the
"school of oratory." The pupil has already acquired a correct
grammatical style, and a reasonable amount of literary information; he
now trains himself for the actual practice of the law-courts or the
deliberative assembly. He is to learn how to argue a case; how to
arrange his matter; by what devices of language to make it most
effective; and how to deliver it. At a later date there were to be
public professorships of this art, endowed by the emperor, but there
are none of these at Rome itself under Nero. The "professor of
oratory" receives his fee of some L20 or so per annum from each pupil.
At this stage the study of the great prose-writers is substituted for
that of the poets; themes are set for essays to be written upon them;
and those essays will then be delivered as speeches. Sometimes a
familiar statement or maxim from a poet is put forward to be refuted
or supported, or for you to argue first against it and then for it. Or
some historical situation may be proposed, and the student asked to
set forth the wisest or most just course in the circumstances.
"Hannibal has beaten the Romans at Cannae: shall he or shall he not
proceed directly to attack Rome? Examine the question as if you were
Hannibal." Much of this appears theoretically sound enough.
Unfortunately the subjects were generally either hopelessly threadbare
or possessed no bearing upon real life. "We are learning," says
Seneca, "not for life, but for the school." The only novelty which
could be given to the treatment of old abstract themes or puerile
questions was novelty of phrase, and the one great mark of the
literature of this time is therefore the pursuit of the striking
expression, of something epigrammatic or glittering. A speech was
judged by its purple patches of rhetoric, not by the soundness of its
thoughts. Prizes, apparently of books, were offered in these Roman
schools, and a prize would go to the youth who could tell you in the
most remarkable string of brilliant language what was your duty
towards your country, or what were the evils of anger, or for what
reasons it is right for a father to disown his son. Meanwhile parents
would look in at the school from time to time and listen to the boys
declaiming, and it is easy to see with the mind's eye the father
listening, like the proud American parent at a "graduation" day, to
his gifted offspring "speaking a piece."

Education commonly stopped at this point. If the rhetorical training