[1] A member of plebeian nobility in easy circumstances, young Labeo entered public life early.
Marcus Antistius rose quickly to the praetorship; but undisguised antipathy for the new regime and the brusque manner he occasionally gave expression to Republican sympathies in the Senate – what Tacitus[2] calls his incorrupta libertas – proved an obstacle to his advancement.
His rival, Ateius Capito, a loyal client of new ruling powers, was promoted by Caesar Augustus to the consulate even though Labeo was in line for the job.
To his knowledge of the law he added a wide general culture, devoting his attention specially to dialectics, philology (grammatica), and antiquities, as valuable aids in the exposition, expansion, and application of legal doctrine.
While Capito is hardly ever referred to, the dicta of Labeo are of constant recurrence in the writings of the classical jurists, such as Gaius, Ulpian and Julius Paulus; and no inconsiderable number of them were thought worthy of preservation in Justinian's Digest.