law which never existed or could exist in actual society. The favorite
cases concerned the tyranny of fathers, the debauchery of sons, the
adultery of wives, and the rape of daughters. In the procedure of the
declamation schools the boys arose and delivered their speeches with
frequent applause from the other students and from their parents. The
master would criticise the speeches and, when the students had finished,
would himself deliver a speech which was supposed to outshine those of his
pupils and give promise of what he could teach them.[99]

The utter unreality and hollowness of such rhetoric could show itself no
better than in contrast with the practical oratory of the law courts.
Albucius, a famous professor of the schools, once pleaded a case in court.
Intending to amplify his peroration by a figure he said, "Swear, but I
will prescribe the oath. Swear by the ashes of your father, which lie
unburied. Swear by the memory of your father!" The attorney for the other
side, a practical man, rose--"My client is going to swear," he said. "But
I made no proposal," shouted Albucius, "I only employed a figure." The
court sustained his opponent, whose client swore, and Albucius retired in
shame to the more comfortable shades of the declamation schools, where
figures were appreciated.[100] But in spite of the ridiculous performance
of the professors of the schools when they did come out into the sunlight,
in spite of the protests of Tacitus who complained justly that debased
popular taste demanded poetical adornment of the orator,[101] style
continued to be loved for its own sake, extravagant figures of speech were
applauded, and verbal cleverness and point were strained for. As Bornecque
has shown, the fact that the rhetoric of the declamation schools was so
unreal, so preoccupied with imaginary cases, and so given over to
attainment of stylistic brilliancy, in no small measure explains the loss
in late Latin literature of the sense of structure. "It is not
surprising," says Bornecque, "that during the first three centuries of the