[65]
19. Again, the kindnesses shown not by gifts1
of money but by personal service2 are bestowed
sometimes upon the community at large, sometimes
upon individual citizens. To protect a man in his
legal rights [, to assist him with counsel,] and to serve
as many as possible with that sort of knowledge
tends greatly to increase one's influence and popularity.
Thus, among the many admirable ideas of our3
ancestors was the high respect they always accorded
to the study and interpretation of the excellent body
of our civil law. And down to the present unsettled
times the foremost men of the state have kept this
profession exclusively in their own hands; but now
the prestige of legal learning has departed along
with offices of honour and positions of dignity; and
this is the more deplorable, because it has come to
pass in the lifetime of a man4 who in knowledge of
the law would easily have surpassed all his predecessors, while in honour he is their peer. Service
such as this, then, finds many to appreciate it and is
calculated to bind people closely to us by our good
services.
[p. 241]
1 (2) personal service.
2 Acts of kindness and personal service mean to Cicero throughout this discussion the services of the lawyer, which were voluntary and gratis.
3 The profession of the law.
4 This eminent jurist was Servius Sulpicius Lemonia Rufus, a close friend of Cicero, author of the well-known letter of condolence to Cicero on the death of his daughter Tullia.
M. Tullius Cicero. De Officiis. With An English Translation. Walter Miller. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1913.
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