John Williams - Augustus

Your daughter Julia is fast approaching that point in her education at which I can no longer adequately perform as you would wish. I say this with reluctance, for you know my fatherly fondness of her. You have proved me wrong. I doubted that any girl might progress in her studies as rapidly and as ably as might a boy of the same station, equally capable of diligence and understanding. Indeed, of the many of your relatives’ children of like age whom you have been kind enough to put under my tutelage, both boys and girls, she has made the most rapid progress, so that even at the age of eleven, she is rapidly approaching the point at which she should be put in another's care. She composes easily in Greek; she has mastered those more fundamental elements of rhetoric which I have exposed her to, though my teaching her such an unladylike subject has occasioned a minor scandal among her fellow pupils; and your friend Horace intermittently aids her with that poetry in his own tongue, a literature of which my command is adequate but not sufficient for your daughter. I gather that the more feminine parts of her curriculum are not so much to her liking-her musicianship is barely adequate, and though she has a natural physical grace, she does not really take to the more formal elements of her dancing lessons; but I also gather that such fashionable accomplishments lie outside your own interest as well. Were I so foolish to think that you might be pleased by flattery, I should pretend no surprise and affect some such nonsense as expecting so much from the daughter of the son of a god, Emperor of all the world, and so forth. But we both know that her character is her own, and that it is a strong one.

I propose, therefore, that in the near future her education be turned over to one more wise and learned than myself, that Athenodorus who was once your own teacher and who is now your friend. He knows her mind, they get on well, and he has consented to the task which I have had the presumption to suggest. I understand that he is to write you regarding another matter, and that in that letter he will also give you his thoughts upon this.

I trust that your journey in Gaul will not keep you away from your daughter longer than is necessary. The only serious distraction in her studies with me is her longing for your presence. I am, Gaius, your faithful servant and, I trust, your friend, Phaedrus of Corinth.

Athenodorus to Octavius, greetings. As you knew I would, I applaud your decision to establish a system of schools in Gaul. You are quite right; if the people there are to become a part of Rome, they must have the Roman tongue, whereby they may know that history and that culture in which they are to thrive. I would to the gods that the fashionable riffraff here in Rome, some of whom you are pleased to call your friends, had so much concern for the education of their own children as you have for your subjects in distant lands. It may be that those in other lands shall become more Roman than we who remain in the heart of our country.

There will be no difficulty in finding teachers to staff the schools; I shall, if you wish, make specific recommendations. Since you have brought peace and some measure of prosperity to our nation, learning has begun to flourish among those classes from whom you must draw your teachers, though perhaps flourish is too strong a word. In general, I would suggest: (1) that you not depend upon the easy idealism of the well-to-do young, whose enthusiasm is almost certain to disappear in the isolation of the provinces; (2) that so far as possible you choose your teachers from native stock and not depend upon the Greeks or Egyptians or whatever, since their students must at least know what a Roman looks like if he is to really apprehend Roman culture; and (3) that you not depend upon slaves or even too heavily upon freedmen to fill those pedagogic ranks of which you speak. I think you must understand my reasons for this advice. I know that it has been the tradition in Rome to raise even a slave above a gentleman, if he is learned enough. In Rome he is content to remain a slave, if he can become rich; but in Gaul there will not be the opportunity for the kind of fiscal corruption that he can find in Rome, and he will be discontented. You know yourself that many slaves, especially the learned and rich (our friend Phaedrus excepted, of course), are contemptuous of Rome and its ways, and resentful even of that condition out of which they have not chosen to purchase themselves. In short, in Gaul there will not be the complex offerees that operate here to subject them to some kind of order. I assure you that there are sufficient Italians, from both the countryside and the city, who for a decent wage and some honor, would be happy to fulfill your purposes.

As for the matter of your daughter: Phaedrus has spoken to me, and I have consented. I assume that you will approve. I have now educated so many of the Octavian clan that it would seem inappropriate to me for you to look elsewhere. You may call yourself Emperor of the world; that is not my concern. In this matter, I insist that I remain your master; and I should not like to see the final education of Julia in the hands of anyone other than myself.

II. The Journal of Julia, Pandateria (A.D. 4)

For the past several years, since shortly after my arrival upon this island of Pandateria, it has been my habit to arise before dawn and to observe the first glimmer of light in the east. It has become nearly a ritual, this early vigil; I sit without moving at an eastern window, and measure the light as it grows from gray to yellow to orange and red, and becomes at last no color but an unimaginable illumination upon the world. After the light has filled my room, I spend the morning hours reading one or another of those books from the library that I was allowed to bring with me here from Rome. The indulgence of my library was one of the few allowed me; yet of all that might have been, it is the one that has made this exile the most nearly endurable. For I have returned to that learning which I abandoned many years ago, and it is likely that I should not have done so had not I been condemned to this loneliness; I sometimes can almost believe that the world in seeking to punish me has done me a service it cannot imagine.

It has occurred to me that this early vigil and this study is a regimen that I became used to many years ago, when I was little more than a child.

When I was twelve years old, my father decided that it was time for me to forgo my childhood studies, and put myself in the care of his old teacher, Athenodorus. Before that, I had, in addition to the kind of education imposed upon my sex by Livia, merely been exercised in the reading and composition of Greek and Latin, which I found remarkably easy, and in arithmetic, which I found easy but dull. It was a leisurely kind of learning, and my tutor was at my disposal at any hour of the day, with no very rigid schedule that I had to follow.

But Athenodorus, who gave me my first vision of a world outside myself, my family, and even of Rome, was a stern and unrelenting master. His students were few-the sons of Octavia, both adopted and natural; Livia's sons, Drusus and Tiberius; and the sons of various relatives of my father. I was the only girl among them, and I was the youngest. It was made clear to all of us by my father that Athenodorus was the master; and despite whatever name and power the parents of his students might have, Athenodorus's word in all matters was final, and that there was no recourse beyond him.

We were made to arise before dawn and to assemble at the first hour at Athenodorus's home, where we recited the lines from Homer or Hesiod or Aeschylus that we had been assigned the day before; we attempted compositions of our own in the styles of those poets; and at noon we had a light lunch. In the afternoon, the boys devoted themselves to exercises in rhetoric and declamation, and to the study of law; such subjects being deemed inappropriate for me, I was allowed to use my time otherwise, in the study of philosophy, and in the elucidation of whatever poems, Latin or Greek, that I chose, and in composition upon whatever matters struck my fancy. Late in the afternoon, I was allowed to return to my home, so that I might perform my household duties under the tutelage of Livia. It was a release that became increasingly irksome to me.