[15] It was the boast of the Emperor Augustus that all his clothes were woven by his wife, sister or daughter. Suetonius, in his _Lives of the Twelve Caesars_, informs us that this great master of the world _filiam et neptes ita instituit ut etiam lanificio assuefaceret_. [16] This type of the old Roman schoolmaster is alluded to in the following well known verses of Martial: "Quid tibi nobiscum est, ludi scelerate magister, Invisum pueris virginibusque caput? Nondum cristati rupere silentia Galli Murmure jam saevo verberibusque tonas." --Lib. IX, 79. which have been rendered as follows: Despiteful pedant, why dost me pursue, Thou head detested by the younger crew? Before the cock proclaims the day is near Thy direful threats and lashes stun my ear. Martial elsewhere refers to "Ferulaeque tristes, sceptra pedagogorum"--melancholy rods, sceptres of pedagogues--and it appears from one of Juvenal's satires that "to withdraw the hand from the rod" was a phrase meaning "to leave school." [17] _Woman Through the Ages_, Vol. I, pp. 110, 111, by Emil Reich, London, 1908. Schoolhouses among the Romans, as well as among the Greeks, were quite different from our modern, well-equipped buildings. Usually, at least, in earlier times, instruction was given in the open air, in some quiet street corner or in _tabernae_--sheds or lean-tos--as in certain Mohametan countries to-day. Horace refers to this in _Epistola_ XX, Lib. I, when he writes: "Ut pueros elementa docentem Occupet extremis in vicis balba senectus." In such schools the pupils sat on the floor or the bare ground, or, if the lessons were given on the street, they sat on the stones. There were no desks, or, if there were any benches, they had no backs. The pupils were, therefore, perforce obliged to write on their knees. Cf. _Historical Survey of Pre-Christian Education_, pp. 278 and 346, by S. S. Laurie, London, 1900. [18] Cf. his _Tiberius Gracchus_. Cicero says of them, "Non tam in gremio educatos quam sermone matris." [19] Ibidem, _Life of Pompey_. [20] _De Oratore_, Lib. III, Cap. XII. [21] "Potiorem iam apud exercitus Agrippinam quam legatos, quam duces; compressam a muliere seditionem, cui nomen principis obsistere non quiverit." _Annales_, Lib. I, Cap. 69. [22] _Oeconomicus_, VII, 5, 6. [23] _Epistolae_, Lib. I, 16. [24] Sit mihi verna satur, sit non doctissima conjux. _Epigrammata_, Lib. II, 90. Martial's taste in this respect was the same as that of Heine, who said of the woman he loved: "She has never read a line of my writings and does not even know what a poet is," and the same as that of Rousseau, who declared that his last flame, Therese Lavasseur, could not tell the time of day. [25] Satire VI, 434-440. [26] _Joannis Stobaei Florilegium_, Vol. IV, p. 212, Teubner's edition, 1857. [27] The following is the epitaph as written by St. Jerome, "the Christian Cicero":