The History of Lawyers

Originally published: Boston: Estes & Lauriat, 1875. Illustrated. xvii, 404 pp. First published in 1849 in London under the title Hortensius: or, The Advocate, Forsyth's History of Lawyers is a spirited account of advocacy in ancient Greece, Rome, and England and of the bar in France. Acknowledging that "[w]e are too apt to cloth the ancients in buckram, and view them, as it were, through a magnifying glass, so that they loom before us in the dim distance in almost colossal proportions," Forsyth presents in familiar terms the language of the law and how advocates behaved. Frequently citing classical sources with his own translations, he describes in impressive detail such things as curious trials and the rights and obligations of counsel. Chapter headings include: The Athenian Courts; Advocacy in Ancient Rome; The Bar under the Empire and in the Middle Ages; The Noblesse de la Robe; The Honorarium; ad, Forensic Casuistry.