Such a manual of rhetoric has been preserved to us, composed under Sulla's dictatorship by an unknown author, who according to the fashion then prevailing( 36) taught simultaneously Latin literature and Latin rhetoric, and wrote on both; a treatise remarkable not merely for its terse, clear, and firm handling of the subject, but above all for its comparative independence in presence of Greek models.
Although in method entirely dependent on the Greeks, the Roman yet distinctly and even abruptly rejects all "the useless matter which the Greeks had gathered together, solely in order that the science might appear more difficult to learn." The bitterest censure is bestowed on the hair-splitting dialectics--that "loquacious science of inability to speak"-- whose finished master, for sheer fear of expressing himself ambiguously, at last no longer ventures to pronounce his own name.

The Greek school-terminology is throughout and intentionally avoided.

Very earnestly the author points out the danger of many teachers, and inculcates the golden rule that the scholar ought above all to be induced by the teacher to help himself; with equal earnestness he recognizes the truth that the school is a secondary, and life the main, matter, and gives in his examples chosen with thorough independence an echo of those forensic speeches which during the last decades had excited notice in the Roman advocate-world.

It deserves attention, that the opposition to the extravagances of Hellenism, which had formerly sought to prevent the rise of a native Latin rhetoric,( 37) continued to influence it after it arose, and thereby secured to Roman eloquence, as compared with the contemporary eloquence of the Greeks, theoretically and practically a higher dignity and a greater usefulness.
Philosophy Philosophy, in fine, was not yet represented in literature, since neither did an inward need develop a national Roman philosophy nor did outward circumstances call forth a Latin philosophical authorship.

It cannot even be shown with certainty that there were Latin translations of popular summaries of philosophy belonging to this period; those who pursued philosophy read and disputed in Greek.
Professional Sciences Jurisprudence In the professional sciences there was but little activity.
Well as the Romans understood how to farm and how to calculate, physical and mathematical research gained no hold among them.
The consequences of neglecting theory appeared practically in the low state of medical knowledge and of a portion of the military sciences.