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LATE-learning, I think, is the desire for learning inconsistent with one's advanced age. The late-learner will learn up passages to recite though he is sixty, and will forget them altogether when trying to repeat them over his wine. He will get his son to teach him, 'Right turn,' 'Left turn,' 'About turn.' At the festivals of heroes he will enter into competition with mere boys in the torch - race. Usually when asked to a sacrifice in the temple of Herakles he will throw off his cloak and attempt to emulate that hero by seizing the ox and trying to bend its head back for the knife. He will enter the wrestling-schools and try a bout. At exhibitions he will sit out three or four audiences trying to commit the songs to memory. When initiated into the mysteries of the worship of Sabazios1 he strives earnestly to distinguish himself most before the priest. He falls in love with a courtezan and brings battering - rams against the doors. He gets beaten by his rival and brings an action against him.2 When he goes off to the country with another man's horse he practises trick-riding on the way and falls off and breaks his head. On the tenth day of the month he summons his club mates to promote with them the common good.3 He will play tableaux-vivants4 with his valet, and have archery and javelin-throwing competitions with his son's tutor, whom he is ever advising to watch him as if the tutor too knew nothing about it. At the baths he will throw himself into position as if he knew the whole art of wrestling, so as to seem educated, and when women are presnt he practises dancing steps, singing an accompniment to himself. 1 Sabazios an aspect of Dionysos, the God of Fertility, whose worship was orgiastic. The mysteries are the secret ceremonial the worshipper had to undergo. 2 Only a late learner would drag the law into a love affair. 3 Clubs which were usually composed of young men often took their names from the day on which they met. This club is known as the dekadiori, from its meeting on the 10th day. 4 The reading is in dispute (v. the editions ad loc.). It seems more likely some youthful and more boisterous pastime is meant.
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