The Rise of Foreign Education in Rome

Cicero, Republic 2.19

“It was then that our state first seemed to have become more learned with a certain foreign type of education. For it was no little stream which flowed from Greece into this city, but the most powerful river of those disciplines and arts. Some people tell the tale that Demaratus—a Corinthian exceptional in his own city for his respect, wealth, and authority—who was not able to endure the tyrant Cypselos at Corinth, fled with his money and took up residence in Tarquinii, the most elegant city of Etruria at the time.

Once he heard that Cypselos’ power was complete, the man of freedom and bravery officially became an exile and re-established his home and roots here. When he had two sons with the Tarquinian mother of his family, he had them educated in every art of the Greek system…”

XIX. Sed hoc loco primum videtur insitiva quadam disciplina doctior facta esse civitas. influxit enim non tenuis quidam e Graecia rivulus in hanc urbem, sed abundantissimus amnis illarum disciplinarum et artium. fuisse enim quendam ferunt Demaratum Corinthium et honore et auctoritate et fortunis facile civitatis suae principem; qui cum Corinthiorum tyrannum Cypselum ferre non potuisset, fugisse cum magna pecunia dicitur ac se contulisse Tarquinios, in urbem Etruriae florentissimam. cumque audiret dominationem Cypseli confirmari, defugit patriam vir liber ac fortis et adscitus est civis a Tarquiniensibus atque in ea civitate domicilium et sedes collocavit. ubi cum de matre familias Tarquiniensi duo filios procreavisset, omnibus eos artibus ad Graecorum disciplinam erudiit. . .

*Cypselos was allegedly a tyrant in the 7th century BCE.

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