The year in which this tirocinium fori took place, is still a mooted question. According to Boettiger, De originibus tirocinii apud Romanos, 207, it took place in early times at the end of the sixteenth year, and in later, when the fifteenth year was completed. On the other hand, Prof. Klotz assumes in the Jahrbücher für Philol. u. Pädag., that such a year was not at all fixed, but that it depended in every case on the father, who introduced his son into public life, sooner or later, according to his discretion. Notwithstanding it seems more plausible to suppose that the completion of the fifteenth year conferred a right to the toga virilis, and that this period was the one generally received. Augustus assumed the toga on his sixteenth birthday. Suet. viii. So Persius and Virgil, and Cicero's son also. Probably it was not till under the Emperors that the assumption took place before the end of the fifteenth year; whence Tac. Ann. xii. 41, virilis toga Neroni maturata, quo capessendæ reipublicæ habilis videretur. He assumed it in his fourteenth year; but no doubt it did happen later, since the father or tutor might, on account of the youth's character, deem it unadvisable to allow him to enter so early into a more independent state. Caligula was twenty years old before Tiberius allowed him to lay aside the toga prætexta (Suet. Cal. 10); which easily explains the passage in Cicero, p. Sext. 69: cui superior annus idem et virilem patris et prætextam populi judicio togam dedit; for it always depended on the judicium patris, whether the son might take the toga virilis at fifteen or not; and as a certain year is fixed for coming of age, which however can fall earlier, if the father will it, so was it also with the tirocinium fori at Rome. Ovid It appears quite as certain that the ceremony took place, originally on the sixteenth of March, at the liberalia. says expressly (Fasti, iii. 771), Restat ut inveniam, quare toga libera detur Lucifero pueris, candide Bacche, tuo. Cic. p. Att. vii. 1. It does not appear, till a later period, to have become the custom to give it on the birthday. The boy deposited the toga prætexta and the bulla in the forum, and received instead the toga virilis, pura libera. It was called libera because he now began a freer, less restrained course of life. Boettiger derives the expression from the connexion with the sacra Bacchica; but as Ovid, who was uncertain about the reason of its taking place at the liberalia, attempted four different explanations, without giving it, surely it would appear a very bold step to fall in with Boettiger's opinion. Ovid's expression (Trist. v. 777) just reverses the matter. Sive quod es Liber, vestis quoque libera per te Sumitur, et vitæ liberioris iter. The toga is not, then, called libera from liberalia, but because being libera, it is given in the liberalia: in this sense only could Ovid have used the comparative liberior toga. The expression is explained by Plutarch: περὶ τοῦ ἀκούειν, c. 1. ὅτε τῶν προσταττόντων ἀπήλλαξαι, τὸ ἀνδρεῖον ἀπειληφως ἱμάτιον. Comp. Pers. Sat. v. 30. The education was still not looked upon as complete, and instruction continued to be given as before. Ovid. Tr. iv. 29, et studium nobis, quod fuit ante, manet. After the subjugation of Greece it was not uncommon for persons who wished to give their sons a more polished education to send them to Athens. See Cicero pro Att. xii. 32, where others, such as Bibulus, Acidinus, Messala, are mentioned. Ovid also went thither, Trist. i. 2, 77. See what Horace says of himself, Epist. ii. 40. EXCURSUS I. SCENE II. THE ROMAN HOUSE. ONE of the most difficult points of investigation throughout the whole range of Roman antiquities, which bear on domestic life, is the discussion on the several divisions of the house, their position and relation to each other. We might fancy, after all the excavations in Herculaneum, and more especially in Pompeii, where the buildings have been laid open to our view, that the greatest light would have been thrown on this point; but we should greatly err were we to take the houses in the latter city as a criterion of the regular Roman house. It is true that they have much similarity; indeed, the habitations of antiquity generally were by no means so various in their arrangements as are those of our own times; for the situation and disposition of certain parts were alike in all. Still there were many parts belonging to a large Roman mansion which those living in provincial towns did not require; and thus from its being supposed that these remains present a true picture, though on a small scale, of what the others were, additional error has crept into the matter. Comp. Hirt, Gesch. der Bauk, iii. 323. Besides, no ancient author has given us a regular account or plan of a Roman residence. Our chief sources of information are Vitruvius, vi., the letters of the younger Pliny, and isolated passages in Varro, Gellius, Festus, Plautus, Cicero, Seneca, Petronius, &c. But Vitruvius instructs us only how and in what proportions to build a house; the position and use of the individual parts could not in his day have been a matter of doubt. How therefore could it ever have occurred to him to enter into any explanation on the subject? Pliny again, ii. 17, and v. 6, does not describe a domus urbana, but two villas; although the plan of one of them does not appear to be materially different from that of a regular house. We must endeavour then, by combining the scattered notices on the subject, to throw some light on it, and lay down a plan of a Roman house accordingly. |