Perhaps, however, one of his clients has asked for his help in a case at law, which is being tried either over the way in the Basilica of Julius, or round the corner to the right in the Forum of Augustus. If a man of study and eloquence, he may have consented to act as pleader--taking no fee, because he is merely performing a patron's duty. _Noblesse oblige_. In the year 64 a pleader who has taken up a cause for some one else than a dependant is allowed by law to charge a fee not exceeding £100, but the law says nothing, or at least can do no thing, as to the liberal presents which are offered him under some other pretext. If he is not to plead, Silius may at any rate have been requested to lend moral support by seating himself beside the favoured party and perhaps appearing as a witness to character. If he pleads in any complicated or technical case, it will generally be after careful consultation with an attorney or professional lawyer. Round the apse or recess in which the court sits there will stand a ring of interested spectators, and among them will be distributed as many as possible of his own dependants, who will religiously applaud his finely-turned periods and his witticisms. There was generally little chance of missing a Roman forensic witticism; its character was for the most part highly elaborate and its edge broad. In a later generation it was not rare for chance bystanders to be hired on the spot as _claqueurs_. The court itself consists of a large body of jurymen of position empanelled, not for the particular case, but for particular kinds of cases and for a period of time, and over these there presides one of the public officials annually elected for the judicial administration of Rome. The president sees that the proceedings are in accordance with the law, but the verdict is given entirely by the jury. [Illustration: FIG. 64.--SEALED RECEIPT OF JUCUNDUS. Beside each seal is a signature; the writing in the hollow leaf is a summary of the receipt, which is itself shut between the two leaves bound with string.]