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  • The Educational Policy of Julian the Apostate
    123–134.
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    6

    Julian the Apostate, the last pagan ruler of the Roman Empire has left a rich correspondence, the content of which is extremely varied. The epistles, most of which are authentic, form a separate volume in the editions and can be divided into four groups. The first group consists of the so-called Gallic letters, the second group includes the letters of Illyria and Constantinople, the letters from Asia Minor form the third group. Finally, the letters written from Antioch complete the list. In the following, we will discuss the School Edict and more particularly the letter that accompanies it (Ep. 61 Bidez – second group of letters). The decree of the Codex Theodosianus, dated 17 June 362, was rather short-lived, being in force only from July 362 to 11 January 364, but it is nevertheless an outstanding document of ancient educational history since no other emperor had previously issued similar regulations on the operation of teachers. Alongside this decree we may place the edict associated with Justinian (Cod. Just. I,5,18,4; I,11,10,2), which, conversely, forbids the pagan rhetors from education, but in the sixth century no one attempted to criticise it.

  • Callidus and Comedy: a New Argument for an Old Etymology
    341-349
    Views:
    140

    In the corpora of republican authors and the glosses of late antique grammarians, the lexemes callidus and calliditas are used to describe a certain variety of intelligence, which is often translated into English as “cleverness” or “cunning.” This paper looks more closely at these lexemes in order to explain how the root call- (“hard”) came to be associated with mental capacity and acuity. In short, I argue that the type of intelligence that callidus originally denoted ought to be linked to the brutal treatment of slaves and the coping mechanisms that they had to develop in light of their condition as chattel. Not only is this violent form of education depicted in Plautus’ comedies, but its implications and logic can also be found in later authors such as Cicero.