times in the general diffusion of elementary
attainments. Even among the lower classes and slaves there was much
reading, writing, and counting: in the case of a slave steward, for
instance, Cato, following the example of Mago, takes for granted the
ability to read and write. Elementary instruction, as well as
instruction in Greek, must have been long before this period imparted
to a very considerable extent in Rome. But the epoch now before us
initiated an education, the aim of which was to communicate not merely
an outward expertness, but a real mental culture. Hitherto in Rome
a knowledge of Greek had conferred on its possessor as little
superiority in civil or social life, as a knowledge of French perhaps
confers at the present day in a hamlet of German Switzerland; and the
earliest writers of Greek chronicles may have held a position among
the other senators similar to that of the farmer in the fens of
Holstein who has been a student and in the evening, when he comes home
from the plough, takes down his Virgil from the shelf. A man who
assumed airs of greater importance by reason of his Greek, was
reckoned a bad patriot and a fool; and certainly even in Cato's time
one who spoke Greek ill or not at all might still be a man of rank
and become senator and consul. But a change was already taking place.
The internal decomposition of Italian nationality had already,
particularly in the aristocracy, advanced so far as to render the
substitution of a general humane culture for that nationality
inevitable: and the craving after a more advanced civilization was
already powerfully stirring the minds of men. Instruction in the
Greek language as it were spontaneously met this craving. The
classical literature of Greece, the Iliad and still more the Odyssey,
had all along formed the basis of that instruction; the overflowing
treasures of Hellenic art and science were already by this means
spread before the eyes of the Italians. Without any outward
revolution, strictly speaking, in the character of the instruction
the natural result was, that the empirical study of the language
became converted into a higher study of the literature; that the
general culture connected with such literary studies was communicated
in increased measure to the scholars; and that these availed
themselves of the knowledge thus acquired to dive into that Greek
literature which most powerfully influenced the spirit of the age
--the tragedies of E