396 Mr TYTLER'S Introduction to an Enquiry 



the history of the Western Empire, the literature of the Ro- 

 man people, and the education of the Roman youth, evinced not, 

 indeed, an acquaintance with the purest Grecian writers, but at 

 least a knowledge of the language and philosophy of Greece, 

 such as they then existed, polluted indeed, and obscured, but 

 still retaining distinct traces of their original brightness. The 

 proofs of this assertion are certain and multifarious. The few 

 noble fragments which remain to us of ENNIUS, the father of the 

 Latin epic school, his study of the great Grecian models ; the 

 well-known popularity of MENANDER; the translations of many 

 parts of XENOPHON, PLATO and DEMOSTHENES, by CICERO ; the 

 fact that this great Orator could declaim in Greek* ; the asser- 

 tions of SUETONIUS concerning the profound knowledge of this 

 language, which had been attained by CLAUDIUS ; its cultivation 

 under some of the succeeding Emperors ; and the injunctions of 

 QUINCTILIAN, who recommends that his youthful pupils should 

 be introduced to an acquaintance with this noble language, even 

 prior to the study of their own ; all these facts very clearly show, 

 that the study of Greek letters was pursued not only by the 

 Poets and Orators, who there sought for their highest models of 

 imitation, but that it formed at Rome an important branch in 

 the education of its youth. 



If such was the universality of the knowledge of the Grecian 

 language and literature in the days of AUGUSTUS and his succes- 

 sors, an acquaintance with these great sources of beauty and wis- 

 dom became still more prevalent in the reigns of HADRIAN, AN- 

 TONINUS Pius and MARCUS AURELIUS. In the commencement 

 of the second century, HADRIAN was an enthusiastic and unwea- 

 ried patron of the Greeks and their language. The temples of 

 Athens were rebuilt by his munificence, the public games re- 



* Palaeoromaica, p. 26, 33. 



