110. Herodes Atticus gave the sophist Polemo above eight
thousand pounds for three declamations. Philostrat. l. i. p.
558 [vita Herodes, cap. 7]. The Antonines founded a school
at Athens, in which professors of grammar, rhetoric,
politics, and the four great sects of philosophy, were
maintained at the public expense for the instruction of
youth. The salary of a philosopher was ten thousand
drachmae, between three and four hundred pounds a year.
Similar establishments were formed in the other great cities
of the empire. Lucian in Eunuch. tom. ii. p. 353 edit.
Reitz. Philostrat. l. ii. p. 566. Hist. August. p. 21. Dion
Cassius, 1. lxxi. p. 1195. Juvenal himself, in a morose
satire, which in every line betrays his own disappointment
and envy, is obliged, however, to say -
-- O Juvenes, circumspicit et agitat vos.
Materiamque sibi Ducis indulgentia quaerit.
- Satir. vii. 20.