Patricians, to whose cause he was so ardently attached, that, when Metellus Numidicus was banished in 654, he accompanied him into exile. Serv. Clodius was the son-in-law of Lælius, and fraudulently appropriated, it is said, a grammatical work, written by his distinguished relative, which shows the honour and credit by this time attached to such pursuits at Rome. Clodius was a Roman knight; and, from his example, men of rank did not disdain to write concerning grammar, and even to teach its principles. Still, however, the greater number of grammarians, at least of the verbal grammarians, were slaves. If well versed in the science, they brought, as we learn from Suetonius, exorbitant prices. Luctatius Daphnis was purchased by Quintus Catulus for 200,000 pieces of money, and shortly afterwards set at liberty. This was a strong encouragement for masters to instruct their slaves in grammar, and for them to acquire its rules. Sævius Nicanor, and Aurelius Opilius, who wrote a commentary, in nine books, on different writers, were freedmen, as was also Antonius Gnipho, a Gaul, who had been taught Greek at Alexandria, whither he was carried in his youth, and was subsequently instructed in Latin literature at Rome. Though a man of great learning in the science he professed, he left only two small volumes on the Latin language—his time having been principally occupied in teaching. He taught first in the house of the father of Julius Cæsar, and afterwards lectured at home to those who chose to attend him. The greatest men of Rome, when far advanced in age and dignity, did not disdain to frequent his school. Many of his precepts, indeed, extended to rhetoric and declamation, the arts, of all others, in which the Romans were most anxious to be initiated. These were now taught in the schools of almost all grammarians, of whom there were, at one time, upwards of twenty in Rome. For a long while, only the Greek poets were publicly explained, but at length the Latin poets were likewise commented on and illustrated. About the same period, the etymology of Latin words began to be investigated: Ælius Gallus, a jurisconsult quoted by Varro, wrote a work on the origin and proper signification of terms of jurisprudence, which in most languages remain unvaried, till they have become nearly unintelligible; and Ælius Stilo attempted, though not with perfect success, to explain the proper meaning of the words of the Salian verses, by ascertaining their derivations(67).