who wrote extracts to dictation chosen from various illustrative authors. The sophist or rhetorician addressed his class on some stated theme, and spoke alternately on both sides of the question. The management of the voice and the use of appropriate gesture were systematically taught.[1] Finally the pupils were set to compose speeches of their own and to debate among themselves on suitable subjects.[2]
III. The four divisions of the Quadrivium were grouped together as the mathematical arts; and six years were allotted to their study. 1. In geometry the discipline did not include the learning of theorems and problems as set forth in the Elements of Euclid, but merely an acquaintance with the definitions and with the ordinary plane and solid figures.[3] The teaching in this section, however, was mainly of geography.[4] It was asserted doubtfully that the earth was a globe and that there was an inferior hemisphere of which nothing certain could be predicated.[5]*
- ↑ Cresollius has brought together an immense amount of information on this branch of the art in his Vacationes Autumnales, Paris, 1620; cf. Kayser in his introduction to the lives of Philostratus (Teubner). Blandness of voice was sedulously pursued by professional sophists, and plasmata, or emollient medicaments were much resorted to. There was a phonascus, or voice-trainer, who paid special attention to such matters.
- ↑ Libanius has outlined very clearly the course of instruction through which he put his class; Epist., 407.
- ↑ Nothing could be more meagre than the allusions to this subject; even the treatise on geometry by Boethius, which seems to have been the only one current, contains little more than enunciations of propositions.
- ↑ I have already referred to the geography of this period, see p. 182.
- ↑
Altera pars orbis sub aquis jacet invia nobis,
Ignotaeque hominum gentes, nec transita regna,
Commune ex uno lumen ducentia sole, etc.
Manilius (Weber), i, 375.The Christian fathers ridicule the antipodes severely. "More rational
