ere were no
less than twenty celebrated scholars in Rome. So high was the value, and
so great were the rewards, of grammarians, that Lutatius Daphnides,
jocularly called "Pan's herd" [855] by Lenaeus Melissus, was purchased by
Quintus Catullus for two hundred thousand sesterces, and shortly
afterwards made a freedman; and that Lucius Apuleius, who was taken into
the pay of Epicius Calvinus, a wealthy Roman knight, at the annual salary
of ten thousand crowns, had many scholars. Grammar also penetrated into
the provinces, and some of the most eminent amongst the learned taught it
in foreign parts, particularly in Gallia Togata. In the number of these,
we may reckon Octavius (509) Teucer, Siscennius Jacchus, and Oppius Cares
[856], who persisted in teaching to a most advanced period of his life,
at a time when he was not only unable to walk, but his sight failed.

IV. The appellation of grammarian was borrowed from the Greeks; but at
first, the Latins called such persons literati. Cornelius Nepos, also,
in his book, where he draws a distinction between a literate and a
philologist, says that in common phrase, those are properly called
literati who are skilled in speaking or writing with care or accuracy,
and those more especially deserve the name who translated the poets, and
were called grammarians by the Greeks. It appears that they were named
literators by Messala Corvinus, in one of his letters, when he says,
"that it does not refer to Furius Bibaculus, nor even to Sigida, nor to
Cato, the literator," [857] meaning, doubtless, that Valerius Cato was
both a poet and an eminent grammarian. Some there are who draw a
distinction between a literati and a literator, as the Greeks do between
a grammarian and a grammatist, applying the former term to men of real
erudition, the latter to those whose pretensions to learning are
moderate; and this opinion Orbilius supports by examples. For he says
that in old times, when a company of slaves was offered for sale by any
person, it was not customary, without good reason, to describe either of
them in the catalogue as a literati, but only as a literator, meaning
that he was not a proficient in letters, but had a smattering of
knowledge.

The early grammarians taught rhetoric also, and we have many of their
treatises which include both sciences; whence it arose, I think, that in
later times, although the two professions had then become distinct, the
old custom was retained, o