Res Gestae

This is what took place throughout Gaul and Before[*](378 A.D.) the northern part of the empire. But in the regions of the East, amid the profound quiet of foreign affairs, destructive internal corruption was increasing through the friends and intimates of Valens, with whom advantage prevailed over honour. For diligent efforts were exerted to turn the emperor, as a severe man and eager to hear cases at law, from his desire to act as judge; for fear that as in the times of Julian,[*](Cf. xxii. 9, 9 ff.) if the defence of innocence should revive, the arrogance of powerful men, which under the licence that they had assumed was in the habit of always reaching out farther, might be checked.

On these and similar grounds many united in a common attempt at dissuasion and in particular the praetorian prefect Modestus,[*](Cf. xix. 12, 6. He was general in the Orient under Constantius and was made praetorian prefect by Julian.) a man wholly subjected to the influence of the eunuchs of the court, of a boorish nature refined by no reading of the ancient writers. He, wearing a forced and deceptive expression, declared that the trivialities of private cases at law were beneath the dignity of the imperial majesty. Accordingly Valens, thinking that the examination of swarms[*](See p. 330, note 1.) of legal cases was devised to humble[*](Cf. humilitati, xxix. 2, 16.) the loftiness of the royal power, in accordance with the advice of Modestus, abstained from it

This trade of forensic oratory the great Plato defined as πολιτικῆς μορίου εἴδωλον (that is, the shadow of a small part of the science of government[*](Plato, Gorgias, 463 b. For amplitudo Platonis, cf. xxii. 16, 22, sermonum amplitudine lovis aemulus Platon. ) ) or as the fourth part of flattery;[*](I.e., the lowest of the four parts.) but Epicurus counts it among evil arts, calling it κακοτεχνία.[*](The art of deceiving; cf. Quintilian, ii. 15, 2; 20, 2. Epicurus denied that it was an art.) Tisias[*](One of the earliest rhetoricians, a teacher of Gorgias; see Cic., Brut. 12, 46.) says that it is the artist of persuasion, and Gorgias of Leontini agrees with him.

This art, thus defined by the men of old, the cunning of certain Orientals raised to a degree hateful to good men, for which reason it is even confined by the restraints of a time fixed beforehand.[*](So, at Athens, to a space of time marked by the emptying of the clepsydra, or water-clock.) Therefore after having described in a very few words its unworthiness, with which I became acquainted while I was living in those parts, I shall return to the course of the narrative with which I began.

Formerly judgement-seats gained glory through the support of old-time refinement, when orators of fiery eloquence,[*](Cf. concitatus orator, xiv. 7, 18.) devoted to learned studies, were eminent for talent and justice, and for the fluency and many adornments of their diction; for example Demosthenes, to hear whom, when he was going to speak, as the Attic records testify, the people were wont to flock together from all Greece[*](Cf. Cic., Brutus, 84, 289.) ; and

Not less eminent among the Romans were men like Rutilius, Galba, and Scaurus, conspicuous for their life, their character, and their uprightness; and later in the various epochs of subsequent times many former censors and consuls, and men who had been honoured with triumphs, such as Crassus, Antonius, Philippus, Scaevola,[*](All these men are mentioned in Cicero’s Brutus; see Index.) and many others, after successful campaigns, after victories and trophies, distinguished themselves by civic services to the State, and winning laurels in the glorious contests of the Forum, enjoyed Fame’s highest honours.

After these Cicero, the most eminent of them all, by the floods of his all-conquering oratory often saved the oppressed from the fiery ordeal of the courts, and declared: It might perhaps be pardonable to refuse to defend some men, but to defend them negligently could be nothing but criminal.[*](Preserved only here; cf. In Caec. 18, 60.)