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Punish, great Jove, the author of these ills. The other he says he has forgot. Soon after, naming severally all his friends that had been slain before his face in the battle, he groaned heavily, especially at the mentioning of Flavius and Labeo, the latter his lieutenant, and the other chief officer of his engineers.
It is fair that he who entreats a pardon for his own faults, should grant one in his turn. If any man should punish with the cross, a slave, who being ordered to take away the dish should gorge the half-eaten fish and warm sauce; he would, among people in their senses, be called a madder man than Labeo. How much more irrational and heinous a crime is this!
The body of the pontiffs had this year a warm dispute with the city quaestors, Quintus Fabius Labeo and Lucius Aurelius.
Quintus Fabius Labeo was likewise adorned with the same accomplishments. But Q. Metellus whose four sons attained the consular dignity, was admired for his Eloquence beyond the rest; he undertook the defence of L. Cotta, when he was accused by Africanus, and composed many other Speeches, particularly that against Tiberius Gracchus, which we have a full account of in the Annals of C. Fannius.
Their names, and the various titles of their productions, have been minutely preserved, and the example of Labeo may suggest some idea of their diligence and fecundity. That eminent lawyer of the Augustan age divided the year between the city and country, between business and composition; and four hundred books are enumerated as the fruit of his retirement.
Two sages of the law, Ateius Capito and Antistius Labeo, adorned the peace of the Augustan age; the former distinguished by the favor of his sovereign; the latter more illustrious by his contempt of that favor, and his stern though harmless opposition to the tyrant of Rome. Their legal studies were influenced by the various colors of their temper and principles.
The freedom of Labeo was enslaved, however, by the rigor of his own conclusions, and he decided, according to the letter of the law, the same questions which his indulgent competitor resolved with a latitude of equity more suitable to the common sense and feelings of mankind.
Labeo, in the time of Augustus, wrote four hundred books on jurisprudence, spending six months in the year in giving instruction to his pupils, and in answering legal questions, and the other six months in the country in writing books. Like all the great Roman jurists, he was versed in literature and philosophy, and so devoted to his profession that he refused political office.
Hitherto Horace by the side of "Tacitus" has been no better than a clay pitcher by a porcelain vase; thus his disparaging, but, doubtless, quite correct estimate of Labeo has been till now altogether disregarded, in consequence of this passage in the Annals, from its author being credited with having exceeded what the ancient Romans had left us in the way of history. Hence, too, Dr.
M. Cocceius Nerva, Sempronius Proculus, and Juventius Celsus, were of the school of Labeo. Gaius, who flourished in the time of the Antonines, was a great legal authority; and the recent discovery of his Institutes has revealed the least mutilated fragment of Roman jurisprudence which exists, and one of the most valuable, and sheds great light on ancient Roman law.
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