elder,[279] and we may take them as a fair example of the
maxims already in use in Cicero's time, making some allowance for
their superior neatness and wisdom. Here are a few specimens, taken
almost at random; it will be seen that they convey much shrewd good
sense, and occasionally have the true ring of humanity as well as the
flavour of Stoic _sapientia_. I quote from the excellent edition by
Mr. Bickford-Smith.[280]

Avarus ipse miseriae causa est suae.
Audendo virtus crescit, tardando timor.
Cicatrix conscientiae pro vulnere est.
Fortunam[281] citius reperias quam retineas.
Cravissima est probi hominis iracundia.
Homo totiens moritur, quotiens amittit suos.
Homo vitae commodatus, non donatus est.
Humanitatis optima est certatio.
Iucundum nil est, nisi quod reficit varietas.
Malum est consilium quod mutari non potest.
Minus saepe pecces, si scias quod nescias.
Perpetuo vincit qui utitur clementia.
Qui ius iurandum servat, quovis pervenit.
Ubi peccat aetas maior, male discit minor.

I have quoted these to show that Roman children were not without
opportunity even in early schooldays of laying to heart much that
might lead them to good and generous conduct in later life, as well as
to practical wisdom. But we know the fate of our own copy-book maxims;
we know that it is not through them that our children become good men
and women, but by the example and the un-systematised precepts of
parents and teachers. No such neat [Greek gnomai] can do much good
without a sanction of greater force than any that is inherent in
them and such a sanction was not to be found in the ferula of the
grammaticus or the paedagogus. Once more it is men and not methods
that supply the real educational force.

Probably the greatest difficulty which the Roman boy had to face in
his school life was the learning of arithmetic; it was this, we may
imagine, that made him think of his master, as Horace did of the
worthy Orbilius,[282] as a man of blows (plagosus). This is not the
place to give an account of the methods of reckoning then used; they
will be found fully explained in Marquardt's _Privatleben_,
and compressed into a page by Professor Wilkins in his _Roman
Education_[283]. It is enough to say that they were as indispensable
as they were difficult to learn. "An orator was expected, according to
Quintilian (i. 10. 35), not only to be able to make his calculations
in court, but also to show clearly to his a