Interest in Grammar and Rhetoric

While grammarians and rhetors inhabited a range of positions on the social spectrum, it is striking that luminaries such as Sulla, Pompey, Julius Caesar, Brutus, Cicero, Antony, Augustus, Asinius Pollio, and Maecenas had contact with many of these teachers. Indeed, the persistent mention of such powerful men suggests that Suetonius’ information about the teachers, both grammarians and rhetors, is dependent upon biographies of these more famous men (Kaster 1995: xxx). However that may be, the juxtaposition of the names of such powerful men with some ignominious rhetors and grammarians invites reflection about the social interaction that took place in those lessons and about what it may tell us about intellectual developments at Rome.

Roman society depended upon the frequent interaction among all levels of society (Wallace-Hadrill 1996: 107). In fact, whether this mingling of classes took place in the baths, the house, or the streets, it was from such interaction that elites solidified their position. Thus some of the noteworthy anecdotes that Suetonius preserves are those in which a grammarian or rhetor flouts conventions of power and authority. Remmius Palaemon, forinstance, called Varro apig (Gram. 23.4). More significantly, when Porcellus criticized a word that Tiberius had used in a speech, another grammarian, Ateius Capito, argued that Tiberius’ usage was appropriate. This challenge provoked Porcellus to state that the emperor could give citizenship to people but not to words (Gram. 22.2). The grammarian’s audacity is striking, especially since another anecdote records that while listening to a rather precious speech in Greek, Tiberius was bothered by the speaker’s choice of dialect and thus had him banished to Cinaira (Suet. Tib. 56). In criticizing an emperor who paid close attention to verbal detail, Porcellus took quite a risk.

Such anecdotes, however, seem to be the exception, and Suetonius’ account suggests that these teachers served the various needs of elite Romans, even if they did not view themselves as doing so (Atherton 1998: 223). Grammarians, for instance, were put in charge of libraries (Gram. 20.2) or assisted eminent Romans in their literary endeavors (10.6). In addition to the practical interests in learned men, Romans must have had legitimate intellectual excitement about developments in grammar and rhetoric. The persistent importance of Dionysius Thrax’ treatise, written about 100 BCE, indicates a new chapter in the study of language, and Varro’s work on the Latin language also attests to serious interest. And as such study became familiar at Rome, the anomalous forms of the Latin language surely drew scrutiny. Indeed, Caesar wrote a treatise, De Analogia, about nouns and their forms. So there was clear interest in endeavors of this sort (Rawson 1985: 122).

Social concerns also drove the interest in grammar and rhetoric. Seneca (Ep. 114) and Tacitus ( Dial. 32) reveal that linguistic corruption was also thought to be part and parcel of moral vice, and the training offered by the grammarian could shape conduct. To give an example of the work of a grammarian listed in Suetonius’ treatise, Valerius Probus emended Vergil at Aeneid 8.406 coniugis infusus gremio (‘‘lying relaxed on his wife’s breast’’) to coniugis infusumgremio in order to eliminate a sexually oriented reading (Holford-Strevens 2003: 164 n38). Aulus Gellius’ Noctes Atticae preserves another anecdote that involves Probus and appropriate behavior (3.1). While Favorinus was walking to the baths, Sallust’s Catiline was being read. When the passage in which Sallust purportedly states that avarice ‘‘makes a manly body and soul effeminate’’ (corpus animumque virilem effeminat, Cat. 11.3), Favorinus wondered how greed corrupts the body. One of his attendants answered that Valerius Probus commented upon this very passage, and that he claimed that Sallust’s expression is poetic. That is, he used the words ‘‘body’’ and ‘‘soul’’ to represent an individual, since a man is composed of both body and soul. Whatever we may think of Probus’ explanation (Favorinus did not think much of it), he used his philological skills to unpack what Sallust may have meant. The point here is that Probus discussed a passage that concerns proper masculine behavior, and his analysis presumably touched on that point. Such a discussion fits in with concerns among the Roman elite about effeminacy and public presentation (Edwards 1993).

Correct speech was intertwined with elite identity in other ways as well. The rhetor and especially the grammarian ensured that children learned proper speech. The task was not straightforward, since children would often be raised by slaves and thus potentially exposed to improper modes of speaking (Connolly 1998: 134-5). Indeed, Quintilian demands that children should not become accustomed to manners of speaking that will have to be unlearned later in life (Inst. 1.1.5). It was in the grammarians’ school that these improper modes of speaking would have to be corrected if a student were to progress to the point of participating in proper discourse. Faults such as usage that derived from foreign languages, syntactical errors, and inappropriate use of words all had to be eradicated before students could enter into public discourse. Language distinguished a man from lower forms of life such as slaves and animals (Atherton 1998: 216; T. Morgan 1998: 267).

Training in the languages also reinforced social hierarchies. The rules of grammar varied depending upon their context: Quintilian notes that at times foreign words could be used when there was no Latin equivalent (Inst. 1.5.57), and that poetic usage is not always a reliable model (1.5.11). Anomalous forms assume the regular patterns of declension and inflection but deviate from them, and for people such as Aurelius Opillus (Gramm. Rom. Frag. 25; Funaioli 1907), there was a persistent controversy about how Greek words were to be declined in Latin. Language was thus subject to analysis and judgment, and it was the task of the grammarian to observe the balance between strict regularity and allowable variations (Atherton 1998: 239). From such lessons, a student could learn the applicability of the rules that determine what is right and what is not (Atherton 1998: 242). This point could carry over into life, where, depending upon the social category to which an individual belonged, some rules were relevant, others not, and infringements of those rules could be acceptable (Atherton 1998: 243).

Another anecdote from Gellius’ Noctes Atticae provides an example of grammatical criticism that assumes hierarchies, in this case between men, women and slaves (17.6). In support of the Lex Voconia, which made women unable to inherit, Cato is quoted by Gellius as giving the example of a woman who has lent much money to her husband. Subsequently, she becomes angry with him and orders a servus recepticius to demand her money back. Verrius Flaccus, one of the grammarians discussed by Suetonius, seems to have commented upon what the word recepticius meant, and in doing so two points about social attitudes emerge. First, Flaccus, according to Gellius, reports that the word referred to a slave who was found to have a fault and then returned after being sold, and that the woman’s use of the slave was designed to embarrass her husband, implying that the man’s conventional position of authority has been undermined. Flaccus’ view seems to stem from the literary world of comedy, in which women use tricky slaves to subvert social norms. Gellius, however, disagrees with Flaccus and offers a more straightforward reading of the legal term recepticius. He believes that the slave was part of the property that the woman refused to entrust to her husband, and thus she was said to ‘‘hold back’’ (recipere, NA 17.6.6) the slave. This view allows that wealthy women could have a great deal of power in their household, and in this case the dowry complicates the relationship between husband and wife. Indeed, in the explanation offered by Gellius, which uses Plautus to overturn the motif of the tricky slave and wife team that may lurk behind Flaccus’ statement, the husband’s power is again proven to be subordinate, though for reasons different (and better) than those offered by Flaccus.

Linguistic training would also have been beneficial in the informal interactions that comprised the life of Roman elites. Anecdotes in which details of speech and diction are discussed pepper Aulus Gellius’ work. Once again, Verrius Flaccus appears, this time arguing that the verb festinare (‘‘to hurry’’) derives from the verb fari (‘‘to speak’’), reasoning that those who cannot accomplish things talk more than they actually work (NA 16.14.2). The claim is absurd, but Gellius juxtaposes this view to that of the elder Cato, who seems to have been the person to raise a discussion about the differences between festinare and properare. Cato, of course, was a famous orator and prose writer of significant authority, and thus the debate about the meaning of the words cannot be dismissed. Aelius Stilo, another one of the grammarians discussed by Suetonius, appears in Gellius arguing against the use of novissimus and novissime because they are novelties. Once again Gellius matches this grammarian against formidable Latin wordsmiths: Sallust, Cato, and Varro are used to illustrate that the form is actually acceptable (NA 10.21.2). Such pedantic moments reveal that one’s reputation and claim to belong at the table of elite conversation were at stake in these discussions. Speech was a form of self-presentation, and the necessary cultural capital needed to be exhibited in order to claim a place in the discourse of the elite (Gleason 1995: 167; Swain 1996: 64).

Linguistic competence and command thus pervaded all sorts of Roman social interactions, whether to position elites among elites or to distinguish the upper from lower classes. Speech was also used, however, to demonstrate values and ideas about Rome’s position in the world. Gellius records, for instance, that Verrius Flaccus argued that the days following the Kalends, Nones, and Ides were wrongly called nefastos (‘‘holidays’’) by the masses (NA 5.17.1). He argues that those days should instead be called atros (‘‘ill-omened’’). Flaccus’ reason is that when the Gauls attacked Rome in 390 bce, a sacrifice to the gods was made on the day after the Ides, but the army was nonetheless defeated and then the city was sacked three days later. In addition, Flaccus added that many senators noted that the battles fought after sacrifices on the days following the Kalends, Nones or Ides went badly, and thus priests decided that sacrifices should be avoided on those days. The grammarian’s pedantry exemplifies values that, particularly if taught to children, assert a Roman view of the world: religion is inextricably linked with Roman military success; military failure will always be remembered; and it is the senatorial class that is responsible for preserving and transmitting such information.

The correlation between power and language must also be viewed in light of Rome’s growing dominance over the Mediterranean. Suetonius credits Crates with the introduction of grammar to the city of Rome while he served on an embassy from Attalus (Gram. 2.1), and from there his account shifts toward Romans who took up the task of grammatical criticism. Whatever his actual historical impact may have been, however, Crates represents something more in Roman thought. According to Varro (Ling. 9.1), Crates represented the so-called ‘‘analogists,’’ and Varro matches him against the ‘‘anomalist’’ Aristarchus, the great Alexandrian critic. The two great intellectuals are paired in another anecdote in which it is said that Crates advised Attalus to ingratiate himself to the Romans by sending them sheepskin parchment, whereas Aristarchus advised Ptolemy to send papyrus. The two great scholars - and their preferred writing materials - represent powerful and prestigious Hellenistic kingdoms that Rome would come into contact with and eventually overtake.

The legacy of such powerful states had an impact on both Suetonius’ account and the actual intellectual climate at Rome. Antonius Gnipho was said to have been educated at Alexandria by Dionysius Scytobrachion, though Suetonius refuses to believe the claim (Gram. 7.1). Though chronology suggests that, as Suetonius suspected, Gnipho could not have studied with Dionysius, it is possible that Gnipho studied at Alexandria. The real point, however, is that the reference to Alexandria is a way to suggest that Gnipho had a special pedigree. So too Hyginus was thought by some to have been in Alexandria, and, after it was captured by Julius Caesar, was taken to Rome, where he then heard the great Alexander Polyhistor (Gram. 20.1), who was himself brought to Rome after he was captured during the Mithridatic wars. Suetonius, however, is dubious about Hyginus’ Alexandrian background and states that he was a Spaniard. Once again, though, Alexandria makes it into the record because of its reputation for scholarship. Others also seem indebted to that city. Lucius Ateius took on the name of Philologus because he was like his Alexandrian counterpart Eratosthenes (Gram. 10.4), who worked at Alexandria on a host of topics. Aurelius Opillus was interested in the etymologies of poetic words, which, as Rawson has pointed out, is an Alexandrian method of criticism (Rawson 1985: 124), and the title of his literary catalogue (Pinax) harks back to the Alexandrian scholarship of Callimachus (Gram. 6.3; see Christes 1979: 19). The Hellenistic Greek world is a shadowy but persistent backdrop to Suetonius’ account of grammar and rhetoric at Rome.

The importance of Hellenistic Greece and especially Alexandria is revealed by other sources as well. The elder Tyrannio, Parthenius, and Alexander Polyhistor were all captured during the Mithridatic wars and shaped the intellectual life of late republican Rome. Force was not subsequently required: grammarians such as Philoxenus, Paca-tus, Tryphon, Habron, Seleucus, Aristonicus, and Apion all ended up working in Rome (McNelis 2002). Rhetors, however, were not present in Alexandria (Fraser 1972: 810), and thus the influence of rhetoricians on Rome derived from places like Rhodes and Athens. The educational practices of the Hellenistic world also shaped events at Rome. Verrius Flaccus, for example, was hired to teach Augustus’ grandsons, though he was no longer allowed to take on additional students once he entered into the employ of the emperor (Gram. 17.2). Such employment develops a practice of the late republic, when, for example, Cornelius Epicadus was closely linked to the family of Sulla (Gram. 12.1), and Curtius Nicias was on close terms with Pompey and Memmius (14.1). But even that practice recalls that the head of the library at Alexandria tutored the children of the Ptolemies (Polyb. 31.23). It is not hard to see that the employment of learned men by conquering generals was part of a tradition that stemmed back to the Attalids, the Ptolemies, and ultimately Alexander the Great and his father Philip. Great conquerors had been accompanied by learned men, and the Romans were quick to learn from their predecessors.

Power and knowledge were connected through libraries. Caesar planned a public library, Asinius Pollio founded one, and subsequent emperors were concerned with the creation of libraries. Indeed, from Suetonius we know that Augustus put Melissus in charge of the library in the Portico of Octavia (Gram. 21.3), and he also had Hyginus run the library on the Palatine (20.2). The Forum of Trajan commemorated his war campaigns, and the library was a central part of that Forum. It is hard not to think that such direct interest in learning was not influenced by the example of Hellenistic dynasts such as the Attalids at Pergamum. But most of all, the Ptolemies and their support for the library at Alexandria must have been a powerful example for Rome’s elite. We know that Chaeremon, the head of the library at Alexandria, was tapped to be the tutor of the young Nero, a fact that suggests that the ruling family at Rome had a good sense of what was happening at the Museum. Claudius enlarged the Museum and instituted an annual reading of his histories of the Carthaginians and Etruscans (Suet. Claud. 42), and Domitian sent scribes to Alexandria to replenish a library after it had been destroyed by fire (Dom. 20). Dionsysius of Alexandria seems to have been in charge of libraries at Rome from the time of Nero to Trajan ( Suda d 1173). In sum, there are a number of indications that Rome’s rulers showed a special interest in Alexandrian learning, particularly its library.

Far from marking cultural anxiety, Rome’s reception and inheritance of the Hellenistic world and its ideas of learning stem from the ascendancy of its empire. Emperors used the descendants of eastern dynasts to govern provinces, or even to serve as consuls (Syme 1988: 10-13). Gaius lulius Severus was admitted to the senate by Hadrian, and four of his cousins were consuls under Trajan. All were of royal ancestry. Of course, individual emperors played a huge role in all of this. Syme notes that Vespasian and Trajan in particular fostered the connection between the Hellenistic dynasts and the Roman state, and that one’s education mattered to Vespasian, who established the first chair of rhetoric at Rome. Indeed, the role of education is so pronounced that, as Syme commented, the Library of lulius Celsus, with its Greek and Latin inscriptions facing one another, not only commemorates that official’s career, but also ‘‘stands as solid testimony to the alliance between education and government’’ during this period of the empire (Syme 1988: 17). The vestiges of the Hellenistic world solidified Rome’s power.

This dynamic worked in a similar way in the western part of the Mediterranean. Syme has observed that ‘‘the new Romans of the western lands were mixed in origins’’ (1988: 4). Given such diversity, the teaching of standardized patterns of speech also served Roman interests. And they had an impact, as we can see from both of the Senecas and Quintilian. The connection with the Greek world persisted here too, however. Evidence that a treatise of the Spanish grammarian Lucius Annaeus Cornutus was read in Egypt has emerged from Oxyrhynchus (Turner 1975: 1-2), and Strabo records that the Greek grammarian Asclepiades of Myrleia was at work in Spain (Chr. 3.4.3; Hillscher 1892: 381-2). But the literary education that Rome imported and then exported, through figures like Quintilian, who spent time at Rome and then went back to their homelands, contributed to the conversion of local aristocrats to Roman practices (Wallace-Hadrill 1983: 36-7) and thus helped to establish Roman power.

A figure who crystallizes these broad dynamics is the father of the poet Statius. During his career, the father taught Greek poetry and Roman religion to elites (Silv. 5.3.146-90), presumably both Roman and Greek. And when Statius himself imagines what some of these students ended up doing for their careers, they are involved in enforcing Roman power: one gives laws to easterners (gentibus alter / iura dat eois, 5.3.185-6), another governs Spain (alter compescit Hiberas, 5.3.186), others guard borders in the east (alter Achaemenium secludit Zeumate Persen, / hi dites Asiae populos, hi Pontica frenant, / hi fora pacificis emendant fascibus, 5.3.187-9). The control that is imagined for these students by Statius is predicated upon their having been taught in the classroom of the grammarian, and then, implicitly, that of the rhetor. Both of these classes of teachers trained students to assume power, whether it be at the corners of the empire or in their own house. And in doing so, they contributed to the expansion of Roman power.

FURTHER READING

Suetonius’ De Grammaticis et Rhetoribus has been well served by the publication of the edition and commentary of Kaster (1995). For the position of this treatise within Suetonius’ entire oeuvre, see Wallace-Hadrill (1983). Kaster (1988) uses an enormous range of evidence to study the role of the grammarian - and indirectly the rhetor - in ancient society, though his focus is usually later than the early empire. Christes (1979), in German, looks at the numerous slaves and freedmen who made an impact on Roman education during the late republic and early empire. Cribiore (2001) focuses on the social status of grammarians and rhetors in Egypt, though her work bears directly upon education throughout the Mediterranean. This work builds upon her study (Cribiore 1996) of the technical aspects of learning in Greco-Roman Egypt. Turner (1975) demonstrates the important relationship between Rome, Oxyrhynchus, and Alexandria. Vossing (1997), in German, looks at another part of Africa that had a serious impact on Roman education.

For intellectual life in Rome, see Rawson (1985), though it does not consider the empire. Bonner (1977) studies all stages of education in ancient Rome, and Marrou (19656), in French, has a broader focus. Booth has written numerous articles on education in Rome; see especially Booth (1979,1981). For lists ofscholars working in Rome see Hillscher (1892). Funaioli (1907) and Mazzarino (1955) collect the fragments of the grammarians; for grammatical work that extends well beyond antiquity see the eight volumes of Keil’s Grammatici Latini (1855-1923).

A Companion to Roman Rhetoric Edited by William Dominik, Jon Hall Copyright © 2007 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd