Note 16 — Chapter I
Reading edition
This type of the old Roman schoolmaster is alluded to in the following well known verses of Martial:
"Quid tibi nobiscum est, ludi scelerate magister, Invisum pueris virginibusque caput? Nondum cristati rupere silentia Galli Murmure jam saevo verberibusque tonas." > —Lib. IX, 79.
which have been rendered as follows:
Despiteful pedant, why dost me pursue, Thou head detested by the younger crew? Before the cock proclaims the day is near Thy direful threats and lashes stun my ear.
Martial elsewhere refers to "Ferulaeque tristes, sceptra pedagogorum"—melancholy rods, sceptres of pedagogues—and it appears from one of Juvenal's satires that "to withdraw the hand from the rod" was a phrase meaning "to leave school."