OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
457
of the law were assured of leaving disciples equal or superior to themselves in merit and reputation.
Their philosophy The jurisprudence which had been grossly adapted to the wants of the first Romans was polished and improved in the seventh century of the city by the alliance of Grecian philosophy. The Scævolas had been taught by use and experience; but Servius Sulpicius was the first civilian who established his art on a certain and general theory.[1] For the discernment of truth and falsehood, he applied, as an infallible rule, the logic of Aristotle and the stoics, reduced particular cases to general principles, and diffused over the shapeless mass the light of order and eloquence. Cicero, his contemporary and friend, declined the reputation of a professed lawyer; but the jurisprudence of his country was adorned by his incomparable genius, which converts into gold every object that it touches. After the example of Plato, he composed a republic; and, for the use of his republic, a treatise of laws, in which he labours to deduce from a celestial origin the wisdom and justice of the Roman constitution. The whole universe, according to his sublime hypothesis, forms one immense commonwealth; gods and men, who participate of the same essence, are members of the same community; reason prescribes the law of nature and nations; and all positive institutions, however modified by accident or custom, are drawn from the rule of right, which the Deity has inscribed on every virtuous mind. From these philosophical mysteries, he mildly excludes the sceptics who refuse to believe, and the epicureans who are unwilling to act. The latter disdain the care of the republic: he advises them to slumber in their shady gardens. But he humbly intreats that the new Academy would be silent, since her bold objections would too soon destroy the fair and well-ordered structure of his lofty system.[2] Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno he represents as the only teachers who arm and instruct a citizen for the duties of- ↑ Crassus, or rather Cicero himself, proposes (de Oratore, i. 41, 42) an idea of the art or science of jurisprudence, which the eloquent but illiterate Antonius (i. 58) affects to deride. It was partly executed by Servius Sulpicius (in Bruto, c. 41), whose praises are elegantly varied in the classic Latinity of the Roman Gravina (p. 60).
- ↑ Perturbatricem autem omnium harum rerum academiam, hanc ab Arcesila et Carneade recentem, exoremus ut sileat, nam si invaserit in hæc, quæ satis scite instructa et composita videantur, nimis edet ruinas, quam quidem ego placare cupio, submovere non audeo (de Legibus, i. 13). From this passage alone Bentley (Remarks on Free thinking, p. 250) might have learned how firmly Cicero believed in the specious doctrines which he has adorned.
