The salaries were paid in kind--five Roman modii of wheat per month--and were thus free from the great fluctuations in money values common in those days. The pupils’ fees were paid in money, and were due on January 1; but we hear many complaints of irregularity in this respect. This was mainly caused by the ambition of the rival teachers to have their class-rooms filled, and hence their indulgence in the case of the poor and the procrastinating, who could not or would not pay, and were nevertheless permitted to continue their studies. One hundred drachmæ paid down seem to have been thought an average fee; but great variations were allowed, and there was evidently no tariff, or any such credentials as our parchments to show that a man had attended his course, paid his fees regularly, and obtained what we call a degree. Libanius mentions an amusing case of a man sending with his son to Athens a donkey, by the sale of which the fees were to be paid. No doubt, the profits made by the greater chairs were considerable, and the _sophist_ and _rhetor_, with their higher colleagues, represented Athens on state occasions as civic dignitaries. They were expected to go out to meet any very distinguished visitor, and address him with complimentary harangues; they had to present themselves officially every month to the proconsul at Corinth, presumably to report on the state of Athens. We hear that they obtained leave of absence only by special permission and with difficulty. In contrast to this importance and splendor, we have a pitiable account in Libanius of the miseries of the rhetors at Antioch, who strove to keep up a respectable appearance while they were persecuted with duns and creditors, and almost starved at home. § 76. A great deal of obscurity still remains, not only concerning the exact number of salaried professors of sophistic and rhetoric, but concerning their relations to the crowd of assistants, recognized and unrecognized, which must have existed at the University of Athens. So clear was the policy of Hadrian, and still more of M. Aurelius, to make it the main seat of the world’s learning, that all manner of students went thither to enjoy the various privileges offered. The grand man, the _Sophist_, could not be expected to do tutor’s or coaching work; and as many lads came from the far East and West with little training, there must have been a considerable class of private teachers to help them on. This was also done by the lad’s _pædagogue_, who came with him from home. But there appears to have been a licensed class of secondary professors, the _Privat-Docenten_ of the Germans, who enjoyed no salary, but lived on the fees of pupils. It is not likely that the total number of these licensed lecturers in sophistic and rhetoric exceeded eight or ten; the private tutors were probably very numerous.