1808.] Anecdotes of Public Schools and Literary Establishments. 43% 
sury: Quintilian was of the number. 
Trajan founded academies where poets 
and orators read: their own productions. 
Adrian built the Athencwum; and added 
to the chairs of oratorsand grammarians, 
those of philosophers, who mingled the 
theories of Platonism with some practical 
notion of physic. Junius Moderatus was 
a professor of medicine, or of natural 
pinlosophy. The emperors theinselves 
took pleasure in presiding at these assem- 
blies of the Jearned. Domitian had al- 
realy added a public library to the 
public schools, 
There were twenty-two libraries at 
Rome, either public or private. Lucul- 
lus, Atticus, and Cicero, possessed very 
valuable collections. Julius Cesar insti- 
tuted the first public library, and Varro 
was appointed librarian; then followed 
that founded by Augustus on the Palatine- 
hiil, called the Library of Apollo; that 
in the Temple of Peace, called the Ul- 
pian Library; that of the capitol, and 
that of Tivoli. These libraries were ar- 
rayed in stalls, and set off with great 
magnificence. 
M. Aurelius augmented the number of 
professors—he dedicated a statue to 
Frontinus, the professor of grammar. 
Gordian elevated several grammarians to 
the first dicnities of the state. This em- 
et acquired by descent the famous h- 
rary of Q: Screnus Sammonicus, which 
contained 62,000 volumes. Aurelian or- 
dered every year copies to be made of 
the works of Tacitus, from whom he used 
to boast that he was descended; he en- 
couraged the study of jarisprudence, 
which now became the fashionable pur- 
suit, and was publicly professed and 
taught. 
The Gauls, Spain, Egypt, Greece, Ma- 
cedon, and other large provinces of the 
Roman empire, had their own theatres, 
amphitheatres, temples, and schools of 
learning. 
_ But this great empire was soon torn to 
pieces by factions, her throne was set up 
fo auction, her pretorians and legionaries 
sold the state. The schools were aban- 
doned, the public treasury was only open 
40 reward the seldier who had’set his com- 
manderon the throne of the world, butshut 
against the claims of learned nen and 
ublic teachers, who were looked upon 
ts useless incumbrances on society. The 
fall of letters bastened the fall of the em- 
pire, and the ruin of the empire coim- 
pleted the ruin of letters. 
-»Constantine the Great had estab- 
lished public schools at Byzanuum;, he 
had erected libraries and monuments of 
the Fine Arts. The last had received a 
new life; but the western empire declin- 
ed daily. Under Augustulus, hordes of 
barbarians advanced to Rome, which wag 
possessed by the Heruli, the Goths, the O= 
trogoths. The last-mentioned nation had, 
however, a wise leader in Theodoric, who 
felt the necessity of some establishments 
for instruction. Cagssiodorus, his prime 
minister, founded, at Rome, the first 
school for the explanation of the sacred 
writings, about the commeucement of the 
sixth century. Rome had_ possessed 
many learned pontiffs since Celestin, who ° 
called a council to condemn the Nestoriah 
heresy. Another council, under Valen- 
tinian, assembled fifty-six bishops at 
Rome. That convoked by Saint Leo 
against the Manichzans is not the least 
famous, any more than those remarkable 
ones which were held under Gelasius, 
Symmachus, &c.  .tustinian, after having 
gathered the laurels due to the military 
achievements of his generals, Narses and 
Belisarius, aspired to the fame of a legis- 
lator and a protector of learning. A dis~ 
ciple of the great Theophilus, he con- 
ceived the project of a new code of laws, 
which he engaged the ablest lawyers of 
his time to execute. 
The Lombardsshewedno great devotion 
to the cause of literature. We hardly 
know whether they had any public 
schools; yet they cultivated jurisprudence 
‘and the law of feudal tenures. The col- 
Jection of Lombard Institutes, proves that 
there was no deficiency among them of 
political knowledve. Alboin, cruel as 
he was, appears to have governed with 
wisdom: the invention of several war~ 
like instruments, and improvements in 
military tactics, is attributed to him. 
But the prince who signalized himself 
most among them, by his laws, and by 
the science which he discovered himself 
to possess, was Luitprand, the seven- 
teenth of their race. 
The best-informed Romans of this 
epoch employed themselves in the search ° 
of ancient MSS. but we can discover no 
traces of a school except for the study of 
grammar and of the Seriptures. To the 
granmarians of this age we are indebted 
for two or three MSS. of Virgil, Terence, 
and Martianus Capella. The first bears 
the title of a Reman consul, who was the 
corrector of it: it is that MS. which is 
known to the learned by the appellation 
of the Florentine Virgil. . 
Two nations only have yet filied the 
paze of history; the Greeks and tnt 
e 
