VF: Lesson - Reading Passage, Story Summary

Story Summary

As we continue reading the story Caedes Intellecta, it is important to remind ourselves of what has happened previously and the events that we can expect to read about in the upcoming chapter. So, let's review and get ready for the next part of the story!

This statue bust in the image above depicts Gaius Maecenas.

Story Notes

Pseudolus served as the imperial magister for the children in Augustus' household. Most of his duties centered around training the children in the basics of reading and writing. However, certain members of the house continued their training with Pseudolus and learned more advanced topics. Even Marcellus himself had trained with Pseudolus as his rhetor (teacher of oratory). Pseudolus' prize student, Selene, was also the rarest in Rome, since women were rarely offered the chance to seek advanced educations. Of course, Selene was not Roman - her background as an Egyptian princess and the daughter of the highly educated Queen Cleopatra, made it so her education was a natural expectation. Selene spent many private and secret hours learning advanced grammar, poetry, rhetoric and logic from eius custode - her guardian.

Pseudolus had decided early on to train Selene in the advanced arts of grammar and rhetoric. From the moment that he promised to protect her, no matter the current circumstances, he had taken extra care to open her mind and to share his vast wisdom. Selene was a quick and clever pupil, learning things with a certain aggression, as though proving to herself and the rest of the world that she was important. Pseudolus often mused that no student of his had ever shown as much talent and acuity as haec puella - this girl.

Maecenas had met Pseudolus only once before. When Marcellus was learning about advanced poetry, Pseudolus had invited him to speak with Marcellus about his role as a patron (a patron was a person who financially supported artists). Maecenas had been flattered by the invitation and greatly enjoyed his conversation with young Marcellus. He had found Pseudolus' occasional interjections to be clever and had left the meeting with a positive view of Augustus' prized magister. He returns to Pseudolus now with a much more serious concern.