Chapter 3
The Social Status of the Grammarians
ista autem sedes honoris, sella curulis,. . in cuius me fastigio ex qua mediocritate posuisti, quotiens a me cogitatur, vincor magnitudine et redigor ad silentium, non oneratus beneficiis, sed oppressus.
Whenever I think of the glorious seat of the consulship and of the eminence to which you raised me from a station so ordinary, I am overcome by the greatness of it and reduced to silence, not burdened by your favor, but overwhelmed.
—Ausonius, Gratiarum actio 1.32-36
In any attempt to define the grammarian's social and economic circumstances, we are inevitably at the mercy of our sources. Largely anecdotal, subject to distortions, unevenly distributed geographically and over time, the evidence forbids any generalizations that could lay claim to statistical significance.[1] Such limitations, of course, are hardly unique to our subject; but there is a further limitation, perhaps especially severe in the grammarians' case, which can be expressed in terms of the principle, The more one knows, the less one knows. Most grammarians surface briefly in a single source and then sink without a trace. It follows that the more varied our information is concerning a given grammarian (for example, the adventurer Pamprepius), the less justified we are in using that information to sketch a typical case: the fact that we know so much creates the strong presumption that he is somehow extraordinary.
Yet even if we are shut off from some methods of analysis, there is still much to be said; for our evidence, although fragmentary and scattered, is still sufficiently abundant to allow us to sketch the range of
[1] For one reminder of the limits of our knowledge, see Appendix 5, Macedonia, showing only two (possibly three) grammarians active on the old Greek mainland during the three centuries surveyed.
possibilities systematically and in some detail and to suggest where the center of that range might lie. We will begin, then, by examining briefly what is perhaps the most familiar group of teachers, the grammatici of Bordeaux commemorated by Ausonius. Having drawn what inferences we can concerning the social and economic standing (or standings) of the Burdigalenses , we will compare those results with the information from other areas of the empire.
Bordeaux
Ausonius's loyal record of the grammarians and rhetoricians of his native town was composed sometime after 385, near the end of his long life.[2] Living in retirement as a former praetorian prefect and consul, Ausonius had by then far surpassed the successes of any other teacher of Bordeaux; he had also far outstripped the mediocritas of his own origins as the son of a physician of curial status and a woman of good birth but small means.[3] Looking back over more than half a century to the days when he himself had been a grammarian and then a rhetorician, Ausonius may have found that experience somehow remote and difficult to bring into focus: so much at least would account for his inconstancy and ambiguity in characterizing the grammarians' status at Bordeaux, speaking now of the exilis cathedra , now of the nomen grammatici . . . tam nobile .[4]
Yet this ambiguity is perhaps not inappropriate, for the nineteen grammarians of Bordeaux catalogued by Ausonius seem to have been a notably mixed lot, comprising, at one extreme, men a generation removed from slavery, and, at the other, a descendant of a noble family of old
[2] The best general treatment of the Professores as a social document is by Hopkins, "Social Mobility" 244ff., to which this section owes much; less balanced for the grammatici is Étienne, Bordeaux 254, 256f. Valuable discussion of prosopographical questions is provided by Booth, "Notes" and "Academic Career"; and by Green, "Prosopographical Notes." For full documentation and discussion of the teachers touched on in this and the following section, the reader is referred to the entries in Part II.
[3] The family of Ausonius: Hopkins, "Social Mobility" 240ff. But the suggestion (p. 241), based largely on Ausonius's silence, that Ausonius's paternal grandfather was a freedman should be resisted; cf. Matthews, Western Aristocracies 81f.
[4] Exilis cathedra, Prof . 7.9-12; with Prof . 10.41, fama . . . tenuis (cf. Prof . 12.6); Prof . 10.51-52, gloriolam exilem / et patriae et cathedrae ; cf. Prof . 22.17-18, exili nostrae fucatus honore cathedrae, / libato tenuis nomine grammatici , of the subdoctor Victorius. For nomen grammatici . . . tam nobile , see Prof . 9.2.5; and cf. Praef . 1.18, nomen grammatici merui; Prof . 18.8, grammatici nomen divitiasque , of Marcellus at Narbo.
Rome.[5] Thus, three were sons of freedmen;[6] another five are grouped by Ausonius under the general rubric "of lowly origin, standing, and deserts."[7] But three others were of not less than curial rank (Ausonius, his nephew Herculanus, and Acilius Glabrio), and similar origins can be conjectured fairly confidently for a fourth.[8] Unfortunately, Ausonius offers no information on the families of the remaining seven. If one is willing to trust his silence concerning these teachers, they presumably fell somewhere between the two extremes, "freeborn, but in general undistinguished"; but this might place some of them too low.[9]
The evidence suggests, then, a middling group of men, with the balance perhaps tipped more obviously toward the lower end of the range than in our evidence from other areas of the empire (see "Beyond"). There is, however, another feature of the grammarians' origins, which we will see
[5] Nineteen grammarians: the number includes Ausonius and excludes Marcellus (Prof . 18), who only taught at Narbo, and the subdoctor Victorius (Prof . 22); cf. Appendix 4. Stemmate nobilium deductum nomen avorum: Prof . 23.3, of Acilius Glabrio.
[6] Prof . 10.15-16, of Sucuro. Prof . 21.27, of Crispus and Urbicus: for Ausonius's sense of the inconsistency of their cultural standing and their birth, see Prof . 21.25-28, quoted at Chap. 2 n. 133.
[7] Prof . 10.5-6, humili stirpe, loco ac merito , covering Macrinus, Phoebicius, Concordius, Ammonius, Anastasius, as well as the freedman's son Sucuro; note that all teachers so described were active early in the period covered by the Professores (see Part II no. 35). It is of course difficult to say with any precision what Ausonius, writing from the perspective of his own success, might have meant by humilis (cf. Chap. 1 n. 59), save that the men were likely of less than curial status. That he takes the trouble specifically to note the libertina progenies of Sucuro might suggest a somewhat more honorable origin for the rest, but that does not take us far; neither does the Druid stock claimed by Phoebicius, nor his service as aedituus of the temple of Apollo-Belenus at his native Bayeux (Prof . 10.24-25; cf. Prof . 4.9ff.).
[8] Nepotianus (Prof . 15), grammarian and subsequently rhetorician and provincial governor. Unless his later career is an example of truly extraordinary mobility, his origins will have resembled those of his friend Ausonius (ibid. 4ff.), whose career was comparable to Nepotianus's; see below. The noble marriage enjoyed by Marcellus at Narbo (Prof . 18.5-6) might also presuppose at least respectable antecedents at Bordeaux.
[9] Cf. Hopkins, "Social Mobility" 246. Ausonius does not comment at all concerning Iucundus, Leontius, Corinthus, Spercheus, Menestheus, or Citarius (the last four all grammatici Graeci ), and he states his ignorance in the case of Thalassus (Prof . 12). Hopkins' inference from Ausonius's silence might here be justified, but we should remember that Ausonius elsewhere omits information that we would think too significant to pass over: note that we know of Herculanus's relatively high origins from the Parentalia (Par . 15, on his father, Pomponius Maximus), not from the Professores , Cf. Booth, "Notes" 238 n. 12; and below, n. 24, on the social origins of the rhetoricians at Bordeaux.
elsewhere: the noticeable (but by no means exclusive) tendency for recruitment to follow family lines. Thus, besides the Greek grammatici Spercheus and Menestheus, father and son, we find the two brothers Iucundus and Leontius, as well as Ausonius and his nephew Herculanus, the son of a vir primarius in the curia of Bordeaux. There is also an example of professional mobility from one generation to the next in Phoebicius, a grammarian and the father of a rhetorician, Attius Patera, whose success carried him as far as a chair at Rome.[10]
As for other indications of status, there is little to be found except at the upper level of the group. Acilius Glabrio and Ausonius are the only landholders we know among them. Concerning Glabrio, we are given no specific information;[11] in Ausonius's case, the evidence suggests that by the end of his life he may have owned as many as eight properties.[12] Of
[10] On Patera at Rome, see Booth, "Notes" 244. For the family's fortunes in the third generation, see the account of the career of Attius Delphidius Tiro—advocate, political adventurer under Procopius, and finally teacher of rhetoric at Bordeaux—in Booth, "Notes" 236f.; cf. Green, "Prosopographical Notes" 23. Besides Phoebicius, only 4 of the grammatici , Nepotianus, Acilius Glabrio, Ausonius, and Spercheus, are known to have had children; Citarius married but died before children were born; Herculanus died young, leaving his family without heirs. Of the rest—all three freedmen's sons and the four remaining humiles (nn. 6, 7, above), plus Leontius, Iucundus, Thalassus, Menestheus, and Corinthus—we are told nothing. Compare the showing of 19 epitaphs raised to or by grammarians in the earlier empire (i.e., all those from which some inference can be drawn): 9 give evidence of marriage and/or children (CIL 3.10805 = AIJ 249 Neviodunum; CIL 6.9447 = ILS 7770, CIL 6.9448, CIL 9.1654 = ILS 6497 Beneventum, CIL 10.3961 Capua, CIL 13.3702 = ILS 7768 Trier, IGVR 3.1261, GVI 1182 = IKyzik . 515 Kirmasti [Hellespontus]); 10 (dedicated by a friend, mother, libertus, vel sim .) suggest that the grammarian either had not married or was not survived by wife or children (CIL 2.3872 = ILS 7765 = ILER 5715 Saguntum, CIL 2.5079 = ILER 5713 Asturica Augusta, CIL 3.12702 [with 13822] = ILS 7767 Doclea, CIL 6.9444, CIL 6.9449 = ILS 1848, CIL 6.9450, CIL 6.9454 = ILS 7769, CIL 6.33859, CIL 8.21107 Caesarea, Kaibel 534 = GVI 1479 Byzantium). Cf. also CIL 5.5278 = ILS 6729 Comum, a bequest by the Latin grammarian P. Atilius Septicianus of his universa substantia to Comum, probably implying that he had no heirs of his blood.
[11] Prof . 23.7: cultor in agris .
[12] For what follows, see esp. Étienne, Bordeaux 351ff. (following Loyen, "Bourg-sur-Gironde," with some adjustments), who is certainly correct to insist that Ausonius's villula (the parvum herediolum of Dom . 1) must be distinct from the estate Lucaniacus (see also below, n. 21; differently Hopkins, "Social Mobility" 240f., following Grimal, "Villas"). But Étienne and Loyen may go too far in attributing to Ausonius villas of which he may simply have enjoyed the hospitality; cf. the restraint of Green, "Prosopographical Notes" 26 n. 33. For the evidence of Ausonius and the patterns of land tenure in Roman Gaul, see Wightman, "Peasants."
these, one derived from his father (the parvum herediolum described in Dom . 1), as perhaps did two others (a house in Bordeaux proper and land in the pagus Novarus ); his wife's dowry certainly brought one property (the estate Lucaniacus), and possibly another in the territory of Saintes. Ausonius tells us most about the parvum herediolum , a parcel of 1,050 iugera (200 arable, 100 vineyard, 50 pasturage, 700 woodland) tended by his great-grandfather, grandfather, and father before Ausonius inherited it.[13] This herediolum was parvum only relatively: as Keith Hopkins has remarked, although the estate was a good deal smaller than some known senatorial or even curial holdings, it would have been "very much larger than the average."[14] Ausonius did not come to his teaching career a wealthy man—certainly not by the standards with which he would have become familiar in the orbit of the emperor. But neither did he come to it a pauper in the modern sense.[15] It is worth recalling that Ausonius's father, a physician, could offer his skills without fees to all[16] and that Ausonius evidently completed his literary education up through rhetoric—and thus satisfied one of the central expectations of upper-class life—with none of the financial strains apparent, for example, in Augustine's schooling.[17]
Ausonius's education is significant in another respect: it allowed him, at least early in his career, to divide his time between the classroom and practice as an advocate. Here again he is joined by Acilius Glabrio,
[13] Description: Dom . 1.21-23. Inheritance: ibid. 1-3, pace Hopkins, "Social Mobility" 240f., who argues against a paternal line of succession in the belief that Ausonius's paternal grandfather was a freedman, and who equates the herediolum with the tenuis . . . pecunia acquired with much effort by his maternal grandfather, Arborius (Par . 4.15-16). On the status of his paternal grandfather, cf. above, n. 3; note that Ausonius clearly attributes the tenuis . . . petunia to the efforts of his maternal grandfather only—i.e., it could not have come down from his maternal proavus , as Dom . 1.1-3 would require.
[14] Hopkins, "Social Mobility" 241 n. 3. The value of the property would depend greatly on the quality of the arable (1 iug . vineyard = 4 iug . 1st-class arable = 8 iug . 2d-class = 12 iug. 3d-class; so Ausonius's 100 iug . of vineyard would have been worth 2-6 times his 200 iug . of ager ). On the relative value of arable, vineyard, and pasture, see A. H. M. Jones, Roman Economy 228f.
[15] Ausonius characterizes as pauperes Aemilia (his maternal grandmother, Par . 4.14; compare ibid. 15-16, on his grandfather Arborius) and his paternal aunt Iulia Cataphronia (Par . 26.5; contrast the magna petunia attributed to his patruus at Par . 2.3). In Aemilia's case, at least, this probably indicates nothing worse than reduced circumstances of a not very harrowing sort, a lack of conspicuous wealth (opes ) that was at odds with the high standing of Aemilia's family (cf. Prof . 16.5-8, on her son, Aemilius Magnus Arborius) and with Arborius's earlier high fortune (Par . 4.3-8).
[16] Epiced . 11-12; cf. n. 128 below.
[17] Conf . 2.35.
whose advocacy Ausonius also recalls.[18] Practice at the bar is another index of social status, implying rhetorical training and so the wherewithal to support it. Advocacy might also be taken as a sign of ambition; for although it was not the route that Ausonius eventually chose, it could provide an entry into the imperial service.[19] There were other opportunities open to grammarians at or from Bordeaux. Ausonius's respectable origins and his literary skills, combined no doubt with other ornaments attributable more to his family than to himself,[20] brought him a noble wife and a substantial dowry, probably at an early date in his career.[21] Again, Ausonius was not alone in this good fortune: the Greek grammarian Citarius also found a rich and noble wife at Bordeaux not long after his arrival from Sicily.[22] But the loftiest prospects seem to have been open only to those who moved beyond their positions as grammarians. We know of two instances of professional mobility among the grammatici Burdigalenses : Ausonius and Nepotianus, both of whom began as grammarians but moved upward in the professional hierarchy to teach as rhetoricians.[23] This movement in itself probably accounts for the fact that these two alone among the grammarians made their way into the imperial service, Ausonius initially as tutor to the prince Gratian, Nepotianus as a provincial governor.
Indeed, where such opportunities are concerned, the contrast between the rhetoricians and the grammarians at Bordeaux seems clear; and it is worth noting that the difference between the two groups is less evident in their origins than in their prospects.[24] For example, more rhetoricians
[18] Glabrio: Prof . 24.7. Ausonius: Praef . 1.17f., nec fora non celebrata mihi, sed cura docendi cultior ; on the interpretation of this remark, see Part II no. 21.
[19] Thus the path taken by Attius Delphidius Tiro: see above, n. 10; cf. at n. 133 below.
[20] Hopkins, "Social Mobility" 242, well emphasizes the fame at court of his maternal uncle, the rhetorician Aemilius Magnus Arborius, and the local influence of his brother-in-law, Pomponius Maximus.
[21] Attusia Lucana Sabina (Par . 9.5, nobilis a proavis et origine clara senatus ), daughter of Attusius Lucanus Talisius (Par . 8). The estate Lucaniacus (see Epist . 16.36, villa Lucani—mox potieris—aco , with Epist . 26.1.12, 26.2.43-44, Epigr . 48.7; and cf. Paulin. Nol. Carm . 10.256, aut quum Lucani retineris culmine fundi ) is to be associated with this family; cf. n. 12 above.
[22] Prof . 13.9; and cf. Marcellus, a native of Bordeaux who taught as a grammarian at Narbo, Prof . 18.5-6. Note that the grammarians appear to have been not much less successful than the rhetoricians in finding uxores nobiles : see Prof . 16.9, on Aemilius Magnus Arborius, Prof . 7.35-36, on Alethius Minervius; cf. Prof . 23.5, on Dynamius, like the grammarian Marcellus a native of Bordeaux who taught in a different city (Ilerda), where he found a wealthy wife.
[23] Prof . 15 tit. and 10ff., on Nepotianus, Epist . 22.73-76 and Prof . 24.5-6, on Ausonius, with the comments in Part II nos. 105, 21.
[24] On the differences in mobility, see Hopkins, "Social Mobility" 247. Although none of the rhetoricians is said to have had origins as lowly as those of some grammarians (e.g., the sons of freedmen), Ausonius describes only two rhetoricians in terms that show they were of at least curial background (Prof . 14.7, Censorius Atticus Agricius; 16.8, Aemilius Magnus Arborius). Yet it is difficult to believe that the majority of the rhetoricians of Bordeaux were of less than curial origin, given the great rarity of such instances elsewhere; Ausonius's silence here may simply pass over something that his audience would take for granted, and may lead us to underestimate the origins of many teachers. It would follow, then, that at least some of the grammarians whose origins are not specified were men of higher standing than we might at first conclude; cf. at n. 9 above. In general, we can think that the social composition of the two groups significantly overlapped, with the lower range of grammatici more humbly placed than the corresponding rhetores , and perhaps with the upper range of rhetores possessing loftier origins than most grammatici . Cf. also n. 22 above.
than grammarians practiced at the bar,[25] though of course public advocacy may have been at least partially a consequence of their profession. More revealing are the instances of professional and social mobility: only two of the grammarians are said to have left positions at Bordeaux to teach elsewhere, one apparently out of financial necessity, another out of ambition.[26] None achieved the success of several of the rhetoricians, whose fame made them sought, or drove them to chairs at Rome or Constantinople, bringing reflected glory to Bordeaux.[27] No doubt such men may have been more talented in their metier than their colleagues among the grammatici . Yet one suspects that beneath the language of fame and compulsion lie the workings of patronage (which we will have occasion to examine in a later chapter) and that patronage at the level necessary for such brilliant success was more easily available to the rhetoricians of Bordeaux than to the grammarians. That suspicion is hardly diminished by the other clear distinction between the two groups of teachers, the opportunity for entry into the imperial service: all the professores who rose to the governing class had first been rhetoricians.[28]
[25] Prof . 2.17, on Latinus Alcimus Alethius, 3.11, on Luciolus, Par . 3.13-14, on Aemilius Magnus Arborius; cf. Prof . 23.2, on Dynamius, with n. 10 above, on the career of Attius Tiro Delphidius.
[26] Cf. Prof . 10.19-21, on Concordius, qui profugus patria / mutasti sterilem / urbe alia cathedram (on patria here, see Part II no. 35); ibid. 46ff., on Anastasius, whom transtulit ambitio / Pictonicaeque dedit (Ausonius notes his failure at Poitiers in vv. 49-53). Cf. below at n. 153.
[27] Ti. Victor Minervius (Prof . 1.3-4; Jer. Chron . s.a. 352), Attius Patera and Censorius Atticus Agricius (Prof . 14.9, with Booth, "Notes" 244); and cf. Aemilius Magnus Arborius (Par . 3.15), whose crescens fama made him petitus , and (Prof . 16.14) whose fama drove him (pepulit ) to Constantinople.
[28] The governorship of Nepotianus (Prof . 15.18) has already been mentioned; with the success of Ausonius via his service as imperial tutor, cf. the career of Exuperius, a native of Bordeaux who taught as a rhetorician at Toulouse and Narbo (Prof . 17.7ff.; for his governorship in Spain, cf. v. 13). Hopkins ("Social Mobility" 242) and others are probably wrong, however, to attribute a praesidatus of Narbo to Aemilius Magnus Arborius on the strength of Par . 3.12; the reference is probably to his advocacy. Green, "Prosopographical Notes" 20, is rightly skeptical; cf. also Booth, "Academic Career" 330.
Taken individually, then, the grammarians of Bordeaux show considerable range in their social origins; as a group, they probably enjoyed a middling respectability in the city's elite. Their profession appears to have been a social bridge, sufficiently prestigious to attract the son of the leader of the local senate but not of such high status that it was beyond the reach of some freedmen's sons, for whom it no doubt represented a step up in the world. The position held some opportunity for professional, social, and geographic mobility, but without direct access to the highest prizes mobility could bring. In this respect, the grammarians were overshadowed by the men at the next level of the professional hierarchy, the rhetoricians. In the next section we will attempt to supplement this bare summary by drawing on the more abundant but more fragmentary evidence from other cities of the empire.
Beyond
As we have already noted, the search for grammarians in the empire leads one to regional centers.[29] Smaller towns, if they were unable to supply a steady stream of pupils or to offer a formal position by funding a chair, probably could not long sustain a teacher even if they had one in their midst: thus Augustine began his career as a private grammaticus in his native Thagaste but did not remain long.[30] By contrast, Bordeaux, a provincial capital as well as an episcopal see, could afford municipally funded positions for a teaching corps that (it appears) commonly ran to more than one grammarian.[31] It is impossible to say how many cities were as fortunate. If one looks beyond Rome and Constantinople, the number of attested positions supported by public (that is, municipal or imperial) funds is not large: Oxyrhynchus in the mid-third century; Heliopolis, in Phoenice, the provincial capitals of the northern Gallic diocese, and Alexandria in the fourth century; and Athens in the fifth.[32]
[29] See Chap. 1 at n. 26; cf. Appendix 5.
[30] Possid. V. Aug . 1; Aug. Conf . 4.1.1, 2.2, 4.7, with Part II no. 20. Compare Tetradius, teaching (at what level is not clear) in the Gallic backwater of Iculisma: Part II no. 263.
[31] Municipal funding: see esp. Ausonius's reference to his municipalis opera, Praef . 1.24. On the size of the teaching corps, see Appendix 4.
[32] Oxyrhynchus: see below, pp. 115f., on Lollianus. Northern Gaul: CTh 13.3.11 (an. 376), with Bonner, "Edict" 114ff., and Kaster, "Reconsideration" 100ff. Heliopolis: Lib. Ep . 1255, 1256, with Part II no. 4. Alexandria: Anth. Gr . 9.175 (Palladas), with 9.171, 11.378, and Part II no. 113. Athens: Damasc. V. Isid . epit. Phot. 168 (= frg. 290 Zintzen) and Malch. frg. 20, with Part II no. 114.
This number could, however, easily be expanded—to include at least Narbo, Toulouse, Carthage, and Milan in the West, Nicaea, Nicomedia, Elusa, Caesarea, Tyre, Syrian Chalcis, Apamea, and Antioch in the East—if one were to assume that the presence of a public chair of rhetoric should imply at least one similar endowment for a grammarian.[33] Smaller still is the number of places beyond Rome and Constantinople where more than one grammarian can be found at the same time: in the fourth century one can point with certainty only to the major centers of Milan, Trier, and Antioch (in addition to Bordeaux), although some fairly modest cities—Hermopolis and Gaza—appear to have claimed at least two grammarians in the late fifth or early sixth century.[34] It seems that most grammatici were likely to be sole practitioners in their towns; as such they would have been free from competition but at the same time isolated, large fish in small ponds.
If we look, then, at the origins and social standing of our teachers, we see a range similar to that at Bordeaux. The most significant difference occurs at the lower reaches: nowhere but at Bordeaux do we find men as low on the social ladder as freedmen's sons teaching as grammarians, and we can find only one who might resemble in his origins those whom Ausonius describes as humili stirpe .[35] The profession must surely have included other such lowly figures, now concealed by the fragmentation of our sources: even among the grammarians we happen to know—well over a hundred—we can specify or legitimately infer the circumstances of only about fifty. Yet we do know enough to conclude—as Ausonius's
[33] Narbo and Toulouse: see esp. Auson. Prof . 17.7-8. Carthage and Milan: Aug. Conf . 6.7.11, 5.13.23; for Carthage in the sixth century, see CJ 1.27.1, 42. Nicaea and Nicomedia: Lib. Or . 1.48-49. Caesarea: Lib. Or . 31.42; Choric. Or. fun. Procop . 12 (p. 113.21ff. Foerster-Richtsteig), the latter mentioning Tyre also. Elusa: Lib. Ep . 132, with Part II no. 55. Chalcis: Lib. Or . 54.48. Apamea: Lib. Ep . 1391. Antioch: Lib. Or . 31, with Kaster, "Salaries" 54ff. Perhaps also Cyzicus: cf. Lib. Ep . 527.1. Many of the cities mentioned in this and the preceding note have been remarked by Jones, whose discussion of the teachers' circumstances, LRE 998f., is the best brief survey.
[34] Milan: see Part II nos. 159, 172. Trier: Auson. Epist . 13, on Ursulus and Harmonius. Antioch: Part II nos. 25, 32, 169, with Petit, Étudiants 85f. (The position of these teachers at Antioch is problematic.) Hermopolis: BGU 12.2152, Fl. Her . . ., Fl. Pythiodorus. Gaza: Procop. Gaz. Ep . 13, the Greek grammarians Alypius and Stephanus, the Latin grammarian Hierius: but all three appear to have left Gaza for Antioch; see below at nn. 140, 147. Note also the grammarians Agathodaemon and Ophelius, joint recipients of Isid. Pel. Ep . 5.439, thus presumably active in the same place (unknown, perhaps Egypt; cf. Part II no. 3).
[35] Pamprepius of Panopolis, said to have begun as a pauper and to have had a difficult youth, Rhetorius Catal. cod. astrol. Graec . 8:4.221.2, 8:4.222.8ff. This characterization might, however, be influenced by a contrast with his later good fortune, beginning with his arrival in Athens: cf. Rhetorius 8:4.221.3, and below at n. 160.
special notice of the freedmen's sons should imply—that men of low birth were out of the ordinary.
The evidence clusters instead at a level closer to Ausonius's own mediocritas . Where the data are fairly explicit, we know of seven men certainly or probably of curial status, and one equestrian.[36] In a number of other instances we find reasonably clear indications of respectable origins. The grammarian's own education can offer a hint, as in the case of Marius Plotius Sacerdos, once a fellow pupil and a contubernalis of the vir clarissimus Gaianus, son of the senator Uranius.[37] Alternatively, family attainments provide the token of honorable standing, as with Dioscorius of Myra, the brother of a distinguished sophist, and Metrodorus of Tralles, who counted an architect, two physicians, and a lawyer among his brothers, sons of the physician Stephanus.[38] Or again, several sources of inference can converge. Calliopius, who had Libanius's son among his pupils during his time at Antioch, belonged to a well-placed family of the city:[39] even without explicit testimony to that effect, we might have been able to conclude as much from Calliopius's full literary education and from his sister's marriage to the influential Seleucus.[40] In view of these social indicators, it is particularly noteworthy that Calliopius's father was also a grammarian:[41] to this pair can be added several other examples of the profession passing through two or (in one case) three generations in the same family.[42]
[37] GL 6.496.5ff. Note also the grammarian Ophelius, who appears to have had a full rhetorical education: cf. Isid. Pel. Ep . 4.162, with Part II no. 109.
[38] Dioscorius: Part II no. 48. Metrodorus: Part II no. 101. Compare Ammonianus (Part II no. 8), a relative of the philosopher Syrianus and of Aedesia, the wife of the philosopher Hermias and mother of Ammonius and Heliodorus.
[40] Education: pupil of Zenobius, teacher of Libanius, Lib. Ep . 625.4, with Ep . 18.2. Marriage: Lib. Ep . 625.4, 678.2. For Seleucus, see PLRE I s.v. Seleucus 1, p. 818, with Part II no. 252.
[41] Part II no. 169.
[42] Fathers and sons: Danaus and Diphilus, Part II nos. 43, 49; the Clamosi of Parentium, Part II nos. 29, 30; Alypius and Olympius of Isaurian Seleucia, Part II nos. 2, 95. Three generations: Horapollon, who taught at Alexandria and Constantinople, with his son Asclepiades and grandson, Fl. Horapollon, Part II nos. 77, 17, 78. For recruitment within the family at Bordeaux, see above, p. 102; with the instance noted there of professional mobility from one generation to the next (Phoebicius and Attius Patera), compare the Apollinarii of Laodicea: the father a grammarian (Part II no. 14); the son, a rhetorician (and later a heresiarch).
There are further, explicit indications of the rank some grammarians enjoyed, which take us still higher on the ladder of prestige; this evidence, however, requires a brief separate discussion because it is difficult to evaluate unambiguously and because, unlike the evidence discussed so far, it appears to involve a clear chronological distinction. I refer to the grammarians who are known to have possessed the clarissimate or the Flaviate: that is, respectively, the rank (clarissimus , 
) belonging to members of the lowest grade in the senatorial order; or the name "Flavius," which was derived from the gentilicium of Constantine and served from the second quarter of the fourth century onward "as a kind of status designation," setting those who had served in the imperial military or civil service "apart from the masses of the population who continued to retain the name Aurelius, usage of which may be traced back, in the large majority of instances, to the time of the Constitutio Antoniniana."[43] In both cases, the mark of rank is associated with grammarians only in the second half of the fifth century and beginning of the sixth.
Certainly no grammarian before the year 425 is known to have possessed senatorial status by birth or to have achieved it in consequence of his teaching, although a few reached that rank after leaving their teaching careers and entering the imperial service;[44] and though we know of a few men who were elevated in 425 as a result of their teaching, they belong to the special group of grammatici active at Constantinople.[45] From the late fifth century on, however, we find not only Cledonius, Romanus senator , teaching at Constantinople, but also Rufinus, v.c ., at Antioch, Flavius Horapollon, 
, of Alexandria, and even a vir spectabilis , Deuterius of Milan.[46] Similarly, those teachers of the fourth century
[43] On the Flaviate, see Keenan, "Names" (1973; quotation from p. 51) and (1974).
[44] E.g., Ausonius, Fl. Simplicius; see below, pp. 130f. Consentius, v.c . and author of a grammatical treatise, was probably not a grammarian by profession; see Part II no. 203. On the clarissimate attributed (very dubiously) to Aelius Donatus, see Part II no. 52.
[45] Helladius, Syrianus, and Theofilus, who received the comitiva ord. pr . and rank of ex-vicar (= spectabilis ) on 15 March 425. See CTh 6.21.1 (with CJ 12.15.1) and Part II nos. 67, 147, 154.
[46] Clarissimi : see Part II nos. 31, 78, 130. Spectabilis : see Part II no. 44 (Deuterius, v.s., grammaticus ). Note that Deuterius seems to have taught both grammar and rhetoric, although it is not dear whether or how that would have affected his rank.
whose nomenclature shows the Flaviate almost certainly won the distinction through their service, beyond their teaching, as imperial functionaries.[47] By contrast, of the four grammarians who postdate the mid-fifth century and whose full formal names are known from legal documents, three were Flavii, not Aurelii: Flavius Horapollon, who thus possessed both the clarissimate and the Flaviate, and the two grammarians of Hermopolis, Flavius Her[. . .] and Flavius Pythiodorus.[48] Indeed, we have a document suggesting that in this later period a grammarian would normally be assumed to be a Flavius: a formulary concerning the sale of a house, dated 21 September 510. Although the document is merely a model draft, in which the buyer and seller have been given the blank names 
and 
, respectively, the parties have also had occupations assigned to them: the buyer, Flavius, is styled "the most eloquent grammarian and teacher of liberal Greek literature," in contrast to the seller, who bears the lower-status name "Aurelius" and is made a 
, a trader in linen or sailcloth.[49]
The grammarians' possession of these ranks and titles thus seems to involve a chronological distinction and so presumably an historical development. Yet it is difficult to interpret the change, because we are completely ignorant of how the grammarians acquired these marks of status. We cannot know whether the grammarians who boast the clarissimate inherited their rank, or won it through some unattested mechanism because of their teaching, or received it as an honorary grant for some other reason.[50] The difficulties that the Flaviate presents are greater still, since the mechanics and regularity of its distribution to those outside the imperial bureaucracy are uncertain: the Flaviate of the two grammarians of Hermopolis, for instance, could be due simply to their possession of curial status.[51] In fact, the historical development at issue here
[48] See Part II nos. 78, 68, 128, respectively. One could add Fl. Cresconius Corippus, although his possession of the Flaviate may be due to his service as a palatinus at Constantinople; see Part II no. 37. Note also Fl. Fortunatus (Part II no. 62), a magister litterarum of Aquileia. For the exceptional Aurelius, see Part II no. 41.
[49] For the details of the formulary (SB 1.5941), see Part II no. 220.
[50] E.g., Fl. Horapollon's rank could conceivably have passed down from his grandfather, who taught with distinction at Constantinople under Theodosius II (cf. Part II no. 77) and who may have been honored as a result.
[51] Keenan, "Names" (1974) 293, notes "the increasing proportion of Flavii among 5th and 6th century decurions in general." On the Flaviate and the decurions, see ibid. 290ff.; on the mechanics of its distribution, ibid. 297ff.
may concern the grammarians' titles more than their actual standing, for both the clarissimate and the Flaviate suffered a cheapening in the course of the fifth century.[52] It would be imprudent, therefore, to conclude that the grammarians of the late fifth and early sixth centuries suddenly or dramatically rose in status.[53] Still, even the most cautious interpretation of the titles' significance would confirm the picture of respectability our other evidence suggests.
The formulary mentioned above is noteworthy not only because it assigns the higher-status name "Flavius" to a 
but also because it makes the 
the buyer; it thus assumes that Flavius the grammarian would have some disposable wealth. The assumption is consistent with the evidence available. Small tokens can be found in the ownership of slaves: for instance, a casual reference in a letter on papyrus shows a grammarian of Hermopolis lending his slave to a local advocate or rhetorician so that the latter could reclaim some books he had lent to a colleague in another town.[54] More impressive are the grammarians' public dedications. In the mid-fourth century, an African magister studiorum , Annius Namptoius, restored the baths of his native town.[55] Something over a century later, when the local basilica had become the focus of a town's life, we find the grammarian Calbulus adorning with his own verses a large baptistery he had donated.[56] Similarly, at Parentium, where the basilica was built at the end of the fourth century and rebuilt in the middle of the fifth, the benefactions of two generations of teachers are memorialized in the mosaic floors of the church.[57] Such displays
[52] On "whittling down" the prestige and privileges of clarissimi and spectabiles in the years 450 to 530, precisely the period to which the grammarians noted above belong, see Jones, LRE 529 (cf. p. 542): by 530 at the latest, possibly as early as the reign of Zeno, or even of Leo, the title senator and most of the privileges attaching to it were reserved to the highest grade, the illustres . For an "inflationary" trend possibly affecting the Flaviate as well, see Keenan, "Names" (1974) 293-94, 302.
[54] Maehler, "Menander" 305ff., with Part II no. 173. As Alan Cameron has remarked ("Roman School Fees" 258), even Palladas, who of all the grammarians complains most bitterly about his poverty, could afford a slave (Anth. Gr . 10.86). Grammarians' ownership of slaves in the earlier empire is attested by SB 1.5808 = Stud. Pal . 13, p. 1 (Arsinoe, an. 124); CIL 2.3872 = ILS 7765 = ILER 5715 (Saguntum); CIL 6.9454 = ILS 7769; CIL 6.33859.
[55] Part II no. 103.
[56] Anth. Lat . 1:1.378, with Part II no. 23.
[57] Inscr. Ital . 10:2.58, 74, with Part II nos. 29, 30. The father and his wife donated 100 feet of pavement, the son and his wife 111 feet. The gifts of the other local worthies recorded in the floors range from as little as 13 feet to as much as 400; the teachers' donations are about average.
imply at least a modest surplus of wealth and a comfortable standard of living. Although none of the grammarians would be likely to rival the 
Evangelus of Caesarea, who purchased a nearby 
for three hundredweights of gold,[58] many would have been able to afford such touches of civilized life as the woodcarver's services commended to the sophist Isocasius.[59]
The grammarians' professional income, which we will consider presently, contributed to that style of life; but sometimes we catch glimpses of the landholdings—especially family property—that would have been a firmer foundation.[60] Augustine is probably the most familiar example; his father's holdings (which Augustine as heir later placed at the Church's disposal) were sufficient to provide the beginnings of the saint's education, although the financial difficulties that interrupted his schooling suggest the holdings were modest.[61] At Milan, however, Augustine encountered a grammarian who appears to have been better off, Verecundus, who owned the estate Cassiciacum, outside Milan, and could offer extended hospitality to Augustine and several of his friends and relations.[62] The conversations at Cassiciacum on liberal learning and spirituality conform to an image of aristocratic otium , even if the host and his guests were not themselves members of the aristocracy. We have already mentioned a similar reflection or imitation of aristocratic life in the case of Servius, who owned or had access to a retreat in Campania.[63]
Other grammarians, however, put their holdings to different use. We find one grammarian and his heirs acting as landlords, collecting rent on one of his parcels.[64] Others were absentee owners, retaining and presumably drawing income from their property while they taught elsewhere. The family of Flavius Horapollon maintained holdings at Phenebythis, in Egypt, for at least three generations while its members taught at Constantinople or Alexandria.[65] Libanius refers to one Didymus, an Egyptian grammarian who taught at Antioch and Constantinople
[58] Procop. Caes. Anecd . 30.18-20.
[59] Theodoret. Ep . XXXVIII. Cf. the wedding gift of a pearl given by the teacher Arethusius of Antinoopolis, Part II no. 187.
[60] Cf. pp. 102f. above, on Acilius Glabrio and Ausonius at Bordeaux.
[61] See esp. Conf . 2.3.5. Contrast Augustine's notice (Conf . 6.10.17) of the rus optimum in the vicinity of Carthage belonging to the family of his friend Nebridius, who worked (unambitiously and beneath his abilities, Conf . 8.6.13) as the subdoctor of the grammarian Verecundus at Milan.
[62] See esp. Conf . 9.3.5, De ord . 1.2.5, with De beat. vit . 4.31.
[63] Implied by GL 4.468.6; cf. Chap. 2 at n. 141.
while owning property in his native land.[66] After Didymus's death, when his son, Rhetorius, a former pupil of Libanius, was returning to Egypt to claim his father's estate, Libanius had occasion to remark to the dux Aegypti that the estate was small, a mere "solace for a poor man."[67] The characterization is probably meant to place Rhetorius and his father among those of modest means, in the sense that they did not belong to the category of 
, the truly wealthy.[68] Similar circumstances probably stand behind Libanius's description of Eudaemon, whose family at Pelusium he calls "second to none in birth, although their possessions are not many because of their virtuous restraint" (
).[69]
Such evidence of respectability is not surprising—the immunities that grammarians and rhetoricians enjoyed did, after all, presuppose their being landholders. It should not, however, be overestimated. No grammarian can be shown to have been wealthy, in the sense of being able to afford the public expenditures that traditionally established and reinforced claims to social preeminence.[70] Some may have verged on poverty in the absolute economic sense;[71] the line between respectability and disaster could be thin. Libanius comments of one of his own former teachers, the grammarian Cleobulus, that he had sufficient means to avoid ignoble employment, but he adds that those means were insufficient to bear unjust penalties easily.[72] Libanius's comments were prompted by a lawsuit in which Cleobulus found himself embroiled in 359; when the suit
[66] Part II no. 46.
[69] Ep . 105.2; cf. Ep . 164.1.
[70] On the idea of social wealth, cf. Patlagean, Pauvreté 9ff. The sole exception here may be Annius Namptoius: see above at n. 55; but see also Ausonius's reference to the grammatici nomen divitiasque won, only to be lost, by Marcellus at Narbo (Prof . 18.8).
[71] With Ausonius's characterization of the tenuis victus , or the like, of some of the Burdigalenses (e.g., Prof . 10.44ff.), compare the complaints of Palladas, Anth. Gr . 9.174 (cf. 9.168, 171, 173, 175; 10.97; 11.378; with Alan Cameron, "Roman School Fees"; Part II no. 113; and below, pp. 120f.); and of Lollianus, PCollYoutie 2.66 = POxy . 47.3366, C59f., B28, with p. 115 below.
[72] Ep . 52.3. That Cleobulus possessed independent means is suggested also by the fact that he accepted few students (because of his frailty, Ep . 361.2); cf. below, p. 121. The episode touched on here is discussed in more detail at Chap. 6 pp. 213f.
finally went against him, Cleobulus was forced to pay the insupportable fines Libanius had feared, and he was saved from ruin only by a former pupil's timely subvention. Although Cleobulus may ordinarily have been prosperous, his means were unequal to the sudden extraordinary expenses a run of bad luck might bring. A similar conclusion can be drawn for Diphilus, another grammarian Libanius knew.[73] Already established as a teacher in one of the Palestinian provinces during the late 380s, Diphilus hoped to make his mark as a poet. Encouraged by an influential man who offered to promote a series of performances in Cilicia, Diphilus made the circuit of that province in late 387 or early 388. But the patron reneged, and the trip was a literary and financial disaster: Diphilus returned from Cilicia depressed and seriously out of pocket.[74] In view of the strain this brief episode evidently put on Diphilus's finances, it is not surprising to find that as a wandering poet he played it safe: after the debacle in Cilicia we still find him traveling to further his poetic career, but he clearly did not give himself over wholly to his wanderings; he kept his position in Palestine as a hedge against failure and as a base of operations for his forays.
Diphilus's apparent reliance on his teaching post brings us to the income a grammarian could receive directly or indirectly from his profession. There were three possible sources: salaries from public funds, fees from individual students and their parents, and occasional supplements, including traditional gifts.[75] Since the evidence for all three is not extensive, each can be considered briefly in turn.
Public salaries (salarium , 
) were of two types, municipal and imperial. Municipal salaries were derived from city revenues and were paid (probably in cash, as a rule)[76] to teachers appointed to public chairs by the local town councils. Imperial salaries were drawn from imperial funds and from the fourth century on were regularly paid or calculated in kind; salary in kind, however, could be commuted to cash.[77] The
[73] For what follows, see Part II no. 49, and Kaster, "'Wandering Poet.'"
[74] Lib. Or . 54.55.
[75] On teachers' incomes, in addition to the studies cited in nn. 76-129 below, see Bergmann, Geschichte 34ff.; Marquardt, Privatleben 94f.; Friedländer, Roman Life 1.156ff.; Forbes, Teachers' Pay ; Walden, Universities 162ff.; Headlam, Herodas 122ff.
[76] See below, pp. 115-16, on Lollianus of Oxyrhynchus, and at n. 86; cf. Choric. Or. fun. Procop . 12 (p. 113.21ff. Foerster-Richtsteig), on the salary offered to Procopius at Caesarea. Cf. perhaps also Antioch: Petit, Libanius 299f.; Liebeschuetz, Antioch 84 n. 1; but see Kaster, "Salaries" 54 n. 61.
[77] On salaries in kind, see Jones, LRE 396ff.; and below, p. 116. For commutation to cash (adaeratio ) of teachers' salaries, see Lib. Ep . 132, 800.3, with Petit, Libanius 409f., Liebeschuetz, Antioch 88f. For payments in kind, cf. also n. 98 below.
geographic range of imperial salaries seems to have expanded in late antiquity, so that even a teacher active at a city as obscure and far removed from the imperial center as semibarbarous Elusa could hope to win a place on the imperial payroll.[78] It is not clear whether any teachers simultaneously drew both municipal and imperial salaries. No man is known to have been so fortunate,[79] but neither does there appear to have been any formal prohibition.
For detailed knowledge of a grammarian's municipal salary, we are limited to a single early example, which gives some idea of the size of such emoluments and of the difficulties that might arise in their payment.[80] The salary belongs to Lollianus, public grammarian (
[78] Elusa: Lib. Ep . 132, with Part II no. 55. Semibarbarum : Jer. V. Hilar . 25; cf. Comm. Is. proph . 5.15. Concerning this trend and the administration of municipal and imperial subsidies, see Chap. 6 pp. 227ff. On the distribution of salaried chairs, see above at nn. 32, 33.
[79] Libanius has been thought to provide an instance; but see Kaster, "Salaries" esp. 54ff.; and cf. the comments of Bonner, "Edict" 132f.
[80] For what follows, see Part II no. 90, with the excellent discussion of Parsons at PCollYoutie 2, pp. 409ff. For an earlier and more obscure example, see below, n. 86.
[81] Concerning the questionable premises on which Lollianus bases his petition, see Parsons, PCollYoutie 2, pp. 441ff.
[82] PCollYoutie 2.66 = POxy . 47.3366, B29f. (cf. B34, C65).
[83] Remarked and elaborated by Parsons, PCollYoutie 2, pp. 413f.; see also Kaster, "Salaries" 54ff. Cf. the income drawn from imperial land by Libanius, evidently in addition to his ordinary salary from the emperor, when he was a public teacher in Constantinople: Lib. Or . 1.80, with Kaster, "Salaries" 39ff.
dr .], 600 den . [= 2,400 dr .]), for as P. J. Parsons has observed, they are, "on the face of it, quite substantial":[84] 500 denarii could perhaps have purchased as much as 167 artabae of wheat at contemporary prices, more than a year's rations for ten men.[85] This should at least have provided subsistence for Lollianus and his wife and children; but again, Lollianus's complaint suggests that his payment in kind amounted to a good deal less.[86]
The evidence for grammarians' imperial salaries comes from a later period, when such salaries were calculated in multiples of the ordinary soldier's yearly ration (annona ) and fodder (capitus ).[87] There are two relevant documents, which suggest that the imperial stipends were somewhat more generous than the municipal salaries (than the salary Lollianus received, at least), although they also suggest that the imperial salaries could vary significantly. The first is the edict of 23 May 376 (CTh 13.3.11), sometimes known as "Gratian's School Law," by which the emperors set the imperial salaries for teachers in the provincial capitals of the northern Gallic diocese. Under the terms of the edict, rhetoricians were to receive 24 annonae , grammarians (Greek or Latin) 12. A higher scale was set for the Latin teachers in Trier (then the imperial residence in the West), where the rhetorician was to receive 30 annonae , and the gram-
[84] PCollYoutie 2, p. 413; but cf. below, n. 86 ad fin .
[85] Calculated according to the prices of wheat attested in Egypt in A.D. 254-56, 12-16 dr./artaba (Johnson, Economic Survey 2.311), and taking 1 artaba / month, e.g., the size of the dole at Oxyrhynchus under Claudius II and Aurelian, as a standard ration (Rea, POxy . 40, p. 6). Note, however, that this was about one-third less than the monthly allotment of 5 modii (= ca. 1.5 artabae ) received by the plebs frumentaria at Rome (Duncan-Jones, Economy . 146f.; for the measures, cf. Hopkins and Carter, "Amount," correcting Rea, loc. cit .).
[86] PCollYoutie 2.66 = POxy . 47.3366, B28, C59f. For a grammarian's municipal salary from an earlier period, note the epitaph of the Latin grammarian L. Memmius Probus, CIL 2.2892 Tritium = ILER 5714 (which omits the last line), CVI RES (PVBLICA ) TR(I)T(I)ENSIVM AN(NOS) HABEN(TI) XXV RAIAR [= SALAR(IVM) ] CONSTITVÆ [=-IT ] M·C·LI: CS ·EI·L . . . . The last line may specify the sum, i.e., at least HS1,100 (possibly M·C·L·IIS = HS1,150, or M·C·D·IIS = HS1,400; hardly anything so odd as HS1,151, as assumed by Szilágyi, "Prices" 329). With Lollianus's 2,000 dr., contrast the 6,000 dr. paid as municipal salary to the rhetorician Apollonius at Athens at the end of s.II, Philost. V. soph . 2.20 (p. 600).
[87] An imperial salary of HS600,000 was decreed in 299 for the rhetorician Eumenius to enable him to reorganize and teach at the schools of Autun: Pan. Lat . 5.14.14 Galletier, salarium te in sexcentis milibus nummum ex rei publicae viribus consequi volumus, ut intellegas meritis tuis etiam nostram consuluisse clementiam ; cf. ibid. 11.2. The phrase ex rei publicae viribus must refer in context to imperial funds, although it has sometimes been thought that the municipal resources of Autun are meant; the sum is twice the amount that Eumenius had lately been receiving as magister memoriae with the rank of trecenarius . Eumenius's is the latest imperial subsidy for a teacher expressed simply in cash values.
maticus 20; the Greek grammaticus , "if any worthy one should be found," was to receive 12 annonae , like the grammatici of the other cities.[88] The rhetorician's higher salary implies his more favored status.[89] Nonetheless, a grammarian who received even 12 annonae would be doing quite respectably; for that would be roughly six and a half times the ration and fodder an ordinary soldier drew at the beginning of his service, and a good deal more than even a veteran would be drawing when his honorable discharge would be advisable "lest he should prove a burden to the state by continuing to receive" his higher salary.[90] To look at the sum from a different perspective: if the grammarian were able to commute his 12 annonae to cash, he might realize between 48 and 60 solidi , the equivalent of a year's fees from students in a good-sized class. Drawing 20 annonae , the Latin grammarian at Trier would of course be still more fortunate.[91]
By comparison with the edict of 376, the other schedule of salaries we possess sets rates more modest but still not niggardly. After Justinian's reconquest of Africa, an edict of 534 laid down the salaries for a wide range of personnel at Carthage, including two grammarians and two rhetoricians. The teachers' pay is expressed both in kind and in cash, with 10 annonae and 5 capita (= a total of 70 solidi ) to be shared by the two teachers at each level;[92] each grammarian would thus receive the
[88] For the limitation to the provincial capitals of the northern Gallic diocese, see Bonner, "Edict" 113ff., with Kaster, "Reconsideration" 100ff.
[89] Although a difference in salaries is not surprising, since rhetoricians traditionally commanded higher fees than grammarians (cf. Juv. 7.217, Diocl. Ed. pret . 7.70-71, with Bonner, Education 150ff., Alan Cameron, "Roman School Fees" 258), the difference here may be exceptionally great: contrast the ratio of only 5:4 in the rhetorician's favor in the fees set by Diocletian's edict just noted (and below, p. 119); compare the parity of rhetoricians and grammarians established by CJ 1.27.1, 42 (an. 534; see below at n. 92). The great difference between the municipal salaries of Apollonius and Lollianus (n. 86) probably has as much to do with where they taught, Athens vs. Oxyrhynchus, as with their different metiers.
[90] Six and a half times: the figure takes account of the 1 capitus received by the common soldier in addition to the annona —the edict of 376 does not include capitus as part of the teacher's pay; cf. below, on CJ 1.27.1, 42 (an. 534)—and assumes that 1 capitus was worth ca. 80% of 1 annona , as in the edict of 534 just noted. Veterans: Anon. De reb. bell . 5.2 (p. 96.17ff. Thompson, specifying "5 annonae or more" and presumably including a certain amount of capitus as well, although this is not remarked by the author), cited by Bonner, "Edict" 1:32. For comparison with salaries of civil servants, see below at n. 94.
[91] Assuming a value of 4 (Nov . "Val." 13.3 [an. 445]) or 5 (CJ 1.27.1, 22 [an. 534]) sol./annona . (Equivalents are not available from the fourth century.) On fees and class size, see below, pp. 120-21. For the possession of ca. 50 solidi as a threshold for the passage beyond poverty, see Patlagean, Pauvreté 380ff.
[92] CJ 1.27.1, 42; the wording of other provisions (e.g., ibid. 41, for physicians) makes it clear that the sums mentioned are to be divided between the teachers at each level. One annona is reckoned as = 5 sol. ; 1 capitus , as 4 sol. ; cf. ibid. 22. For capitus included in a teacher's imperial salary in the fourth century, see Lib. Ep . 28, with Seeck, Briefe 241, and Kaster, "Salaries" 51.
equivalent of 35 solidi .[93] Although this is appreciably less than the grammarians of northern Gaul earned in the fourth century and only a tiny fraction of the 100 pounds of gold Justinian ordained for the praetorian prefect at Carthage, it was probably still equivalent to a year's fees from a sizable class and compares favorably with the other civil servants' salaries in the edict.[94]
Grammarians on public salary would have benefited from an indirect subsidy as well. Public appointment would also normally entail release from burdensome and costly munera ; especially for the grammarian of curial status, these immunities might well represent a long-term financial benefit greater than the direct payment he received from city or emperor.[95] In addition to these subventions, the public teachers would also receive fees (mercedes , 
) from their pupils.[96] By contrast, the man who taught without public appointment, as Augustine did at Thagaste, could look forward only to his fees. The two pieces of specific evidence we possess indicate that apart from such special arrangements as Aetius made, paying his 
at Anazarbus through personal indenture,[97] fees were normally paid in cash. Payment in kind, however, cannot be ruled out.[98]
[93] The parity of rhetoricians and grammarians under the decree may reflect not so much a decline in the rhetoricians' status as a slight increase in the status of grammarians in the late fifth and early sixth centuries: see above at n. 53.
[94] Prefect's salary: CJ 1.27.1, 21. In the officia of the prefecture (ibid. 22-38) only the heads of the financial scrinia receive a higher salary (46 sol ., ibid. 22-23) than the teachers, whose 35 sol . are in turn significantly more than the sums received by the heads of the other scrinia and subclerical scholae . (For tabulation and comment, see Jones, LRE 590f.; and cf. Part II no. 92 ad fin .) To put it another way, the amount decreed for the four grammarians and rhetoricians (140 sol .) is roughly equivalent to the salaries budgeted for all twelve members of the judicial scrinium commentariensis (143 sol ., ibid. 25). Note, however, that the teacher's salaries are a good deal less than the amounts ordained for physicians (50-90 sol ., according to grade: ibid. 41).
[95] On immunities, see Chap. 6 pp. 223ff.
[97] Philostorg. HE 3.15, with "Prologue" n. 11 above.
The first document, Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices, issued in 301, is problematic, being prescriptive rather than descriptive. The rate it fixes for the grammarian's fees, 200 denarii per pupil per month (as against 250 denarii per pupil per month for a rhetorician),[99] is part of a comprehensive schedule of prices and wages meant to counteract inflation. The amount might therefore be significantly less than the rate or rates paid in practice: so, for example, the edict fixes the prices of wheat and barley at only one-third those in an account on papyrus that must be almost exactly contemporary; and we cannot in any case be sure that the prescribed rate was observed.[100] Nonetheless, the edict is useful for suggesting relative values: thus, the grammarian's fee is four times that of the simple teacher of letters, who stood outside the realm of liberal learning,[101] and a grammarian with a class of twenty fee-paying students (rather small, in a good-sized town)[102] would have had four times the income of a carpenter fortunate enough to find paying work twenty days a month.[103] Similarly, if the grammarian received the set rate, and if wheat were available at the set rate as well, three pupils would suffice for a monthly ration of 5 modii , with a bit to spare:[104] indeed, a year's fee from a single pupil, reckoned according to the edict's set price for gold, would be rather more substantial than the year's fee (also reckoned in gold) our other evidence attests.[105] But the precariousness of such calculations has already been suggested.
[99] Ed . pret . 7.70-71. These figures of course reflect a significant devaluation of the denarius since the time of Lollianus, with his annual salary of 500 den ., two generations earlier.
[100] Ed. pret . 1.1a, wheat at 100 den./modius = ca. 330 den./artaba ; ibid. 1.2, barley at 60 den./modius = ca. 200 den./artaba . But POxy. 24.2421 assumes a price of wheat of 984 den./artaba ; and of barley, 655 den./artaba (for the date and details, see Part II no. 133). With the edict's (7.65) set fee of 50 den ./month/child for a pedagogue, compare the pay of 1 talent (= 1,500 den .) per month received for eight months by a pedagogue at the beginning of s.IV (Stud. Pal . 20.85 , pag. post., 11).
[101] Ed. pref . 7.66.
[102] See below, pp. 120-21.
[103] Ed pref . 7.3a, 50 den ./day, plus food. Cf. Lib. Or . 31.25, on the craftsmen at Antioch who envy the wealth of the teachers.
[104] Cf. n. 85 above.
We are on firmer ground with our second piece of specific evidence, provided by Palladas, the Alexandrian poet and grammarian. While complaining of his students' vicious ways, Palladas reveals that his fee was 1 solidus a year, payable either in a lump sum or in monthly installments.[106] A scholium to Juvenal's comments on grammarians' income mentions the same fee: in annum unum solidum accipit .[107] Although the statement is evidently anachronistic in its application to Juvenal's time, it does represent the assumption of a reader in the late fourth century (the scholium's probable date); it thus provides a roughly contemporary confirmation of Palladas's statement and suggests that such a scale of payment was familiar not only in Palladas's Alexandria but also in the West, where the scholium was presumably written. Neither of these notices, however, is meant to suggest that 1 solidus was an especially generous sum, and some grammarians probably commanded a higher fee.[108]
Income from fees might vary wildly, depending on the size of the grammarian's class and on his students' willingness or ability to pay. The latter qualities were not always evident. The grammarian Palladas grumbles about students who deserted his class just before it came time to pay their year's fee. Augustine recalls a similar delinquency among students of rhetoric, in a way that suggests the offense still rankled long after his teaching days. Libanius even suggested something quite unparalleled, a formal contract (
) between the student's parent and the teacher, to combat the problem at Antioch.[109] Conversely, Libanius's assistants are said to have taken on some students who simply could not pay, as a kindness and in order to prevent their classrooms from becoming depopulated.[110] Concerning class size we have no direct evidence for the grammarians. A passage from Libanius's autobiography, however, suggests that forty students would have been a very respectable number for either a private or a public teacher of rhetoric at Constantinople, and there is no reason that the information cannot be applied to the gram-
[106] Anth. Gr . 9.174, with Alan Cameron, "Roman School Fees." For monthly payment of fees, see also Fulg. Verg. cont . 86.4-6 Helm.
[107] Schol. vet . 7.241.2 Wessner. The significance of the note was remarked by Bonner, "Teaching Profession" 30; cf. also Clarke, "Juvenal."
[108] Note the 100 solidi given by the praetorian prefect Phocas (an. 532) to the Latin teacher Speciosus (Part II no. 138: grammarian or rhetorician?) as an initial payment: loan. Lyd. De. mag . 3.73. But the episode is obscure—no services appear to have been required of Speciosus after the payment—and the sum surely extraordinary.
[110] Or . 31.29-32.
marian.[111] But the same source shows how much variation was possible: Libanius boasts that at the height of his success as a private teacher at Constantinople he had a class of more than eighty students; yet a few years later, newly arrived as a private teacher in his native Antioch, he had as few as fifteen,[112] and it has been suggested that even as a public teacher with several assistants at Antioch Libanius probably never accommodated one hundred pupils per year.[113] Evidently, independent means would protect a teacher against the risks of the fee system and allow him to be more selective about his pupils.[114]
Beyond salaries and fees, the grammarian could expect a bit of incidental largesse. This might take the form of occasional gifts or of a benefaction to meet a specific need.[115] There were other forms of largesse, however, tied to the teacher's activity during the school year and sufficiently regular to qualify as expected supplements. Jerome mentions the New Year's strena, the sportula at the Saturnalia, and the Minervale munus as common gifts;[116] it is clear that these particular gifts were of considerable antiquity and of some geographic diffusion.[117] The scale of the gifts is uncertain. Ausonius records that through his intervention (when he was quaestor sacri palatii ) the grammarian Ursulus of Trier received a New Year's strena of 6 solidi from the emperor,[118] but the sum must be regarded as exceptional. There were probably other, more localized forms such gifts could take: from Choricius, in the age of Justinian, We learn that it was customary at Gaza for the rhetorician, at least, to receive a gift of 1 solidus when one of his students successfully completed a composition.[119]
[111] Or. 1.31, Nicocles' offer to provide Libanius with 40 pupils; such a class would have made Libanius, then still a private teacher, a serious rival of the publicly appointed sophists.
[112] Eighty: Or. 1.37. Fifteen, most of whom followed Libanius from Constantinople: Or. 1.101, with Norman, Autobiography 175 ad loc.
[113] Petit, Étudiants 72ff. Étienne, Bordeaux 244f., in calculating that the rhetorician Ti. Victor Minervius regularly enrolled 200 students per year, misunderstands the hyperbole of Ausonius's effusive lines, Prof. 1.9-10: mille foro dedit hic iuvenes, bis mille senatus / adiecit numero purpureisque togis.
[114] See above, n. 72, on Cleobulus.
[116] Jer. Comm. Ephes. 3.6 (PL 26.574A).
[117] E.g., the three occasions mentioned by Jerome are also mentioned by Tertullian, plus two others: see De idol. 10, with Bonner, Education 148f.
[118] Ep. 13 tit., 1-24.
[119] Apol. mim. 104 (p. 368.8ff. Foerster-Richtsteig). For compositions by a grammarian's students at Gaza, see Part II no. 83.
All these forms of income could in favorable circumstances add up to a substantial if not lordly sum: a grammarian with a decent public salary and a sizable class of regularly paying students could probably realize more than 100 solidi a year, or well over a pound of gold, with little difficulty. Perhaps only an exceptionally fortunate grammarian, however, could have put away 1,500 solidi after eight years' teaching, as Libanius appears to have done.[120] Clearly, too, circumstances were not always favorable, nor was the combination of salary and fees always available: we have seen evidence of difficulties with both kinds of payment; in the worst case, a private teacher with no public subsidy and a small class of delinquent students might labor all year for very little indeed.
If the grammarians' receipts could vary considerably, so evidently could their needs: the complaints of Lollianus and Palladas suggest that they depended heavily on their professional incomes, but one can infer a greater freedom for others—Verecundus at Milan, for example, or Cleobulus at Antioch. Notably absent at all levels of the profession, however, is any reluctance to accept payment. In the second century, a distinguished grammarian's receipt of fees had called for explanation and justification in his funeral oration;[121] the examples of such compunction could easily be multiplied.[122] But one must listen hard for any echo in late antiquity—in the euphemism, for instance, that makes a public salary an "encouragement."[123] Far louder are the unembarrassed complaints of Augustine and Palladas[124] or the equally frank good wishes Procopius of Gaza extends to various teachers of his acquaintance, that they might grow wealthy in their profession.[125] Even Libanius, who most shows the traces of the older attitudes, marks the shift. Libanius might have preferred to regard his payments as gifts and to divert his public salary at Antioch to his assistants while stressing his own honorable freedom from the "need to receive";[126] but his orations in behalf of his assistants or against delinquent students, as well as other, incidental comments, reveal that in principle he saw no stigma for the teacher—one of the
[120] Implied by Or. 1.61, as Jones, LRE 1002, remarks.
[121] Ael. Aristid. Or. 32.16. The subject of the eulogy, Alexander of Cotyaeum, had been one of the tutors of Marcus Aurelius; cf. PIR A.502.
[122] See Chap. 2 pp. 55, 58.
[124] See n. 109 above.
[125] Procop. Gaz. Ep. 13, 86, 89.
[126] Payments as gifts: cf. Petit, Étudiants 144f.; Liebeschuetz, Antioch 84. Refusal of salary: implied by Or. 31 (see Kaster, "Salaries" 54ff.), but note that at the same time Libanius was probably receiving an imperial salary; see also below, n. 128.
"better sort of person"—in his professional income.[127] The reasons for the change in attitudes are not at all clear. One can, however, conjecture that for grammarians, at least, the change in the teacher's social status played a part: the stigma earlier associated with the recipient's generally low and often servile standing may gradually have been effaced as the profession came to attract men of more respectable origins. In any case, it would appear that though to refuse payment was still a mark of honor, to accept it, even to insist upon it, was no longer felt to be shameful.[128] No grammarian of late antiquity gives evidence of waiving his salary.[129]
Up to this point, our survey of the main evidence for the grammarians' standing—their origins, family connections, and wealth—has suggested a group of men who might differ considerably in their individual situations but who would on the whole belong to the quality of their towns, respectable if unprepossessing members of the local elite. A few touches can briefly be added to this picture from other, less direct evidence.
Whether as a participant in the adventus of the governor in fourth-century Antioch or as a favored guest on the estate of a Gallic magnate in the fifth, the grammarian would be an appropriate ornament in the public or private retinue of the powerful: honorably placed in a proximity few could enjoy, but clearly subordinate, a peripheral figure.[130] A similar favored subordination is apparent in other contexts, when a grammarian steps out of his role as a teacher—for example, trying his hand as an encomiast. It was no simple matter to gain access to an imperial administrator or local potens for that purpose: the man's residence would be
[128] Waiver of payment in liberal professions—rhetoric: e.g., Lib. Or. 36.9, 38.2, 62.19f., Ep. 140, 466, 1539 (and cf. n. 126); Eumen. Pan. Lat. 5.11.3 Galletier. Medicine: Auson. Epiced. 11-12; Greg. Naz. Or. 7.10 (PG 35.768A), cf. IG 12:2.484.28f. (Hiera [Lesbos]); IGR 3.733 = TAM 2:3.910.17 (Rhodiapolis). Philosophy: Symm. Rel. 5.2.3, on the philosopher Celsus.
[130] Adventus : Lib. Ep. 255.6, to Eudaemon of Pelusium (Part II no. 55), with Liebeschuetz, Antioch 208f.; on the teachers' status at Antioch, cf. Norman, "Gradations" 79, 82. Fifth-century Gaul: Sidon. Apoll. Ep. 2.2, with Part II no. 50.
crowded with rival poets and others seeking favor; the way would have to be cleared by a timely introduction or letter of commendation from a respected connection.[131] The grammarians could muster the necessary influence, as is demonstrated by their fair showing as encomiasts of regional administrators and even, among those who moved to the capital, of emperors.[132]
Proximity to administrators was possible in another form as well: advocacy. In the fourth century especially, advocacy was a promising path for an ambitious man, not least because provincial governors often chose their own counselors (assessores ) from among the advocates, and the governors in turn were heavily recruited from among the assessors. In fact, as we shall see below, Simplicius, the only grammarian in our period who became a provincial governor, had earlier been an assessor, and he had possibly combined advocacy with his teaching before that.[133] If so, he would not have been alone: we have already seen that Ausonius early in his career and Acilius Glabrio were active as advocates at Bordeaux, and there are a couple of examples from elsewhere.[134] But if
[132] Besides Diphilus and Eudaemon (n. 131), whose success or failure is not recorded, see Bergk, PLG 3.342ff. nos. 2, 3 (with Part II no. 83 [Ioannes of Gaza]); Coripp. Iohann. (cf. Part II no. 37); Anth. Gr. 16.34 (with Part II no. 264 [Theodoretus]); probably Olympiod. Comm. in Alc. 1 2.80ff. Westerink (with Part II no. 12 [Anatolius]); and perhaps Aur. Cyrus (Part II no. 41). Encomia (vel sim. ) of emperors: Helladius (Part II no. 67); Dioscorius (Part II no. 48); Priscian (Part II no. 126); cf. also Part II nos. 37 (Corippus) and 92 (Ioannes Lydus), and note that no grammarian is attested as imperial encomiast before the reign of Theodosius II.
[133] Amm. Marc. 28.1.45, 52, with Part II no. 137. For advocates passing to positions in the imperial administration, largely governorships, in the fourth century, note in PLRE I: Ambrosius 3, Domnio 2, Fl. Eusebius 40, Eutherius 2, Gaianus 6, Heraclius 7, Fl. Asclepiades Hesychius 4, Fl. Antonius Hierocles 3, Iovinus 1, Vindaonius Magnus 12, Marcianus 7, Maximinus 7, Nemesius 2, Olympianus 2, Palladius 18, Petronius 2, Priscianus 1, Sabinus 5, Severus 14 (withdrawn from Libanius's school, not at the latter's request, as stated in PLRE I, but at his father's, so that he could immediately begin his career as an advocate: Or. 57.3), Fl. Severus 24, Theodorus 11 Fl. Mallius Theodorus 27 (cf. his brother Lampadius 3, with PLRE II pp. 654f.), Ulpianus 3. See also above at n. 10, on Attius Delphidius Tiro; and Jones, LRE 512.
[134] Aur. Theodorus of Hermopolis (Part II no. 150); Eudaemon of Pelusium at Elusa (Part II no. 55). Calliopius of Antioch, who also rose to a prominent position (see below at n. 171), appears to have practiced as an advocate only after his teaching: see Lib. Ep. 18.2, with Part II no. 25.
Simplicius had practiced as an advocate, he was alone in the success it brought him; no other grammarians gained the promising post of assessor. That position was evidently more accessible to others.
So too was another position, rather different in the ambitions it might satisfy, but perhaps revealing as well as any other the secondary standing of the grammarian in the local elite. From the early fourth century onward we find grammarians occupying or moving into positions in the ecclesiastical hierarchy of their towns; but they appear in the second rank of the clergy, as presbyters. Only once does a grammarian become a bishop; and the singularity of that event is all the more noticeable when it is contrasted with the success of rhetoricians and sophists in getting bishoprics.[135] The fortunes of the two types of teacher in the world of the Church clearly reflect their positions not only in the world of letters but also in the community at large.
It is possible of course to find grammarians of more than usual distinction, men capable of reaching out from their teaching positions to affect events at even the highest levels. Nicocles, for example, in virtue of his having taught the prince Julian at Constantinople, was a person of some consequence during Julian's reign, able to mediate between the population of Constantinople and the city's prefect during a crisis, and a suitable ambassador from the city to the emperor himself.[136] Perhaps still more striking is the fame of Timotheus of Gaza, whose literary efforts were credited with persuading the emperor Anastasius to abolish a hated tax.[137] But these men were exceptional in their connections or in their successes. More commonly, while he remained in the town where he taught, the grammarian would have resembled Lollianus of Oxyrhynchus: claiming personal connections that might extend into the imperial administration, perhaps even running to a friend at court, but attaining only a middling status[138] and satisfied (or, in Lollianus's case, dissatisfied) with his modest local eminence. For the grammarian who wanted more, there was little alternative to stepping out from his town or from his profession.
[136] Lib. Ep. 1368.
[137] Suda T.621; Cedren. 1.627.8f. Bekker. On Nicocles and Timotheus, see Chap. 6 pp. 202f.
[138] Beyond the man at court whom he calls "Brother," he refers to an optio beneficiariorum and relative of the corrector Aegypti Theodorus, and to the brother of a canaliclarius : see PCollYoutie 2.66 = POxy. 47.3366, B26f, 28, 38, with the remarks of Parsons, PCollYoutie 2, p. 415.
And step out they did, above all geographically. Of the 140-odd grammarians whose place of teaching is known, a quarter can be seen to have moved from their homelands or otherwise to have changed their place of teaching.[139] As we might expect, such movement was predominantly from smaller or less promising areas to larger, more promising centers: from Thagaste to Carthage, from Aegeae or Gaza to Antioch, or from Gaza to Alexandria.[140]
The capital cities especially were magnets. Augustine's testimony to the lure of the greater profit and higher status that even a private teacher of rhetoric could expect at Rome[141] is more than borne out for the grammarians. For example, all but one of the Africans who moved went to one of the imperial centers: Nicomedia under Diocletian, or Rome and Constantinople in the fourth century and later.[142] Similarly, most of the Egyptians who left their native land went to Constantinople, either directly or by way of Athens or Antioch.[143] But not only Africans and Egyptians felt the tug: in the fourth through sixth centuries we find grammarians from Sparta and the provinces of Lycia, Phrygia, Asia, and Lydia teaching in the new Rome.[144] Already by the mid-fourth century
[141] Conf. 5.8.14.
[142] Nicomedia: Flavius, Jer. De vir. ill. 80. Rome: see Part II no. 170 (Anonymus 4); perhaps also Aelius Donatus and Probus (Part II nos. 52, 127). Constantinople: Chrestus, Jer. Chron. s.a. 358, with Part II no. 27; Priscian (if from Caesarea Mauretania), Part II no. 126; Speciosus, a Latin grammarian or rhetorician from Africa, Part II no. 138. (Corippus also went from Africa to Constantinople, but he is not known to have taught in the latter place: cf. Part II no. 37, and below, pp. 130f.) The exception is Iulianus Pomerius (Part II no. 124), who went from Africa to the metropolis of Aries in the late fifth century: V. Caes. 1.9; [Gennad.] De vir. ill. 99.
[143] See Part II nos. 10, 46 (from Egypt via Antioch), 67, 77, 111, 114 (from Panopolis via Athens). Note also Part II no. 226, Harpocration's movement from Egypt via Antioch; but he was more likely a sophist than a grammarian. Two other Egyptians are sometimes thought to have taught at Constantinople, but their movement is questionable: see Part II nos. 79, 110.
[144] Sparta: Part II no. 106. Lycia: Part II no. 48. Phrygia Salutaris: Part II no. 56. Asia: Part II no. 101. Lydia: Part II no. 92: Ioannes Lydus, initially drawn to the imperial service, only later becoming a Latin grammaticus ; on the unusual sequence in his career and the reasons for it, see ibid. Cf. also Part II no. 42: from Cos to Constantinople?
Constantinople's attraction for mobile teachers was sufficiently strong for Libanius to complain that skilled teachers were being drawn from Antioch, where they were needed, to where there was a surplus.[145]
Like many of Libanius's complaints, however, this probably should be taken with its grain of salt: Constantinople's draw was no doubt all that Libanius asserts; but surely Antioch too exerted a considerable pull, attracting teachers from Egypt and from provinces in its own diocese, Oriens. From Libanius's correspondence we know that grammarians from Egypt, Arabia, Phoenice, and Palestine made their way to Antioch.[146] Over a century later, Antioch was still attractive enough to bring the entire corps of grammarians from Gaza to the city's suburb of Daphne, evidently in hopes of greater prosperity.[147] Although the evidence for other great cities—Carthage, Alexandria—is less abundant, it seems probable that like Antioch they too drew teachers from lesser cities in their regions and were a springboard for the leap to Rome or Constantinople.
Compared with the mobility visible elsewhere, the fixity of the grammarians of Bordeaux, especially their apparent failure to move to more brilliant centers,[148] suggests that they were either atypically complacent or unlucky. Yet the mobility and sheer footloose freedom many grammarians seem to have had is remarkable.[149] Teachers had of course long been among the most mobile groups; the late-antique phenomenon is nothing new.[150] But the ease with which such men appear to have
[145] Ep. 368.1.
[146] Egypt: Part II nos. 32, 46. Arabia: Part II no. 155. Phoenice: Part II no. 4. Palestine (Elusa): Part II no. 55. Cf. Lib. Or. 31.9: all four of Libanius's assistants ca. 360 were foreigners, drawn from their home towns by reports of the prosperity of Antioch's teachers.
[148] See above, p. 105.
[149] Note the movements of Eudaemon of Pelusium that can be traced—from Elusa, where he was teaching, to Egypt, to Antioch, where he also did some teaching, to Constantinople, and back to Egypt—all in little more than a year: Lib. Ep. 255, 632, 633, with Part II no. 55.
moved is particularly noteworthy at a time when the central government was attempting by force of law to bind its citizens (not least curials) to their places of origin[151] and when—less formal, but perhaps no less important—the force of sentiment might work a similar restraint. Ausonius, for example, much admired the teachers of rhetoric whose fame compelled them to leave their patria for posts at Rome or Constantinople and thus brought honor indirectly to Bordeaux.[152] But he appears to have had no special regard for the two grammarians who left their chairs at Bordeaux for other cities less prestigious than the capitals: indeed, he speaks of one of them as though he were guilty, if not of betrayal, then of something very like it.[153] Similar feelings can be deduced from Libanius's comment that it was a happy town that could appoint one of its own citizens to a chair, or from the eulogy of a teacher for having loyally resisted' the blandishments of other cities and having remained in his native town.[154] In view of the potential obstacles, the freedom of movement displayed is all the more remarkable, whether in response to an imperial invitation or in hasty retreat from a scene of riot and murder.[155] Such mobility says much about the power of patronage, which we shall examine in a later chapter.
Change of place could bring a dramatic change in fortune, linking geographic and social mobility. As we have already seen in Bordeaux, marriage offered one route.[156] If a man were ambitious, it helped to be unmarried. A wife and children already on hand were an anchor:[157]
[151] Cf. MacMullen, "Social Mobility" 49ff. Curials: Jones, LRE 740ff.; and, for a regional study of Cappadocian curials, Kopacek, "Curial Displacements."
[152] See above at n. 27.
[153] Concordius and Anastasius: see n. 26 above; note esp. the motive attributed to Anastasius, characterized by the pejorative ambitio, and the emphasis on his failure at Poitiers.
[154] Lib. Ep. 1366.2, Or. 1.92; Choric. Or. fun. Procop. 12-14 (p. 113.15ff.); cf. also Aug. C. Acad. 2.2.3. For the earlier empire, note especially the implications of Flor. Verg. or. p. 108.1ff., the newcomer's characterization of the populus Tarraconensis as tarde quidem, sed iudicio hospitalis.
[156] See above, p. 104.
[157] Cf. PCollYoutie 2.66 = POxy. 47.3366, B22f., 28: Lollianus points to his family as the reason he must remain at Oxyrhynchus, unable to visit his friend at court.
some teachers, like Augustine, prudently remained unencumbered;[158] others less scrupulous cut themselves free.[159] The rewards could be significant. Pamprepius's appointment as grammarian at Athens was followed by a good marriage, and appointment and marriage together raised him above the hard life he had previously led.[160]
But Pamprepius may have been as unusual in this good fortune as he was in other elements of his career.[161] Available evidence shows no other grammarian prospering in the same way, beyond the teachers of Bordeaux already noted. Nor do many grammarians appear to have taken another opening that geographic mobility might offer, changing place to step up in the profession. When Augustine went from Thagaste to Carthage, he moved to rhetoric from grammar; a similar shift followed Isocasius's move from his native Aegeae to Antioch.[162] The change was decisive for each man's career. Augustine, of course, was finally carried by rhetoric to Milan, where his conversion canceled the good marriage he had contracted and the hopes he entertained for a governorship.[163] Isocasius's position at Antioch brought him influence with the imperial administration and, eventually, high office in the palatine service.[164] In this respect the careers of Augustine and Isocasius are comparable to those of Nepotianus and Ausonius, the only grammarians of Bordeaux to exchange the grammarian's chair for the rhetorician's and then to prosper in the imperial administration. The comparison, however, extends not only to the rise in profession, expectations, and fortunes of the two pairs, but to their isolation as well. No other grammarians are known to have followed the same path.[165]
[159] Teachers abandoning their families: Procop. Gaz. Ep. 57 (with Part II no. 142), Ep. 91 (with Part II no. 231; the man's family appears to have rejoined him later: Ep. 124).
[160] Appointment, marriage, rise in fortune: see Part II no. 114 for the sequence.
[161] See below, pp. 130ff.
[162] See n. 140 above.
[163] Conf. 6.13.23 (marriage contracted), 6.11.19 (ambition for governorship).
[164] Influence: cf. Theodoret. Ep. LII. Position as QSP under Leo: Malal. 369.17ff.; Chron. Pasch. 595.6ff.; Theoph. Chron. p. 115.9ff. de Boor; Cedren. 1.612.21 Bekker; and below, p. 130.
[165] Note, however, that at the beginning of the sixth century Deuterius of Milan taught grammar and rhetoric concurrently, the only teacher in the period who can be seen to have done so; see Part II no. 44. Cf. also Part II nos. 124, 140.
Despite their geographic mobility, in fact, the grammarians were otherwise not conspicuously mobile. They tended to remain grammarians; and although as grammarians they might under circumscribed conditions receive significant preferment from the emperors,[166] they do not appear in our period to have had notable success in gaining other, richer rewards. Consider, for example, the informal yet prestigious position of imperial tutor, which not uncommonly led to high honors and office, and for which a grammarian of any distinction might be thought a reasonable candidate by virtue of his profession. We know of a fair number of men from the early fourth century onward who taught the children belonging to the households of reigning emperors; but not until the second half of the fifth century, with Dioscorius of Myra, tutor to the daughters of Leo, do we find the sole instance of a man who came to the job as a grammarian. For the rest, the position appears to have been held by more distinguished men of letters, especially rhetoricians (once again) or those still more highly placed.[167]
If we consider the grammarians' service in the imperial bureaucracy, the evidence tells a similar tale of restricted access. Indeed, one should properly say "ex-grammarians' service," since nearly all those who succeeded here had left their positions as grammatici well before, either advancing in the profession or striking out in a different direction. Thus in the palatine service we find[168] Ausonius, quaestor sacri palatii in 375-76; Calliopius, magister epistularum in 388; Isocasius, QSP in 467; Pamprepius, QSP with an honorary consulship and the patriciate in early 479 and magister officiorum under the rebel Leontius after July 484; and Corippus, who appears to have held some palatine office in the first years of Justin II.[169] Of these five men, with their careers scattered over more than two centuries, only Pamprepius can be said with any confidence to have reached his position still fresh from his profession as a grammarian.[170]
[166] See above, n. 45, on the rank awarded some grammatici at Constantinople.
[167] Dioscorius: SudaD .1208, with Part II no. 48, and cf. below. For other tutors of imperial offspring, besides the eunuchs Mardonius (Iul. Misopog. 352A-B) and Antiochus (= PLRE II s.v. 5, pp. 101f.), note Lactantius (Jer. De vir. ill. 80, with Eck's review of PLRE I in Zephyrus 23-24 [1972-73] 330; Barnes, Constantine 13); Fl. Optatus (Part II no. 241); Exuperius (Auson. Prof. 17.9ff.); Aemilius Magnus Arborius (Prof. 16.15, with Booth, "Notes" 244ff.); Marcianus (Part II no. 238); Decimus Magnus Ausonius (Part II no. 21); Themistius (Or. 16.204B-C, 213A-B); Arsenius (= PLRE I s.v. 4, p. 111). Nicocles' tuition of Julian at Constantinople is a special case; see Part II no. 106 ad fin.
[168] For the following, see Part II nos. 21, 25, 85, 114, 37, respectively.
[169] Note also Fl. Eugenius, magister scrinii after 385(?) and later Augustus in the West. But the evidence of his ever having been a grammaticus is questionable; see Part II no. 211.
[170] See below, p. 132.
The careers of Ausonius and Isocasius, both of whom became teachers of rhetoric (and Ausonius, an imperial tutor) before reaching their offices, have already been remarked. Calliopius, whom we met as the son of a grammarian and member of a well-placed and well-connected family of Antioch,[171] appears to have taught only in his youth, before going on to practice as an advocate; Corippus is only known to have taught in Africa some twenty years before appearing at Constantinople. The showing is even more sparse when we look beyond the central administration: Ausonius, again, who moved from the palatium to assume praetorian prefectures in 377-79;[172] Nepotianus, a provincial governor (perhaps of Tripolitania) in the mid-fourth century;[173] Simplicius, assessor to Maxi-minus during the latter's governorship of Corsica or Sardinia, then governor of Numidia in the late 360s or early 370s, and finally vicarius urbis Romae in 374-75;[174] and Dioscorius, described as "ex-prefect of Constantinople" in 467, and later honorary consul.[175] Here again, only one man, Simplicius, might have stepped directly into the imperial service from his grammarian's chair.[176] Nepotianus of Bordeaux, like his friend and colleague Ausonius, had made the transition from grammar to rhetoric; Dioscorius almost certainly was already the tutor of Leo's daughters by 467. Indeed, the rank (
) he held in that year may well have been honorary (as his later consulship unquestionably was), a distinction bestowed by his pupils' grateful father.[177]
All this is not to diminish the dramatic rise of some of these men. One would not have predicted the praetorian prefect Ausonius from the grammaticus of the 330s; still less would Pamprepius's early years as a wandering poet have foreshadowed his later role as an agent of rebellion. As individuals, such figures testify to the social fluidity of the period and the possibilities that were open when ambition, talent, and the right connections met in the same man; but they scarcely combine to suggest a pattern of mobility in the grammarian's profession itself.[178] Since most
[171] See above, p. 108.
[172] See Part II no. 21.
[173] See Part II no. 105.
[174] See Part II no. 137; PLRE I s.v. 7, p. 844.
[175] Note also the career of Ioannes Lydus as praefectianus, the greater part of which preceded his activity as a teacher: Part II no. 92.
[176] Conceivably Simplicius had been an advocate (see above, p. 124), like his protector Maximinus (Amm. Marc. 28.1.6).
[177] On this and other questions concerned with the titles attributed to Dioscorius, see Part II no. 48.
[178] Contrast the success of the following men, who passed from their activity as rhetoricians or sophists to a place in the imperial service in the fourth century (in PLRE I): Alexander 9, Belaus, Fl. Bonus, Calliopius 2, Celsus 3, Demetrius 2, Eros 2, Eustathius 6, Fl. Antonius Hierocles 3, Ianuarius 6, Leontius 9, Marius 1, Musonius 2, Nymphidianus, Palladius 12, Aemilius Quintilius Pyrrhus 3, Quirinus. Cf. also n. 133 for a similar and frequent mobility among the advocates.
of these men left the regular practice of the grammarian's profession before their rise, their careers suggest rather the opposite: that ambition and talent were led to Find outlets in different spheres, where the necessary relations of patronage were also more available.
The two apparent exceptions, Simplicius in the fourth century and Pamprepius in the fifth, only support that suggestion. Though the offices of both men appear to have followed close upon their teaching as grammatici, their fortunes were made not through a network of patrons gradually assembled but by the favor they received from a single powerful protector.[179] Simplicius began his service in the imperial administration as assessor to Maximinus and reached the vicariate of Rome during the same man's ascendancy. Similarly, Pamprepius gained his chair at Constantinople through the favor of the Isaurian Illus—and then lost the chair when his protector withdrew from the capital not long after. Yet Pamprepius remained attached to Illus as his confidant and agent; and Illus for his part soon gave Pamprepius an office and titles and drew him into the adventure of Leontius. The careers of Simplicius and Pamprepius might also offer a salutary warning of the risks that were run when a spectacular rise was combined with such singular dependency: having tied his fortunes to one patron, each man shared his patron's fall. Simplicius and Maximinus were executed early in the reign of Gratian, and Pamprepius was murdered by Illus and Leontius in desperate anger and suspicion shortly before they themselves were crushed. In their violent deaths no less than in their swift advances the two grammarians are unique.
The grammarians thus show a range of backgrounds and fortunes about as wide as one could imagine, from the sons of freedmen to high ministers of state. Such variety reveals the profession's diverse attractions and the opportunities it could offer, if only exceptionally. But the extremes tell us less than the center, and from the preceding pages we should be able to draw together the elements of the ordinary grammarian's status.
Such a man would be active in one of the larger provincial cities, where—despite the movements of other teachers in his region, and despite whatever ambitions he might nurse himself—he would likely pass all his days. His origins would be among the respectable classes of the city, as the son of a teacher, perhaps, or of a curial family of no great
[179] See Part II nos. 137, 114; on patronage, see Chap. 6.
distinction. If he married, his wife would be from a comparable background and would bring a modest dowry; this dowry, some modest holdings of his own in the city's territory, and his professional income would combine to provide an honorable if not opulent standard of living, unburdened (if he possessed immunities) by liturgical demands, and might even allow a modest benefaction to the community in the course of his life. As an offshoot of his professional activity and general culture, he might dabble in poetry, perhaps gaining a moment in the spotlight for an encomium of a visiting dignitary. If his teaching was distinguished, he would contribute directly to the civic pride of his town—although if the town's educational resources ran to a teacher of rhetoric, the grammarian would probably be accustomed to cooperative subordination, channeling pupils to the rhetorician or sophist and standing in his shadow. Not a vir primarius himself, he would know the primarii well enough; as their children's teacher he would be respected by them and dependent on them. When with any luck he died at a mature age in his own bed, his loss would be regretted and his work would for a time be remembered.
Our hypothetical ordinary grammarian, in other words, stood as far above the common people in the city and its hinterland as he was below the men who directed the central and provincial administration of the empire. This is perhaps the essence of what Ausonius called his mediocritas, as Ausonius and his contemporaries would have understood it: a position within the elite that would appear either undistinguished or insignificant, depending on one's point of view. The combination of high and low standing marked the profession, both in the range of men who practiced it and in the components of the individual grammarian's status. In contrast to the overwhelming mass of the population, his birth, means, and culture placed him in the small circle of those free from ignoble employment. Yet for all that he was a social pauper in the world of the elite. Compared with the imperial aristocracy of birth or service, he was no more than a "mere grammaticus."[180]
The grammarian thus was located at the meeting point of several contradictions. So, for example, the teacher's nominal status, especially the honor he derived from his skill, must frequently have been at odds with his economic status. We can recall the conflicting characterizations—the sterilis cathedra and the nomen grammatici tam nobile —that crop up in Ausonius's Professores ; the discrepancy is embodied in Lollianus of Oxyrhynchus, who could approach emperors aware that even the world's rulers had traditionally respected men of culture and skill like himself, while yet he scraped along in circumstances that must have seemed
[180] Cf. Alan Cameron, "Date" 34 n. 65.
uncomfortably close to vulgar. At the same time, nominal status could extend its support and protection only so far. The Saturnalia of Macrobius shows us Servius, carried by his skill into the salons of the high aristocracy, where all the right-minded gentlemen are scholars and the grammarian can consort with them by virtue of his scholarship. Macrobius's portrait sketches a clear hierarchy of birth and learning: the grammarian becomingly assumes his place as the least of the invited.[181] At the same time, the grammarian's vulnerability is no less clear. Servius's willing self-effacement does not save him from—indeed, it provokes—the bullying of the perverse nobleman Evangelus, who sneers at the profession's title and, by implication, at the status it confers.[182] Macrobius's work is of course an idealization, in which only the morose villain of the piece would behave so crudely. In the less than ideal rounds of daily life, the reminders of hierarchy and its barriers, its rebuffs and snubs, would doubtless have been more common and no less vivid.[183]
While making these rounds, the grammarian could hope to be sustained by the knowledge and skills of his profession. In no setting, however, was his hope more certain than in his own classroom: there, if anywhere, he was in his glory. In the next chapters we will look more closely at the grammarian in his professional role and examine his own conception of the cultural authority his expertise provided, before going on to consider in detail the position of genteel obscurity and dependence that he occupied in his relations with patrons and the state.
[181] See esp. Sat. 2.2.1ff., 7.4.1ff., with Kaster, "Macrobius" 227f.
[182] Sat. 2.2.12, with Kaster, "Macrobius" 226f.
[183] Cf. Lib. Ep. 1492, with Chap. 6 at n. 63.