The students would memorize the text and recite it from memory. Then they would embark on a succession of exercises designed to make them intimately familiar with the work in question. They would paraphrase the model text, putting it in their own words. They would translate the text from Greek to Latin or Latin to Greek. They would turn the text from Latin prose into Latin verse, or even from Latin prose into Greek verse. They would compress the model into fewer words, or elaborate it at greater length; they would alter its tone from plainspoken to grandiloquent, or the other way around.
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