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]