Omnia dixisset. Ridenda poemata malo
Quam te, conspicuae divina Philippica famae,
Volveris a prima quae proxima.
Juvenal, Satires, x. 114-126.
114-118 Boys at school long to be a Demosthenes or a Cicero.
115 totis Quinquatribus, i.e. during all the five days of the Quinquatria, an annual feast of Minerva, March 19-23: it was always a holiday time at schools, and the school year began at the close of it.
116 parcam Minervam = a cheap kind of learning, and uno asse = an entrance fee of one as. But Duff says as here = stips, i.e. the boy’s contribution to the goddess of wisdom, who can make him wise, and parcam (= economical), transferred from asse to Minervam.
117 vernula = a little home-born slave, capsa a circular box of beech-wood, used for the transport of books.
121 causidici pusilli = of a petty pleader, as opposed to orator.
122 From Cicero’s poem de suo consulatu. Another line quoted in the 2nd Philippic is Cedant arma togae, concedat laurea laudi.