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I will translate here the concluding words of a short paper written by M. du Rozoir in reference to Cicero's life at this period: "The assiduity of our orator at the bar had obtained for him a high degree of favor among the people, because they had seen how strictly he had observed that Cincian law which forbade advocates to take either money or presents for then pleadings which law, however, the advocates of the day generally did not scruple to neglect."
Cicero boasted that he never violated the Cincian law, but historians of his period intimate that by secret loans and testamentary gifts his practice proved to be very profitable. And it is certain, at least, that many of his contemporaries were made very rich by professional remuneration.
Afterwards, Marcus Cincius Alimentus, the tribune of the people, procured the passage of the law known as the Cincian law, prohibiting the patron or advocate from receiving any money or other present for any cause; and annulling all gratuities or presents made by the client to the patron or advocate. But as no penalty was prescribed for the breach of the law, it of course became a dead letter.
Collins speaks, in his charming little volume on Cicero, of "quiet evasions" of the Cincian law, and tells us that we are taught by Cicero's letters not to trust Cicero's words when he was in a boasting vein. What has the one thing to do with the other? He names no quiet evasions. Mr. Collins makes a surmise, by which the character of Cicero for honesty is impugned without evidence.
This led to the abuse referred to by Tacitus, and induced the Senate to insist upon the enforcement of the re-enactment of the Cincian law, or rather a law limiting the amount of the fees of advocates.
There was in addition a body of men called "jurist consults," learned in the law and able to advise, who came to be recognized as the members of a select profession in the time of Augustus. In the year 200 before Christ, the Cincian law was enacted, requiring that service of the patronus and the advocate should be gratuitous, but it was soon evaded even as the Jewish laws had been.
Ah, says he, they might have caught even me with that bait; as he said on another occasion that he was so much in debt as to be fit for a rebel; and again, as I shall have to explain just now, that he was like to be called in question under the Cincian law because of a present of books!
Paetus, one of his clients, gave him a valuable library of books; and one cannot believe that this was a solitary instance of the quiet evasion of the Cincian law, or that there were not other transactions of the same nature which never found their way into any letter of Cicero's that was likely to come down to us. We must return to Rome.
When quite a stripling I went with him in his fourth consulship as a soldier in the ranks, on the expedition against Capua, and in the fifth year after that against Tarentum. Four years after that I was elected Quaestor, holding office in the consulship of Tuditanus and Cethegus, in which year, indeed, he as a very old man spoke in favour of the Cincian law "on gifts and fees."
The Emperor Augustus afterwards re-enacted the Cincian law, and prescribed penalties for its breach. But towards the end of his reign, the advocates were again authorized to receive fees or presents from their clients. The Emperor Tiberius also permitted them to receive such forced gratuities.
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