Res Gestae

In order to seem to have a deeper knowledge of the law, they talk of Trebatius,[*](Horace, Serm. ii. 1; Cicero, Ad Fam. vii. 5, 8, 17.) Cascellius,[*](Of the time of the first triumvirate; cf. Val. Max., vi. 2, 12; Hor., A.P. 371.) and Alfenus,[*](Alfenus Varus, cf. Hor., Serm. i. 3, 130.) and of the laws of the Aurunci and Sicani,[*](Typical of antiquity; cf. Virg., Aen. viii. 51 ff.; Hor., Serm. i. 3, 91; Gell. i. 10, 1, 2.) which were long since forgotten and buried many ages ago along with Evander’s mother.[*](A humorous superlative of antiquus. Evander is typical of antiquity (Hor., Serm. i. 3, 91; etc.), and his mother carries us back a generation.) And if you pretend that you have purposely murdered your mother, they promise, if they have observed that you are a moneyed man,[*](Cf. xiv. 6, 12, note 3; Cic., Agr., ii. 22, 59.) that their many recondite studies will secure an acquittal for you.

A third group consists of those who, in order to gain glory by their troublous profession, sharpen their venal tongues[*](Cf. ingenium procudere, xv. 2, 8; procudere linguas, xxxi. 16, 9.) to attack the truth, and with shameless brow and base yelping often gain entrance wherever they wish. When the anxious judges are distracted by many cares, they tie up the business in an inexplicable tangle, and do their best to involve all peace and quiet in lawsuits and purposely by knotty inquisitions they deceive the courts, which, when their procedure is right, are temples of justice, when corrupted, are deceptive and hidden pits: and if anyone is deluded and falls into those pits, he will not get out except after many a term of years, when he has been sucked dry to his very marrow.

The fourth and last class, shameless, headstrong, and ignorant, consists of those who have broken away too soon from the elementary schools, run to and fro through the corners of the cities, thinking out mimiambic lines,[*](By mimiambi are meant either farces or songs written in iambics. See Pliny, Epist. vi. 21, 4; Gell. xx. 9, 1 ff.) rather than speeches suitable to win law-suits, wearing out the doors of the rich, and hunting for banquets and fine choice food.

When they have once devoted themselves to shady gain and to eagerness for money from any and every source, they urge all kinds of innocent people to involve themselves in vain litigations. And when they are allowed to defend suits, which rarely happens, amidst the very turning-points of the disputes they learn the name of their client and the purport of the business in hand from the mouth of the judge, and they so overflow with disarranged circumlocutions that in the foul hotchpotch you would think you were hearing a Thersites[*](Here a typical name for a foul-mouthed rascal; Iliad, ii. 211 ff.) with his howling din.

But when they find themselves in the end unable to defend the charges, they turn to unbridled licence in abuse; and on this account, because of their constant insults of persons of rank, they are prosecuted and often condemned; and among them are some who are so ignorant that they cannot remember that they ever possessed a law-book.

And if in a circle of learned men the name of an ancient writer happens to be mentioned, they think it is a foreign word for some fish or other edible; but if any stranger asks for the orator Marcianus (for example),[*](Here a typical name.) who was