The long resistance to the new
religion was at an end, but Romans, even while confessing that the
gods were demons, could not cast off their affection for the
mythology and history of their glorious time. Thus Basil had spent
his schooldays mostly in the practice of sophistic argument, and the
delivery of harangues on traditional subjects. Other youths had
shown greater aptitude for this kind of eloquence; he did not often
carry off a prize; but among his proud recollections was a success
he had achieved in the form of a rebuke to an impious voluptuary who
set up a statue of Diana in the room which beheld his debauches.
Here was the nemesis of a system of education which had aimed solely
at the practical, the useful; having always laboured to produce the
man perfectly equipped for public affairs, and nothing else
whatever. Rome found herself tottering with senile steps in the same
path when the Empire and the ancient world lay in ruins about her.
Basil was not studious. Long ago he had forgotten his 'grammatical'
learning--except, of course, a few important matters known to all
educated men, such as the fact that the alphabet was invented by
Mercury, who designed the letters from figures made in their flight
by the cranes of Strymon.
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