De principiis juris, et quibus modis ad hanc
multitudinem infinitam ac varietatem legum perventum sit
altius disseram (Tacitus Annals iii. 25.).
This deep disquisition fills only two pages, but they are the pages of Tacitus. With equal sense, but with less energy, Livy (iii. 34) had complained, in hoc immenso aliarum super alias acervatarum legum cumulo, etc.