Pliny: Natural History, Vol. I (Loeb)

PLINY: NATURAL HISTORY

PREFACE, 6-9

In the latter case I could have said: “Why does your Highness read that? It was written for the common herd, the mob of farmers and of artisans, and after them for students who have nothing else to occupy their time: why do you put yourself on the jury? You were not on this panel when I took the contract for this undertaking: I knew you to be too great for me to think you likely to descend to this!”

Moreover, even in the court of learning there is an official procedure for challenging the jury: it is employed even by Marcus Cicero, who, where genius is in question, stands outside all hazard. It may surprise us, but Cicero calls in the aid of council—

...nor yet for the very learned;
Manius Persius I don’t want to read this, I want
Junius Congus. original: "nec doctissimis. Manium Persium haec legere nolo, Iunium Congum volo."

But if Lucilius A Roman satirist, the originator of critical sniffing, thought fit to say this, and Cicero to quote it, especially when writing his Theory of the Constitution, how much more reason have we to stand on the defensive against a particular juryman? But for my part, at the present, I have deprived myself of these defenses by my nomination, as it matters a great deal whether one obtains a judge by lot or by one’s own selection, and one’s style of entertainment ranks quite differently with a guest one has invited and one who has offered himself. The candidates in a hotly contested election deposited sums of money with Cato, that resolute foe of corruption, who enjoyed a defeat at the polls as an honor obtained free of charge; and they gave out that they did this in the defense of the highest among human possessions, their innocence.