which was
called a gratuity or present. As this was a mere honorary recompense,
the client was under no legal obligation to pay it. But the result
necessarily was, that if the usual present was not given, the advocate
did not consider himself bound in honor to undertake the advocation of
the cause before the courts. Afterwards, Marcus Cincius Alimentus, the
tribune of the people, procured the passage of the law known as the
_Cincian_ law, prohibiting the patron or advocate from receiving any
money or other present for any cause; and annulling all gratuities or
presents made by the client to the patron or advocate. But as no penalty
was prescribed for the breach of the law, it of course became a dead
letter. The Emperor Augustus afterwards re-enacted the Cincian law, and
prescribed penalties for its breach. But towards the end of his reign,
the advocates were again authorized to receive fees or presents from
their clients. The Emperor Tiberius also permitted them to receive such
forced gratuities. This led to the abuse referred to by Tacitus, and
induced the Senate to insist upon the enforcement of the re-enactment of
the Cincian law, or rather a law limiting the amount of the fees of
advocates.[33] Nero revoked the law of Claudian, which was subsequently
re-enacted by the Emperor Trajan, with the additional restriction that
the advocate should not be permitted to receive his fee or gratuity,
until the cause was decided. The younger Pliny mentions a law, which
authorized the advocate, after the pleadings in the cause had been made
and the judgment had been given, to receive the fee, which might be
voluntarily offered by the client, either in money or a promise to pay.
Erskine, in his Institutes of the Law of Scotland, understands the law
in the Digest _De Extraordinariis Cognitionibus_ as authorizing a suit
for the fee of a physician or advocate without a previous agreement for
a specific sum.[34]

The consequences may be best told in the impressive language of the
historian of the Decline and Fall of the Empire: "The noble art, which
had once been preserved as the sacred inheritance of the patricians, was
fallen into the hands of freedmen and plebeians, who, with cunning
rather than with skill, exercised a sordid and pernicious trade. Some of
them procured admittance into families for the purpose of fomenting
differences, of encouraging suits, and of preparing a harvest of gain
for themselves or their brethren. Others,