PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 53 



to be propitiated, and that the complex symbolic actions used 

 were superposed. For of the judges, who "sat only on days fixed 

 by the secret calendar of the pontiffs," it is said that "they did 

 not admit the litigants to set forth simply the matters in dispute ; 

 mysterious formulae, gestures, and actions were necessary." In 

 further evidence of this priestly character of the judicial admin- 

 istration is the following statement of Professor W. A. Hunter : 



'' Pomponius, in his brief account of the history of Roman Law, informs 

 us that the custody of the XII Tables, the exclusive knowledge of the 

 forms of procedure (legis actiones), and the right of interpreting the law, 

 belonged to the College of Pontiffs." 

 And Mommsen tells us in other words the same thing. 



But while we here see, as we saw in the cases of other early 

 peoples, that the priest, intimately acquainted with the injunc- 

 tions of the god, and able to get further intimations of his will, 

 consequently became the fountain of law, and therefore the judge 

 respecting breaches of law, we do not find evidence that in ancient 

 Rome, any more than in Greece, Egypt, or Palestine, the advocate 

 was of priestly origin. Contrariwise we find evidence that among 

 these early civilized peoples, as at the present time among some 

 peoples who have become civilized enough to have legal pro- 

 cedures, the advocate is of lay origin. Marsden says that in 

 Sumatra 



"the plaintiff and defendant usually plead their own cause, but if circum- 

 stances render them unequal to it, they are allowed to pinjam mulut (bor- 

 row a mouth). Their advocate may be a proattin, or other person indif- 

 ferently ; nor is there any stated compensation for the assistance, though 

 if the cause be gained, a gratuity is generally given." 

 So, too, from Parkyns we learn that the Abyssinians have a sort 

 of lawyers merely " an ordinary man with an extraordinary gift 

 of the gab. These men are sometimes employed by the disputants 

 in serious cases, but not invariably." Indeed, it must everywhere 

 have happened in early stages when litigants usually stated their 

 respective cases, that sometimes one or other of them asked a 

 friend to state his case for him ; and a spokesman who became 

 noted for skill in doing this would be employed by others, and 

 eventually a present to him would become a fee. It was thus 

 among the Romans. After knowledge of the Twelve Tables had 

 been diffused, and after the secrets of legal procedure had been 

 disclosed by a secretary of Appius Claudius, there grew up a class 

 of men, the jurisconsulti, learned in the law, who gave their ad- 

 vice, and also, later, advocates distinguished by their oratorical 

 powers, who, as among ourselves, were furnished with materials 

 and suggestions by lawyers of lower grade. 



The superposing of civilizations and of religions throughout 

 Northern Europe after Roman days, complicated the relations 



