Lucius Seneca - Yale Required Reading - Collected Works (Vol. 2)

When Crassus had uttered these words a silence ensued. But though enough seemed to have been said in the opinion of the company present, in reference to what had been proposed, yet they thought that he had concluded his speech more abruptly than they could have wished. Scaevola then said, "What is the matter, Cotta? why are you silent? Does nothing more occur to you which you would wish to ask Crassus?" "Nay," he replied, "that is the very thing of which I am thinking; for the rapidity of his words was such, and his speech was winged with such speed, that though I perceived its force and energy I could scarcely see its track and course; and, as if I had come into some rich and well-furnished house, where the furniture 19was not unpacked, nor the plate set out, nor the pictures and statues placed in view, but a multitude of all these magnificent things laid up and heaped together; so just now, in the speech of Crassus, I saw his opulence and the riches of his genius, through veils and curtains as it were; but when I desired to take a nearer view, there was scarcely opportunity for taking a glance at them; I can therefore neither say that I am wholly ignorant of what he possesses, nor that I have plainly ascertained and beheld it." "Then," said Scaevola, "why do you not act in the same way as you would do, if you had really come into a house or villa full of rich furniture? If everything was put by as you describe, and you had a great curiosity to see it, you would not hesitate to ask the master to order it to be brought out, especially if he was your friend; in like manner you will now surely ask Crassus to bring forth into the light that profusion of splendid objects which are his property, (and of which, piled together in one place, we have caught a glimpse, as it were through a lattice, 20as we passed by,) and set everything in its proper situation." "I rather ask you, Scaevola," says Cotta, "to do that for me; (for modesty forbids Sulpicius and myself to ask of one of the most eminent of mankind, who has ever held in contempt this kind of disputation, such things as he perhaps regards only as rudiments for children;) but do you oblige us in this, Scaevola, and prevail on Crassus to unfold and enlarge upon those matters which he has crowded together, and crammed into so small a space in his speech." "Indeed," said Scaevola, "I desired that before, more upon your account than my own; nor did I feel so much longing for this discussion from Crassus, as I experience pleasure from his speeches in pleading. But now, Crassus, I ask you also on my own account, that since we have so much more leisure than has been allowed us for long time, you would not think it troublesome to complete the edifice which you have commenced; for I see a finer and better plan of the whole work than I could have imagined, and one of which I strongly approve."

"I cannot sufficiently wonder," says Crassus, "that even you, Scaevola, should require of me that which I do not understand like those who teach it, and which is of such a nature, that if I understood it ever so well, it would be unworthy of your wisdom and attention." "Say you so?" replied Scaevola. "If you think it scarcely worthy of my age to listen to those ordinary precepts, commonly known everywhere, can we possibly neglect those other matters which you said must be known by the orator, respecting the dispositions and manners of mankind, the means by which the minds of men are excited or calmed, history, antiquity, the administration of the republic, and finally of our own civil law itself? For I knew that all this science, this abundance of knowledge, was within the compass of your understanding, but had never seen such rich furniture in the outfit of an orator."

"Can you then," says Crassus, "(to omit other things innumerable and without limit, and come to your study, the civil law,) can you account them orators, for whom Scaevola, 21though in haste to go to the Campus Martius, waited several hours, sometimes laughing and sometimes angry, while Hypsaeus, in the loudest voice, and with a multitude of words, was trying to obtain of Marcus Crassus, the praetor, that the party whom he defended might be allowed to lose his suit; and Gnaeus Octavius, a man of consular dignity, in a speech of equal length, refused to consent that his adversary should lose his case, and that the party for whom he was speaking should be released from the ignominious charge of having been unfaithful in his guardianship, and from all trouble, through the folly of his antagonist?" 22"I should have thought such men," replied Scaevola, "(for I remember Mucius 23told me the story,) not only unworthy of the name of orators, but unworthy even to appear to plead in the forum." "Yet," replied Crassus, "those advocates neither wanted eloquence, nor method, nor abundance of words, but a knowledge of the civil law: for in this case one, in bringing his suit, sought to recover more damages than the law of the Twelve Tables allowed, and, if he had gained those damages, would have lost his case: the other thought it unjust that he himself should be proceeded against for more than was allowed in that sort of action, and did not understand that his adversary, if he proceeded in that manner, would lose his suit.

"Within these few days, 24while we were sitting at the tribunal of our friend Quintus Pompeius, the city praetor, did not a man who is ranked among the eloquent pray that the benefit of the ancient and usual exception, of which sum there is time for payment, might be allowed to a party from whom a sum of money was demanded; an exception which he did not understand to be made for the benefit of the creditor; so that if the defendant 25had proved to the judge that the action was brought for the money before it became due, the plaintiff, 26on bringing a fresh action, would be precluded by the exception, that the matter had before come into judgment. What more disgraceful therefore can possibly be said or done, than that he who has assumed the character of an advocate, ostensibly to defend the causes and interests of his friends, to assist the distressed, to relieve such as are sick at heart, and to cheer the afflicted, should so err in the slightest and most trivial matters, as to seem an object of pity to some, and of ridicule to others? I consider my relation, Publius Crassus, who from his wealth had the surname of Dives, 27to have been, in many other respects, a man of taste and elegance, but especially worthy of praise and commendation on this account, that ( as he was the brother of Publius Scaevola ) 28he was accustomed to observe to him, that neither could he 29have satisfied the claims of the civil law if he had not added the power of speaking (which his son here, who was my colleague in the consulate, has fully attained); nor had he himself 30begun to practise, and plead the cases of his friends, before he had gained a knowledge of the civil law. What sort of character was the illustrious Marcus Cato? Was he not possessed of as great a share of eloquence as those times and that age 31would admit in this city, and at the same time the most learned of all men in the civil law? I have been speaking for some time the more timidly on this point, because there is with us a man 32eminent in speaking, whom I admire as an orator beyond all others; but who has ever held the civil law in contempt. But, as you desired to learn my sentiments and opinions, I will conceal nothing from you, but, as far as I am able, will communicate to you my thoughts upon every subject.

"The almost incredible, unparalleled, and divine power of genius in Antonius appears to me, although wanting in legal knowledge, to be able easily to sustain and defend itself with the aid of other weapons of reason; let him therefore be an exception; but I shall not hesitate to condemn others, by my sentence, of lack of effort in the first place, and of lack of modesty in the next. For to flutter about the forum, to loiter in courts of justice and at the tribunals of the praetors, to undertake private suits in matters of the greatest concern, in which the question is often not about fact, but about equity and law, to swagger in cases heard before the centumviri, 33in which the laws of prescriptive rights, of guardianship, of kindred, 34of agnation, 35of alluvions, circumluvions, 36of bonds, of transferring property, of party walls, lights, stillicidia, 37of wills, transgressed or established, and innumerable other matters are debated, when a man is utterly ignorant what is properly his own, and what his neighbour's, why any person is considered a citizen or a foreigner, a slave or a freeman, is a proof of extraordinary impudence. It is ridiculous arrogance for a man to confess himself unskilful in navigating smaller vessels, and yet say that he has learned to pilot galleys with five banks of oars, or even larger ships. You who are deceived by a quibble of your adversary in a private company, you who set your seal to a deed for your client, in which that is written by which he is outdone; can I think that any case of greater consequence ought to be entrusted to you? Sooner assuredly shall he who upsets a two-oared boat in the harbour steer the vessel of the Argonauts in the Euxine Sea.