To Maximus.
Yes, you are quite right; my time is fully taken up by cases in the centumviral court, * but they give me more worry than pleasure, for most of them are of a minor and unimportant character. Only rarely does a case crop up that stands out, owing either to the distinguished position of the persons in the suit or to the magnitude of the interests involved. Add to this that there are very few with whom I care to plead; all the other advocates are bumptious, and for the most part young men of no standing, who come over here to do their declamations with such utter want of respect and modesty that I think our friend Atilius just hit the nail on the head when he said that mere boys begin their forensic career with cases in the centumviral court, just as they begin with Homer in the schools. For here as there they make their first beginnings on the hardest subjects. Yet, by Heaven, before my time - to use an old man's phrase - not even the highest-born youths had any standing here, unless they were introduced by a man of consular rank.
Such was the respect with which this noble profession was regarded, but now modesty and respect are thrown to the winds and one man is as good as another. So far from being introduced, they burst their way in. Their audiences follow them as if they were actors, bought and paid to do so; the agent is there to meet them in the middle of the basilica, where the doles of money are handed over as openly as the doles of food at a banquet; and they are ready to pass from one court to another for a similar bribe. So these hirelings have been rather wittily dubbed Sophocleses - from their readiness to call bravo, - and they have also been given the Latin name of Laudiceni - from their eagerness to applaud for the sake of getting a dinner. ** Yet this disgraceful practice gets worse from day to day, in spite of the terms of opprobrium applied to it in both languages. Yesterday two of my own nomenclators † - young men, I admit, about the age of those who have just assumed the toga †† - were enticed off to join in the applause for three denarii apiece. Such is the outlay you must make to get a reputation for eloquence! At that price you can fill the benches, however many there are, you can collect a great throng of bystanders and obtain thunders of applause as soon as the conductor gives the signal. For a signal is absolutely necessary for people who do not understand and do not even listen to the speeches, and many of these fellows do not listen at all, though they applaud as heartily as any. If you happen to be crossing through the basilica and wish to know how any one is speaking, there is no need for you to mount to the Bench or listen. It is perfectly safe to guess on the principle that he is speaking worst who gets the most applause.
Largius Licinius was the first to introduce this new fashion of procuring an audience, but he went no further than asking people to go and hear him. At least I remember that Quintilian, my old tutor, used to tell me so. He told the story thus: "I was in attendance on Domitius Afer when he was pleading in the centumviral court in the deliberate and measured style with which he conducted all his cases. He happened to hear from a neighbouring court the sound of extravagant and unusual applause. Wondering what it could mean, he stopped, and then resumed where he had broken off as soon as quiet was restored. Again the shouts came, again he stopped, and after a short period of quiet it began again for the third time. In the end he inquired who was speaking, and was told that it was Licinius. At that he discontinued his case, exclaiming: 'Centumviri, this is death to our profession.'" Indeed, it was beginning to go to the bad in other ways when Afer thought that it had already gone to the bad, but it is now practically ruined and destroyed, root and branch. I am ashamed to tell you what an affected delivery these people have and with what unnatural cheering their speeches are greeted. Their sing-song style only wants clapping of hands, or rather cymbals and drums, to make them like the priests of Cybele, for as for howlings - there is no other word to express the unseemly applause in the theatres - they have enough and to spare. It is only a desire to save my friends and my age ‡ that has induced me to go on practising so long, for I am afraid people would think that if I retired my object was not to shun these indecent scenes but to escape hard work. Yet I am making fewer appearances than usual, and that is the beginning of gradually ceasing to attend altogether. Farewell.
[Note: The court or chamber of a hundred judges. See note to letter i. 5.
]
[Note: Σοφοκλεῖς, shouters of "bravo," with a humorous reference to the tragedian's name. Laudiceni : toadies for the sake of a meal.
]
(†) Slaves who accompanied their masters in the streets to tell them the names of people whom they met.
(††) "They are fourteen or fifteen years of age" - the age at which a citizen would assume the toga virilis.
(‡) i.e., he was still too young to think retirement proper.
L To Maximus.
Yes, you are quite right; my time is fully taken up by cases in the centumviral court, * but they give me more worry than pleasure, for most of them are of a minor and unimportant character. Only rarely does a case crop up that stands out, owing either to the distinguished position of the persons in the suit or to the magnitude of the interests involved. Add to this that there are very few with whom I care to plead; all the other advocates are bumptious, and for the most part young men of no standing, who come over here to do their declamations with such utter want of respect and modesty that I think our friend Atilius just hit the nail on the head when he said that mere boys begin their forensic career with cases in the centumviral court, just as they begin with Homer in the schools. For here as there they make their first beginnings on the hardest subjects. Yet, by Heaven, before my time - to use an old man's phrase - not even the highest-born youths had any standing here, unless they were introduced by a man of consular rank.
Such was the respect with which this noble profession was regarded, but now modesty and respect are thrown to the winds and one man is as good as another. So far from being introduced, they burst their way in. Their audiences follow them as if they were actors, bought and paid to do so; the agent is there to meet them in the middle of the basilica, where the doles of money are handed over as openly as the doles of food at a banquet; and they are ready to pass from one court to another for a similar bribe. So these hirelings have been rather wittily dubbed Sophocleses - from their readiness to call bravo, - and they have also been given the Latin name of Laudiceni - from their eagerness to applaud for the sake of getting a dinner. ** Yet this disgraceful practice gets worse from day to day, in spite of the terms of opprobrium applied to it in both languages. Yesterday two of my own nomenclators † - young men, I admit, about the age of those who have just assumed the toga †† - were enticed off to join in the applause for three denarii apiece. Such is the outlay you must make to get a reputation for eloquence! At that price you can fill the benches, however many there are, you can collect a great throng of bystanders and obtain thunders of applause as soon as the conductor gives the signal. For a signal is absolutely necessary for people who do not understand and do not even listen to the speeches, and many of these fellows do not listen at all, though they applaud as heartily as any. If you happen to be crossing through the basilica and wish to know how any one is speaking, there is no need for you to mount to the Bench or listen. It is perfectly safe to guess on the principle that he is speaking worst who gets the most applause.
Largius Licinius was the first to introduce this new fashion of procuring an audience, but he went no further than asking people to go and hear him. At least I remember that Quintilian, my old tutor, used to tell me so. He told the story thus: "I was in attendance on Domitius Afer when he was pleading in the centumviral court in the deliberate and measured style with which he conducted all his cases. He happened to hear from a neighbouring court the sound of extravagant and unusual applause. Wondering what it could mean, he stopped, and then resumed where he had broken off as soon as quiet was restored. Again the shouts came, again he stopped, and after a short period of quiet it began again for the third time. In the end he inquired who was speaking, and was told that it was Licinius. At that he discontinued his case, exclaiming: 'Centumviri, this is death to our profession.'" Indeed, it was beginning to go to the bad in other ways when Afer thought that it had already gone to the bad, but it is now practically ruined and destroyed, root and branch. I am ashamed to tell you what an affected delivery these people have and with what unnatural cheering their speeches are greeted. Their sing-song style only wants clapping of hands, or rather cymbals and drums, to make them like the priests of Cybele, for as for howlings - there is no other word to express the unseemly applause in the theatres - they have enough and to spare. It is only a desire to save my friends and my age ‡ that has induced me to go on practising so long, for I am afraid people would think that if I retired my object was not to shun these indecent scenes but to escape hard work. Yet I am making fewer appearances than usual, and that is the beginning of gradually ceasing to attend altogether. Farewell.
(*) The court or chamber of a hundred judges. See note to letter i. 5.
(**) Σοφοκλεῖς, shouters of "bravo," with a humorous reference to the tragedian's name. Laudiceni : toadies for the sake of a meal.
(†) Slaves who accompanied their masters in the streets to tell them the names of people whom they met.
(††) "They are fourteen or fifteen years of age" - the age at which a citizen would assume the toga virilis.
(‡) i.e., he was still too young to think retirement proper.
◆
To Maximus.
Yes, you are quite right; my time is fully taken up by cases in the centumviral court, * but they give me more worry than pleasure, for most of them are of a minor and unimportant character. Only rarely does a case crop up that stands out, owing either to the distinguished position of the persons in the suit or to the magnitude of the interests involved. Add to this that there are very few with whom I care to plead; all the other advocates are bumptious, and for the most part young men of no standing, who come over here to do their declamations with such utter want of respect and modesty that I think our friend Atilius just hit the nail on the head when he said that mere boys begin their forensic career with cases in the centumviral court, just as they begin with Homer in the schools. For here as there they make their first beginnings on the hardest subjects. Yet, by Heaven, before my time - to use an old man's phrase - not even the highest-born youths had any standing here, unless they were introduced by a man of consular rank.
Such was the respect with which this noble profession was regarded, but now modesty and respect are thrown to the winds and one man is as good as another. So far from being introduced, they burst their way in. Their audiences follow them as if they were actors, bought and paid to do so; the agent is there to meet them in the middle of the basilica, where the doles of money are handed over as openly as the doles of food at a banquet; and they are ready to pass from one court to another for a similar bribe. So these hirelings have been rather wittily dubbed Sophocleses - from their readiness to call bravo, - and they have also been given the Latin name of Laudiceni - from their eagerness to applaud for the sake of getting a dinner. ** Yet this disgraceful practice gets worse from day to day, in spite of the terms of opprobrium applied to it in both languages. Yesterday two of my own nomenclators † - young men, I admit, about the age of those who have just assumed the toga †† - were enticed off to join in the applause for three denarii apiece. Such is the outlay you must make to get a reputation for eloquence! At that price you can fill the benches, however many there are, you can collect a great throng of bystanders and obtain thunders of applause as soon as the conductor gives the signal. For a signal is absolutely necessary for people who do not understand and do not even listen to the speeches, and many of these fellows do not listen at all, though they applaud as heartily as any. If you happen to be crossing through the basilica and wish to know how any one is speaking, there is no need for you to mount to the Bench or listen. It is perfectly safe to guess on the principle that he is speaking worst who gets the most applause.
Largius Licinius was the first to introduce this new fashion of procuring an audience, but he went no further than asking people to go and hear him. At least I remember that Quintilian, my old tutor, used to tell me so. He told the story thus: "I was in attendance on Domitius Afer when he was pleading in the centumviral court in the deliberate and measured style with which he conducted all his cases. He happened to hear from a neighbouring court the sound of extravagant and unusual applause. Wondering what it could mean, he stopped, and then resumed where he had broken off as soon as quiet was restored. Again the shouts came, again he stopped, and after a short period of quiet it began again for the third time. In the end he inquired who was speaking, and was told that it was Licinius. At that he discontinued his case, exclaiming: 'Centumviri, this is death to our profession.'" Indeed, it was beginning to go to the bad in other ways when Afer thought that it had already gone to the bad, but it is now practically ruined and destroyed, root and branch. I am ashamed to tell you what an affected delivery these people have and with what unnatural cheering their speeches are greeted. Their sing-song style only wants clapping of hands, or rather cymbals and drums, to make them like the priests of Cybele, for as for howlings - there is no other word to express the unseemly applause in the theatres - they have enough and to spare. It is only a desire to save my friends and my age ‡ that has induced me to go on practising so long, for I am afraid people would think that if I retired my object was not to shun these indecent scenes but to escape hard work. Yet I am making fewer appearances than usual, and that is the beginning of gradually ceasing to attend altogether. Farewell.
[Note: The court or chamber of a hundred judges. See note to letter i. 5.
]
[Note: Σοφοκλεῖς, shouters of "bravo," with a humorous reference to the tragedian's name. Laudiceni : toadies for the sake of a meal.
]
(†) Slaves who accompanied their masters in the streets to tell them the names of people whom they met.
(††) "They are fourteen or fifteen years of age" - the age at which a citizen would assume the toga virilis.
(‡) i.e., he was still too young to think retirement proper.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.