§118. In the same way the governors of provinces and generals in the field were attended by a voluntary staff (_cohors_) of young men, whom they had invited to accompany them at state expense for personal or political reasons. These _tirones_ became familiar in this way (_tirocinium militiae_) with the practical side of administration and war, while at the same time they were relieved of many of the hardships and dangers suffered by those, less fortunate, who had to rise from the ranks. It was this staff of inexperienced young men who hid in their tents or went back to Rome when Caesar determined to meet Ariovistus in battle, although some of them, no doubt, made gallant soldiers and wise commanders afterward.
§119. Remarks on the Schools.--Having considered the possibilities in the way of education and training within the reach of the more favored few, we may now go back to the Elementary and Grammar Schools to get an idea of the actual school life of the ordinary Roman boy. While these were not public schools in our sense of the word, that is, while they were not supported or supervised by the state, and while attendance was not compulsory, it is nevertheless true that the elements at least of education, a knowledge of the three R's, were more generally diffused among the Romans than among any other people of the ancient world. The schools were distinctly democratic in this, that they were open to all classes, that the fees were little more than nominal, that so far as concerned discipline and the treatment of the pupils no distinction was made between the children of the humblest and of the most lordly families.
[Illustration: FIGURE 26. A ROMAN SCHOOL]
[Illustration: FIGURE 27: CARICATURE OF A SCHOOL]
§120. The school was usually in a _pergula_, a shedlike attachment to a public building, roofed against the sun and rain, but open at the sides and furnished merely with rough benches without backs. The children were exposed, therefore, to all the distractions of the busy town life around them, and the people living near were in turn annoyed by the noisy recitations (§110) and even noisier punishments. A picture of a schoolroom from a wall painting in Herculaneum is shown in Fig. 26 and an ancient caricature, by a schoolboy probably, in Fig. 27.