graphical and traditional material relating to the early Roman heroes. This material performed the same service for the Romans as did the Homeric poems for the Greeks. It is characteristic of the practical nature of Roman life and education that these stories, whether truth or fiction, should relate to actual men, not to gods or demigods. Such ideals could be imitated, and so appealed to the conscience as well as to the imagination of the child.' The Romans, not being a literary people, did not, like the Greeks, put these accounts of their early life into literary form; at least, not during this period. Hence it is not possible to draw upon them directly as sources; yet, since references to the use of such material as the basis of their educational work are abundant, many such are to be found in the selections here given. It cannot be doubted that

Plutarch has given in permanent form much of this material, and that his Lives represents, both in form and substance, one phase of the education of this extended period. No place has, however, been accorded this material in this collection, for it is not very direct evidence. Plutarch's ideas on education, representing the best cosmopolitan views of the Græco-Roman period have already been given. A third source is found in references to works of this period no longer extant. The most important of such works is the lost treatise, De liberis educandis, by Cato the Censor (b. 234 B.C., d. 149 B.C.), which, according to Quintilian, is the earliest Roman work on education. A further source, represented in this collection, is found in extracts from authors of a later period, presenting the ideals, methods, or subject-matter of education of these earlier. days. Such references, though brief, are numerous, and are here represented by several selections.

1

The Laws of the Twelve Tables. These laws were adopted in 451 and 450 B.C. To a large extent they are a formulation of previous usage, but also contain some new elements. These latter were, to some extent, now thought to be slight, provisions borrowed from Grecian states relat ing to the curbing of the privileges enjoyed by patricians. The tradition runs that in 454 a commission of three men had been sent abroad to study the laws of Athens and other Greek cities. But for the most part in principle and in detail the laws are indigenous, and offer marked contrasts with Grecian laws. In the period preceding the adoption of the tables, there had been great dissatisfaction upon the part of the plebs. The consequent agitation led, in the two years mentioned, to the substitution of the power of ten men, the decemviri, for that of all the existing magistrates. The ten tables are the work of the decemvirs of 451; the two supplementary tables are the work of the decemvirs of 450. The decemvirs of the latter year usurped the power for two succeeding years, but by revolution the old form of government was reinstituted upon the basis of the new code. These tables aimed at two results: first, the defining and publication of the laws in order to prevent usurpation and abuse upon the part of the patrician magistrates; and, second, the placing of the plebeians and patricians upon an equality. The latter result was not secured, but the definite and public form, now first given to Roman law, remained the basis of Roman polity until the adoption of the Justinian code almost one thousand years later (about 430 A.D.). The laws were, however, gradually overlaid by the prætorian decisions which adapted the laws to existing needs. In time these edicts came to be of greater importance than the laws themselves.

Publicity and permanency were first given the laws by posting them in the Forum, inscribed on bronze tablets, and by requiring that all Roman boys should learn them. by heart. In this way they became the basis of Roman education, so far as it was literary, during all of the two earlier educational periods. This requirement, however, fell into decay by the opening of the first century before Christ, at which time the Grecian education had become dominant. For several centuries, first in the homes, then in the schools (when they were established), the Laws of the Twelve Tables were the basis of the instruction in reading, writing, and literary work. Not only did they form the most important part of the subject-matter of early literary education, but they also expressed the ideals of life that dominated this education.

Neither the order nor the exact wording of the Laws of the Twelve Tables is preserved; but enough has been left in the form of fragments, which preserve the exact wording, and in the form of numerous references throughout Latin literature, which preserve the spirit, to enable scholars to restore the tables. Nor is there any certainty as to their completeness. The reproduction of these fragments here given is taken from Prichard and Nasmith's translation of Ortolan's Histoire de la Législation Romaine et Généralisation du Droit, perhaps the best product of modern scholarship on this subject.

Ideals of Roman Education. While these fragments of the Twelve Tables do not give full expression to the ideals which controlled early Roman life and education, they give practical form to many of them. The fact most clearly indicated by the laws is that even at this early date the Romans were a people prone to litigation; that

is, to the settlement of conflicts of personal rights according to well-defined principles of justice. To the Roman the rights of the individual as expressed in property relations were more important than to any other early people. Hence there was an emphasis laid on, and a place found for, individuality, which, while limited and well-defined, was more secure than with the Greeks or other early peoples. This emphasis on the individual was of an extremely practical sort, and revealed itself chiefly in economic affairs. In this respect the Tables give expression to the Roman ideal prudentia, the prudence of the practical man in the everyday affairs of life, as well as to a further practical ideal, honestas, fair dealing in these economic relationships. Though a litigious people, all conflicts of personal rights were to be settled by appeal to general principles, - all were subordinate to the Roman , idea of justice. This was not the Platonic or Grecian idea of justice, or of virtue as the resultant of the union of all minor virtues. To the Roman it meant the regula tion of private rights by the still more general obligations to the state, or, more immediately, the settlement of conflicting claims of individuals according to custom and the tradition of their ancestors. In either case it is an extremely practical virtue as opposed to the idealism of the Greeks. This supremacy of the state and the complete subordination of the individual to the welfare of the state is expressed in another ideal, virtus, that is, courage, fortitude. While this finds expression in the laws only incidentally, it is clearly revealed in every other evidence relating to early Roman life. The educational expression of this ideal is seen in the use of the lives of Roman heroes, and of incidents in Roman history, in the formation of the character of each succeeding generation.

While the laws are very largely devoted to the regulation of personal and property rights, Tables IV. and V. indicate the importance of two other ideals. The first is pietas, or obedience, — the performance of duties to the gods, to ancestors, and to parents and fellow-men, - or as expressed positively in the Laws, the absolute supremacy of the patria potestas. This ideal again finds expression in Table X. on Sacred Laws. These Tables, especially Table X. also evidence another ideal, largely religious but also affecting every aspect of Roman life, that is, pudor, modesty, or reverence. To these ideals must be added two others, of which we find circumstantial, if not direct, evidence in the Twelve Tables, as in every other aspect of Roman history. One is constantia, or character, manliness, firmness, which/ with virtus gives the chief characteristic of the Roman soldier; the other is gravitas,—or earnestness, seriousness, sedateness. To the possession of those two ideals are attributable certain aspects of the Roman character that are wanting in that of the Greek, and that are of especial importance during the early general period when education centred so largely in the home.

The Subject-matter, Method, and Organization of early Roman education are not indicated in the one source available, save so far as the Tables themselves formed the subject-matter. The importance of these laws from this point of view is borne out by a brief selection appended, the forty-fourth paragraph of Cicero's De Oratore. This was written in the year 55 B.C. and indicates the esteem in which the laws were still held from the educational point of view, even though they had ceased to hold first place. Not only were these laws committed to memory, but they were understood and mastered as a source of practical.