Institutio Oratoria

Domitius Afer was by far the greatest of all the orators whom it has been my good fortune to know, and I saw him, when far advanced in years, daily losing something of that authority which his merits had won for him; he whose supremacy in the courts had once been universally acknowledged, now pleaded amid the unworthy laughter of some, and the silent blushes of others, giving occasion to the malicious saying that he had rather

faint than finish.

[*]( By finish is meant retire from pleading. )