s 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.]

If there is no need for Silius to attend such a court, he may find
many other demands upon his time. Among Romans of the higher classes
etiquette was extremely exacting. Contemporaries themselves complain
that social "duties" or "obligations" frittered away a large
proportion of their day, and that they were kept perpetually "busy
doing nothing." One man or woman is making a will, and asks you to be
one of the witnesses to the signature and sealing; another is
betrothing a son or daughter, and invites you to be present and attest
the ceremony; another has a son of fifteen or sixteen concerning whom
it is decided that he has now come of age, must put on the white toga
of a man in the place of the purple-edged toga of the boy, and be led
into the Forum in token of his new freedom; you must not omit the
courtesy of attending. Another desires you to go with him before the
magistrate while he emancipates a slave. Worst of all, perhaps, is the
man who has written a poem or declamation, and who proposes to read
it, or to get a professional elocutionist to read it, to his
acquaintances. He has either hired a hall or borrowed a convenient
room from a friend, and you are kindly invited to be present. We learn
that these amateur authors did not permit their victims to forget the
engagement, but sent them more than one reminder. At the reading or
recitation it was your duty to applaud frequently, to throw
complimentary kisses, and to exclaim in Greek, "excellent," "capital,"
"clever," "unapproachable," or "again," very much as we say "encore"
in what we think is French, or "bravo" in Italian. The native Latin
terms most commonly in use may perhaps be translated as "well said,"
"perfect," "good indeed," "divine," "a shrewd hit." On one occasion a
certain Priscus was present at the reading of a poem, and it happened
to open with an invocation to a Priscus. No sooner had the author
begun, "Priscus, thou bidst me tell ..." than the man of that name
called ou