But what about my goats?

A post, “But what about my goats?”: The Roman poet Martial on lawyers by Eugene Volokh. Some things never change.

I was recently reminded of one of the Epigrams of the Roman poet Martial (Marcus Valerius Martialis). It is about the lawyers of his day, but it reflects — in an exaggerated way, of course — something that some lawyers, and many law students, tend to do today in their briefs, especially briefs that deal with glamorous subjects such as constitutional law. Here is a translation I much liked, by Roger Dickinson-Brown, reprinted with permission:

There is no poison here, no rape or force –
a simple case: my neighbor stole my goats.
But my expensive lawyer will discourse
on the whole history of law. He quotes
book, precedent and chapter ‘til he’s hoarse.
Fine, noble words! But what about my goats?

There is an important balance between the pragmatic and the theoretical, between the idealist and the realist, between the abstract and the concrete. This is an ancient trope of the muddling through, pragmatic British versus the abstract, theoretical French. Between the masters of abstraction, the ancient Greeks and the builders of roads and viaducts, the ancient Romans. The Romans, as exemplified by Martial, could be very practical.