CLASSICS. "What need to speak of Democritus? . . . Who does not place this philosopher above Cleanthes, Chrysippus, and the others of later times? These appear to me to be fifth class as compared with him" (qui mini cum illo collati quintae classis videntur). Thus Cicero, Academics ii. 23, 73. The expression "fifth class," natural and familiar as it sounds to a modern ear, has an interesting history. Among the constitutional reforms as cribed to Servius Tullius, the sixth king of Rome, was the divi sion of the citizens into five classes according to the amount of their property as determined from time to time by a census. Hence the fifth classis denoted the lowest class of citizen from the point of view of wealth. It appears from Aulus Gellius, vi. 13, that the term classicus was applied only to the first or highest classis: "Not all those who were enrolled in the five classes were called classici, but only the men of the first class, who were rated at 125,000 asses or more. `Below class' was the appellation given to those of the second or other classes rated at a lower sum. . . . This I have briefly noted because apropos of M. Cato's speech in support of the Voconian law the question is often asked what is meant by classicus and what by `below class.' " When or by whom the term was first used in a metaphorical sense to denote an order of merit, we do not know. This extension is already im plied in the quintae classis of Cicero. But the first extant example of classicus to denote the highest order of literary merit seems to be Aulus Gellius (2nd century A.D.) xix., 8, 15. Julius Caesar in his treatise De Analogia had laid down the doctrine that quadrigae (in the plural), even of a single chariot, is the only cor rect use, and conversely that harena (sand) is only used correctly in the singular. Gellius narrates a conversation on the matter with M. Cornelius Fronto, who supports the opinion of Caesar, and concludes with the words : "Now go, and when you have time see if you can find quadrigae in the singular, or harena in the plu ral, written by any of the elder orators and poets—I mean, by one who is a classicus and assiduus writer, not one who is prole tarius." Assiduus seems to have been applied more generally to members of the wealthier classes, being equivalent to locuples and indicating a person of property (Cic. Rep. ii. 22-40; cf. Aul. Gell. xvi. io). Proletarii, on the other hand, were the poorest citizens who contributed nothing to the state but their offspring (proles) ; (cf. Aul. Gell. 1.c., Cic., Rep. ii. 22-40). In modern times the word "classic" is in common use of any author who has tholed the assize of the centuries, or even of one who in his own time is classed with those who have : Macaulay, Boswell's Life of Johnson: "What a singular destiny has been that of this remarkable man! To be regarded in his own age as a classic and in ours as a com panion !" But the term "classics" has been long and widely used to denote more especially the literatures of ancient Greece and Rome, and in that sense it is employed here.