1So, as I said, there was never any consular dignity in that science of yours, which consisted wholly of things fictitious and invented, and still less any power to win favour. 1For what is open to everyone, and equally available to me and to my opponent, can in no way earn gratitude. 1So you have lost not only the hope of conferring a favour, but even that which for some time existed, 'May I consult you?' 1— you have lost it already. 1No one can be thought wise in that knowledge which is worth nothing anywhere outside Rome, nor at Rome when the courts are adjourned. 1No one can be considered expert in it, because in what everyone knows they can in no way differ from one another.
1Nor is the matter thought difficult, because it is contained in very few and by no means obscure documents. 1So if you provoke my temper, busy man as I am, in three days I shall declare myself a jurisconsult. 1Indeed, for matters dealt with in writing, everything is already written down, and yet nothing is written so narrowly that I cannot add 'in the matter in question'; 1while questions on which you are consulted are answered at very little risk. 1If you give the proper answer, you will seem to have given the same answer as Servius; 1if otherwise, you will seem to know and handle disputed law as well.
29Therefore not only is that military glory to be preferred to your formulas and actions, but also the practice of speaking far and greatly surpasses that exercise of yours in winning office. 29So it seems to me that most men at first much preferred this, and afterwards, when they had been unable to achieve it, slipped down to that in particular. 29Just as they say that among Greek performers those become singers to the pipe who could not become singers to the lyre, so we see that those who could not turn out orators end up in the study of law. 29Great is the labour of speaking, great the task, great the dignity, and the influence it brings is the highest.
29Indeed, from you people seek a sort of soundness, from those who speak they seek salvation itself. 29Then too, your opinions and rulings are often overturned by speaking, and cannot stand firm without the defence of oratory. 29If I had made sufficient progress in it, I would speak more sparingly in its praise; 29as it is, I say nothing about myself, but about those who are or have been great in speaking.