490 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xliv The freedom of Labeo was enslaved, however, by the rigour of his own conclusions, and he decided according to the letter of the law the same questions which his indulgent competitor re- solved with a latitude of equity more suitable to the common sense and feelings of mankind. If a fair exchange had been substituted to the payment of money, Capito still considered the transaction as a legal sale ; 65 and he consulted nature for the age of puberty, without confining his definition to the precise period of twelve or fourteen years. 06 This opposition of senti- ments was propagated in the writings and lessons of the two founders; the schools of Capito and Labeo maintained their inveterate conflict from the age of Augustus to that of Hadrian ; 67 and the two sects derived their appellations from Sabinus and Proculus, their most celebrated teachers. The names of Gassians and Pegasians were likewise applied to the same parties ; but, by a strange reverse, the popular cause was in the hands of Pegasus, 68 a timid slave of Domitian, while the favourite of the Caesars was represented by Cassius, 69 who gloried in his descent from the patriot assassin. By the per- petual edict, the controversies of the sects were in a great measure determined. For that important work, the emperor Hadrian preferred the chief of the Sabinians : the friends of monarchy prevailed ; but the moderation of Salvius Julian in- sensibly reconciled the victors and the vanquished. Like the contemporary philosophers, the lawyers of the age of the Antonines disclaimed the authority of a master, and adopted 65 Justinian (Institut. 1. iii. tit. xxiii. and Theophil. Vers. Grsec. p. 677, 680) has commemorated this 'weighty dispute, and the verses of Homer that were alleged on either side as legal authorities. It was decided by Paul (leg. 33, ad Edict, in Pandect. 1. xviii. tit. 1, leg. i.), since in a simple exchange the buyer could not be discriminated from the seller. 66 This controversy was likewise given for the Proculians, to supersede the indecency of a search, and to comply with the aphorism of Hippocrates, who was attached to the septenary number of two weeks of years, or 700 of days (Institut. 1. i. tit. xxii.). Plutarch and the stoics (de Placit. Philosoph. 1. v. c. 24) assign a more natural reason. Fourteen years is the age — 7r«pl $)«/ 6 o-nepfiaTiubs Kpivsrai bp^pos. See the vestigia of the sects in Mascou, c. ix. p. 145-276. 67 The series and conclusion of the sects are described by Mascou (c. ii.-vii. p. 24-120), and it would be almost ridiculous to praise his equal justice to these obsolete sects. 68 At the first summons he flies to the turbot-council ; yet Juvenal (Satir. iv. 75- 81) styles the praefeet or bailiff of Rome sanctissimus legum interpres. From his science, says the old scholiast, he was called, not a man, but a book. He derived the singular name of Pegasus from the gallery which his father commanded. [There seems to be no ancient authority for the title Pegasians.] 69 Tacit. Annal. xvi. 7. Sueton. in Nerone, c. xxxvii.
