Chapter IX: ORBILIUS PUPILLUS, of Beneventum, being left an orphan, by the death

of his parents, who both fell a sacrifice to the plots of their enemies on the same day, acted, at first, as apparitor to the magistrates. He then joined the troops in Macedonia, when he was first decorated with the plumed helmet [865], and, afterwards, promoted to serve on horseback. Having completed his military service, he resumed his studies, which he had pursued with no small diligence from his youth upwards; and, having been a professor for a long period in his own country, at last, during the consulship of Cicero, made his way to Rome, where he taught with more reputation than profit. For in one of his works he says, that “he was then very old, and lived in a garret.” He also published a book with the title of Perialogos; containing complaints of the injurious treatment to which professors submitted, without seeking redress at the hands of parents. His sour temper betrayed itself, not only in his disputes with the sophists opposed to him, whom he lashed on every occasion, but also towards his scholars, as Horace tells us, who calls him “a flogger;” [866] and Domitius Marsus [867], who says of him:

Si quos Orbilius ferula scuticaque cecidit.
If those Orbilius with rod or ferule thrashed.

(513) And not even men of rank escaped his sarcasms; for, before he became noticed, happening to be examined as a witness in a crowded court, Varro, the advocate on the other side, put the question to him, “What he did and by what profession he gained his livelihood?” He replied, “That he lived by removing hunchbacks from the sunshine into the shade,” alluding to Muraena’s deformity. He lived till he was near a hundred years old; but he had long lost his memory, as the verse of Bibaculus informs us:

Orbilius ubinam est, literarum oblivio?
Where is Orbilius now, that wreck of learning lost?

His statue is shown in the Capitol at Beneventum. It stands on the left hand, and is sculptured in marble [868], representing him in a sitting posture, wearing the pallium, with two writing-cases in his hand. He left a son, named also Orbilius, who, like his father, was a professor of grammar.