Exsuctus

Tertius eorum est ordo, qui ut in professione turbulenta clarescant, ad expugnandam veritatem ora mercenaria procudentes, per prostitutas frontes vilesque latratus, quo velint aditus sibi patefaciunt crebros: qui inter sollicitudines iudicum per multa distentas, irresolubili nexu vincientes negotia, laborant, ut omnis quies litibus implicetur, et nodosis quaestionibus de industria iudicia circumscribunt, quae cum recte procedunt, delubra sunt aequitatis: cum depravantur, foveae fallaces et caecae: in quas si captus ceciderit quisquam, non nisi per multa exsiliet lustra, ad usque ipsas medullas exsuctus.
(Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae 30.4.13)

A third group* consists of those who, in order to gain glory by their troublous profession, sharpen their venal tongues to attack the truth, and with shameless brow and base yelping often gain entrance wherever they wish. When the anxious judges are distracted by many cares, they tie up the business in an inexplicable tangle, and do their best to involve all peace and quiet in lawsuits and purposely by knotty inquisitions they deceive the courts, which, when their procedure is right, are temples of justice, when corrupted, are deceptive and hidden pits: and if anyone is deluded and falls into those pits, he will not get out except after many a term of years, when he has been sucked dry to his very marrow.

* of the “powerful and rapacious classes of men flitting from one forum to another, besieging the homes of the wealthy” (30.4.8).

(tr. John C. Rolfe)