the customs, smuggled him ashore in the dress of a freeborn youth, with the bullum 907 hung about his neck. The fraud easily escaped detection. They proceed to Rome; the affair becomes the subject of judicial inquiry; it is alleged that the boy was entitled to his freedom, because his master had voluntarily treated him as
Formerly, they called these by a Greek term, syntaxeis, but of late “controversies;” but they may be either fictitious cases, or those which come under trial in the courts.
Of the eminent professors of this science, of whom any memorials are extant, it would not be easy to find many others than those of whom I shall now proceed to give an account.
II. LUCIUS PLOTIUS GALLUS.
Of him Marcus Tullius Cicero thus writes to Marcus Titinnius 908:
“I remember well that when we were boys, one Lucius Plotius first began to teach Latin; and as great numbers flocked to his school, so that all who were most devoted to study were eager to take lessons from him, it was a great trouble to me that I too was not allowed to do so. I was prevented, however, by the decided opinion (527) of men of the greatest learning, who considered that it was best to cultivate the genius by the study of Greek.”
This same Gallus, for he lived to a great age, was pointed at by M. Caelius, in a speech which he was forced to make in his own cause, as having supplied his accuser, Atracinus 909, with materials for his charge. Suppressing his name, he says that such a rhetorician was like barley bread 910 compared to a wheaten loaf,—windy, chaffy, and coarse.