The apparatus[583] of an ancient school was somewhat complicated: there were mathematical instruments, globes, maps, and charts of the heavens, together with boards whereon to trace geometrical figures, tablets, large and small, of box-wood, fir, or ivory[584] triangular in form, some folding with two, and others with many leaves; books too and paper, skins of parchment, wax for covering the tablets, which, if we may believe Aristophanes,[585] people sometimes ate when they were hungry.[586] Footnote 583: Pollux, iv. 19. Cf. Herod. vii. 239. ii. 21. Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 529. Footnote 584: Poll. i. 234. Lucian. Ner. § 9. Amor. § 44. Antich. di Ercol. t. ii. p. 55. t. iii. p. 237. Footnote 585: Poll. x. 58, 59. Footnote 586: On this subject Isidorus Hispal. vi. 9. has a curious passage: “Ceræ literarum materies, parvulorum nutrices. Ipsæ dant ingenium pueris primordia sensus, quarum studium primi Græci tradidisse produntur. Græci enim et Thusci primum ferro in ceris scripserunt. Postea Romani jusserunt, ne graphium ferreum quis haberet. Undè et apud scribas dicebatur, Ceram ferro ne lædito. Postea institutum est, ut in cerâ ossibus scriberent, sicut indicat Alsa in Satyrâ dicens: Vertamus vomerem in ceram, mucroneque aremus osseo.” Cf. Pfeiffer, Antiq. Græc. p. 413. To the above were added rulers, reed-pens,[587] pen-cases, pen-knives, pencils, and last, though not least, the rod which kept them to the steady use of all these things. Footnote 587: It was as the instrument of literature that the reed subdued half the world, though Pliny only celebrates its conquest as an arrow. “Ac si quis Æthiopas, Ægyptum, Arabas, Indos, Scythas, Bactros, Sarmatarum tot gentes et Orientis, omniaque Parthorum regna diligentiùs computet, æqua fermè pars hominum in toto mundo calamis superata degit.”—Hist. Nat. xvi. 65. At Athens these schools were not provided by the state. They were private speculations, and each master was regulated in his charges by the reputation he had acquired and the fortunes of his pupils. Some appear to have been extremely moderate in their demands.[588] Footnote 588: Which was the case even among the sophists, as we find Proclos granting a perpetual admission to his lectures for a hundred drachmæ.—Philost. Vit. Soph. ii. 21. § 3. This he was the better enabled to do from his carrying on the business of a merchant.—§ 2. Professors’ charges appear to have been often disputed, as we find mention, in many authors, of law-suits between them and their pupils.—Lucian. Icaromenip. § 16. “The wages of industry are just and honourable, yet Isocrates shed tears at the first receipt of a stipend.”—Gibbon, vii. 146.