28 Messala continued.
Far from obscure are the causes which you seek. Neither to yourself or to our
friends, Secundus and Aper, are they unknown, though you assign me the part of
speaking out before you what we all think. Who does not know that eloquence and
all other arts have declined from their ancient glory, not from dearth of men,
but from the indolence of the young, the carelessness of parents, the ignorance
of teachers, and neglect of the old discipline? The evils which first began in Rome soon spread through Italy, and are now diffusing
themselves into the provinces. But your provincial affairs are best known to
yourselves. I shall speak of Rome,
and of those native and home-bred vices which take hold of us as soon as we are
born, and multiply with every stage of life, when I have first said a few words
on the strict discipline of our ancestors in the education and training of
children. Every citizen’s son, the child of a chaste mother, was from the
beginning reared, not in the chamber of a purchased nurse, but in that mother’s
bosom and embrace, and it was her special glory to study her home and devote
herself to her children. It was usual to select an elderly kinswoman of
approved and esteemed character to have the entire charge of all the children
of the household. In her presence it was the last offence to utter an unseemly
word or to do a disgraceful act. With scrupulous piety and modesty she
regulated not only the boy’s studies and occupations, but even his recreations
and games. Thus it was, as tradition says, that the mothers of the Gracchi, of
Caesar, of Augustus, Cornelia, Aurelia, Atia, directed their children’s
education and reared the greatest of sons. The strictness of the discipline
tended to form in each case a pure and virtuous nature which no vices could
warp, and which would at once with the whole heart seize on every noble lesson.
Whatever its bias, whether to the soldier’s or the lawyer’s art, or to the
study of eloquence, it would make that its sole aim, and imbibe it in its
fullness.
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