Book 20
1
Then Sextus Caecilius, throwing both arms about Favorinus, said: " You are indeed the one man within my memory who is most familiar both with Greek and with Roman lore. For what philosopher is skilled and learned in the laws of his sect to the extent to which you are thoroughly versed in our decemviral legislation? But yet, I pray you, depart for a little from that academic manner of arguing of yours, and laying aside the passion for attacking or defending anything whatever according to your inclination, consider more seriously what is the nature of the details which you have censured, and do not scorn those ancient laws merely because there are many of them which even the Roman people have now ceased to use. For you surely are not unaware that according to the manners of the times, the conditions of governments, considerations of immediate utility, and the vehemence of the vices which are to be remedied, the advantages and remedies offered by the laws Oportuitates refers to the advantage or assistance which the laws afford to meet the special needs of defence; moedellas, to the remedies they furnish for the cure of vice and crime. are often changed and modified, and do not remain in the same condition; on the contrary, like the face of heaven and the sea, they vary according to the seasons of circumstances and of fortune. What seemed more salutary than that law of Stolo limiting the number of acres? What more expedient than the bill of Voconius regulating the inheritances of women? What was thought so necessary for checking the luxury of the citizens as the law of Licinius and Fannius and other sumptuary laws? Yet all these have been wiped out and buried by the wealth of the State, as if by the waves of a swelling sea. But why did that law appear to you inhumane which in my opinion is the most humane of all; that law, namely, which provides that a beast be furnished for a sick or aged man who is called into court? The words of that law, 'if he summon him to court,' The first provision of the law is: Si in ius vocat, ito, if he summon him to court, let him go. Here the words Si . . . vocat are used merely to designate the law. are as follows: i. 1, 3. If disease or age be a hindrance, let the summoner provide a beast; if he does not wish, he need not spread a covered waggon.' Do you by any chance suppose that morhus (disease) here means a dangerous sickness with a high fever and ague, and that iumentum (beast) means only one animal, capable of carrying someone on his back; and is it for that reason that you think it was inhumane for a man lying sick-a-bed at his home to be placed upon a beast and hurried off to court? That is by no means the case, my dear Favorinus. For morbus in that law does not mean a serious complaint attended with fever, but some defect of weakness and indisposition, not involving danger to life. On the contrary, a more severe disorder, having the power of material injury, the writers of those laws call in another place, ii. 2. not morbus alone, but morbus sonticus, or 'a serious disease.' See xvi. 4. 4 and the note. iumentum also does not have only the meaning which it has at present, but it might even mean a vehicle drawn by yoked animals; for our forefathers formed iumentum from iungo. Furthermore arcera was the name for a waggon, enclosed and shut in on all sides like a great chest (arca), The derivation of arcera from area seems to be generally accepted. and strewn with robes, and in it men who were too ill or old used to be carried lying down. What cruelty then does there seem to you to be in deciding that a waggon ought to be furnished for a poor or needy man who was called into court, if haply through lameness or some other mischance he was unable to walk; and in not requiring that ' a closed carriage' be luxuriously strewn, See note on § 11, above. when a conveyance of any kind was sufficient for the invalid? And they made that decision, in order that the excuse of a diseased body might not give perpetual immunity to those who neglected their obligations and put off suits at law; but foolishly."
