As the boy was born into a bilingual Graeco-Roman world, of which the Greeks were the only cultured people, this might seem natural and inevitable; but we know that in his heart the Roman despised the Greek.

Of witnesses in their favour we might expect Cicero to be the strongest, but Cicero occasionally lets us know what he really thinks of their moral character.

In a remarkable passage in his speech for Flaccus, which is fully borne out by remarks in his private letters, he says that he grants them all manner of literary and rhetorical skill, but that the race never understood or cared for the sacred binding force of testimony given in a court of law.[277] Thus the Roman boy was in the anomalous position of having to submit to chastisement from men whom as men he despised.

Assuredly we should not like our public schoolboys to be taught or punished by men of low station or of an inferior standard of morals It is men, not methods, that really tell in education; the Roman schoolboy needed some one to believe in some one to whom to be wholly loyal; the very same overpowering need which was so obvious in the political world of Rome in the last century B.C.[278] Of this elementary teaching little need be said here, as it did not bear directly on life and conduct.

There is, however, one feature of it which may claim our attention for a moment.