The patricians, being deprived by the Twelve Tables of the privilege of arbitrarily pronouncing decisions, as best suited their interests; and being frustrated in their miserable attempts to maintain an undue advantage in matters of form, by secreting the rules of procedure held in courts of justice, they had now reserved to them only the power of interpreting to others the scope and spirit of the laws. Till the age, at least, of Augustus, the civil law was completely unconnected and dissipated; and no systematic, accessible, or authoritative treatise on the subject, appeared during the existence of the republic(299). The laws of the Twelve Tables were extremely concise and elliptical; and it seems highly probable that they were written in this style, not for the sake of perspicuity, but to leave all that required to be supplied or interpreted in the power of the Patricians(300). The changes, too, in the customs and language of the Romans, rendered the style of the Twelve Tables less familiar to each succeeding generation; and the ambiguous passages were but imperfectly explained by the study of legal antiquarians. It was the custom, likewise, for each successive Prætor to publish an edict, announcing the manner in which justice was to be distributed by him—the rules which he proposed to follow in the decision of doubtful cases; and the degree of relief which his equity would afford from the precise rigour of ancient statutes. This annual alteration in forms, and sometimes even in the principles of law, introduced a confusion, which persons engrossed with other occupations could not unravel. The obscurity of old laws, and fluctuating jurisdiction of the Prætors, gave rise to that class of men called Jurisconsults, whose business it was to explain legal difficulties, and reconcile statutory contradictions. It was the relation of patron and client, which was coeval almost with the city itself, and was invested with a sacred, inviolable character, that gave weight to the _dicta_ of those who, in some measure, came in place of the ancient patrons, and usually belonged to the patrician order.—“On the public days of market or assembly,” says Gibbon, “the masters of the art were seen walking in the Forum, ready to impart the needful advice to the meanest of their fellow-citizens, from whose votes, on a future occasion, they might solicit a grateful return. As their years and honours increased, they seated themselves at home on a chair or throne, to expect with patient gravity the visits of their clients, who, at the dawn of day, from the town and country, began to thunder at their door. The duties of social life, and incidents of judicial proceedings, were the ordinary subject of these consultations; and the verbal or written opinions of the jurisconsults were framed according to the rules of prudence and law. The youths of their own order and family were permitted to listen; their