Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-tj2md Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T05:37:58.167Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Cicero at School

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Extract

Towards the end of his Brutus Cicero gives a memorable account of his education. He begins at the year 90, when he was sixteen, had assumed the toga uirilis, and so was no longer a boy. He was now apprenticed to public life, and while continuing his academic education, in rhetoric and philosophy, was learning the ways of the forum. Of the first sixteen years of his life the Brutus tells us nothing. We have to look elsewhere for evidence about his earlier education, his schooldays as we may call them, and there is such evidence, though his biographers have not made full use of it.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1968

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 18 note 1 Brut. 305–16. (References, unless otherwise stated, are to Cicero's works.)Google Scholar

page 18 note 2 Some would date his assumption of the toga uirilis a year earlier.

page 18 note 3 Smith, R. E., Cicero the Statesman (Cambridge, 1966), 14, 19.Google Scholar

page 18 note 4 Q.F. ii. 12. 2.Google Scholar

page 18 note 5 So Richards, G. C., Cicero (London, 1935), 11Google Scholar ; Haskell, H. J., This was Cicero (New York, 1964), 40Google Scholar ; Plasberg, O., Cicero in seinen Werken und Briefen (Leipzig, 1962), 34Google Scholar ; cf. Ciaceri, E., Cicerone e i suoi tempi (Milan, 1926), 6.Google Scholar

page 18 note 6 Plutarch, , Cic. 8. 3.Google Scholar

page 18 note 7 Balb. 11Google Scholar ; Off. iii. 77. CfGoogle Scholar . RE VIIA. 1. 826Google Scholar . His wife's brother-in-law, Aculeo, a lawyer, was a friend of Crassus, (Brut. 264Google Scholar ; De Or. i. 191, ii. 2)Google Scholar ; his uncle Gratidius, who played some part in Roman politics, was a friend of Antonius, (Brut. 169)Google Scholar , as was his brother Lucius, (De Or. ii. 2).Google Scholar

page 18 note 8 Legg. ii. 3.Google Scholar

page 18 note 9 On the date of his death see Bailey, D. Shackleton on Att. i. 6. 2 (Cambridge, 1965).Google Scholar

page 19 note 1 De Or. ii. 2.Google Scholar

page 19 note 2 Nepos, , Att. 1. 1.Google Scholar

page 19 note 3 Plutarch, , Cic. 2. 2.Google Scholar

page 19 note 4 Nepos, , Att. 1. 34.Google Scholar

page 19 note 5 ita sunt dulces [sc. poetae] ut non legantur modo sed etiam ediscantur… haec a pueritia legimus ediscimus. Tusc. ii. 27.Google Scholar

page 19 note 6 De Or. i. 187.Google Scholar

page 19 note 7 For further evidence that Cicero read Homer as a boy see Q.F. iii. 5 and 6. 4.Google Scholar

page 19 note 8 Nepos, , Att. 1. 4.Google Scholar

page 19 note 9 Arch. 1.Google Scholar

page 20 note 1 He came to Rome in 102 and had lived there for many years when he obtained citizenship in 89. Arch. 5 and 7.Google Scholar

page 20 note 2 Ibid. 1. For a different interpretation see Reid's edition, p. 10.

page 20 note 3 Arch. 6Google Scholar ; De Or. ii. 2Google Scholar . I am inclined to think, however, that Cicero is here referring to teachers of rhetoric.

page 20 note 4 Nepos, , Att. 4. 1.Google Scholar

page 20 note 5 Suetonius, , Gramm. 3.Google Scholar

page 20 note 6 De Or. iii. 48.Google Scholar

page 20 note 7 Quintilian, , i. 4. 2.Google Scholar

page 20 note 8 Suetonius, , Gramm. 3Google Scholar ; Brut. 205.Google Scholar

page 20 note 9 Ibid. 207.

page 20 note 10 Cicero's nephew was studying under a Greek rhetorician at the age of twelve. Q.F. iii. 3. 4.Google Scholar

page 20 note 11 Suetonius, , Rhet. 2.Google Scholar

page 21 note 1 Ibid. i.

page 21 note 2 Nepos, , Att. 1. 2.Google Scholar

page 21 note 3 De Or. iii. 126Google Scholar . In i. 187 he adds astronomy.

page 21 note 4 Tacitus evidently thought the same. See Dial. 30. 4.Google Scholar

page 21 note 5 Ac. Pr. iii. 115Google Scholar ; Tusc. v. 112–13.Google Scholar

page 21 note 6 Brut. 309.Google Scholar

page 21 note 7 Fam. xiii. 1. 2.Google Scholar

page 21 note 8 After Cicero had assumed the toga uirilis they were again together studying law with Scaevola the augur. Legg. i. 13Google Scholar ; Am. i.Google Scholar

page 21 note 9 Planc. 81.Google Scholar

page 21 note 10 Tusc. v. 112Google Scholar ; Fam. xiii. 1. 2.Google Scholar

page 22 note 1 Quintilian, i. 2. 20.Google Scholar