But the young Roman had not only to learn law, he must also learn how to speak-learn, as far as such a thing can be learned, how to be eloquent.  What we in this country call the career of the public man was there called the career of the orator.  With us it is much a matter of chance whether a man can speak or not.  We have had statesmen who wielded all the power that one man ever can wield in this country who had no sort of eloquence.  We have had others who had this gift in the highest degree, but never reached even one of the lower offices in the government.  Sometimes a young politician will go to a professional teacher to get cured of some defect or trick of speech; but that such teaching is part of the necessary training of a statesman is an idea quite strange to us.  A Roman received it as a matter of course.  Of course, like other things at Rome, it made its way but slowly.  Just before the middle of the second century b.c. the Senate resolved:  “Seeing that mention has been made of certain philosophers and rhetoricians, let Pomponius the praetor see to it, as he shall hold it to be for the public good, and for his own honor, that none such be found at Rome.”  Early in the first century the censors issued an edict forbidding certain Latin rhetoricians to teach.  One of these censors was the great orator Crassus, greatest of all the predecessors of Cicero.  Cicero puts into his mouth an apology for this proceeding:  “I was not actuated by any hostility to learning or culture.  These Latin rhetoricians were mere ignorant pretenders, inefficient imitators of their Greek rivals, from whom the Roman youth were not likely to learn any thing but impudence.”  In spite of the censors, however, and in spite of the fashionable belief in Rome that what was Greek must be far better than what was of native growth, the Latin teachers rose into favor.  “I remember,” says Cicero, “when we were boys, one Lucius Plotinus, who was the first to teach eloquence in Latin; how, when the studious youth of the capital crowded to hear him it vexed me much, that I was not permitted to attend him.  I was checked, however, by the opinion of learned men, who held that in this matter the abilities of the young were more profitably nourished by exercises in Greek.”  We are reminded of our own Doctor Johnson, who declared that he would not disgrace the walls of Westminster Abbey by an epitaph in English.

The chief part of the instruction which these teachers gave was to propose imaginary cases involving some legal difficulty for their pupils to discuss.  One or two of these cases may be given.

One day in summer a party of young men from Rome made an excursion to Ostia, and coming down to the seashore found there some fishermen who were about to draw in a net.  With these they made a bargain that they should have the draught for a certain sum.  The money was paid.  When the net was drawn up no fish were found in it, but a hamper sewn with thread of gold.  The buyers allege this to be theirs as the draught of the net.  The fishermen claim it as not being fish.  To whom did it belong?