The Roman History · Amm. 30.4.9

Of these the chief is that tribe of men who, sowing every variety of strife and contest in thousands of actions, wear out the doorposts of widows and the thresholds of orphans, and create bitter hatred among friends, relations, or connections, who have any disagreement, if they can only find the least pretext for a quarrel. And in these men, the progress of age does not cool their vices as it does those of others, but only hardens and strengthens them. And amid all their plunder they are insatiable and yet poor, whetting the edge of their genius in order by their crafty orations to catch the ear of the judges, though the very title of those magistrates is derived from the name of Justice.

Ammianus Marcellinus · translated by C. D. Yonge · 1911 reprint
C. D. Yonge translation (preface dated February 1862); G. Bell and Sons, 1911; Project Gutenberg #28587
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