be a grammarian, was considered an idle follower of the Epicurean sect,
and little qualified to be a master (512) of a school. Finding,
therefore, that, at Rome, not only Antonius Gnipho, but even other
teachers of less note were preferred to him, he retired to Cumae, where
he lived at his ease; and, though he wrote several books, he was so
needy, and reduced to such straits, as to be compelled to sell that
excellent little work of his, "The Index to the Annals," for sixteen
thousand sesterces. Orbilius has informed us, that he redeemed this work
from the oblivion into which it had fallen, and took care to have it
published with the author's name.

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.