CHAP. V. CATO. 115 legal forms amongst the Romans in the early ages of the republic afforded little scope for the efforts of an advocate, for actions were then determined with all the strictness which characterises the system of special pleading in the English law.1 3 We are so much in the habit of regarding Cato as the stern moralist and censor of Rome, that we are at first surprised when we discover that he was one of her most gifted advocates. If we may credit the testimony of antiquity, he was an eloquent orator, a profound lawyer, and a great writer.2 We think of him only as the living type of the old Roman severity of manners, struggling alone against the tide of innovation, and fearing not to attack the noblest and most powerful citizens if they yielded to the corruption of the times. In this spirit of inflexible virtue he denounced Minucius the consul, and robbed him of his anticipated triumph; and Veturius, whom he deprived of his Equestrian rank; and Galba, against whom, for a base and perfidious act of treachery towards the Lusitanians, many thousands of whom he massacred after betraying them into a pretended negotiation for peace, he launched the terrors of his invective when bending under the weight of fourscore years. We can scarcely believe that he was one of the most accomplished men of letters of whom Rome can boast, when we recollect his hostility to the introduction of Greek philosophy. Greece, however, had her revenge; and in his old age Cato betook himself to the study of her language and literature, which he had before affected to despise. I say affected, for we may well believe that his contempt was not genuine. It was because he 1 See Gaius, Instit. iv. § 12. There is some amusing ridicule thrown upon this precise technicality, que tota ex rebus fictis commentitiisque constaret, in Cicero's speech in defence of Murena, cap. 12. 2 Cic. de Orat. i. 37. Liv. xxxix. 40. 3 Liv. xxxvii. 46. Aul. Gell. x. 3; xiii. 24. 4 Festus in voc. Stata Sacrificia. 5 Cic. Brut. 23; pro Murena, 28; Suet. Galb. 3. dreaded the effect which the degraded and effeminate manners of the Greeks in his day might have upon his countrymen, that he opposed all intercourse between them; and not because he was insensible to the advantages which a Roman would obtain from an acquaintance with the language in which Thucydides and Plato wrote, and Pericles and Demosthenes spoke. The orations which Cato at various times delivered were very numerous; and Cicero says that more than one hundred and fifty of his speeches were extant in his day; but the study of them was then entirely neglected, although he remarks that they were well worthy of diligent perusal.1 They chiefly related to public affairs; but Cato sometimes defended, though he was more generally known as the accuser of his fellow-citizens. The great age to which he lived enabled him to witness the rising reputation of the two illustrious friends, Scipio the younger, and Lælius. The conqueror of Carthage and Numantia was numbered amongst the most celebrated orators of Rome; and Cicero speaks of him and Lælius as in primis eloquentes. We know, however, the names of no private causes in which he was engaged. Those of which we find mention in the classic writers were all of a public nature. Such were his five orations in his own defence, when accused before the people by Asellus the tribune; his speeches for the temple of Castor against the agrarian law of Tiberius Gracchus, and against the proposed Papirian law. To these may be added his accusations of Sulpicius Galba and Lucius Cotta. C. Lælius, surnamed "the wise," for the forbearance he displayed as tribune when he abandoned his proposal of an agrarian law, because he saw that its discussion would convulse the state, was distinguished for his mild and gentle 1 Brut. 17. See the names of such of these as are mentioned by the ancient writers collected in the Brev. Eloq. Rom. Historia, by Ellendt; also Meyer, Fragm. Orat. Rom. 2 Brut. 21. CHAP. V. THE FOREST MURDERS. 117 eloquence.1 But he was also a gallant soldier and successful general, and when, after filling the office of prætor, he obtained as his province Western Spain (the modern Portugal), he crushed the hostile attempts of Viriathus, the leader of the Lusitanians. One of his most famous speeches was that De Collegiis, which he delivered against a proposed law for taking the power of electing members of the College of Priests from that body, and vesting it in the people. His eloquence prevailed, and the mode of election remained unaltered, until it was changed many years afterwards by the Domitian law. We know the names of very few of the causes which he undertook, but Cicero mentions one interesting trial in which he was engaged, arising out of the following circumstances. In the lonely pine forests that skirted the southern extremity of the Apennine range some atrocious murders had been committed, and suspicion fell upon the members of a company who farmed the public revenues arising from that district. The senate ordered the consuls to investigate the matter, and the suspected parties were put upon their trial. They engaged Lælius as their counsel, and he spoke the first day well and ably in their behalf. The court, however, was not yet satisfied as to their innocence or guilt, and the consuls adjourned the inquiry. When, after an interval of a few days, it was resumed, Lælius spoke with still greater force and eloquence, but with no decisive result, and the case was again adjourned. Lælius was escorted home by his grateful clients, who thanked him for his exertions, and expressed concern lest he should be exhausted by his efforts. He told them that he had done his best, but advised them to apply to Galba to continue the 1 Although the reputation of Lælius, as an orator, was greater than that of Scipio, Cicero himself seems to consider them nearly equal, and attributes the common opinion to the disinclination of mankind to believe that an individual can attain excellence in more than one pursuit. How true is his remark now, as well as when he wrote, Sed est mos hominum ut nolint eundem pluribus rebus excellere! -Brut. 21. 2 Cic. de Nat. Deorum, iii. 2. Brut. 21. Philipp. ii. 33. defence, since he thought him better fitted than himself to conduct such a case, as his style of speaking was more earnest and impassioned. They went therefore to Galba, who, after some hesitation and diffidence, consented to be their advocate. He had only one day to prepare, and he devoted it to the task; shutting himself up with his amanuensis in an inner room in his house, where, with all the vehemence of his nature, and as though he were actually in court, he dictated his thoughts aloud. He did not quit the apartment until sum CHAP. V. GALBA-CAIUS GRACCHUS. 119 moned next day to the court, where the consuls were already seated, and it was remarked that he left his house with the look and appearance of a man who had just delivered a great speech, and not merely prepared one. He rose to plead for the accused, and by the power and pathos of his eloquence, he gained a verdict of acquittal that very day, and satisfied not only the court, but all who heard him, of the innocence of his clients.1 He Servius Sulpicius Galba was by no means a learned lawyer, but Cicero speaks of him as an orator in high terms. He says, that he alone amongst his contemporaries was preeminent for eloquence, inter tot æquales unus excellens. first amongst the Latins studied speaking as an art, and employed the artifices of rhetoric to work upon the minds of his audience. But with all this, his speeches seemed to the taste of the next generation bald and antiquated in style, so that they soon disappeared and were wholly lost.3 We can hardly number the Gracchi in the list of Roman advocates, though the fiery eloquence of Caius placed him high amongst the orators of the republic. But it was chiefly in the turbulent assemblies of the people that his voice was heard, denouncing his political adversaries as the enemies of the state; and of the numerous speeches attributed to him, we only find one in which he seems to have undertaken the defence of a party on his trial. He is known to us rather as the democratic leader of the commons, who lost his life in a popular tumult, which the aristocratic party charged him with exciting. But we must receive with the greatest caution the account of his character which we find in the patrician writers. They have represented him as a demagogue whose very name was a watchword of sedition, and have described his efforts to obtain the passing of the agrarian law as an attempt at confiscation of property. But justice has at last been done to his 2 Ibid. 97. 3 Ibid. 21. 1 Cic. Brut. 22. |