[867] Even Cicero affects to think it infra dig. for him to show any correct knowledge of the most famous Greek sculptors; Verres, II, iv.
[868] Suetonius, De Ill. Gram., 2; De Clar. Rhet., 1; Aul. Gell., xv, 11. Crates Mallotes has the credit of being the first Greek Grammarian who taught at Rome, c. 157 B.C. The Rhetoricians had migrated earlier, and in 161 a SC. was launched against them, and again a few years later.
[869] When the system was fully organized under Ant. Pius (138-161), the largest communities were allowed ten Physicians, five Rhetoricians (or Sophists), and three Grammarians; the smallest recognized under the scheme, five Physicians, three Rhetoricians, and three Grammarians; Pand., XXVII, i, 6; Hist. August. Ant. Pius, 11. Antonius Musa, physician to Augustus, seems to have been the first learned man to whom public honours were decreed at Rome, viz., a statue of brass on the recovery of the Emperor, 23 B.C.; Suetonius, August., 59, 81. He was even the cause of privileges being conferred on his profession generally; Dion Cass., liii, 30. Vespasian was the first to give regular salaries to Rhetoricians; he also gave handsome presents to poets, artists, and architects, and granted relief from public burdens to physicians and philosophers; Suetonius in Vita, 18; Pand., L, iv, 18(30). But the idea of remitting their taxes to learned men was old; Diogenes Laert., Pyrrho, 5. That of selling philosophers for slaves when they could not pay them, was also old; ibid., Xenocrates; Bion. Hadrian, called Graeculus from his pedantry, also did much for the cause of learning; Hist. August. in Vita, 1, 17, and commentators. The Athenaeum at Rome was his foundation, an educational college of which no details are known; Aurel. Victor, in Vita. Alexander Sev. went further than any of his predecessors in granting an allowance to poor students; Hist. August. in Vita, 44.
[870] Cod. Theod., XV, i, 53, and Godefroy ad loc.
[871] Zacharias, De Opific., Mund., 40, et seq. (in Migne, S. G., lxxxv, 1011); See Hasaeus, De Acad. Beryt., etc. Halae Magd., 1716. The humblest school was adorned with figures of the Muses; Athenaeus, viii, 41; Diogenes Laert., Diog., 6. A lecture hall was generally called a “Theatre of the Muses”; Himerius, Or., xxii; Themistius, Or., xxi.
[872] Diogenes Laert., Theophrastus, 14; Eumenius, De Schol. Instaur.; Themistius, Or., xxvi, etc.
[873] Gregory Naz., Laud. Basil, 14, et seq. In Julian, ii; Zosimus, v, 5. Synesius pictures the schools as deserted when he visited Athens (c. 410); no philosophers, no painted porches, nothing in evidence but the jars of honey from Hymettus. Hypatia, in fact, was attracting every one to Alexandria. After her murder, however, it doubtless began to recuperate (c. 415). Themistius inveighs against those parents who sent their sons to a place on account of its repute, instead of looking out for the best man. He mentions that pupils came to him at CP. from Greece and Ionia; Or., xxvii; xxiii. The students of this age are described as extremely fractious. At Athens, a great commotion greeted the arrival of a freshman, who was put through a rude ordeal until they had passed him into the public bath, whence he issued again as an accepted comrade; Gregory Naz., Laud. Basil., 16. There also they fought duels, and Libanius reprobates their presenting themselves to him slashed with knives; Epist., 627; Himerius, Or., xxii. Practical jokes amongst themselves, or played on the professors, were often pushed by the students to the verge of criminality; Pand. praef., 2(9). At Carthage St. Augustine found his class for rhetoric so unruly that he threw it up and migrated to Rome. There, indeed, they were more orderly, but indulged in the galling practice of flocking in a body to a certain teacher, whom they suddenly abandoned after a time, forgetting to pay their fees. Sick of it all, he eagerly closed with an offer of the P. U. to take up a salaried post at Milan; Confess., v, 8, 12, 13.
[874] Cod. Theod., XIV, ix, 3; Cod., XI, xviii.
[875] Ibid.
[876] Cod. Theod., XIV, ix, 2. Constantius seems to have founded the first great library (c. 351), and another was originated by Julian; Themistius, Or., iv; see [p. 88]. Themistius says that he spent twenty years in studying the “old treasures” of literature at CP.; Or., xxxiii (p. 359, Dind.).