“Do This, Not That”: Terence and Horace on Education

Terence Adelphoe 414-417

“Demio: I pass over nothing; I accustom him to it: I have
him look as if into a mirror at the lives of everyone
that he make take from others an example for himself.
Do this!” Syrus: Rightly, Correctly. DE: Don’t do this! SY: Cleverly!
DE: This is praiseworthy: SY: That is the thing! DE: This is a fault.”

DE. …
nil praetermitto: consuefacio: denique
inspicere tamquam in speculum in uitas omnium
iubeo atque ex aliis sumere exemplum sibi.
hoc facito. SY. Recte sane. DE. Hoc fugito. SY. Callide.
DE. Hoc laudist. SY. Istaec res est. DE. Hoc uitio datur.

Horace, Satires 1.4: 120-126

“This is how [my father]
used to train me as a boy with stories and whether he was
ordering me to do something, he would say “You have a precedent for doing this’ and he would offer as example one
of the selected officials.
Or, if he was forbidding me from something,
Don’t doubt that he would ask whether
“This was dishonorable and unproductive if done
Or not or if this or that man was aflame from
A bad reputation…
….sic me
formabat puerum dictis et, sive iubebat
ut facerem quid, ‘habes auctorem, quo facias hoc’
unum ex iudicibus selectis obiciebat,
sive vetabat, ‘an hoc inhonestum et inutile factu
necne sit, addubites, flagret rumore malo cum
hic atque ille?’ …