M. T. CICERO'S SELECT ORATIONS. ORATION I. AGAINST CECILIUS.* SECT I. IF any upon your bench, my lords, or in this assembly, should perhaps wonder that I, whose practice for so many years in causes and public trials has been such as to defend many, but attack none, now suddenly change from my wonted manner, and descend to the office of an accuser, I am apt to think, that, upon weighing the grounds and reasons of my proceeding, he will not only approve of the step I have taken, but own, likewise, that I deserve the preference to all others in the management of the present prosecution. When I had finished my questorship in Sicily, my lords, and was returned from that province, leaving a grateful and lasting remembrance of my name and administration behind me, it so fell out that the Sicilians, as they placed the highest confidence in many of their ancient patrons, so did they imagine they might repose some in me, *The occasion of this oration was as follows: Verres having governed Sicily three years with the title of prætor, distinguished himself in that employment by every art of oppression and tyranny. When his command was at an end, all the people of Sicily, those of Syracuse and Messina excepted, resolved to impeach him upon the law of bribery and corruption, and applied to Cicero, who had formerly been questor among them, that he would manage the prosecution. Cicero, though he had hitherto employed his eloquence only in defence of his friends, yet readily undertook the present cause, as it was both just and popular, and gave him an opportunity of displaying his abilities against Hortensius, the only man in Rome that could pretend to rival him in the talent of speak ing. In the mean time, Quintus Cæcilius Niger, who had been questor to Verres, and an accomplice with him in his guilt, claimed a preference to Cicero in the task of accusing, and endeavoured to get the cause into his hands, in order to betray it. He pretended to have received many personal injuries from Verres; that having been questor under him, he was better acquainted with his crimes; and, lastly, that being a native of Sicily, he had the best right to prosecute the oppressor of his country. Cicero refutes these reasons in the following oration, which is called Divinatio, because the process to which it relates was wholly conjectural. For the cause not properly regarding a matter of fact, but the claim and qualifications of the accusers, the judges, without the help of witnesses, were to divine, as it were, what was fit to be done. This happened in the 37th year of Cicero's age, and the 685th of Rome. The affair was decided in favour of Cicero. The provinces had all their protectors and patrons at Rome, who took care of their interests, and to whom they applied for a redress of grievances. The choice in this case commonly fell upon the person who had conquered the country, and reduced into the form of a province: this right of patronage descended to his pos terity, and was considered as an inheritance of the family. Sicily had many powerful patrons at Rome. The family of the Mar B |