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In this connexion a rather curious question suggests itself. How did Hortensius amass this princely fortune, and what compensation did the Roman advocates receive for their forensic services? Judging from the visible results, it was liberal enough to excite the envy even of Lord Eldon, who is said to have retired upon something like a million sterling.

It is a remark of Mr. Dunlop, that Cicero's treatise De Claris Oratoribus, makes mention of scarcely any orator of however inferior note, that did not rise to the highest dignities of the state; from which he infers that eloquence was in in those times a mighty engine of political advancement. This conclusion, though just in point of fact, is illogically drawn, and our author we suspect, mistakes an effect for the cause. It may be true that every speaker became a great man, but it was equally true that every great man was necessarily a speaker. Eloquence and the civil law, such as they were in those early times, were essential accomplishments, as they were the peculiar, hereditary province of the nobility. That in the age of feudal anarchy every baron should be a knight, and every knight excel in the use of arms and the management of the war-horse, was not more indispensable. These occupations were emphatically called the militia togata or forensis. They grew out of the relation of patron and client-some of the incidents and consequences of which strikingly resemble those of the feudal tenure. It was the privilege as it was the interest of every plebeian to choose a patron out of the patrician order, whose duty it was to expound the law to him, to maintain his rights, to protect his person, to appear for and defend him in all suits and trials, and, in general, to afford him his counsel and assistance in every important concern. In return for these services, it was the duty of the client to assist his patron in making up his daughter's portion, to redeem him or his children from captivity, to pay such fines and forfeitures as he might incur, to help him to support the expenses of public shows, &c. The same sort of connexion was extended to the colonies, the cities in alliance with Rome, and even to whole nations, who chose distinguished individuals for their protectors and advisers. The relation was looked upon as a bond of peculiar intimacy and sacredness, and in strict theory as well as in the practice of primitive ages, these reciprocal services were regarded as a sufficient consideration for each other, and for all other services whatsoever.* But as in the case of feods, in process of time, what was at first be

* Heinecc: Antiqnit. J. C. 1. i. Tit. ii. § 29, cf. a remarkable passage in Cic. de Orat. 1. iii. c. 33.

nevolence, became duty; aids were exacted as taxes, and a declaratory statute was at length deemed necessary to prevent the impositions which patrons practised upon their clients under the specious colour of friendship. The Lex Cincia, concerning gifts and presents, was enacted in the 549th year of the city. It consisted of three heads; the first, with which alone we have any concern at present, prohibited the taking of any fee or remuneration for arguing a cause. This prohibition extended even to birthday presents, and to gifts on the Saturnalia, the first of January, &c. which pettifoggers made so many pretexts for extortion.* As long as every patron defended his own client, such a law might, perhaps, be enforced, but it must soon have become a dead letter when professional advocates offered their services to all the world, and were indiscriminately employed. Accordingly, although Cicero alludes to it as of force in his time, yet it is certain that he received a very considerable sum from Cornelius Sylla for services in his behalf, which helped him to purchase his magnificent house upon the Palatine Hill; and Plutarch, in his life, mentions that his refusing to take fees, (in general we suppose) was regarded by his contemporaries as a signal proof of self-denial, since his private fortune was not a very ample one, at least for a friend of Lucullus and Hortensius. It may be worth while to mention, that the same law was afterwards revived with additional penalties by Augustus, yet went very soon into desuetude, as appears from a debate in the Senate recorded by Tacitus, under the reign of Claudius; where Suillius, the advocate, makes, what appears to us to be an unanswerable argument in favor of fees.t

Yet, without violating the Cincian law, the Roman orators in common with other distinguished personages, were in the way of receiving immense sums by legacies. It is scarcely credible to us, situated as we are in this country, how common and how magnificent these windfalls were, which are only one example of the unbounded liberality and profusion that according to Heineccius, characterized the Roman people above all others. We may judge how much a matter of course it was for persons of consideration to receive them from its being flung out as a reproach against Cicero by Mark Antony, that the orator had never experienced this liberality of his countrymen. This, however, was a calumny, for both he and his friend Atticus had come in for their full share of it, one of them having received about two hundred thousand pounds in that way.

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Schulting. Jurisp. Ant. Justin. 561. Heinec. Antiq. J. C. 1. ii. Tit. vii. § 10
Tac. Ann. 1. xv. c. 6.

Add to all these sources of wealth, the administration of a province which the orators had, of course, after having been elected to the offices of Prætor and Consul, and which may therefore be fairly included anong the rewards of professional eminence. It would be endless to cite authorities to establish the fact, that the provincial government of Rome was little better than a system of plunder and extortion-so that the Prætors richly merited the title given them by Montesquieu of "the Bashaws of the Republic." The example of Cicero is sufficiently striking. He refused absolutely to take any presents, even those which were usually received by the most scrupulous proconsuls. He is supposed, in this way, to have saved to the Province about a million sterling, yet he left to his credit among the Publicans of Asia Minor, at the end of the year, twenty thousand pounds of not only fair, but as it would seem, unavoidable gains.

Of Calvus, another contemporary of Cicero, we have only a few words to say. He seems to have possessed very considerable talent, but he died at an early age. He is principally remarkable as being one, who with Brutus and Pollio, condemned Cicero's eloquence as pompous and feeble, and endeavoured to exemplify, in his own speeches, the genuine Attic style, as it was called, of Thucydides or Lysias.

We e are, at length, come down to the great orator who is to occupy our attention during the remainder of this paper. But, before we proceed to analyze his style of speaking, we shall make a few preliminary remarks upon two interesting topics, in order that we may present a more comprehensive view of the whole subject. These are, Ist, what were the scenes or theatres, so to express it, of Roman eloquence, 2ly, What did the ancients think a good speech, and whether there is any essential difference between their notions of eloquence and those which prevail at present.

1. The Roman orators were called to exercise their powers either before the Prætor and the Selecti Judices, before the Senate, or before the people in the Comitia, or public assemblies. The first of these occasions was very analagous to our jury trial, the Prætor performing the functions of the Judge, and the judices being only a certain number of senators or knights, or both (according to the times) drawn by lot, like our "good and lawful men," to form an assise and pass upon the facts of the This was the exclusive province of forensic eloquence. The Senate, on the contrary, was the proper theatre of the deliberative. This imposing assembly was made up of the great dignitaries of state, and of those that had been so; as soon as a

case.

citizen had been elected Quæstor, which he might be about his twenty-seventh year, he was of course a member of it, and so continued ever afterwards. The Consuls, for the time being, presided over it, and asked leading members, by name, their opinions upon any subject before the House, in whatever order they chose to adopt, though they generally began with the Consulars, and after the elections were over, with the Consuls elect. To add to the solemnity of the scene and the occasion, they could be convened no where else but in a holy place, either in the temple of some god (as was mostly the case) or in one of the Curia dedicated, with proper rites, especially to that purpose. The number of the Senate is supposed, by Middleton, to have been in Cicero's time about five hundred, although it is certain that half that number was reckoned a full house, and the Cornelian Law permitted even the obligation of a law to be dispensed with if two hundred senators were present. It is important to remark that when a member once got possession of the floor, he was not, by the rules of the body, subject to any interruption, and so might address himself to every thing but the matter in hand, and even harangue away at random, with a visible determination to waste the whole day (for their acts were not valid if passed after dark) without any danger of being called to order by the president or moderator. The assembly, indeed, sometimes, in cases of extreme necessity, took the law into their own hands and put down a tedious or obtrusive speaker, as they would have killed a highwayman, in sheer self-defence.* seem to have been, in general, patient listeners-the longest speech, according to a fault-finding critic, they thought the best,+ and we may congratulate ourselves that in this respect, at least, our Congress approaches more nearly than the Parliament of Great Britain, to the dignity of a Roman Senate. The eloquence addressed to the comitia or popular assemblies was either forensic or deliberative, as they met both to pass laws and to judge questions of right; but in either case their tumultuary proceedings were not very agreeable to our ideas of the order and decorum required in judicature and legislation.

But they

Even where cases were tried before the Prætor and his assessors, and where the number of judges was much less, everything was more calculated to excite the feelings both of the

*A. Gell. v. 10. The only case of interruption, however, cited by Middleton, is that of Clodius, mentioned by Cicero ad Att. iv, 2-to which we may add Cataline's on the discovery of his conspiracy.

t Dialog. de Caus. Corrupt, Eloquen. c. 19.

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speaker and of his audience. The following description of the Forum is worth citing here:

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"The spot, too, on which the courts of justice assembled, was calculated to inspire and heighten eloquence. The Roman Forum presented one of the most splendid spectacles that eye could behold, or fancy conceive. This space formed an oblong square between the Palatine and Capitoline hills, composed of a vast assemblage of sumptuous though irregular edifices. On the side next the Palatine hill stood the ancient Senate-house, and Comitium, and Temple of Romulus the Founder.On the opposite quarter, it was bounded by the Capitol, with its ascending range of porticos, and the temple of the tutelar deity on the summit. The other sides of the square were adorned with basilicæ, and piazzas terminated by triumphal arches; and were bordered with statues, erected to the memory of the ancient heroes or preservers of their country. Having been long the theatre of the factions, the politics, the intrigues, the crimes, and the revolutions of the capital, every spot of its surface was consecrated to the recollection of some great incident in the domestic history of the Romans; while their triumphs over foreign enemies were vividly called to remembrance by the Rostrum itself, which stood in the centre of the vacant area, and by other trophies gained from vanquished nations:

"Et crista capitum, et portarum ingentia claustra,
Spiculaque, clypeique, ereptaque rostra carinis."

A vast variety of shops, stored with a profusion of the most costly merchandize, likewise surrounded this heart and centre of the world, so that it was the mart for all important commercial transactions. Being thus the emporium of law, politics and trade, it became the resort of men of business, as well as of those loiterers whom Horace calls Forenses. Each Roman citizen, regarding himself as a member of the same vast and illustrious family, scrutinized with jealous watchfulness the conduct of his rulers, and looked with anxious solicitude to the issue of every important cause. In all trials of oppression or extortion, the Roman multitude took a particular interest,-repairing in such numbers to the Forum, that even its spacious square was hardly sufficient to contain those who were attracted to it by curiosity; and who, in the course of the trial, were in the habit of expressing their feelings by shouts and acclamations, so that the orator was ever surrounded by a crowded and tumultuary audience. This numerous assembly, too, while it inspired the orator with confidence and animation, after he had commenced his harangue, created in prospect that anxiety which led to the most careful preparation previous to his appearance in public." p. 146.

It is not to be wondered at that in the midst of such multitudes, the forensic eloquence of antiquity should be of a so much bolder and more animated cast than that which we are accustomed to hear addressed, in our courts, to juries guided by the wisdom, and restrained by the authority of an experienced bench.

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