[36] Quis rer. div. heres. 3, vol. i. p. 474.
[37] For example, Verrius Flaccus, the father of the system of “prize essays,” who received an annual salary of 100,000 sesterces from Augustus (Suet. de illustr. Gramm. 17). The inscriptions of Asia Minor furnish several instances of teachers who had left their homes to teach in other provinces of the Empire, and had returned rich enough to make presents to their native cities.
[38] The evidence for the above paragraph, with ample accounts of additional facts relative to the same subject, but unnecessary for the present purpose, will be found in F. H. L. Ahrens, de Athenarum statu politico et literario inde ab Achaici fœderis interitu usque ad Antoninorum tempora, Göttingen, 1829; K. O. Müller, Quam curam respublica apud Græcos et Romanos literis doctrinisque colendis et promovendis impenderit, Göttingen (Programm zur Säcularfeier), 1837; P. Seidel, de scholarum quæ florente Romanorum imperio Athenis exstiterunt conditione, Glogau, 1838; C. G. Zumpt, Ueber den Bestand der philosophischen Schulen in Athen und die Succession der Scholarchen, Berlin (Abhandl. der Akademie der Wissenschaften), 1843; L. Weber, Commentatio de academia literaria Atheniensium, Marburg, 1858. There is an interesting Roman inscription of the end of the second century A.D. which almost seems to show that the endowments were sometimes diverted for the benefit of others besides philosophers: it is to an athlete, who was at once “canon of Serapis,” and entitled to free commons at the museum, νεωκόρον τοῦ μεγά[λου Σαράπιδ]ος καὶ τῶν ἐν τῷ Μουσείῳ [σειτου]μένων ἀτελῶν φιλοσόφων, Corpus Inscr. Græc. 5914.
[39] The edict of Antoninus Pius is contained in L. 6, § 2, D. de excusat. 27. l: the number of philosophers is not prescribed, “quia rari sunt qui philosophantur:” and if they make stipulations about pay, “inde iam manifesti fient non philosophantes.” The nature of the immunities is described, ibid. § 8: “a ludorum publicorum regimine, ab ædilitate, a sacerdotio, a receptione militum, ab emtione frumenti, olei, et neque judicare neque legatos esse neque in militia numerari nolentes neque ad alium famulatum cogi.” The immunities were sometimes further extended to the lower classes of teachers, e.g. the ludi magistri at Vipascum in Portugal: cf. Hübner and Mommsen in the Ephemeris Epigraphica, vol. iii. pp. 185, 188. For the regulations of the later empire, see Cod. Theodos. 14. 9, de studiis liberalibus urbis Romæ et Constantinopolitanæ; and for a good popular account of the whole subject, see G. Boissier, L’instruction publique dans l’empire Romain, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, mars 15, 1884.
[40] Lucian’s Convivium is a humorous and satirical description of such a dinner. The philosopher reads his discourse from a small, finely-written manuscript, c. 17. The Deipnosophistæ of Athenæus, and the Quæstiones Conviviales of Plutarch, are important literary monuments of the practice.
[41] An interesting corroboration of the literary references is afforded by the mosaic pavement of a large villa at Hammâm Grous, near Milev, in North Africa, where “the philosopher’s apartment,” or “chaplain’s room” (filosophi locus), is specially marked, and near it is a lady (the mistress of the house?) sitting under a palm-tree. (The inscription is given in the Corpus Inscr. Lat. vol. viii. No. 10890, where reference is made to a drawing of the pavement in Rousset, Les Bains de Pompeianus, Constantine, 1879).
[42] Lucian, de merc. cond. 32.
[43] Ib. 34.
[44] Ib. 36.
[45] Ib. 38.