ante solem exorientem nisi in palaestram veneras, gymnasi praefecto haud mediocris poenas penderes. id quom optigerat, hoc etiam ad malum accersebatur malum:  et discipulus et magister perhibebantur improbi. ibi cursu luctando hasta disco pugilatu pila saliendo sese exercebant magis quam scorto aut saviis:  ibi suam aetatem extendebant, non in latebrosis locis. 430

Unless you had arrived at the athletic grounds before sunrise, it was no slight penalty the Gymnasium Director imposed on you.  When this had happened, this further trouble was added, that pupil and teacher too were held to be disgraced.  There it was by running, wrestling, throwing the spear and discus, boxing, ball, jumping, they used to get their exercise, rather than by means of wenches, or kisses:  it was there they used to spend their lives, not in dark dens of vice.

inde de hippodromo et palaestra ubi revenisses domum, cincticulo praecinctus in sella apud magistrum adsideres cum libro:  cum legeres, si unam peccavisses syllabam, fieret corium tam maculosum quam est nutricis pallium.

Then when you had returned home from the track and field, all neat and trim you would sit on your chair before your teacher with your book:  and while you were reading, if you had missed a single syllable, your hide would be made as spotted as a nurse’s gown.

Mnes.

  Propter me haec nunc meo sodali dici discrucior miser;
  innocens suspicionem hanc sustinet causa mea.

      (aside) It’s torment, hang it, to have my chum coming in
      for all this on my account; it’s for my sake he’s shouldering
      this suspicion, poor innocent.

Phil.

  Alii, Lyde, nunc sunt mores.

      (soothingly) The customs of to-day are different, Lydus.

Lydus

Id equidem ego certo scio. nam olim populi prius honorem capiebat suffragio, quam magistro desinebat esse dicto oboediens; at nunc, prius quam septuennis est, si attingas eum manu, 440 extemplo puer paedagogo tabula disrumpit caput.

Indeed they are!  I realize the truth of that.  Why, in the old days a young man would be holding office, by popular vote, before he had ceased to hearken to his teacher’s precepts.  But nowadays, before a youngster is seven years old, if you lay a finger on him, he promptly takes his writing tablet and smashes his tutor’s head with it.

cum patrem adeas postulatum, puero sic dicit pater:  “noster esto, dum te poteris defensare iniuria.” provocatur paedagogus:  “eho senex minimi preti, ne attigas puerum istac causa, quando fecit strenue."[14] (445) itur illinc iure dicto. hocine hic pacto potest (447) inhibere imperium magister, si ipsus primus vapulet?

When you go to his father with a protest,