The first oration which Cicero pronounced, at least of those which are extant, was delivered in presence of four judges appointed by the Prætor, and with Hortensius for his opponent. It was in the case of Quintius, which was pleaded in the year 672, when Cicero was 26 years of age, at which time he came to the bar much later than was usual, after having studied civil law under Mucius Scævola, and having further qualified himself for the exercise of his profession by the study of polite literature under the poet Archias, as also of philosophy under the principal teachers of each sect who had resorted to Rome. This case was undertaken by Cicero, at the request of the celebrated comedian Roscius, the brother-in-law of Quintius; but it was not of a nature well adapted to call forth or display any of the higher powers of eloquence. It was a pure question of civil right, and, in a great measure, a matter of form; the dispute being whether his client had forfeited his recognisances, and whether his opponent Nævius had got legal possession of his effects by an edict which the Prætor had pronounced, in consequence of the supposed forfeiture. But even here, where the point was more one of dry legal discussion than in any other oration of Cicero, we meet with much invective, calculated to excite the indignation of the judges against the adverse party, and many pathetic supplications, interspersed with high-wrought pictures of the distresses of his client, in order to raise their sympathy in his favour.