Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Book.[368] Æmilius will get as much as the law allows;[369] although we pleaded better than he. For he has in his court-yard a chariot of bronze with four tall horses[370] yoked to it; and he himself, seated on his fierce charger, brandishes aloft his bending spear, and meditates battles with his one eye closed. So it is that Pedo gets involved, Matho fails. This is the end of Tongillus, who usually bathes with a huge rhinoceros' horn of oil, and annoys the baths with his draggled train; and weighs heavily in his ponderous sedan on his sturdy Median slaves, as he presses through the forum to bid for[371] slaves, and plate, and myrrhine vases, and villas. For it is his foreign[372] purple with its Tyrian tissue that gets him credit. And yet this answers their purpose. It is the purple robe that gets the lawyer custom--his violet cloaks that attract clients. It suits their interest to live with all the bustle and outward show of an income greater then they really have. But prodigal Rome observes no bounds to her extravagance. If the old orators were to come to life again, no one now would give even Cicero himself two hundred sesterces, unless a huge ring sparkled on his finger. This is the first point he that goes to law looks to--whether you have eight slaves, ten attendants, a sedan to follow you, and friends in toga to go before. Paulus, consequently, used to plead in a sardonyx, hired for the occasion: and hence it was that Cossus' fees were higher than those of Basilus. Eloquence is a rare quality in a threadbare coat! When is Basilus allowed to produce in court a weeping mother? Who could endure Basilus, however well he were to plead? Let Gaul become your home, or better still that foster-nurse of pleaders, Africa, if you are determined to let your tongue for hire. Do you teach declamation? Oh what a heart of steel must Vectius have, when his numerous class kills cruel tyrants! For all that the boy has just conned over at his seat, he will then stand up and spout--the same stale theme in the same sing-song. It is the reproduction of the cabbage[373] that wears out the master's life. What is the plea to be urged: what the character of the cause; where the main point of the case hinges; what shafts may issue from the opposing party;--this all are anxious to know; but not one is anxious to pay! "_Pay_ do you ask for? why, what do I know?" The blame, forsooth, is laid at the teacher's door, because there is not a spark of energy in the breast of this scion of Arcadia,[374] who dins his awful Hannibal into my ears regularly every sixth day. Whatever the theme be that is to be the subject of his deliberation; whether he shall march at once from Cannæ on Rome; or whether, rendered circumspect after the storms and thunderbolts, he shall lead his cohorts, drenched with the tempest, by a circuitous route. Bargain[375] for any sum you please, and I will at once place it in your hands, on condition that his father should hear him his lesson as often as I have to do it! But six or more sophists are all giving tongue at once; and, debating in good earnest, have abandoned all fictitious declamations about the ravisher. No more is heard of the poison infused, or the vile ungrateful husband,[376] or the drugs that can restore the aged blind to youth. He therefore that quits the shadowy conflicts of rhetoric for the arena of real debate, will superannuate himself, if my advice has any weight with him, and enter on a different path of life; that he may not lose even the paltry sum that will purchase the miserable ticket[377] for corn. Since this is the most splendid reward you can expect. Just inquire what Chrysogonus receives, or Pollio, for teaching the sons of these fine gentlemen, and going into all the details[378] of Theodorus' treatise. The baths will cost six hundred sestertia, and the colonnade still more, in which the great man rides whenever it rains. Is he to wait, forsooth, for fair weather? or bespatter his horses with fresh mud? Nay, far better here! for here the mule's hoof shines unsullied.[379] On the other side must rise a spacious dining-room, supported on stately columns of Numidian marble, and catch the cool[380] sun. However much the house may have cost, he will have besides an artiste who can arrange his table scientifically; another, who can season made-dishes. Yet amid all this lavish expenditure, two poor sestertia will be deemed an ample remuneration for Quintilian. Nothing will cost a father less than his son's education. "Then where did Quintilian get the money to pay for so many estates?" Pass by the instances of good fortune that are but rare indeed. It is good _luck_ that makes a man handsome and active; good luck that makes him wise, and noble, and well-bred, and attaches the crescent[381] of the senator to his black shoe. Good luck too that makes him the best of orators and debaters, and, though he has a vile cold, sing well! For it makes all the difference what planets welcome you when you first begin to utter your infant cry, and are still red from your mother. If fortune so wills it, you will become consul instead of rhetorician; or, if she will, instead of rhetorician, consul! What was Ventidius[382] or Tullius aught else than a lucky planet, and the strange potency of hidden fate? Fate, that gives kingdoms to slaves, and triumphs to captives. Yes! Quintilian was indeed lucky, but he is a greater rarity even than a white crow. But many a man has repented of this fruitless and barren employment, as the sad end of Thrasymachus[383] proves, and that of Secundus Carrinas.[384] And you, too, Athens, were witness to the poverty of him on whom you had the heart to bestow nothing save the hemlock that chilled[385] his life-blood! Light be the earth, ye gods![386] and void of weight, that presses on our grandsires' shades, and round their urn bloom fragrant crocus and eternal spring, who maintained that a tutor should hold the place and honor of a revered parent. Achilles sang on his paternal hills, in terror of the lash, though now grown up; and yet in whom even then would not the tail of his master, the harper, provoke a smile? But now Rufus[387] and others are beaten each by their own pupils; Rufus! who so often called Cicero "the Allobrogian!" Who casts into Enceladus'[388] lap, or that of the learned Palæmon,[389] as much as their grammarian labors have merited! And yet even from the wretched sum, however small (and it is smaller than the rhetorician's pay), Acænonoëtus, his pupil's pedagogue, first takes his slice; and then the steward who pays you deducts his fragment. Dispute it not, Palæmon! and suffer some abatement to be made, just as the peddler does that deals in winter rugs and snow-white sheetings.[390] Only let not all be lost,[391] for which you have sat from the midnight hour, when no smith would sit, nor even he that teaches how to draw out wool with the oblique iron. Lose not your whole reward for having smelled as many lamps |