Roman

405

Such is the description of that real elo taken not to mean that the learned lawyer quence which, according to Tacitus, pre is blind, or even closing the eye to take vailed in Rome at the time when Cicero better aim, but more probably a satirical delivered his most celebrated orations, dif allusion to his seeing but one side of the fering greatly from those tricks which the question. historian then saw being freely adopted by Other gifts were presented to successful the leading lawyers of his day, — tricks lawyers by grateful clients, some paying in which are mentioned by the Younger Pliny " kind " as Martial points to the rows of when speaking of his opponent, Regulus. presents by Sabellius at the Saturnalia, Epistle Sixth (Book I.) describes this law which though poor in themselves are suf yer as a man of unbounded impudence, some ficient to cause Sabellius to swell out with learning, great superstition, and no little pride, and imagine himself one of the best charlatanism. " He had a queer custom of lawyers of the day. painting round his right eye if he was coun Many of the remarks made must, however, sel for the plainti/f, his left if he was for the de only be taken as the expression of, perhaps, fendant; of wearing a white patch round his mere personal spite. forehead, of asking the soothsayers what the Seneca, for instance, calls lawyers a " venal issue of the action would be, and so forth." race;" Fronto says that "their love of money That such lawyers found themselves much is so great that their wives must be women run after may be affirmed by the many hints of a very large appetite; " the " Canine which frequently occcur in the writings of Study" is mentioned by Columella; and Juvenal and Martial. The atria of their Martial advises a friend rather to pay up houses were, according to Vitruvius, daily than go to law, as Sextus, the defendant, filled by visitors anxious to see the promi will find that both the judge and the patronent men of their day'; and foreigners came nus will require to be paid. from the other municipalities and districts to "Et judex petit et petit patronus make the acquaintance of men whose repute Solvas censes, Sexte, creditori." had travelled far. Addressing a schoolmaster, " invisum pueThe position of jurists who assisted the ris virginibusque caput," Martial rails at him non-professional tribunes and prefects who for disturbing his slumbers by roaring out sat in judgment with their professional ad the lessons at the top of his lungs, making vice, though not so lucrative a career as was as much noise as does the hammer of the that of the advocates, was, nevertheless, also workman, who fixes with repeated blows the eagerly sought after by the members of the statue of the lawyer upon the back of the plebeian order. In that indignant pouringbrazen horse. We may suppose, therefore, out of the vials of republican wrath to be that some grateful client had ordered an found in Juvenal's Eighth Satire, we find equestrian statue of his favorite legal ad him sneering at Rubellius puffed up with viser, more especially as we find Juvenal al pride at his descent from so noble an ances luding to the same subject in his Seventh try as the Drusi. In this Satire he causes Satire, when describing the lawyer CEmi- Rubellius to say, addressing those whom he considers inferior by birth : " You, most lius; who is not content with being repre sented in a quadriga, but in his courtyard is lowly, are the very dregs of our population; not one of you could point out the birth to be seen a brazen equestrian statue bal ancing in its hand the poised javelin; and place of his father; but I am of the Cecrothe statue seems about to engage in combat, pides." " Long may you live to enjoy such though blind of one eye. This expression, honors," answers the poet; " but it is out of which is rather curious, may, however, be the plebeian order that an eloquent Roman 54