Entrance into the Society of Scholars:
The Different Levels of Contubernium as Illustrated by the
Works of Lucius Ampelius, Vibius Sequester, and Censorinus

Patrick P. Hogan (Hillsdale College)

In the past few decades an increasing number of Classical scholars have turned their energies not only towards deeper study of Greek and Roman literature of the High Empire, a period commonly known as the Second Sophistic (mid-1^st to mid-3^rd c. A.D.) but also to the educational system of the Roman Empire, a system that produced both famous writers like Plutarch, Aelius Aristides, Aulus Gellius, and Pliny the Elder and, in greater numbers, the members of the learned public who were able to appreciate their written works and their rhetorical performances.  This vast crowd of learned men, called pepaideumenoi in Greek and docti in Latin (both mean “educated ones”), is largely withdrawn from our view, but some works survive that give us insight into their intellectual development and especially to the transition from curious schoolboy to learned gentleman.  Three works illustrate the different levels of literary society: the Liber Memorialis by Lucius Ampelius, the De fluminibus, fontibus, et aliis by Vibius Sequester, and the De Die Natali of Censorinus.

A schoolboy went through three levels of education: training in the rudiments of letters under grammatistae, instruction in reading and exegesis under grammatici, and lastly cultivation of the oratorical arts through intensive progymnasmata under rhetores.  Upon “graduation” from the rhetorical school the young man was finished with his formal education, but he was not quite ready to join the society of learned gentleman, called contubernium in certain authors of the period.  This society is most evident in the Noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius and the Quaestiones Convivales of Plutarch.  These three works, however, show how elder members of literary society in the High Empire extended a helping hand to new initiates and how established members interacted with each other in their common quest for knowledge and learning.  Ampelius guides his eager student Macrinus into new areas of reading and research.  Vibius Sequester compiles a helpful list of names for his son Vergilianus.  Censorinus creates a birthday gift for his patron, one that both honors and instructs the recipient.