The Early Days of Advocacy. the judges; not to raise the same point twice; to refrain from abusive language and from stamping the feet; not to speak to the judges when they were considering their judgment; and not to make a noise on leaving the court, or collect a crowd around them. Fifty drach mas was the lowest penalty for disobedience to any of these rules, some of which, in their primitive simplicity, might have been framed for a pack of unruly schoolboys, while others would be invaluable even at the present day. We may compare with them, in more mod ern times, a series of rules prescribed for the guidance of the " advocates of parliament," in the time of Philip the Fair. They were warned not to undertake just and unjust causes without distinction, or support their arguments by fallacies or misquotations; not to abuse the opposite party or his counsel; not to be absent from court when their cause was called on (mark that, ye modern law yers!); not to be disrespectful to the court, or greedy of fees. Finally, they were not to lead immoral lives, or (those were the days of chivalry) refuse their services to the poor and oppressed. From an old book called the "Stylus Parliamenti," the advocate may get yet more val uable hints; for he will there learn that he must have an imposing presence, a graceful figure, and a smiling face; that he must be modest in manner and respectful in attitude, in dress neither a dandy nor a sloven; that he must not bite his lips while he is speak ing, must use appropriate action, and not talk too loud or too low. To recur to the advocates of Athens; another important restriction imposed on them at the same period was that which limited the time for which the " good man skilled in talking " was allowed to occupy the court. This was the famous clepsydra, or water-clock (or rather water-glass), which ran its course in three hours, at the close whereof, unless the speaker had obtained part of the water of another pleader en gaged in the cause (a permitted practice), he was forced to conclude his address,
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whether he had sufficiently perorated or no. Bearing in mind that all speeches in those days were carefully prepared beforehand, we may imagine with what anxiety the orator would rehearse his speech in his study at home, and "cut" it (to borrow the language of the stage) to the prescribed length by the aid of a private water-glass. That the limitation was rather trying sometimes, we know from Demosthenes, who in one of his speeches complains of the impossibility of going through the whole of a heavy case " in the same water." Professional advocacy in ancient Rome had its beginnings in the perplexing rela tion between the patron and the client, which, as it puzzled Niebuhr himself, no one else can fairly be expected to under stand. One of the duties of the patron certainly was "to appear for his clients in court, and to expound the law to them, civil and pontifical; " and we may easily imagine, that as the law became more complicated, the latter duty was somewhat difficult for men who only took advocacy in the Forum as one of the accidents of a public life. Hence arose the class of " jurisconsulti," who made a profession of the delivery of legal opinions, like the Pundits of India, and a class yet more scientific than they, the " prudentes," whose opinions had in themselves the force of law. The advo cate, as during the pre-Antiphonic period at Athens, received at first no money for his labors; he would as soon have thought of being paid for a speech in the Forum as a member of Congress would think of being paid (directly) for a speech in the House. Nor was he therein a loser, for a brilliant speech in the Forum opened at once to a young orator all the distinctions of the Sen ate and of public life, the legitimate objects of his ambition. But as clients became richer and patrons more busy, presents from the former to the latter, in order to give them an interest in their cases, became the fashion, and so the fee grew, as at Athens, into a
