1You are right: I am kept busy with cases in the Centumviral court, which exercise me more than they delight me. 1For most of them are petty and slight; 1rarely does one occur that is notable either for the distinction of the persons or for the importance of the matter. 2Besides, there are few with whom it is a pleasure to speak; 2the rest are bold, and for the most part obscure youths who have come over here to declaim, so disrespectfully and rashly that my friend Atilius seems to me to have put it exactly when he said that boys make their start in the forum with Centumviral cases, as they do in school with Homer.
2For here too, as there, they have begun with what is greatest. 3But, by Hercules, before my time – so older men usually say –, not even young men of the noblest birth had a place unless some ex-consul introduced them: with such veneration was this finest of occupations held in honour. 4Now that the bars of modesty and respect have been broken, everything lies open to everybody, and they are not introduced but burst in. 4Audiences follow them who are like the performers, hired and bought. 4A contractor is approached; 4in the middle of the basilica handouts are given as openly as in a dining room; 4they pass from court to court for the same pay.
5Hence, not without wit, they are called Sophocleses, from sophos, 'bravo', and kaleisthai, 'to be called', and the Latin name Laudiceni, 'Praise-diners', has been given to the same men; 6and yet the disgrace branded in both languages grows day by day. 6Yesterday two of my name-callers – they are indeed of the age of those who have just put on the toga – were being dragged off to applaud at three denarii each. 6That is what it costs to be most eloquent. 6At this price benches however numerous are filled, at this a huge ring of listeners is gathered, at this endless shouts are raised, when the chorus-leader has given the signal.
7For a signal is needed among men who do not understand, who do not even listen; 8for most of them do not listen, and none applaud more. 8If ever you pass through the basilica and want to know how each man is speaking, there is no need to climb onto the tribunal, no need to lend an ear; 8the guessing is easy: know that the man who is most applauded speaks worst. 9Larcius Licinus was the first to introduce this way of listening, though only to the extent of rounding up an audience. 9So at least I remember hearing from Quintilian, my teacher. 10He used to tell this story: 'I was attending Domitius Afer.
10When he was speaking before the Centumviri, weightily and slowly – for this was his style of delivery –, he heard from close by an immoderate and unusual shout. 10Surprised, he fell silent; 10when silence had fallen, he resumed what he had broken off. 11Again a shout, again he fell silent, and after the silence began again. 11The same a third time. 11Finally he asked who was speaking. 11The answer came: "Licinus." 11Then, breaking off the case, he said: "Centumviri, this art is dead."' And indeed it was in any case beginning to die when it seemed to Afer to have died, but now it is almost utterly extinguished and overthrown.
12I am ashamed to relate what things are said, and with what effeminate delivery, and with what feeble shouts they are received. 13Only clapping, or rather only cymbals and drums, are missing from those sing-songs: howls, indeed – for by no other word can that praise, unseemly even in theatres, be expressed – are present in plenty. 14Still, the interests of my friends and the consideration of my age delay and hold me back for now; 14for I fear that I may perhaps seem not to have left these indignities behind but to have run away from work. 14Yet I appear less often than usual, which is the beginning of ceasing by degrees.
14Farewell.