tself to simpler rules of conduct and a less
tempestuous life. To live according to _nature_ came to be considered
as the end for which man was created, and which the best men were
bound to compass. To live according to _nature_ was to rise above the
disorderly habits and gross indulgences of the vulgar to higher laws
of action which nothing but self-denial and self-command would enable
the aspirant to observe. It is notorious that this proposition--live
according to nature--was the sum of the tenets of the famous Stoic
philosophy. Now on the subjugation of Greece that philosophy made
instantaneous progress in Roman society. It possessed natural
fascinations for the powerful class who, in theory at least, adhered
to the simple habits of the ancient Italian race, and disdained to
surrender themselves to the innovations of foreign fashions. Such
persons began immediately to affect the Stoic precepts of life
according to nature--an affectation all the more grateful, and, I may
add, all the more noble, from its contrast with the unbounded
profligacy which was being diffused through the imperial city by the
pillage of the world and by the example of its most luxurious races.
In the front of the disciples of the new Greek school, we might be
sure, even if we did not know it historically, that the Roman lawyers
figured. We have abundant proof that, there being substantially but
two professions in the Roman republic, the military men were generally
identified with the party of movement, but the lawyers were universally
at the head of the party of resistance.

The alliance of the lawyers with the Stoic philosophers lasted through
many centuries. Some of the earliest names in the series of renowned
jurisconsults are associated with Stoicism, and ultimately we have the
golden age of Roman jurisprudence fixed by general consent at the era
of the Antonine Caesars, the most famous disciples to whom that
philosophy has given a rule of life. The long diffusion of these
doctrines among the members of a particular profession was sure to
affect the art which they practised and influenced. Several positions
which we find in the remains of the Roman jurisconsults are scarcely
intelligible, unless we use the Stoic tenets as our key; but at the
same time it is a serious, though a very common, error to measure the
influence of Stoicism on Roman law by counting up the number of legal
rules which can be confidently affiliated on Stoical dogmas.