, 131.
_D._
Description, ἔκφρασις (rhetoric), 78.
Dictionaries, 65.
_Dictiones Ethicae_, 69.
of Ennodius, 69, 163 n.
Discipline, (pagan), 53, 93 ff.;
(Christian), 241.
Quintilian on, 96.
_Disticha Catonis_, 188.
Doctors, exempt from military service, 88.
State-paid, 88.
teachers of their profession, 88, 89.
chiefly provincials, 89.
wealthy, 89.
Donatus = grammar of Donatus, 63.
Dress, academic, 107.
Druids, philosophy of, 12, 82.
Caesar’s account of, 13.
learning of, derived from Britain, 13.
use of writing among, 13.
Cicero on science of, 13.
exclusive nature of learning of, 13, 14.
political influence of, 14.
imperial policy towards, 15.
persistence of, 15, 16.
female, 15, 16.
_E._
Education, abroad, of Gallic students, 240 ff.
affected by art, 234, 237.
authorities on, Quintilian supreme, 57 ff., 183, 184.
effect of centralization on, 144.
effect of class distinction on, 124 ff.
Christian, in Gaul, 175 ff.
control of, 93.
decline of, 243.
earlier Roman, 33 ff.
elasticity in, advocated by Christians, 168.
elementary, (pagan), 58;
support given by Emperors to, 138, 139;
(Christian), 175.
epitome of, (pagan), 53.
extent of, (pagan), 34 ff., 41 ff., 131 ff.;
(Christian), 175, 178, 181, 190.
female, 205.
practised by Gallic Celts, 11 ff.
general scope of, (pagan), 55, 56, 57.
given by grammaticus, 60 ff.
higher, (pagan), 68 ff.;
(Christian), 191.
history in, 205.
ideals in, 249 ff.;
of Isocrates and Cicero in, 158, 159;
of Panegyrici Latini in, 160.
imperial protection of, 36, 84, 85, 113, 135 ff.
invaders’ influence on, 37, 47, 243 ff.
Julian’s encouragement of, 2, 40, 113, 137.
language question in, 223 ff.
upheld by Massilia, 7 ff.
place of memory in ancient, 90.
monopolized by emperors, 113, 144, 145.
moral, 198.
organization of, (pagan), 102;
(Christian), 182 ff.
practice of, (pagan), 52 ff.;
(Christian), 180 ff.;
in Rhetores Graeci, 172 ff.
private, 55, 103, 145, 182.
prosperity of, in Gaul, 39 ff.
public, growth of, 135.
remuneration of, 112 ff.
given by rhetor, 68 ff.
based on rhetoric, 71 ff., 157 ff., 249.
affected by roads, 29, 30, 248.
stages of, 53, 55, 56, 103 ff.
Ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία, 71.
Ἑλληνισμός (purity of style), 73.
Elocution, 61, 250, 251.
Ἠθοποιία, characterization (rhetoric), 77.
Eversores, 242.
Examinations, 107.
Exposition (_enarratio_), 61.
_F._
Fables, in schools at Antioch, 72 ff., 187.
forced interpretation of, 73.
Fathers, Church, interest in education of, 178 ff.
fondness for Rhetoric, 162 ff.
reaction of, against rhetoric, 166 ff. (_rusticitas_).
attitude to art, 234, 235, 237.
harsh methods of, 194.
manual labour of, 195.
enthusiasm of, 40, 41, 177 ff.
aim at simplicity, 166.
nature of work of, 197.
attitude to women, 206 ff.
Fees, 115.
Finger-computation, 59, 186.
Flaccus, M. Verrius (_see_ Dictionaries).
Flavia Aeduorum (Autun), 28 ff.
Flavius Caper (_see_ Text-books).
Floralia at Toulouse, 108.
Florus (_see_ Gauls, character of).
Formula, magic, for medicine, 88.
_G._
Gallic Latin, 21.
Games, 97 ff.
in home of Gallic aristocrat, 54.
gladiatorial, 154, 155.
Gaul, imperial status of, 42, 240.
prosperity of schools of, 39 ff.
Romanization of, 26 ff.
students of, abroad, 240 ff.;
how treated at Rome, 241, 242.
Gauls, capacity for art, 231.
supposed boorishness of, 49 ff., 221.
character of, 11, 12, 199.
capacity for eloquence, 11, 12, 141, 160.
lively spirit of, 231.
cultivate the panegyric, 141.
Geography, supposed weakness of Romans in, 66.
writers on, 66.
in Ausonius, 67.
function of, 66, 67, 215.
Germans, forbidden to intermarry, 21.
influence of, on Gaul, 20 ff.
influence of, on Latin, 20, 21.
influence of, on Romans, 19, 20.
Gladiators, action concerning, 154, 155.
Gnomê, γνώμη (rhetoric), 74.
Goths, attitude of aristocrats towards, 25, 26.
code of laws of, 24, 200.
entertainments of, 23, 237.
intellect of, 23.
moral influence of, 199.
not unpopular in Roman Gaul, 54.
Grammar (modern sense), 64.
Grammatikê, first treatise on, by Dionysius Thrax, 61.
how regarded by Ennodius, 163.
function of, 61.
compared with Rhetoric, 68.
criticized as non-ethical, 202.
regarded as incentive to virtue, 203, 204.
general scope of, 56.
Greek, neglected by Ausonius, 222.
in Church, 9, 44, 222, 223.
decline of, 221 ff.
in Gaul (second century), 35.
influences gymnastics, 101.
inscriptions in, 221.
influence of Massilia in favour of, 4 ff., 161, 220.
identified with paganism, 220.
Quintilian on, 229.
found difficult by schoolboys, 55, 222, 223, 224.
why found difficult, 225 ff.
Guilds, 127 ff.
Gymnastics, regarded with disfavour by Romans, 99.
due to Greek influence, 101.
Quintilian on place of, 100.
_H._
Head masters, 116, 182, 184.
Heiresses, married by Bordeaux teachers, 133.
History, 57, 209 ff.
Constitutional, 65.
ancient conception of, 211 ff.
Christian influence on, 217.
directed by imperial policy, 66, 210, 215, 216.
logical and psychological value of, 219.
moral value of, 219.
ruled by rhetoric, 214, 215.
treated as side issue, 210, 211.
haphazard study of, 213.
Holidays, increase of Christian, 109.
attitude of Church to pagan, 110.
Floralia at Toulouse, 108.
easily produced, 110, 111.
less splendid in provinces than at Rome, 108.
Home, literary atmosphere of, 54.
education, 103, 145, 182.
Hours, school, 107.
Hymns, antiphonal, 238.
influence of Augustine, 237.
contribution of Gaul, 239.
importance of, for modern metres, 239.
origin of, 237, 238.
used in schools, 237, 238.
_I._
Ideals, Pagan and Christian, 249 ff.
of Isocrates and Cicero, 158, 159.
of Panegyrici Latini, 160.
Imperial interest in schools, 36, 84, 85, 113, 135 ff., 146.
Inscriptions, 4, 15, 45, 46, 99, 161, 182, 203, 221, 242.
Intermarriage, between Roman and barbarian, 21 (ff. 248, 249)
between different classes in society, 127.
Invasions, 37, 47, 243 ff.
affect education through slaughter of children, 248.
_J._
Jurisdiction, civil, passes over to Church, 152.
_K._
Κατηγορία (rhetoric), 78.
Knowledge, low general standard of, 124 ff., 175, 181, 190.
widespread among Christians, 40, 42, 43, 54, 177, 178, 179, 196.
made a matter of class by Celts, 13, 14.
affected by imperial protection, advantageously, 135 ff.;
disadvantageously, 144 ff.
Κοινόβιοι, original idea of monastery, 177.
Κοινὸς τόπος (rhetoric), 76.
_L._
Labour, manual, 155, 195.
La Tène Civilization, 14.
Law, Arles a centre of, 83.
connexion with imperial policy, 84.
increased interest in, during fifth century, 82.
Justinian on teaching of, 84, 85.
Civil magistrates drawn from profession of, 85.
Roman, passes into Church, 153.
students of, go to Rome, 83, 84, 241.
few teachers of, 82.
Lawyers, as lecturers (_antecessores_), of Massilia, 82.
bad reputation of, 86, 87.
Lector, 181, 183.
ordination and qualifications of, 184.
Lérins, education at, 177, 179, 180, 187, 190, 195.
Lesson, method of conducting in pagan schools, 60.
Literature, enthusiasm for, 43, 131, 140.
pagan, banned by Christians, 169 ff., 206, 260;
reason for exclusive attitude toward, 170, 171;
partially accepted by wiser Christians, 172, 173, 188;
form of, used by Christians, 189.
Litterae formatae, 223.
_Litterator_ (elementary teacher), 105.
_Locus communis_, κοινὸς τόπος, 76.
_Vergilianus_, 69.
Ludi Florales, 108.
λύσεις (rhetoric), 78.
_M._
Maeniana, meaning of, 38.
school at Autun, 38, 41, 100, 102.
Magic, in medicine, 88.
Manumissions, in Church, 152.
Maps, 66, 67.
imperial use of, 66, 215, 216.
Martyrum, Acta, 9, 185, 210.
Masses, ignorance of, 130, 131, 175, 190.
Massilia, art of, 5.
coins of, 4.
culture of, 6.
Christian place of refuge, 10, 177, 178, 200 note.
doctors of, 87.
educational centre, 6, 7.
lawyers of, 82.
languages of, 8, 9.
part placed by, 9.
friendship with Rome, 5.
teachers of, 8.
contrasted with surrounding tribes, 7.
effect on surrounding tribes, 7, 8.
St. Victor, monastery of, at, 10, 177, 178.
Mathematics, of primary school, 60.
came to Rome from Egypt, 89.
Medicine, studied by Ausonius’s aunt, 41.
influence of Massilia on, 87.
a lucrative profession, 89.
prominence of provincials in, 89.
no separate school of, 87.
superstition in, 88.
Memory, place of, in ancient education, 91, 92.
Mendicancy, law against, 155.
_Merces_ (fees), 115.
Mercury, worshipped in early Gaul, 11 ff.
Metres, modern, developed by Christian hymns, 239.
Military power, decreases in later Empire, 119.
_Minerval_ (fees), 115.
Mnemonics, 90.
Monasticism, rise of, in Gaul, 177.
widespread educational influence of, 178.
not yet organized by St. Benedict, 166, 181.
Monks, trained in Arts of Capella, 188.
appreciation of their work, 197.
harsh discipline of, 193, 194.
efficiency of, as teachers, 196.
educated chiefly at Lérins and Marseilles in fifth century, 179.
manual labour of, 193, 194.
attitude of, to Rhetoric, 162 ff.
Music, work of Augustine on, 237.
ecclesiastical, 237.
among the Goths, 23.
mentioned in school exercises, 73.
frivolous nature of, at Rome, 237.
_N._
Narration, διήγημα (rhetoric), 73.
Nationalism in Roman Empire, 18, 19, 219.
Neoplatonism, 192.
Newspapers, professors used instead of, 140.
Notarii, (pagan), 59;
(Christian), 185.
Number of pupils at Bordeaux, 105.
_O._
_Oblati_, 181.
Organization, of pagan schools, 102;
of Christian schools, 182.
Oxford, compared with Bordeaux University, 135.
_P._
Paedagogus, 52.
protects child from evil influences, 53.
Paganism, artificiality of, 160, 251-4.
Paganism, attitude of Christians towards, 42 ff., 169 ff.
bitterness of, 170 ff.
neglects elementary education, 175.
neglects education of lower classes, 124 ff.
persists in holidays, 110.
persists in rhetorical tradition, 162 ff.
how Christianity supplemented, 175, 191, 195.
Palladia, name for Toulouse, 34.
Panegyric, archaism of, 254.
one of teacher’s duties, 141.
historical value of, 33 note.
imperial use of, 146.
merits of, 251.
servility of, 146 ff.
Panegyrists, genuinely grateful to Emperor, 142.
hysterically loud in his praise, 146 ff.
Greek learning of, 221.
Patriotism, inculcated by history, 218.
Pelagianism, 192.
Philology, 62, 189.
Philosophy, of Ausonius, 81.
Christian, 191 ff.
of Claudianus Mamertus, 192, 193.
of history, 217.
in grammarian’s school, 79, 203.
among _litterati_ of Gaul, 79 ff.
connected with natural sciences, 80.
neglect of, 81.
Jung’s theory to account for neglect of, 81, 82.
influence of Pythagoras on, 193.
Physicians, State-paid, 88.
Πιθανότης (rhetoric), 73.
Plato, how regarded by Christians, 80, 193.
Platonic club, 80, 112.
Play, 97 ff.
Poetry, in pagan schools, 56, 57, 68, 69.
in Christian schools, 169, 188, 206.
Poor scholars, support of, 138.
Pottery, 31.
Praefectus Galliarum, Ausonius becomes, 119.
Praise, ἐγκώμιον (rhetoric), 76.
Prescriptions, book of, by Marcellus Empiricus, 88.
Primus magister (_litterator_), 104, 105.
_Progymnasmata_, 72 ff.
_Proscholus_, 105.
Provinces, exposed to attacks of barbarians, 47, 48, 244.
divisions of society in, 121.
advantages of imperial protection of, 122, 141 ff.
disadvantages of imperial protection of, 123, 144 ff., 215.
government of, 18, 24, 29, 31, 119 ff., 249.
status of, 32, 240.
Salvian on misgovernment of, 249 note.
_Q._
Qualifications of teacher, 137 (Julian’s decree); 138 (decree of
Valentinian and Valens).
_Querolus_, fourth-century comedy, 171, 200.
_R._
Reader, Church, _see_ Lector.
Reading, in Christian schools, 183.
in pagan schools, 59.
clearness and intonation aimed at, 61.
Quintilian on, 59, 61 n., 183.
Refutation, ἀνασκευή (rhetoric), 74.
perverse method of, 75.
Research, attitude towards, 212, 213.
Restrictions, local, due to imperial protection, 127.
_Rhetores Graeci_, 71.
Rhetoric, advantages of, 249-51.
disadvantages of, 251-6.
natural to Gauls, 11, 12, 16.
persistence of, 157 ff.
power of, 160.
how regarded by Ennodius, 163.
of Hilary of Arles, 165.
of Hilary of Poitiers, 164, 167.
ideal of Isocrates in, 158, 159.
ideal of Cicero in, 159.
ideal of Panegyrists in, 160.
increasing futility of, 158.
why a failure, 256.
predominant in schools, 162.
prominent in Gaul, 11, 39, 50, 51, 160, 161.
general scope of, in schools, 68.
stages of, in schools, 69.
universality of, 70.
Roads, influence of, on education, 29, 30, 248.
Romanization, 26 ff.
causes of, in Gaul, 31.
not quite complete, 27, 29.
proved by archaeological remains, 30.
Rusticitas, 166 ff.
_S._
Salaries of teachers, amount of, 114.
enactments of Vespasian and Gratian concerning, 113.
gifts of Emperor supplement, 115.
paid at one time by parents, 115.
paid sometimes by individual towns, 114.
paid by State first in Gaul, 112.
unequal, 112.
Schola, meaning of, in fourth century, 103.
Schoolboy, picture of, in Libanius, 52.
Schoolroom, nature of, (pagan), 102;
(Christian), 182.
Schools (_see_ Education), grades of, 103 ff.
private adventure, discouraged, 113.
Sculpture (_see_ Art).
Semi-Pelagianism, 192.
Sententia, γνώμη (rhetoric), 74.
Shorthand, (pagan), 59;
(Christian), 185, 186.
Slaves, education of, 128, 129.
new attitude to, 153.
decrease of, reasons for, 154.
Social life of Bordeaux teacher, 132 ff.
Stage, action of Church against, 154.
unhealthy state of Gallic, 199.
State, relation of, to Church, 151 ff.
overshadowed by Church, 152, 153.
flouted by Church, 156.
as the champion of the Church, 156.
passes on its law and organization to Church, 153.
pays teaching doctors, 88.
pays teaching lawyers, 85.
pays school-teachers, 112 ff.
protects education materially and spiritually, 135 ff.
Stationes (of lecturing lawyers), 85.
Strenae, gifts of Emperor, 115 and note.
Studies, decline of, 243.
primary, (pagan), 58 ff.;
(Christian), 175 ff.
secondary, (pagan), 68 ff.;
(Christian), 191.
Subdoctor (_proscholus_), 105.
συνηγορία (rhetoric), 78.
Superstition, in Astronomy, 67, 68.
in Medicine, 88.
_T._
Teachers, appointed by Emperor, 136, 139.
to be approved of by Emperors, 113, 137, 138.
at Antioch, 72 ff.
benefits bestowed by Emperor, 136 ff.
conviviality of, at Bordeaux, 133 ff.
encouraged by Julian, 2, 40, 113, 137.
Gratitude of, to Emperor, 142.
Greek, at Rome, 135, 136.
harshness of, (pagan), 53, 93 ff.;
(Christian), 193 ff.
intellect of, (pagan), 134;
(Christian), 193.
methods of, (pagan), 52 ff., 90 ff., 93 ff.;
(Christian), 180 ff., 193 ff.
of morals, 203.
number appointed at Bordeaux, 115, 116.
public, gradually recognized at Rome, 136.
remuneration of, 112 ff.
social status of, 134, 135.
State, forbidden to teach privately, 145.
unhappiness of, 132.
whether they followed pupils from class to class, 116 ff.
Teaching, private, (pagan), 55, 103, 145;
(Christian), 182.
public (_see_ Education).
Text-books, 63, 189, 193.
of Donatus, 63.
of Sinnius Capito, 64 ff.
epitomes of Varro, 65.
Vergil, in pagan schools, 55, 56, 62, 69 _et passim_;
in Christian schools, 162, 169, 174, 187, 197.
Theatres, Gallic, Salvian’s condemnation of, 199.
Theodosian Code, 82, 88, 90, 129, 133, 137, 152 n., 153, 200, 201 _et
passim_.
Thesis (rhetoric), 78.
Trèves, eclipses Autun in importance, 48.
buildings of, 30.
imperial capital, 30, 34, 48.
predominantly military, 48.
_U._
Universalism of Christianity, 217.
University, residential, germ of, 111.
_V._
Vates (οὐάτεις) among Celts, 12.
Victor St., monastery of, 10, 177, 178.
_W._
Women, attitude of Christians towards, 155, 205 ff.
education of, influenced by Christianity, 205, 207;
at Rome, 206;
objected to by Claudius Victor, 206;
in Sidonius, 207;
small on the whole, 209.
friends of Jerome, 208.
intellect of, praised by Sedulius, 208;
by Ennodius, 209.
Writing, in Christian schools, 184.
in pagan schools, 58.
among Druids, 13.
Quintilian on, 58, 184.
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