The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Volume 13: Grammarians and Rhetoricians

In this lively anthology the early days of Roman learning unfold through a series of vivid portraits of grammarians, rhetoricians and poets. The narrative begins when the harsh realities of war left little room for literary pursuits, and a handful of curious men—like the envoy Crates of Mallos, who broke his leg in a Palatine sewer—turned mishap into opportunity by delivering public lectures. Their efforts sparked a modest yet determined movement that gradually lifted the study of language from the margins to the public arena.

Among the colorful characters that follow, you meet ambitious teachers such as Lucius Aelius, known as Praeconius for his heraldic lineage, and the disgraced Servius Claudius, whose secret acquisition of a manuscript led to personal ruin. The accounts reveal how wealthy patrons began to pay staggering sums—hundreds of thousands of sesterces—to secure the services of prized scholars, and how the profession even spread to the provinces, with teachers like Octavius Teucer persisting into old age despite blindness. Together these sketches illustrate the surprising vitality of literary culture in a world more often remembered for its battles.