Saliendo sese exercebant magis, quam, scorto aut saviis:
Ibi suam ætatem extendebant, non in latebrosis locis.
Inde de hippodromo et palæstra ubi revenisses domum,
Cincticulo præcinctus in sella apud magistrum assideres:
Cum librum legeres. Si unam peccavisses syllabam,
Fieret corium tam maculosum quam est nutricis pallium
* * * * * Id equidem ego certo scio.
Nam olim populi prius honorem capiebat suffragio,
Quam magistri desinebat esse dicto obediens.[[557]]
Lucian, too, speaking of the attendants of youths in the better times of the republic, describes them as an honourable company who followed their young masters to the schools, not with combs and looking-glasses like the attendants of ladies, but with the venerable instruments of wisdom in their hands, many-leaved tablets or books recording the glorious deeds of their ancestors, or if proceeding to the music master bearing, instead of these, the melodious lyre.[[558]]