Of the twenty famous schoolmasters whom Suetonius honours with short biographies, three only were certainly not freedmen, Orbilius, the teacher of Horace, Pomponius Marcellus, and a certain Valerius Probus, who hailed from Beyrout, and must have been himself free, whatever his parentage, as he began life with the endeavour to get a centurion’s commission; fifteen were certainly freedmen, and two probably. Their nationalities are strangely varied; three were certainly Italians, three others possibly, two were Syrians, if we so class Probus, three Gauls, one Spaniard, one Illyrian, six certainly Greek, and one probably. Of the three Gauls, one, M. Antonius Gnipho, gave lessons first in the house of Julius Cæsar during the latter’s boyhood; he was a man of exceptional intellectual brilliance and generous character. Suetonius does not state that Gnipho actually taught Cæsar, though the inference suggests itself, and in any case the youthful Cæsar must have known him, and have received impressions, if not information, which may have influenced the future conqueror of Gaul. These men were for the most part highly respected and made large professional incomes; they taught either in houses of their own, or by special arrangement in the houses of their patrons; one of them, M. Verrius Flaccus, taught on these terms the grandchildren of Augustus, who paid him a handsome annual stipend on condition that he only admitted such pupils to his classes as were approved of by his employer; he had previously taught independently; a statue was erected to his memory at Præneste; this indicates that in spite of his servile origin he was held in high honour. Horace must have known Verrius Flaccus, even if he were not actually a relative, and Horace’s allusion to the persuasive schoolmasters, who coax children to learn the elements by giving them biscuits, suggests a well known trait of this Verrius Flaccus, who was the first schoolmaster to offer prizes, “some ancient book handsome or scarce,” says Suetonius. It is interesting to note that the most fashionable of these schoolmasters, and the one who made the largest fortune, was a man who, in the opinion of the Emperors Tiberius and Claudius, both good judges, was totally unfit to be entrusted with the charge of youth; while the one of whom it is recorded that in his old age he sank into extreme poverty is Horace’s old friend, the freeborn Italian Orbilius. This man also was honoured with a statue.