himself entirely to the education of his son. He was by no means rich, his farm was unproductive, yet he declined to send his son to Venusia to the school of Flavius, to which resorted the children of the rural and municipal aristocracy-the consequential sons of consequential fathers-with their satchels and tablets on their arms, and making their regular payments every month. (*) He took the bold step of removing him at once to Rome, to receive the liberal education of a knight's or senator's son; and, lest the youth should be depressed by the feeling of inferiority, provided him with whatever was necessary to make a respectable appearance, dress and slaves to attend him, as if he had been of an ancient family. But though the parent thus removed his son to the public schools of the metropolis, and preferred that he should associate with the genuine youthful nobility of the capital, rather than the no less haughty but more coarse and unpolished gentry (the retired centurions) of the provinces, he took great care that while he secured the advantages, he should be protected from the dangers of the voluptuous capital. Even if his son should rise no higher than his own humble (6) "Causa fuit pater his; qui macro pauper agello, Quo pueri magnis e centurionibus orti, Ibant octonis referentes idibus æra."-Sat. 1. vi. 71. Wieland and others interpret the last line, as if the boys were doing their sums by the way; those sums being calculations of the monthly interests upon loans, the ordinary occupation of young arithmeticians. calling, as a public crier or collector, his good education would be invaluable; yet must it not be purchased by the sacrifice of sound morals. He attended him to the different schools; watched with severe but affectionate control over his character; so that the boy escaped not merely the taint but even the reproach of immorality. The poet always speaks of his father with grateful reverence, and with honest pride. His first turn for satire was encouraged by his father's severe animadversions on the follies and vices of his compatriots, which he held up as warning examples to his son. () To one of his schoolmasters the poet has given imperishable fame. Orbilius, whose flogging propensities have grown into a proverb, had been an apparitor, and afterwards served in the army; an excellent training for a disciplinarian, if not for a teacher: but Orbilius got more reputation than profit from his occupation. (") The two principal, if not the only, authors read in the school of Orbilius, were Homer in Greek, in Latin Livius Andronicus. (10) (7) "Ipse mihi custos incorruptissimus omnes Circum doctores aderat. Quid multa? pudicum, (8) Sat. 1. iv. 105 et seqq. (9) "Docuit majore fama quam emolumento."-Sueton. de Grammat. (10) Bentley doubted whether any patrician schoolmaster, at that time, would use the works of a poet so antiquated as Livius Andronicus. He proposed to read Lævius, the name of an obscure writer of love verses ('Epwτomalyvia), to whom he ascribes many of the fragments usually assigned to Livius, and which bear no marks of obsolete antiquity. But with due respect to Homer, in this respect, it may be said without profanation, the bible of antiquity, was, down to the time. of Julian, an indispensable part of Greek, and already of Roman, education.(") Orbilius was, no doubt, of the old school; a teacher to the heart of rigid Cato; an admirer of the genuine Roman poetry. Livius Andronicus was not only the earliest writer of tragedy, but had translated the Odyssey into the Saturnian verse, the native vernacular metre of Italy.(2) Orbilius. may not merely have thought the Euêmerism of Ennius, or the Epicureanism of Lucretius, unfit for the study of Roman youth, but have considered Accius, Pacuvius, or Terence, too foreign and Grecian, and as having degenerated from the primitive simplicity of the father of Roman verse. The more modern and Grecian taste of Horace is constantly contending with this antiquarian school of poetry; and his unpleasing remembrance of the manner in which the study of Livius was enforced by his early teacher, may have tended to confirm his fastidious aversion from the ruder poetry. Horace, it may be concluded, assumed the manly the great critic, the elder Horace might have objected still more strongly to the modern amatory verses of Lævius, than to the rude strains of Livius. (1) Epist. II. ii. 41-2. Compare Quintil. i. viii. Plin. Epist. ii. 15. Statius Sylv. v. 3. Dan. Heinsius quotes from Theodoret, τούτων δὲ οἱ πλεῖστοι οὐδὲ τὴν μῆνιν ἴσασι τὴν ̓Αχιλλέως. Even as late as that Father of the Church, it was a mark of ignorance not to have read Homer. (12) Cicero thought but meanly of Livius: "Nam et Odyssea Latina, est sic tanquam opus aliquod Dædali, et Livianæ fabulæ non satis dignæ quæ iterum legantur."-Brutus, c. 18. robe (toga virilis) in his sixteenth or seventeenth year. It is probable that he lost his excellent and honoured father, before he set out to complete his education at Athens. But of what stirring events must the boy have been witness during his residence at Rome! He might possibly, soon after his arrival (B. c. 52), have heard Cicero speak his oration for Milo. Into the subsequent years were crowded all the preparations for the last contest between Pompey and Cæsar. The peaceful studies of the Roman youth must have been strangely interrupted by these political excitements. What spirited boy would not have thrown aside his books, to behold the triumphant entrance of Cæsar into Rome after the passage of the Rubicon? And while that decisive step was but threatened, how anxiously and fearfully must Rome have awaited her doom-ignorant who was to be her master, and how that master would use his power; whether new proscriptions would more than decimate her patrician families, and deluge her streets with blood; whether military licence would have free scope, and the majesty of the Roman people be insulted by the outrages of an infuriated soldiery! No man was so obscure, so young, or so thoughtless, but that he must have been deeply impressed with the insecurity of liberty and of life. During the whole conflict what must have been the suspense, the agitation, the party violence, the terror, the alternate elevation and prostration of mind! In the unruffled quiet of his manhood and age, how often must these turbulent and awful days have contrasted themselves, in the memory of Horace, with his tranquil pursuits of letters, social enjoyment, and country retirement ! It was about the time of (probably the year after) the battle of Pharsalia (for the state of Greece, just at the period of the final conflict, must have been insecure, if not dangerous), that the youthful Horace left his school at Rome, to study in Athens. If his father was dead, the produce of the Venusian estate would no doubt suffice for his maintenance; if still living, the generous love of the parent would not hesitate at this farther expense, if within his power. During many centuries of the Roman greatness, down to the time when her schools were closed by Justinian, Athens was the university, as it has been called, of the world; where almost all the distinguished youth, both of the East and West, passed a certain period of study in the liberal arts, letters, and philosophy. This continued even after the establishment of Christianity. Basil and Gregory of Nazianzum studied together, and formed their youthful friendships; as Horace did, no doubt, with some of the noble or distinguished youth of his day. On this point, however, his poems are silent, and contain no allusions to his associates and rivals in study. The younger Quintus Cicero was at this time likewise a student at Athens, but there is no clue to connect these two names. (13) The advantages which Horace derived from his residence in Athens may be traced in his familiarity with Attic literature, or rather, with the whole range of (13) Weichert. de L. Vario, &c. p. 328. |