Institutio Oratoria

But we must none the less observe the happy mean, and it makes no small difference from whom we take payment, what payment we demand, and how long we continue to do so. As for the piratical practice of bargaining and the scandalous traffic of those who proportion their fees to the peril in which their would-be client stands, such a procedure will be eschewed even by those who are more than half scoundrels, more especially since the advocate who devotes himself

to the defence of good men and worthy causes will have nothing to fear from ingratitude. And even if a client should prove ungrateful, it is better that he should be the sinner and not our orator.