271)
by friends and relations, to the Forum, and probably also to the
tabularium under the Capitol, where his name was entered in the list
of full citizens.[293]
With the new arrangement, under which boys might become legally men
at an earlier age than in the old days, it is obvious that there must
often have been an interval before they were physically or mentally
qualified for a profession. As the sole civil profession to which boys
of high family would aspire was that of the bar, a father would send
his son during that interval to a distinguished advocate to be taken
as a pupil. Cicero himself was thus apprenticed to Mucius Scaevola the
augur: and in the same way the young Caelius, as soon as he had taken
his toga virilis, was brought by his father to Cicero. The relation
between the youth and his preceptor was not unlike that of the
_contubernium_ in military life, in which the general to whom a lad
was committed was supposed to be responsible for his welfare and
conduct as well as for his education in the art of war: thus Cicero
says of Caelius[294] that at that period of his life no one ever saw
him "except with his father or with me, or in the very well-conducted
house of M.
Pages:
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251