" The origin of this feeling is probably to be found
in the fact that both boys and girls were in ancient times brought
up to help in performing the religious duties of the household, as
camilli and camillae (acolytes); and this is perhaps the reason why
they wore, throughout Roman history, the toga praetexta with the
purple stripe, like magistrates and sacrificing priests.[268] It is
hardly necessary to say that this religious side of education was an
education in the practice of cult, and not in any kind of creed or
ideas about the gods; but so far as it went its influence was good, as
instilling the habit of reverence and the sense of duty from a very
early age. Though the Romans of Cicero's time had lost their old
conviction of the necessity of propitiating the gods of the State, it
is probable that the tradition of family worship still survived in the
majority of households.
Again, we may be sure that the idea of duty to the State was not
omitted in this old-fashioned education. Cato wrote histories for his
son in large letters, "so that without stirring out of the house,
he might gain a knowledge of the illustrious actions of the ancient
Romans, and of the customs of his country": but it is significant that
in the next two or three generations the writers of annals took to
glorifying--and falsifying--the achievements of members of their own
families, rather than those of the State as a whole.
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