Res Gestae

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.