Letter 6002: When I am in the courts I frequently find myself regretting Marcus Regulus, though I hardly mean to say that I want...
Pliny the Younger→Arrianus|c. 104 AD|Pliny the Younger
grief deathimperial politics
To Arrianus.
When I am in the courts I frequently find myself regretting Marcus Regulus, though I hardly mean to say that I want him back again. Why then, you may ask, do I regret him? For these reasons. He used to hold the profession in great respect; he used to be nervous and anxious to succeed and write out his speeches beforehand, though he could never thoroughly commit them to memory. Even his practice of smearing ointment over either his right or left eye - the former if he were appearing for the plaintiff, and the latter when he was pleading for a defendant - and his habit of changing the white patch from one eyebrow to the other, and consulting the soothsayers as to how his cases would go, though due to gross superstition on his part, were also to be partly explained by the great regard in which he held our profession. Again, his other practice of always demanding that we should be allowed to speak as long as we desired, and the way in which he succeeded in getting an audience together, were very gratifying to those who were engaged in the same cases as he was. For what can be more pleasant than to go on speaking to your heart's content, when someone else gets all the odium, and to speak at your leisure to an audience which another has brought together, as though you had no choice in the matter ?
However, be that as it may, Regulus did well to die, and he would have done better still if he had died earlier, for he might have lived without any harm to the public under an emperor in whose reign he could do no damage. And so I am justified in now and then regretting his loss, for after his death the custom gradually crept in and became firmly established for counsel to ask for, and for the judges to grant, a time-limit for speeches of two water-clocks, * or even one apiece, and sometimes only half a one. Those who plead prefer to get their speeches over rather than go on pleading, and those who listen to them are more anxious to have done than to come to a right decision. Such is the general carelessness, laziness, and disrespect of our profession, and of the hazards which we advocates undergo. Are we wiser than our ancestors were ? Are we more just than the very laws which apportion so many hours, days, and adjournments for each case? Were they dull-witted and slow-coaches, or are we clearer speakers, quicker thinkers, and more conscientious judges than they, that we should hurry through a case in fewer water-glasses than they took days for the finishing of them? O Regulus! to think that your ambition should have gained you from all sides the favour which is rarely accorded to the most conscientious pleader!
For my own part, whenever I am on the bench, and I am oftener there than pleading, I grant counsel as much time ** as they desire, no matter what amount they ask for. For I consider it rash to form any opinion as to what time a case will take while it has yet to be heard, and to set a fixed time-limit to a trial, the length of which you do not now, especially as the first duty of a conscientious judge is to show patience, a virtue which forms no small part of justice itself. But, people argue, a good deal of irrelevant matter is spoken. It may be so, but it is better that it should be so than that any necessary points should be omitted; and again, there are no means of telling whether an argument is irrelevant or not until you have heard it. However, it will be better to discuss these matters, as well as numerous other public shortcomings, in person, for you, like myself, have such a regard for the common good that you desire to see many things put straight which will be no easy undertaking at this time of day. But just a word for our private affairs ! Is everything going on well with you at home? With me there is no news, but I am all the better pleased with my good fortune because it continues, and as for the inconveniences of life, well, they seem to grow lighter, because I am getting well used to them. Farewell.
[Note: Three water-clocks were equivalent to one Roman hour.
]
[Note: Literally, "as much water" (of the water-clock).]
L To Arrianus.
When I am in the courts I frequently find myself regretting Marcus Regulus, though I hardly mean to say that I want him back again. Why then, you may ask, do I regret him? For these reasons. He used to hold the profession in great respect; he used to be nervous and anxious to succeed and write out his speeches beforehand, though he could never thoroughly commit them to memory. Even his practice of smearing ointment over either his right or left eye - the former if he were appearing for the plaintiff, and the latter when he was pleading for a defendant - and his habit of changing the white patch from one eyebrow to the other, and consulting the soothsayers as to how his cases would go, though due to gross superstition on his part, were also to be partly explained by the great regard in which he held our profession. Again, his other practice of always demanding that we should be allowed to speak as long as we desired, and the way in which he succeeded in getting an audience together, were very gratifying to those who were engaged in the same cases as he was. For what can be more pleasant than to go on speaking to your heart's content, when someone else gets all the odium, and to speak at your leisure to an audience which another has brought together, as though you had no choice in the matter ?
However, be that as it may, Regulus did well to die, and he would have done better still if he had died earlier, for he might have lived without any harm to the public under an emperor in whose reign he could do no damage. And so I am justified in now and then regretting his loss, for after his death the custom gradually crept in and became firmly established for counsel to ask for, and for the judges to grant, a time-limit for speeches of two water-clocks, * or even one apiece, and sometimes only half a one. Those who plead prefer to get their speeches over rather than go on pleading, and those who listen to them are more anxious to have done than to come to a right decision. Such is the general carelessness, laziness, and disrespect of our profession, and of the hazards which we advocates undergo. Are we wiser than our ancestors were ? Are we more just than the very laws which apportion so many hours, days, and adjournments for each case? Were they dull-witted and slow-coaches, or are we clearer speakers, quicker thinkers, and more conscientious judges than they, that we should hurry through a case in fewer water-glasses than they took days for the finishing of them? O Regulus! to think that your ambition should have gained you from all sides the favour which is rarely accorded to the most conscientious pleader!
For my own part, whenever I am on the bench, and I am oftener there than pleading, I grant counsel as much time ** as they desire, no matter what amount they ask for. For I consider it rash to form any opinion as to what time a case will take while it has yet to be heard, and to set a fixed time-limit to a trial, the length of which you do not now, especially as the first duty of a conscientious judge is to show patience, a virtue which forms no small part of justice itself. But, people argue, a good deal of irrelevant matter is spoken. It may be so, but it is better that it should be so than that any necessary points should be omitted; and again, there are no means of telling whether an argument is irrelevant or not until you have heard it. However, it will be better to discuss these matters, as well as numerous other public shortcomings, in person, for you, like myself, have such a regard for the common good that you desire to see many things put straight which will be no easy undertaking at this time of day. But just a word for our private affairs ! Is everything going on well with you at home? With me there is no news, but I am all the better pleased with my good fortune because it continues, and as for the inconveniences of life, well, they seem to grow lighter, because I am getting well used to them. Farewell.
(*) Three water-clocks were equivalent to one Roman hour.
(**) Literally, "as much water" (of the water-clock).
◆
To Arrianus.
When I am in the courts I frequently find myself regretting Marcus Regulus, though I hardly mean to say that I want him back again. Why then, you may ask, do I regret him? For these reasons. He used to hold the profession in great respect; he used to be nervous and anxious to succeed and write out his speeches beforehand, though he could never thoroughly commit them to memory. Even his practice of smearing ointment over either his right or left eye - the former if he were appearing for the plaintiff, and the latter when he was pleading for a defendant - and his habit of changing the white patch from one eyebrow to the other, and consulting the soothsayers as to how his cases would go, though due to gross superstition on his part, were also to be partly explained by the great regard in which he held our profession. Again, his other practice of always demanding that we should be allowed to speak as long as we desired, and the way in which he succeeded in getting an audience together, were very gratifying to those who were engaged in the same cases as he was. For what can be more pleasant than to go on speaking to your heart's content, when someone else gets all the odium, and to speak at your leisure to an audience which another has brought together, as though you had no choice in the matter ?
However, be that as it may, Regulus did well to die, and he would have done better still if he had died earlier, for he might have lived without any harm to the public under an emperor in whose reign he could do no damage. And so I am justified in now and then regretting his loss, for after his death the custom gradually crept in and became firmly established for counsel to ask for, and for the judges to grant, a time-limit for speeches of two water-clocks, * or even one apiece, and sometimes only half a one. Those who plead prefer to get their speeches over rather than go on pleading, and those who listen to them are more anxious to have done than to come to a right decision. Such is the general carelessness, laziness, and disrespect of our profession, and of the hazards which we advocates undergo. Are we wiser than our ancestors were ? Are we more just than the very laws which apportion so many hours, days, and adjournments for each case? Were they dull-witted and slow-coaches, or are we clearer speakers, quicker thinkers, and more conscientious judges than they, that we should hurry through a case in fewer water-glasses than they took days for the finishing of them? O Regulus! to think that your ambition should have gained you from all sides the favour which is rarely accorded to the most conscientious pleader!
For my own part, whenever I am on the bench, and I am oftener there than pleading, I grant counsel as much time ** as they desire, no matter what amount they ask for. For I consider it rash to form any opinion as to what time a case will take while it has yet to be heard, and to set a fixed time-limit to a trial, the length of which you do not now, especially as the first duty of a conscientious judge is to show patience, a virtue which forms no small part of justice itself. But, people argue, a good deal of irrelevant matter is spoken. It may be so, but it is better that it should be so than that any necessary points should be omitted; and again, there are no means of telling whether an argument is irrelevant or not until you have heard it. However, it will be better to discuss these matters, as well as numerous other public shortcomings, in person, for you, like myself, have such a regard for the common good that you desire to see many things put straight which will be no easy undertaking at this time of day. But just a word for our private affairs ! Is everything going on well with you at home? With me there is no news, but I am all the better pleased with my good fortune because it continues, and as for the inconveniences of life, well, they seem to grow lighter, because I am getting well used to them. Farewell.
[Note: Three water-clocks were equivalent to one Roman hour.
]
[Note: Literally, "as much water" (of the water-clock).]
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.