of Orbilius, who was of the old-fashioned school, were, as has been said, the early dramatists.  Caecilius, a younger man, to whom Atticus the friend and correspondent of Cicero gave his freedom, lectured on Virgil, with whom, as he was intimate with one of Virgil’s associates, he probably had some acquaintance.  A certain Flaccus had the credit of having first invented prizes.  He used to pit lads of equal age against each other, supplying not only a subject on which to write, but a prize for the victor.  This was commonly some handsome or rare old book.  Augustus made him tutor to his grandsons, giving him a salary of eight hundred pounds per annum.  Twenty years later, a fashionable schoolmaster is said to have made between three and four thousands.

These schoolmasters were also sometimes teachers of eloquence, lecturing to men.  One Gnipho, for instance, is mentioned among them, as having held his classes in the house of Julius Caesar (Caesar was left an orphan at fifteen); and afterwards, when his distinguished pupil was grown up, in his own.  But Cicero, when he was praetor, and at the very height of his fame, is said to have attended his lectures.  This was the year in which he delivered the very finest of his non-political speeches, his defence of Cluentius.  He must have been a very clever teacher from whom so great an orator hoped to learn something.

These teachers of eloquence were what we may call the “Professors” of Rome.  A lad had commonly “finished his education” when he put on the “man’s gown;” but if he thought of political life, of becoming a statesman, and taking office in the commonwealth, he had much yet to learn.  He had to make himself a lawyer and an orator.  Law he learned by attaching himself, by becoming the pupil, as we should say, of some great man that was famed for his knowledge.  Cicero relates to us his own experience:  “My father introduced me to the Augur Scaevola; and the result was that, as far as possible and permissible, I never left the old man’s side.  Thus I committed to memory many a learned argument of his, many a terse and clever maxim, while I sought to add to my own knowledge from his stores of special learning.  When the Augur died I betook myself to the Pontiff of the same name and family.”  Elsewhere we have a picture of this second Scaevola and his pupils.  “Though he did not undertake to give instruction to any one, yet he practically taught those who were anxious to listen to him by allowing them to hear his answers to those who consulted him.”  These consultations took place either in the Forum or at his own house.  In the Forum the great lawyer indicated that clients were at liberty to approach by walking across the open space from corner to corner.  The train of young Romans would then follow his steps, just as the students follow the physician or the surgeon through the wards of a hospital.  When he gave audience at home they would stand by his chair.  It must be remembered that the great man took no payment either from client or from pupil.