Appendix 2
Meaning

P. Wolf (Schulwesen 32ff.) and P. Petit (Étudiants 85 n. 194) both independently drew attention to the fact that Libanius avoids the title

, preferring various periphrases (cf. Appendix 1.3c, d) or the tern , which elsewhere is commonly applied to the humbler teacher of elementary letters.^[1] Among authors earlier than or contemporary with Libanius, Aelius Aristides and Themistius can be shown to have followed a similar practice.^[2] This appendix gathers together some of the evidence for the use of in authors later than Libanius. The first section gives apparent examples of the word in its more common sense; the second, examples of usage similar to Libanius's; a third section briefly describes a similarly flexible usage in Latin.

1.

meaning "teacher of elementary letters"

a. Isid. Pel. Ep. 5.335:

as a teacher of writing.

b. Isid. Pel. Ep. 4.134:

opposed to in a simile distinguishing from . The teacher of elementary letters or writing seems to be meant, associated with as opposed to .

c. Nil. Ancyr. Ep. 2.49:

vs. in a context similar to Isid. Pel. Ep. 4.134, above.

d. Ioan. Philop. Comm. in Phys. 2.8, CAG 16.321.1ff., on the proposition

: . The

[2] See Wolf, Schulwesen 35 with nn. 62, 63.

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first part of the statement demonstrates that "teacher of basic letters" is meant here.^[3]

In three further examples, obviously means "teacher of elementary letters":

e. Simplic. Comm. in Categ. 8, CAG 8.230.2ff., on a man who had to repeat his education from the beginning after suffering amnesia:

.

f. Olympiod. Comm. Alcib. 1 2.32f. Westerink, on Plato's education:

. Compare ibid. 95.17ff., 96.14ff.

g. Paul. Aeg. 1.14, CMG 9:1.13.19ff., prescribing the first two stages of scholastic education:

. The passage is taken verbatim from Oribasius, Lib. inc. 3.9 CMG 5:2.2.13f.; cf. Syn. ad Eustath. 5.14, CMG 6:3.158. Oribasius in turn was drawing on Athenaeus of Attaleia.

2. meaning , "teacher of liberal letters" or "teacher of literature"

a. At [Basil. Sel.] Vie et miracles de Sainte Thécle 2.38 Dagron, the father and son, Alypius and Olympius, are each called

; see Part II nos. 7, 108. The expertise of the former—who communicates with St. Thecla by quoting a verse of Homer—and the honorific style of the latter, , make it clear that here denotes more than a humble teacher of letters; i.e., it means .

b. Accordingly, in the following chapter of the Vie, on Isocasius, a

turned (Vie 2.39; cf. Part II no. 85), the term must have the same meaning. It is worth noting that the author of the Vie was a man of some literary pretensions, perhaps a foyer rhetorician, concerned to present the story of St. Thecla in a polished style.^[4]

c. Zach. Schol. Disputatio, PG 85.1061A-1064A:

[4] Cf. Dagron, ed., Vie pp. 17ff.

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. Here both context and content—the precinct of the Muses; the pupils of mounting literary displays—strongly suggest that must mean a teacher of liberal studies, i.e., a . A primary teacher's pupas would have little occasion to present ,^[5] but literary exercises and displays by the students in the grammarian's school are well known.^[6]

d. Agath. Hist. 5.21.3 Keydell, describing the education of Germanus, brought from Bederiana to Constantinople at the end of his eighth year:

. Since Germanus was probably unschooled when he arrived in the capital, could mean "elementary teachers" here. But since only the and Latin studies are mentioned for an education that apparently spanned about ten years—Germanus was at the end of his eighth year on his arrival; the sentence immediately following the passage above begins , i.e., around eighteen years of age— here more likely means both "teachers of elementary letters" and "teachers of literature," in an undifferentiated sense: note the plural. Compare the remarks on Procopius's usage and on the significance of the phrase elsewhere in Agathias, below ad fin.

e. Damasc. V. Isid. frg. 178 Zintzen describes the grammarian Pamprepius (Part II no. 114) as

. Since Damascius is largely a hostile witness for Pamprepius, it has sometimes been thought that be uses here in the sense "elementary teacher," as a term of invective, with a view to diminishing Pamprepius's stature.^[7]

This is probably not correct. Damascius does despise Pamprepius for his ambition and his seeming betrayal of the pagans; cf. V. Isid. frg. 287 (with 178), 288, 289, and possibly 179. But he otherwise males no attempt to conceal or diminish Pamprepius's cultural attainments;^[8] it therefore seems unlikely that Damascius would attempt to smear with a phrase a man whose learning he elsewhere establishes at length.

Further, although Damascius does use the word to mean "liberary matters" (V. Isid. epit. Phot. 298 = frg. 331), the sense that it

[5] Cf. Marrou, Histoire 240f.

[6] For Hellenistic evidence, cf. Marrou, Histoire 252; see also, e.g., Part II nos. 59, 83.

[7] Cf. Keydell, RE 18:2(2).409.64ff.

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has in classical Greek, he regularly goes out of his way to avoid using the nonclassical technical term to designate the professional grammarian: see esp. the periphrases in V. Isid. epit. Phot. 60 (= frg. 111) and frg. 276, both quoted at Appendix 1.3e. In fact, the apparent occurrences of in the remnants of the V. Isid. are all the result of additions or rephrasing by Photius or the compilers of the Suds. Photius normalizes the phrase at V. Isid. frg. 178, replacing it with in his epitome (epit. Phot. 110); the remaining appearances of , in V. Isid. frg. 111 and frg. 313, referring to Ammonianus and Harpocras, respectively, almost certainly reflect not Damascius's ipsissima verba but the Suda 's usage: in both cases, occurs as part of an introductory formula of the type regularly found in the Suda 's biographical entries.^[9]

Damascius avoids yet another technical term in V. Isid. frg. 178: note the euphemism in his reference to Pamprepius's public salary at Constantinople; the technical term, , appears in Malch. frg. 20 = FHG 4.131f. Probably, then, Damascius uses in frg. 178 as an alternative for the technical term , like Libanius and the other authors quoted above.

3. and litterator

With the variable use of remarked above we should compare the behavior of the corresponding Latin term, litterator. In a pair of valuable articles, E. W. Bower and A. D. Booth have drawn attention to how the word is used both to designate the elementary teacher—i.e., litterator as one who makes another litteratus in the basic sense—and, more commonly, as a synonym for grammaticus.^[10] Note that an author can use the word unself-consciously in its two different meanings at different points in the same work: thus at Hist. Aug., M. Ant. 2.2, the term litterator must mean a teacher of elementa ; but at ibid. Comm. 1.6 the term must mean grammaticus, since it refers to the stage of education preceding the orator.

This same flexibility can be found in the use of by a Greek author, the historian Procopius. In four of the five places where

[10] Bower, "Some Technical Terms" 469ff.; Booth, "Litterator"; both discuss passages from the early through the late empire. For litterator meaning grammaticus, note also Gell. NA 16.6.1, 11 and 18.9.2-3.

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he uses , the word is most naturally taken to mean "teacher of basic letters." Thus at Anecd . 20.17 Procopius remarks of Iunilius (QSP 543), [sc. ] . Since lunilius is supposed to be ignorant of Greek, here should denote the elementary teacher of the language.^[11] But at BG 1.24.12 Procopius says of John the Cappadocian, . Here the logical sequence—note the —and the substance of the second clause imply that one could learn more than mere elementary letters, that one was in fact expected to become familiar with under the . The notion has little to do with the function of the qua elementary teacher, as that is normally conceived, but it makes sense if the meaning of here approaches . We should conclude, therefore, that Procopius used as the author of the Historia Augusta used lifferator , to mean "teacher of letters" in a fluid, fairly undifferentiated sense, allowing it to be defined by context and by the kind of letters to which he refers.

The passages surveyed above suggest that Wolf was correct to conclude that Libanius preferred to for stylistic reasons; he could thereby avoid a technical term standard only in contemporary usage and find a substitute sanctioned by classical diction.^[12] Similar stylistic considerations probably motivated the post-Libanian examples of meaning noted in Section 2 above, where all the authors cited aim at literary sophistication.^[13] Such concerns perhaps also motivate some of the other peculiarities of style to which I have alluded: for example, frequent periphrasis (see 2e above, on Damascius; cf. Appendix 1.3), or the use of such explanatory or objective—in essence, apologetic—phrases as at Agath. Hist 5.5.4, where the historian tries to forestall any offense at his using the nonclassical technical term.^[14] But no such stylistic considerations

[11] Compare, e.g., the passage of Simplicius quoted in Section le above. For the other, similar uses in Procopius, see BP 2.15.7, concerning Peter of Arzanene; BG 1.2.6, concerning Athalarich; BG 4.19.8, on the Huns' illiteracy.

[13] Contrast the passages noted in Section 1, which occur either in Christian writings composed by ascetics or in philosophical and medical treatises with no great stylistic ambitions.

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seem to have motivated the variable use of litterator noted above; Latin authors have no apparent bias against grammaticus . And it must be stressed that to prefer was probably to modify common usage slightly, not willfully to distort it: , like litterator , could be used so flexibly because the boundary between the activities of the primary and of the secondary teacher, the and the , was not distinct and absolute.^[15]

[15] See n. 3 above; with Wolf, Schulwesen 34f.; Kaster, "Notes" 325ff.; and Chap. 2 "Some Variable Definitions."

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