M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
the copiousness of the matter, the varied excellence of the diction, the witty originality of the thought, the skilful arrangement of the speech. And now you are asking, I imagine, what pleased me most. Listen: I begin with this passage.
2. "In those affairs[1] and cases which are settled in private courts, no danger arises, since their decisions hold good only within the limits of the cases, but the precedents which you, Emperor, establish by your decrees will hold good publicly and for all time. So much greater is your power and authority than is assigned to the Fates. They determine what shall befall us as individuals: you by your decisions[2] in individual cases make precedents binding upon all.
3. "Therefore, if this decision of the proconsul is approved by you, you will give all magistrates of all provinces a rule for deciding all cases of the same kind. What, then, will be the result? This evidently, that all wills from distant and oversea provinces will be brought over to Rome for cognizance in your court. A son will suspect that he has been disinherited: he will demand that his father's will be not opened. The same demand will be made by a daughter, a grandson, a great grand-child, a brother, a cousin, a paternal uncle, a maternal uncle, a paternal aunt, a maternal aunt; relations of all degrees will usurp this privilege of forbidding the will to be opened, that they may enjoy possession the while by right of consanguinity. When, finally, the case has been
- ↑ This is the only considerable fragment of Fronto's speeches which we have. Nothing more is known of the case with which it deals. Fronto's legal treatment of the question at issue is severely condemned by Dirksen (Opusc. i. 243 ff.), but it is quite impossible to believe that Fronto was as ignorant of law as his critic asserts.
- ↑ The Emperor could legislate either directly by edict, or by a judicial decision (iudicium = decretum), or as became usual after Nerva by a rescript, interpreting the law, in answer to an inquiry or petition.
