of Publilius Syrus, who came to Rome from Syria as a slave in the age of which we are writing, and after obtaining his freedom gained great reputation as the author of many popular plays of this kind, in which he contrived to insert these wise saws and maxims.  It is not likely that they found their way into the schools all at once, but in the early Empire we find them already alluded to as educational material by Seneca the elder,[279] and we may take them as a fair example of the maxims already in use in Cicero’s time, making some allowance for their superior neatness and wisdom.  Here are a few specimens, taken almost at random; it will be seen that they convey much shrewd good sense, and occasionally have the true ring of humanity as well as the flavour of Stoic sapientia.  I quote from the excellent edition by Mr. Bickford-Smith.[280]

  Avarus ipse miseriae causa est suae. 
  Audendo virtus crescit, tardando timor. 
  Cicatrix conscientiae pro vulnere est. 
  Fortunam[281] citius reperias quam retineas. 
  Cravissima est probi hominis iracundia. 
  Homo totiens moritur, quotiens amittit suos. 
  Homo vitae commodatus, non donatus est. 
  Humanitatis optima est certatio. 
  Iucundum nil est, nisi quod reficit varietas. 
  Malum est consilium quod mutari non potest. 
  Minus saepe pecces, si scias quod nescias. 
  Perpetuo vincit qui utitur clementia. 
  Qui ius iurandum servat, quovis pervenit. 
  Ubi peccat aetas maior, male discit minor.

I have quoted these to show that Roman children were not without opportunity even in early schooldays of laying to heart much that might lead them to good and generous conduct in later life, as well as to practical wisdom.  But we know the fate of our own copy-book maxims; we know that it is not through them that our children become good men and women, but by the example and the un-systematised precepts of parents and teachers.  No such neat [Greek gnomai] can do much good without a sanction of greater force than any that is inherent in them and such a sanction was not to be found in the ferula of the grammaticus or the paedagogus.  Once more it is men and not methods that supply the real educational force.

Probably the greatest difficulty which the Roman boy had to face in his school life was the learning of arithmetic; it was this, we may imagine, that made him think of his master, as Horace did of the worthy Orbilius,[282] as a man of blows (plagosus).  This is not the place to give an account of the methods of reckoning then used; they will be found fully explained in Marquardt’s Privatleben, and compressed into a page by Professor Wilkins in his Roman Education[283].  It is enough to say that they were as indispensable as they were difficult to learn.  “An orator was expected, according to Quintilian (i. 10. 35), not only to be able to make his calculations in court, but also to show clearly to his audience how he arrived