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

"As to the indolence of which you accuse our youth, for not learning that science, because, in the first place, it is very easy, (how easy it is, let them consider who strut about before us, presuming on their knowledge of the science, as if it were extremely difficult; and do you yourself also consider that point, who say, that it is an easy science, which you admit as yet to be no science at all, but say that if somebody shall ever learn some other science, so as to be able to make this a science, it will then be a science;) and because, in the next place, it is full of pleasure, (but as to that matter, every one is willing to leave the pleasure to yourself, and is content to be without it, for there is not one of the young men who would not rather, if he must get anything by heart, learn the Teucer of Pacuvius than the Manilian laws 40on buying and selling;) and, in the third place, because you think, that, from love to our country, we ought to acquire a knowledge of the practices of our ancestors; do you not perceive that the old laws are either grown out of date from their very antiquity, or are set aside by such as are new? 41As to your opinion, that men are rendered good by learning the civil law, because, by laws, rewards are appointed for virtue, and punishments for vice; I, for my part, imagined that virtue was instilled into mankind (if it can be instilled by any means) by instruction and persuasion, not by menaces, and force, and terror. As to the maxim that we should avoid evil, we can understand how good a thing it is to do so without a knowledge of the law. And as to myself, to whom alone you allow the power of managing cases satisfactorily, without any knowledge of law, I make you, Crassus, this answer: that I never learned the civil law, nor was ever at a loss for the want of knowledge in it, in those cases which I was able to defend in the courts. 42It is one thing to be a master in any pursuit or art, and another to be neither stupid nor ignorant in common life, and the ordinary customs of mankind. May not every one of us go over our farms, or inspect our country affairs, for the sake of profit or delight at least? 43No man lives without using his eyes and understanding, so far as to be entirely ignorant what sowing and reaping is; or what pruning vines and other trees means; or at what season of the year, and in what manner, those things are done. If, therefore, any one of us has to look at his grounds, or give any directions about agriculture to his steward, or any orders to his bailiff, must we study the books of Mago the Carthaginian, 44or may we be content with our ordinary knowledge? Why, then, with regard to the civil law, may we not also, especially as we are worn out in lawsuits and public business, and in the forum, be sufficiently instructed, to such a degree at least as not to appear foreigners and strangers in our own country? Or, if any case, a little more obscure than ordinary, should be brought to us, it would, I presume, be difficult to communicate with our friend Scaevola here; although indeed the parties, whose concern it is, bring nothing to us that has not been thoroughly considered and investigated. If there is a question about the nature of a thing itself under consideration; if about boundaries; (as we do not go in person to view the property itself 45) if about writings and bonds; 46we of necessity have to study matters that are intricate and often difficult; and if we have to consider laws, or the opinions of men skilled in law, need we fear that we shall not be able to understand them, if we have not studied the civil law from our youth ?

"Is the knowledge of the civil law, then, of no advantage to the orator? I cannot deny that every kind of knowledge is of advantage, especially to him whose eloquence ought to be adorned with variety of matter; but the things which are absolutely necessary to an orator are numerous, important, and difficult, so that I would not distract his industry among too many studies. Who can deny that the gesture and grace of Roscius are necessary in the orator's action and deportment? Yet nobody would advise youths that are studying oratory to labour in forming their attitudes like players. What is so necessary to an orator as the voice? Yet, by my recommendation, no student in eloquence will be a slave to his voice like the Greeks and tragic actors, 47who pass whole years in sedentary declamation, and daily, before they venture upon delivery, raise their voice by degrees as they sit, and, when they have finished pleading, sit down again, and lower and recover it, as it were, through a scale, from the highest to the deepest tone. If we should do this, they whose cases we undertake would be condemned, before we had repeated the paean and the (?) munio 48as often as is prescribed. But if we must not employ ourselves upon gesture, which is of great service to the orator, or upon the culture of the voice, which alone is a great recommendation and support of eloquence; and if we can only improve in either, in proportion to the leisure afforded us in this field of daily business; how much less must we apply to the occupation of learning the civil law? of which we may learn the chief points without regular study, and which is also unlike those other matters in this respect, that power of voice and gesture cannot be got suddenly, or caught up from another person, but a knowledge of the law, as far as it is useful in any case, may be gained on the shortest possible notice, either from learned men or from books. Those eminent Greek orators, therefore, as they are unskilled in the law themselves, have, in their lawsuits, men acquainted with the law to assist them, who are, as you before observed, called pragmatici . In this respect our countrymen act far better, as they would have the laws and judicial decisions supported by the authority of men of the highest rank. But the Greeks would not have neglected, if they had thought it necessary, to instruct the orator in the civil law, instead of allowing him a pragmaticus for an assistant.

"As to your remark, that age is preserved from solitude by the science of the civil law, we may perhaps also say that it is preserved from solitude by a large fortune. But we are inquiring, not what is advantageous to ourselves, but what is necessary for the orator. Although (since we take so many points of comparison with the orator from one sort of artist) Roscius, whom we mentioned before, is accustomed to say, that, as age advances upon him, he will make the measures of the flute-player slower, and the notes softer. But if he who is restricted to a certain modulation of numbers and feet, meditates, notwithstanding, something for his ease in the decline of life, how much more easily can we? I will not say lower our tones, but alter them entirely? For it is no secret to you, Crassus, how many and how various are the modes of speaking; a variety which I know not whether you yourself have not been the first to exhibit to us, since you have for some time spoken more softly and gently than you used to do; nor is this mildness in your eloquence, which carries so high authority with it, less approved than your former vast energy and exertion; and there have been many orators, as we hear of Scipio and Laelius, who always spoke in a tone only a little raised above that of ordinary conversation, but never exerted their lungs or throats like Servius Galba. But if you shall ever be unable or unwilling to speak in this manner, are you afraid that your house, the house of such a man and such a citizen, will, if it be not frequented by the litigious, be deserted by the rest of mankind? For my part, I am so far from having any similar feeling with regard to my own house, that I not only do not think that comfort for my old age is to be expected from a multitude of clients, but look for that solitude which you dread, as for a safe harbour; for I esteem relaxation to be the most agreeable solace in the last stage of life.