his house without observation and an obsequious crowd following him to the rostrum or the senate-house, or to the city gates if he were going to his country seat. Even if he were not entitled to lictors or fasces at the moment, yet as a private citizen his opinion influenced gowned senators; and his fame was well known even to the inhabitants of garrets and cellars, who picked up the crumbs from rich men's tables, when the sacrifices in the temples did not afford them meat, or the measure of corn supplied by the State was exhausted.
Maternus admits that the forms of proceeding and the rules of practice in his time were more conducive than those observed by the ancients to the purposes of truth and justice. There was then more freedom for the orator. He was not, as he is now, limited to a few hours in the delivery of a speech. If his genius prompted him, he might expatiate on the case in hand; if it suited his convenience, he might adjourn it. Maternus descends to minute particulars, though he thinks it not unlikely that his hearers will smile at them. The Greek or Roman orator was always in some degree an actor also. Hortensius, Cicero's most formidable antagonist, was very particular as to the plaits in his gown and the arrangement of his hair; and Caius Gracchus modulated his voice by a sort of pitch-pipe sounded when he spoke in too high or too low a key by an attendant slave. "But such niceties," says Maternus, "are no longer observed. The very robe now worn at the bar has an air of meanness. It sits close to the person: it renders graceful gestures impossible. Again, the courts of judicature are unfavourable to the speaker in them. Causes are now
