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.

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]

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:

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:

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 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.

At fifteen[335] we find him still at the school of the grammarian:

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