Let us start with what is known of his education. Elite boys of his generation were tutored at home, at best by serious Greek teachers, many of whom came to Rome from Asia Minor or Athens either voluntarily or as captives in Sulla’s Eastern campaigns. They would be taught first the reading of literature, above all Homeric epic but also perhaps the early Latin epic poets, and simple exercises in basic composition, such as telling a fable in their own words. Around puberty the subject matter and methods would change, although they did not necessarily change instructor from a Grammaticus to a Rhetor, and they would begin to study rhetoric for the lawcourts, learning the precepts of Greek manuals (or manuals adapted from Greek models, such as the anonymous Rhetoric composed for Herennius in the mid-80s when Caesar was a teenager), and exercising by arguing imaginary cases. Pleading in the lawcourts was an adult activity expected of most young men, even those from outside the city of Rome, or families of middle rank. Only the more privileged would have occasion to take part in political debate and make a name by deliberative rhetoric. So we might fairly compare education in rhetoric for an advocate’s career with the modern allpurpose MBA. This was a practical training, which would focus on particulars rather than issues of principle.
What we know of Caesar is that he studied at home with M. Antonius Gnipho, a man of mysterious origin, but undoubted learning. Gnipho had been born free in Gaul and reared as a fosterchild; without having been a slave he nonetheless earned his Latin name Antonius by manumission, presumably from a M. Antonius, who had him educated, perhaps even briefly at Alexandria, the center of Greek learning and grammatical studies (Suet. Gramm. 7; Kaster 1995). Could this have been the orator Antonius, consul of 99 BC, who was murdered in the Marian terror of 88? One of his sons, the father of the triumvir Mark Antony, married a Julia, suggesting connections between the families. Gnipho was not just a good teacher of grammar: he was equally learned in the study of both Greek and Latin language and literature and his rhetorical teaching was sophisticated enough for Cicero, even as an experienced speaker and senior magistrate, to frequent Gnipho’s home for coaching in 66 BC. Soon after this Gnipho died, aged 50. But Caesar did not forget his linguistic principles, as we shall see.
Caesar also shared with Cicero some later years of study with the Rhodian teacher of rhetoric, Apollonius Molon, whom they had met when he came to Rome as his city’s ambassador once or perhaps twice during the 80s. It was not usual for the sons of elite families to continue their education after reaching the age of military service, but the political conflicts in the decade after 88 BC interfered with the free function of the courts and may even have made it unsafe for Caesar, and for the less prominent young Cicero, to stay in Rome. As it was, both young men tried their fortunes in the courts before breaking off to leave Rome on a study tour. Cicero successfully defended Roscius of America in 80 against two dishonest kinsmen, backed by Sulla’s rich freedman Chrysogonus, but left soon after for two years as a student, first in Athens then in mainland Asia Minor, where Molon had grown up, and finally with Molon himself in Rhodes (Cic. Brut. 305, 307). Suetonius (lul. 4) tells us that Caesar too left for Asia to study with Molon after appearing in a couple of cases in 77-76. Molon taught Cicero a more disciplined style and the voice control to go with it. Caesar seems always to have disciplined his own style. Its hallmarks, as all critics agree, were vigor (vis) and pared-down, fastidious use of language - purus sermo, castissimus sermo, elegantia.
The slogan of pure speech forms another strange link between Caesar and Cicero; according to Suetonius, both Caesar and Cicero composed an epigram on the poet Terence, praising him for his pure diction but regretting his lack of comic energy. Was this perhaps a competitive exercise assigned by Gnipho to his pupils? The two men were pupils some years apart; but it is difficult to imagine them producing such epigrams as adults at a symposium, especially Caesar:
Tu quoque, tu in summis, O dimidiate Menander Poneris, et merito, puri sermonis amator.
Lenibus atque utinam scriptis adiuncta foret vis,
Comica ut aequato virtus polleret honore.
But there is still dispute over the syntax of lines 3-4; do we understand vis comica with enjambement, and virtus alone as the subject of polleret, or simply vis, treating virtus comica as the subject of polleret? I believe the enjambed vis comica offers the better sense: ‘‘You too, my half-Menander, are counted among the best, and rightly, as a lover of pure speech. If only comic vitality were added to your gentle writings, so that your excellence would wield its power with due honor.’’
World History
