| etiam M. Pontidius municeps noster multas privatas causas actitavit, celeriter sane verba volvens nec hebes in causis vel dicam plus etiam quam non hebes, sed effervescens in dicendo stomacho saepe iracundiaque vehementius; ut non cum adversario solum sed etiam, quod mirabile esset mirabilius est maluit Meyer , cum iudice ipso, cuius delenitor esse debet orator, iurgio saepe contenderet. M. Messalla minor natu quam nos, nullo modo inops, sed non nimis nimis C : minus OG ornatus genere verborum; prudens, acutus, minime incautus patronus, in causis cognoscendis componendisque diligens, magni laboris, multae operae multarumque causarum. | My townsman too, P. Pontidius, pleaded a number of private causes. He had a rapidity of expression, and a tolerable quickness of comprehension: but he was very warm, and indeed rather too choleric and irascible; so that he often wrangled not only with his antagonist, but (what appears very strange) with the judge himself, whom it was rather his business to sooth and gratify.- M. Messala, who was something younger than myself, was far from being a poor and an abject pleader, and yet he was not a very embellished one. He was judicious, penetrating, and wary, very exact in digesting and methodizing his subject, and a man of uncommon diligence and application, and of very extensive practice. |
