[28] See Norden, _Agnostos Theos, Untersuchungen zur Formengeschichte religiöser Rede_. Leipzig, 1913. But this speech, to judge from the indications of _Acts_ xvii, was as original in plan as in idea. CHAPTER III THE LAST ROMAN SCHOOLS AND THE COMPENDS (FIFTH TO SEVENTH CENTURIES) REFERENCES AND ABBREVIATIONS ARP Baldwin (C. S.), _Ancient rhetoric and poetic_, New York, 1924. Boissier Boissier (G.), _La fin du paganisme_, Paris, 1891, 2 vols. CSE _Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum_, Vienna. Glover Glover (T. R.), _Life and letters in the fourth century_, Cambridge, 1901. Haarhoff Haarhoff (T.), _The Schools of Gaul_, Oxford, 1920. Halm Halm (K.), _Rhetores latini minores_, Leipzig, 1863. Keil Keil (H.), _Grammatici latini_, Leipzig, 1870-1880, 7 vols. Labriolle Labriolle (P. de), _Histoire de la littérature latine chrétienne_, Paris, 1920. Manacorda Manacorda (G.), _Storia della scuola in Italia_, vol. I, _Il medio evo_, Milan, 1913 (2 parts in separate volumes). Manitius Manitius (M.), _Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters_, Munich, 1911, 2 vols. (in Iwan von Mueller’s Handbuch der klassischen Alterthums-Wissenschaft, IX. ii). Monceaux Monceaux (P.), _Histoire de la littérature latine chrétienne_, Paris, 1924 (Collection Payot). MGH _Monumenta Germaniæ historica_ (cited by page of the appropriate volume). PL Migne, _Patrologia latina_ (cited by volume and column). Pichon Pichon (R.), _Études sur l’histoire de la littérature latine dans les Gaules_, Paris (vol. 1), 1906. Roger Roger (M.), _L’enseignement des lettres classiques d’Ausone à Alcuin_, Paris, 1905. A. THE SCHOOLS OF GAUL The need of the Church and of the Roman world for such forward counsels, the tenacity of sophistic among reactionaries and conformists, are amply exhibited by the last days of Roman Gaul. In the ancient province a cultivated leisure class, living in the twilight of a great past outworn and doomed, cherished the sophistic conception of elegance and the sophistic habit of education by rhetoric[1] as symbols of their Romanism. Provincials, they were sometimes more Catholic than the Pope; their writers and teachers would not risk being thought less literary than the capital of the world. But in fact Gaul of the fifth and sixth centuries was more Roman than Rome. It was the last territory of the ancient world. 1. Ausonius[2]