or CLASSICAL, an epithet chiefly applied to authors read in the classes at schools.

This term seems to owe its origin to Tullius Servius, who, in order to make an estimate of every person's estate, divided the Roman people into six bands, which he called classes. The estate of the first class was not to be under 200 l. and these by way of eminence were called clasici, clasices: hence authors of the first rank came to be called classics, all the rest being said to be infra classem: thus Aristotle is a classic author in philosophy; Aquinas, in school-divinity, &c.