[a] There is in this place a trifling mistake, either in Messala, the
speaker, or in the copyists. Crassus was born A.U.C. 614. See s.
xviii. note [f]. Papirius Carbo, the person accused, was consul A.U.C.
634, and the prosecution was in the following year, when Crassus
expressly says, that he was then only one and twenty. _Quippe qui
omnium maturrimè ad publicas causas accesserim, annosque natus UNUM ET
VIGINTI, nobilissimum hominem et eloquentissimum in judicium vocârim._
Cicero, _De Orat._ lib. iii. s. 74. Pliny the consul was another
instance of early pleading. He says himself, that he began his career
in the forum at the age of nineteen, and, after long practice, he
could only see the functions of an orator as it were in a mist.
_Undevicessimo ætatis anno dicere in foro cœpi, et nunc demum, quid
præstare debeat orator, adhuc tamen per caliginem video._ Lib. v.
epist. 8. Quintilian relates of Cæsar, Calvus, and Pollio, that they
all three appeared at the bar, long before they arrived at their
quæstorian age, which was seven and twenty. _Calvus, Cæsar, Pollio,
multum ante quæstoriam omnes ætatem gravissima judicia susceperunt._
Quintilian, lib. xii. cap. 6.