Immortal Gods! he names my friend. What means this, that Lydus is thus exciting his master, Pistoclerus? PHILOXENUS ’Tis but a little time, Lydus, that a man has a desire to indulge his inclinations; the time will soon come, when he will hate himself even. Humour him; so that care is taken that he offends not beyond the line of honor, e’en suffer him. LYDUS I’ll suffer him not, nor, for my part, while I’m alive, will I allow him to be corrupted. But you, who are pleading his cause for a son so profligate, was this same your own training, when you were a young man? I declare that for your first twenty years you had not even this much liberty, to move your foot out of the house even a finger’s length away from your tutor. When it did happen so, this evil, too, was added to the evil; both pupil and preceptor were esteemed disgraced. Before the rising of the sun had you not come to the school for exercise The school for exercise : Palaestram . This was the school for athletic exercise, probably for both youths and men; though it has been contended that the palaestra was devoted to the youths, and the gymnasium to the men. , no slight punishment would you have had at the hands of the master of the school. There did they exercise themselves rather with running, wrestling, the quoit, the javelin, boxing, the ball, and leaping, rather than with harlots or with kissing; there did they prolong their lives Prolong their lives : Extendere aetatem probably means here, not only to live, but to prolong life by healthy exercise. , and not in secret-lurking holes. Then, when from the hippodrome The hippodrome : The hippodromus answered the same purpose as our riding-schools and school of exercise you had returned home, clad in your belted frock Your belted frock — Cincticulum was a frock worn by children, with a girdle or belt round the waist. , upon a stool by your masters By your master : This magister would be what the Greeks called the διδάσκαλος, or preceptor, whose duty it was to instruct the children in grammar, music, and other accomplishments would you sit; and there, when you were reading your book, if you made a mistake in a single syllable, your skin would be made as spotted as your nurse’s gown Your nurse’s gown : It is not known whether the words maculosum pallium refer here to a kind of spotted gown, perhaps of dark pattern, peculiar to nurses, or to the dirty, soiled appearance which, not improbably, their gowns usually presented. Some Commentators take a wider range, and think that the passage refers to the robe of Cybele, the Mother of the Gods, which was made of the skin of a panther. . MNESILOCHUS (aside.) I’m sorely vexed, to my sorrow, that on my account these things should be said about my friend. In his innocence he incurs this suspicion for my sake. PHILOXENUS The manners, Lydus, now are altered. LYDUS That, for my part, I know full well. For formerly, a man used to receive public honors by the votes of the people, before he ceased to be obedient to one appointed his tutor.