advice of the
civilians.

The most absolute mandate could only require that the judges should
agree with the civilians, if the civilians agreed among themselves. But
positive institutions are often the result of custom and prejudice; laws
and language are ambiguous and arbitrary; where reason is incapable of
pronouncing, the love of argument is inflamed by the envy of rivals,
the vanity of masters, the blind attachment of their disciples; and
the Roman jurisprudence was divided by the once famous sects of the
_Proculians_ and _Sabinians_. Two sages of the law, Ateius Capito and
Antistius Labeo, adorned the peace of the Augustan age; the former
distinguished by the favor of his sovereign; the latter more illustrious
by his contempt of that favor, and his stern though harmless opposition
to the tyrant of Rome. Their legal studies were influenced by the
various colors of their temper and principles. Labeo was attached to
the form of the old republic; his rival embraced the more profitable
substance of the rising monarchy. But the disposition of a courtier
is tame and submissive; and Capito seldom presumed to deviate from the
sentiments, or at least from the words, of his predecessors; while the
bold republican pursued his independent ideas without fear of paradox or
innovations. The freedom of Labeo was enslaved, however, by the rigor of
his own conclusions, and he decided, according to the letter of the
law, the same questions which his indulgent competitor resolved 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; and
he consulted nature for the age of puberty, without confining his
definition to the precise period of twelve or fourteen years. This
opposition of sentiments 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 Adrian; and the
two sects derived their appellations from Sabinus and Proculus, their
most celebrated teachers. The names of _Cassians_ and _Pegasians_ were
likewise applied to the same parties; but, by a strange reverse, the
popular cause was in the hands of Pegasus, a timid slave of Domitian,
while the favorite of the Caesars was represented by Cassius, who gloried
in his descent from the patriot assassin. By the perpetual edict,