citizen L. Opimius, who killed Gracchus; of which he was acquitted by the
people, though he had constantly sided against them,--were all condemned
by their judges, who were of the Gracchan party. Very unlike him in his
Tribuneship, and indeed in every other part of his life, was that infamous
citizen C. Licinius Nerva; but he was not destitute of Eloquence. Nearly
at the same time, (though, indeed, he was somewhat older) flourished C.
Fimbria, who was rather rough and abusive, and much too warm and hasty:
but his application, and his great integrity and firmness made him a
serviceable Speaker in the Senate. He was likewise a tolerable Pleader,
and Civilian, and distinguished by the same rigid freedom in the turn of
his language, as in that of his virtues. When we were boys, we used to
think his Orations worth reading; though they are now scarcely to be met
with. But C. Sextius Calvinus was equally elegant both in his taste, and
his language, though, unhappily, of a very infirm constitution:--when the
pain in his feet intermitted, he did not decline the trouble of pleading,
but he did not attempt it very often. His fellow-citizens, therefore, made
use of his advice, whenever they had occasion for it; but of his
patronage, only when his health permitted. Cotemporary with these, my good
friend, was your namesake M. Brutus, the disgrace of your noble family;
who, though he bore that honourable name, and had the best of men, and an
eminent Civilian, for his father, confined his practice to accusations, as
Lycurgus is said to have done at Athens. He never sued for any of our
magistracies; but was a severe, and a troublesome prosecutor: so that we
easily see that, in _him_, the natural goodness of the flock was corrupted
by the vicious inclinations of the man. At the same time lived L.
Caesulenus, a man of Plebeian rank, and a professed accuser, like the
former: I myself heard him in his old age, when he endeavoured, by the
Aquilian law, to subject L. Sabellius to a fine, for a breach of justice.
But I should not have taken any notice of such a low-born wretch, if I had
not thought that no person I ever heard, could give a more suspicious turn