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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.
After paying his little homage to his patronus, in what way has he fought with the great enemy Time since then? Why, reader, this illustrates one of the most interesting features in the Roman character. The Roman was the idlest of men. "Man and boy," he was "an idler in the land." He called himself and his pals "rerum dominos, gentemque togatam;" the gentry that wore the toga.
The client of the Empire was a degraded being; of the client in the last age of the Republic we only know that he existed, and could be useful to his patronus in many ways, in elections and trials especially; but we do not hear of his pressing himself on the attention of his patron every morning, or receiving any "sportula."
There the progenitor of the lawyer was first the priest, the Pontifex, mingling judicial and advisory functions, and then the patronus or the orator, a man of wealth and high standing in the community, who had gathered about him freed men and Plebeians as his supporters. The latter were known as his clientes, from which term our word is derived.
Again presents were made to secure the skilled advocacy of men learned in the law and acute in debate. These gifts like the Hebrew ones were paid in advance and were called "honorariums," another term which suggests the modern retainer. Neither an advocatus nor a patronus could sue for such honorarium at law because it was a violation of law, but once paid, the honorarium could not be recovered.
There is also in Tibur an inscription to a certain Q. Pompeius Senecio, etc. A Roman knight, C. Aemilius Antoninus, was first quinquennalis, then patronus municipii at Tibur.
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