The identity of the audience

Scattered sources provide the evidence of audience members within a court­room of Rome. The results reveal a throng notably heterogeneous with respect to age, status, and impetus.

The audience often included various individuals who had links solely to the advocate, rather than to the litigants. Considering the impact that a case could make on an advocate’s political career — whether a young beginner or an estab­lished figure attempting to increase his auctoritas — it is not surprising to find members of his family among the audience, including parents, wives, and chil­dren.¹ Advocates found further support in their personal friends, and perhaps their clients as well.² Pliny mentions his amicus, Julius Naso, who is always at his side when he pleads.³ Advocates on occasion even took to joking with these friends when they paused for the audience’s applause during their speeches.⁴

Also present with the specific purpose of observing the advocate were numerous youths of the Roman aristocratic circle. As part of the education of Rome’s future leaders, Quintilian insists, youths should attach themselves to at least one of the great orators from whom to learn court procedure, and per­haps forge links with other leading men.⁵ Pliny comments that Julius Naso saw the value of creating ties with other influential people, Pliny being one of them.⁶ Tacitus and Quintilian began their careers in such a way; both men­tion being present within the courtroom during their youth.⁷ Tacitus recalls not only listening to Marcus Aper and Julius Secundus speak in the courts — whom he calls “celeberrima tum ingenia fori nostri”, “then the most famous and talented men of our forum” — but also attending upon them both at their homes and in public to listen to their casual conversations.⁸ The Dialogus itself purports to record one such conversation.⁹ Quintilian recounts his own presence at a case held in the Basilica lulia when he, as a youth, was attending the orator Domitius Afer.¹⁰ Quintilian also mentions being present as a youth at the oration of another pleader.¹¹ Other unidentified young men, although not recorded as attached to a specific orator, frequented the courtroom as well.¹² Fronto, in a letter to Squilla Gallicanus whose son had just completed an important speech before an unnamed court, mentions that he, unable to attend, had to wait for his pupils to return to learn of the advocate’s success.¹³

In addition to the main courtroom participants (the judges, main advo­cate, and litigants) others are mentioned who served specific appointed roles.

At quidam litigatoribus suis illum modo ambitiosum declamandi sudorem praestitisse contenti cum turba laudantium destituunt subsellia pugnamque illam decretoriam imperitis ac saepe pullatae turbae relinquunt.

But some advocates, satisfied that the ostentation of the speech for their clients and their exhaustion resulting [from its delivery] was outstanding, depart from the benches with a crowd of praisers and leave that crucial battle to those inexperienced and often of the common throng.¹⁵

In Quintilian’s opinion, the altercatio is even more important than the speech and really should not be left to the less experienced. The junior counsel appear to have been present for much of the case, and like the youthful fol­lowers, they were there to learn. When Quintilian stresses that the lead advocate must have a sufficiently extensive knowledge of such things as the private law, customs, and religion of Rome to be able to think on his feet, he remarks that if an advocate is confronted with unexpected problems “non deformiter respectet et inter subsellia minores advocatos interroget?", “will he not look shameful asking the minor advocates sitting on the benches?”¹⁶

The advocate had two other types of individuals as part of his legal support team. Quintilian mentions the presence of clerks, “librarii”, who, in addition to their regular scribal duties, are found recording the identity of members of the audience who are to receive pay for their applause.¹⁷ Some advocates also received aid from a “monitor” (prompter), much to Quintilian’s chagrin.¹⁸ In conjunction with his comments about the advocate relying on junior counsel for advice, he also mentions this individual and again stresses the need for the advocate to be self-sufficient.

Attendants, part of every gentleman’s daily entourage, also accompanied advocates to court, even though they did not have a specific legal role to fulfil. Pliny offhandedly mentions two of his entourage who, much to his disgust, were convinced on one occasion to act as claquers.² These two non-citizen youths, aged approximately seventeen, acted as his nomenclatores. Perhaps these two filled the same role as the librarii Quintilian mentions. Who better to note those to be paid for their applause than the attendants deputed to put names to faces?

In the courts that dealt with public cases, according to Quintilian, a praeco — crier or announcer — was present.²² The full extent of his role is unclear. In public cases it seems he called on the individual advocates to begin and announced when they had rested their case. Quintilian, in an effort to refute Rufus’ claim that Latin contained a dual form which appeared in the word “dixere", cites the fact that “â€?dixere’... de pluribus patronis praeco pronuntiet”, “the praeco pronounces the phrase â€?they have spoken’ when multiple advocates speak".²³ This statement likely indicated the conclusion of the case for one or perhaps both sides.

Also present in the courtroom were relatives of the litigants. Extant sources mention only relatives of the defendant, never of the plaintiff or accusers. The family members we hear of include wives, children, mothers, parents generally, and kinsfolk (propinqui).²⁴ The defendant’s family was not there solely to provide moral support. They also served a specific function, to excite pity in the judges by playing on society’s strong devotion to the familia.

Children could be particularly useful in the courtroom. On one occasion an advocate brought in a group of children, among whom he threw dice which they chased after, thereby enhancing the effect of his peroration by highlight­ing their innocent ignorance of the seriousness of the proceedings.²⁷ Another advocate’s attempt to make dramatic use of a child in the courtroom backfired. At the crucial point of his speech he asked a sobbing child why he was crying, to which the child answered that his paedagogus was pinching him — presum­ably some prior arrangement had been made between advocate and tutor.²⁸

A comment from Juvenal makes one wonder about some relatives’ sincer­ity. Describing how an advocate gains prestige not by being skillful but by looking rich, he continues:

... rara in tenui facundia panno.

Quando licet Basilo flentem producere matrem?

Quis bene dicentem Basilum ferat?

[E]loquence rarely goes with a cheap garment.

When is it possible for Basilus to produce a weeping mother?

Who could bear Basilus being eloquent?²⁹

It appears that Basilus cannot produce a mother in court because he does not have the money. Does this mean that if the litigant did not have a mother, one could be purchased in much the same way as mourners for modern funerals in Arab countries?³⁰ If so, then to the Roman advocate it may have been more important to create the theatrical effect (at the cost of realism) than to have legitimate family members present.

The value attached to the attendance of parents and children seems to have outweighed that of a wife's presence. In today's society a man on trial for mur­der would be better served by the visible support of his wife than of his parents.

Litigants often had supporters present to offer encouragement. These remained close to the litigant during the case, occupying nearby benches. As discussed in Chapter Two, the phrase in subsellia denotes the “other side”, i.e. the opposing side of the court, so that the courtroom was divided into two areas, one for each litigant. It is reasonable to conclude that close friends of the litigants occupied some of the benches signified by the phrase. Quintilian acknowledges that to have a large group of relatives, friends, and clients pre­sent gives an impression of an individual's typical character and lifestyle.³¹ Elsewhere he condemns the advocate's trick of sending a witness to sit among the supporters of the other side, in subsellia, so that when the witness is called he will rise from among them and proceed to give evidence against them — which would appear all the more damning, since he would seem to be testify­ing against his friends.³² This witness would not sit on the bench of the advocate or litigant, but rather most likely among the litigant's supporters. Pliny, describing the courtroom scene at the case involving Attia Viriola, comments on the two sides: “ingens utrimque advocatio et numerosa subsellia...”, “and both sides had enormous legal representation and many benches....”³³ Since Pliny then comments that this group was surrounded by a crowd of bystanders, it is very likely that these benches contained relatives and friends.

The identity of a few individuals who likely occupied these very benches during the hearings of their friends can be ascertained. Two leading men of Rome, Maecenas and Apuleius (the son of Augustus' half-sister), actively aided a man on trial for adultery;³⁴ Cassius Dio's language suggests that these two were not advocates for the defendant, but rather provided support as friends.

The importance of social status and reputation that came together in one's own auctoritas no doubt played a large role in this public display of support for a litigant.³⁸ In such a status-conscious society, being able to assemble a large number of supporters — including, if possible, a number of important people with great auctoritas — would have a marked effect on those judging the case. The potential increase of the litigant’s own social importance by the display of important and powerful friends, as well as a large group of the liti­gant’s clients, could be a happy by-product of such a stressful event.

Others attended who apparently did not have personal links to any of the participants, but little can be ascertained about their identity. The majority likely were inhabitants of Rome. They were either of such wealth that they could while away the day being entertained by court intrigue, or, if they were shopkeepers or employees of diverse types, they could perhaps drop by the courts en route to a delivery, or during a break, to hear the latest gossip. The attendance of the unemployed is also conceivable. While we have no direct evidence of their presence, the opportunity to rest on a bench out of the sun, and possibly be entertained, likely appealed to many who had no other pastime.

A few individuals are identifiable within this broad group of the general audience. Juvenal, in the course of contrasting the pay of advocates to that of historians, mentions creditors:

dic igitur quid causidicis civilia praestent

officia et magno comites in face libelli.

ipsi magna sonant, sed tum cum creditor audit

praecipue, vel si tetigit latus acrior illo

qui venit ad dubium grandi cum codice nomen.

Tell me, then, the sum advocates earn working in court and from the big cases they do for friends. They talk big, especially when a creditor is listening, or, worse, if they are nudged in the side by that guy who comes with a large tablet about a bad debt.³⁹

Evidently the creditor was imagined to be there in the audience. His motives for attending seem clear: he knew his debtor, either litigant or advocate, would be present and thus he could approach the delinquent for payment. Roman society, with its less defined public and private spaces, perhaps enabled recalcitrant borrowers to hide more effectively while still conducting business; a fixed appearance in court certainly could have flushed them out.

Quintilian and Pliny also mention their personal attendance at various hearings as adults. Most likely they were attending as educated Romans with an interest in rhetoric and the courts. Quintilian heard Trachalus — whom he viewed as the brightest star of the times — speak before the first tribunal of the centumviral court in the Basilica lulia.⁴⁰ Pliny, having heard a certain Pompeius Saturninus plead, praises his talent in a letter.⁴¹ Neither author suggests a specific tie to the proceedings.

We know of a couple of advocates who specifically invited people to the court to hear them speak. Pliny tells us that Regulus on more than one occa­sion invited people to listen to him argue.⁴² Larcius Licinus supposedly used such methods to gather an audience in the centumviral court.⁴³ Whom these advocates invited we do not know, but they must have been friends, acquain­tances, clients, and the like. However, if, as Pliny suggests, this was an intermediate step which led to the practice of hiring audience members, per­haps such invitations took the form of flyers distributed door-to-door or in the forum, rather than personalized requests.

Paid audience members

Some indeed attended the courts for financial gain rather than to learn foren­sic oratory, offer support for a friend, or track down an outstanding loan. Various sources reveal that individuals were paid to support in some outward way one litigant or the other. Who hired these claques and how, what roles did they play, and when and where were they paid?

Inevitably, it is often difficult to separate the paid audience from others who were merely present and supportive. Pliny provides the most detailed description of this “rigged” court audience:

Sequuntur auditores actoribus similes, conducti et redempti. Manceps convenitur; in media basilica tam palam sportula quam in triclinio dantur; ex iudicio in iudicium pari mercede transitur. Inde iam non inurbane Soyoxid; vocantur, isdem Latinum nomen impositum est Laudiceni; et tamen crescit in dies foeditas utraque lingua notata. Here duo nomenclatores mei (habent sane aetatem eorum qui nuper togas sumpserint) ternis denariis ad laudandum trahebantur. Tanti constat ut sis disertissimus. Hoc pretio quamlibet numerosa subsellia implentur, hoc ingens corona colligitur, hoc infiniti clamores commoventur, cum mesochorus dedit signum. Opus est enim signo apud non intellegentes, ne audientes quidem; nam plerique non audiunt, nec ulli magis laudant.

Auditors follow similar to actors, for they can be hired and bought. A contractor makes the agreement; the handout is given in the middle of the basilica as openly as at a dinner party, and the audience can be transferred for the same pay from court to court. Indeed, nowadays not without wit they are called bravo-callers, and in Latin, dinner-clappers; and nevertheless the foulness noted in both languages increases daily. Yesterday two of my name-providing attendants (they really are no older than youngsters who not long ago assumed the toga) were induced for three denarii to add their praises. So much will it cost you to be considered most eloquent. For this price as many benches can be filled as you would like, this huge crowd brought together, this endless shouting produced, when the chorus-leader has given the signal. The signal is necessary since they do not understand, nor even hear; while most do not listen, they cheer more than anyone.⁴⁴

In this passage we hear of two individuals in addition to the group: the man­ceps and the mesochorus. The use of the term manceps here in a courtroom setting is unique to Latin literature. In its more common legal usage the term refers to one who purchases or rents something from the state (e.g. right to collect taxes, lease of agerpublicus}.⁴⁵ The shifted context here sug­gests that he was the financial middleman between the hired audience and the purchaser. In addition, this passage contains the only appearance in Latin literature of mesochorus. The term is transliterated from its Greek equivalent, which appears only rarely in Greek literature. From Pliny's description it is clear that in the courtroom setting the mesochorus essentially directed the hired group. It is worthy of note that this job was important enough for a person to make a career of it. Tacitus describes a man who held a similar position in the theater, calling him “dux... theatralium operarum... miscere coe­tus histrionali studio doctus", “leader of the theatrical works... expert at embroiling an assemblage with enthusiasm for an actor”.⁴⁶ While it is diffi­cult with such scant sources to say much more about these two positions, it is safe to assume that financial self-interest, rather than a personal stake in the cases, motivated these individuals.

So who actually paid for this enthusiastic artificial audience? The litigants had the most to gain from a crowd of people praising their advocate or deni­grating opposing counsel. It is a surprise, therefore, to have no proof that directly connects a litigant with a group of paid supporters. Instead, the evi­dence suggests the advocate as the employer:

Laudantem Selium cenae cum retra tendit

accipe, sive legas sive patronus agas:

�Effecte! graviter! cito! nequiter! euge! beate!

hoc volui!’ �Facta est iam tibi cena, tace.’

Take Selius, who holds out a net for dinner, to praise,

if you are reading aloud or pleading a case:

�Good going! Weighty hit! And swift! And nasty! Well

done! Beautiful! That is what I wanted!' �You have

now got your dinner, be quiet.'⁴⁷

In this passage Martial addresses an advocate — someone who is “pleading a case”. In fact, the advocate is the only participant within the courtroom who is ever mentioned in context with the paid audience. Quintilian describes how the advocate might determine which members of the audience he would pay:

Unde moneor (ut ne id quidem transeam) ineptissime fieri, cum inter moras laudationum aut in aurem alicuius loquuntur aut cum sodalibus iocantur aut nonnunquam ad librarios suos ita respiciunt, ut sportulam dictare videantur.

This reminds me (and I would not pass over it) of a most tasteless thing of some speakers, [who] during the delay caused by the cheering of the audience, either say something in the ear of someone or joke with their friends or sometimes look back at their clerks so that they seem to be dictating [who will get] a handout.⁴⁸

This passage suggests the advocate as the instigator of payment for favorable applause.⁴⁹ Possibly, the advocate oversaw the arrangements of bringing together an audience on behalf of his client who, in actuality, footed the bill since the client was the one in need of visible support. But it would be strange for the satirists to go along with such deception, and not, rather, make fun of the person really attempting the deception.

I suggest instead that the sources do indicate the true purchaser of the claque, and thus reveal the importance placed on successful pleading in Roman society. For rising aristocrats, the judicial arena laid the foundation of a political career, and one certainly would not leave such things to chance or to the true merits of the case itself. The litigant, of course, would gain by such payment; it was his/her advocate getting the applause. If the advocate did not see a responsive audience as crucial to his own career, the litigant would no doubt try such methods to sway the verdict as well. However, note how the shift does in fact affect the purpose of the paid audience. Modern rea­soning sees the litigant's acquittal as the sole purpose of any action by the advocate. But the advocate's purchase of an audience shifts the perspective towards the public reception of his ability, and away from his client. The audience is no longer present to work for the litigant's acquittal but rather to reinforce the advocate's performance. Taken to an extreme, this may indicate a reason for the so-called “decline of oratory”: the advocate was not really applauded for furthering his client's case.⁵⁰ One could object that the liti­gant's interests were so closely tied to those of the advocate that any approval given to the one benefited the other. While this is true to a certain degree, on some occasions it appears that the interests of the two were unfortunately not the same, and the needs of litigants were subordinated to the reputation of the advocate. Quintilian complains that “modern” orators undermine their effectiveness in cases by showing too much:

At hocpati non possumus etperire artem putamus, nisi appareat, cum desmat ars esse, si apparet. Pendemus ex laude atque hanc laboris nostri ducimus summam. Ita, quae circumstantibus ostentare volumus, iudicibus prodimus.

But this we are not able to endure and we think the art is wasted, unless it is visible, when actually it ceases to be art, once detected. We attach great value to praise and we consider this to be the highest goal of our labour. So, what we wish to display to the audience, we betray to the judges.⁵¹

This advertisement of the advocate’s skills hardly sounds beneficial for the poor litigant. Doubtless, however, the advocate had to weigh the political clout of his client before advancing his own career at his client’s expense.

There were, of course, practical logistics to the use of a paid audience. Pliny’s detailed description of the audience in his second book of letters, quoted above, has been used by Aldrete to suggest that the manceps created this audience by hiring people already present in the courtroom.⁵² Aldrete notes that even Pliny’s two attendants were hired to add their applause, and it is indeed likely that these two were hired on the spot. Yet the motive drawing hired audience members to the courtroom is important. Aldrete’s comment seems to suggest that these people were attending anyway, out of interest in the case, and getting hired was just an added bonus. Pliny’s further comment, however, that many of the hired audience could not understand the speeches, could not hear, and even if they could, did not bother to listen, suggests rather that individuals were present who had neither the desire nor the capac­ity to take in the case. Surely we can assume that such people attended specifically to be hired as a member of a claque. Many others were influenced by another motive — duty to their patron — which is discussed further below.

Two methods of hiring an audience emerge from the sources. Pliny, as we have seen above, describes the manceps making the arrangements.⁵³ He must have specifically hired the people he wanted in the morning, before the court day began, in order to avoid other audience members demanding payment for their self-proclaimed participation. During the hearing the manceps, or per­haps the mesochorus, must have tracked those hired to ensure their active participation. However, Quintilian’s description of advocates signalling to their clerks to note a payment during the extended applause of the crowd suggests an alternative method.⁵⁴ In this instance an advocate, rather than a contractor, apparently doled out payment.

Yet numerous problems arise with the latter scenario. It makes little prac­tical sense that the advocate was determining the recipients by noting their names during the case. How could he be aware of such things while present­ing his case? And how did he determine who participated out of genuine interest, and who was doing so in hope of pay? Perhaps these two groups dis­tinguished themselves by the amount of their participation; those hoping to be paid for their visible support made such a spectacle of themselves that the advocate could not help but notice. He may have predetermined how many, or how much, he would pay and in the course of the day noted particularly enthusiastic individuals. If so, however, it would then be clear to anyone pre­sent that the person was a hired supporter.

This method of hiring an audience would also be more ad hoc than going through a manceps. Perhaps there was some correlation between the impor­tance of the case and the method of hiring. Pliny describes the hired audience assembled by a manceps in the centumviral court. The cases here could make or break an advocate’s career, as well as the reputation and wealth of the liti­gants; therefore, it was wiser to leave few things to chance. A contractor ensured that an adequate audience of the proper zeal would be present.

But what of the numerous other courts in Rome? Mancipes likely worked in other courts as well — the quaestiones perpetuae, for example — but clearly as the importance of the case decreased at some point an advocate or litigant might have decided the matter was not important enough to warrant the outlay of money to employ a manceps, mesochorus, and organised audience, and yet still would have wanted a favorable group present. Quintilian’s description of the advocate spontaneously rewarding individuals for participation would fit well in such a scenario; active participation would have been rewarded, but was not so critical to the parties involved as to warrant extra financial outlay and advanced planning.

When was the claque paid? The practical time would be after they had supplied the service. As mentioned, the manceps, mesochorus, or librarius of the advocate must have kept track of who had provided the service, whether or not prearranged. To pay the claque beforehand, and assume they would remain for the entire time agreed, would be too naive. The simplest period of hire would be by the court day (following the more conservative view that the claque remained in one court for more than one speech) rather than the entirety of a specific case; it would have been too easy for individuals paid for an entire case to be absent on one day or another. The simplest way of control­ling attendance was to pay only at the end of the court day, and at the end of the case if it did not fill the final day. Thus, at the end of any given court day the manceps for each case could be busily settling accounts with his hired claque. On the next morning, each manceps would again be at work making agreements with prospective employees for the day. If members of the claques worked multiple courts at once, the same method of pay could be used. The manceps would collect the amount from the advocates or litigants of the vari­ous courts and distribute it among the employees at the end of the court day.

The location where the claque (or claques) of the centumviral court was paid supports the conclusion that wages were distributed at the end of the court day. Pliny states that the claque was paid “in media basilica", “in the middle of the basilica”.⁵⁵ During the discussion in Chapter Two of the phys­ical arrangement of the four courts in the Basilica lulia, it emerged that the most logical arrangement of the four tribunals — if each was hearing a sepa­rate case — would be for all four tribunals to be on the south side of the building. Thus, what Pliny calls the media basilica may have been the border between the middle two courts. The two courts on the edge could not easily access this area if the middle two courts were still in session, which supports the idea that pay was distributed only once all the courts had dispersed for the day.⁵⁶

The pay appears to have been quite good. Pliny reports that two of his attendants received three denarii (12 sesterces) each to give their applause,⁵⁷ although this rate no doubt was higher than the standard, since they were the attendants of one of the advocates.⁵⁸ From Juvenal we learn that clientes were given 25 asses, or a little bit more than six sesterces, as their sportula.59 Scholars accept this as the standard sportula amount.⁶⁰ Is it a coincidence, then, that the attendants’ pay was double the standard sportula? The connec­tion of these two attendants to one of the advocates involved certainly made them more desirable, and perhaps the carrot dangled before them was that they would be paid double the going rate for a regular audience member.

At the same time, however, a standard pay equal to the sportula seems rather low. But, by way of comparing such a daily wage, the pay of a legionary soldier during Pliny’s day was 100 sesterces per month, while that of a quarry-worker at Mons Claudianus in the mid-second century was approxi­mately 47 sesterces per month.⁶¹ The book of Matthew also contains a landowner who hired day labourers for his vineyard for four sesterces.⁶² These comparative figures indicate that the two attendants were paid quite hand­somely for their role.⁶³ What would entice people to take such employment for 6 sesterces, if they could earn the same by attending upon their patron? Given what we hear from Juvenal of a client’s day with a patron — that the day could be as long as the court day, and might include activities far worse than sitting in a courtroom — the opportunity of earning the same pay as a wage, rather than as a gift for which a cliens must first endure the putdowns and insults of his patron, would be quickly seized. Perhaps this seemingly low compensation points to the conclusion that the pay was not by the day, but rather by the case. Certainly, if the audience members felt they had a chance to collect the amount of their sportula and more in a single day, this choice of work would have been attractive. Unfortunately, there are too many unknowns to permit any firm conclusions.

Pliny's comment that the paid audience “ex iudicio in iudicium pari mercede transitur”, “moved for equal pay from court to court” is thought-provoking.⁶⁴ Two possible sequences of events can be constructed. In the first, at the com­pletion of one case the hired audience dissolved and moved to the next court that was preparing to begin, in hope of being hired on to a claque there. Such individuals could make a career of moving from case to case. However, court­room procedure conceivably accommodated a different arrangement as well. In the same passage, Pliny describes the audience in the Basilica lulia, the home to all four courts of the centumviri that usually met separately in concur­rent sessions. A case comprised various speeches by counsel, the examination of witnesses and documents, cross-examination, and debate. Since cases varied in length, at any given moment each of these four courts were likely at differ­ent points in the hearing.

The hired audience's participation was most advantageous during the advocates' speeches and the debate (though it may also have been worthwhile to have people heckling witnesses). Thus, it is possible that individuals were paid to applaud only for portions of a hearing, such as the speech of one advo­cate, after which they were free to move to another courtroom where their next employer was beginning his speech. Such arrangements would clearly offer the greatest gain for the paid audience, since individuals could take on more cases at once instead of sitting through elements in which their skills were of little value. In this system involving multiple advocates, the job of the manceps would have been far more difficult and the calculation of pay more complicated. Whether such an intricate system could work in the centumvi­ral court, or in other courts such as the quaestiones perpetuae (where multiple cases likely were also heard concurrently in the Forum of Augustus), and whether it would smack so much of insincerity as to make such applause next to useless, we cannot determine. However, these speculations bring new light to the possible financial enterprises in the Roman courtroom.

* * *

The sensational nature of a courtroom hearing open to the public guaranteed an audience highly diverse with respect to social standing as well as motives for attending, be it to support family members or receive pay. Many factors were at play. The status of the litigants likely determined to a certain extent the class of the supporters and friends, and also of the general audience. In the centumviral court, which dealt primarily with disputed inheritances, the lit­igants frequently were of the highest social level and therefore drew supporters from their social group. Pliny also implies that the fathers, daugh­ters, and stepmothers who attended the case involving Attia Viriola did so because they worried that they could be in the same position as the liti- gants.⁶⁵ Such anxiety would exist only if they were somewhat equivalent in economic and social standing to the litigants. Those students who attended as part of their rhetorical training certainly came from promising aristocratic families as well; Pliny mentions an upper-class youth who stood for seven hours to hear him speak.⁶⁶

However, others who had no hope of attaining the wealth and social distinc­tion of these youths and interested aristocrats also attended cases and made a large enough impact to appear in the historical record. Messalla, in the Dialogus, states that breadth of culture in an orator is acknowledged by “non doctus modo etprudens auditor, sedetiampopulus”, “not only the learned and schol­arly listener but also the rank and file”.⁶⁷ Aper, commenting upon the fame achieved by orators, recounts that in the street “saepius vulgus... imperitum et tunicatus hicpopulus transeuntes nomine vocat et digito demonstrat", “often the igno­rant common crowd, these tunic-clad rank and file, call by name [the advocates] passing by and point at them with their finger”.⁶⁸ We hear of mem­bers of the audience attending in their sordidos pullatos — common working clothes.⁶⁹ They, too, took an interest in court cases, more for the entertainment and no doubt as a source of income, as members of a claque.