Book 30
4.10
By their persistence rashness tries to pass itself off as freedom of speech; and reckless audacity as firmness of purpose; a kind of empty flow of words as eloquence. By the perversity of these arts, as Cicero insists, it is a sin for the conscientiousness of a judgeCf. Quint. iv. 1, 9, iudex religiosus. to be deceived. For he says: And since nothing in a state ought to be so free from corruption as the suffrage and judicial decisions, I do not understand why one who corrupts them by money deserves punishment, while one who corrupts them by his eloquence is even praised. For my part, I think that he does more evil who corrupts a judge by a speech than one who does so by money; for no one can corrupt a sensible man by money, but he can do so by words.De Re Pub. v. 11, preserved by Ammianus.
4.11
A second class consists of those who profess a knowledge of law, which, however, the self-contradictory statutes have destroyed, and reticent as if they were muzzled, in never-ending silence they are like their own shadows. These men, as though revealing destinies by nativities or interpreting a Sibyl’s oracles, assume a solemn expression of severe bearing and try to make even their yawning saleable.Or, refer ipsum to silentio. They make no pleas, only promise them, and boast of their recondite studies of the law.
