SEXTUS ROSCIUS was a rich and respected citizen of Ameria, an Umbrian town (municipium) about fifty miles north of Rome. He had a taste for city life, and spent most of his time at the capital, where he was on intimate terms with some of the highest families, especially the Metelli and Scipios. Meantime his son Sextus, who certainly lacked his father's cultivated tastes, and who was accused by his enemies of rudeness and clownishness, had charge of the extensive family estates at Ameria.

Sometime during the dictatorship of Sulla (probably in the autumn of 81 B.C.) the elder Roscius was murdered one evening as he was returning from a dinner party. The murder was no doubt procured, or at least connived at, by one Titus Roscius Magnus, his fellowtownsman and enemy. However that may be, the name of the murdered man was put upon the proscription-list by a freedman and favorite of Sulla, one Chrysogonus, who bought his confiscated estates at auction at a nominal price. Three of these estates (there were thirteen in all)

he transferred to a certain Titus Roscius Capito, another townsman and enemy of the deceased, and a leading man at Ameria; the remainder he put in charge of Magnus as his agent. The younger Sextus, a man of forty, thus robbed of his patrimony, had recourse to his father's friends in Rome for protection and help. The three conspirators, fearing that they might be compelled to disgorge, resolved to secure themselves by accusing him of his father's murder. This they did through a professional prosecutor (accusator) named Erucius, who undertook the legal formalities of the prosecution.

The aristocratic friends of Roscius, not daring to brave the creature of the dictator, but unwilling to leave their guest-friend (hospes) undefended, prevailed upon Cicero, then young and ambitious, to undertake the case. To oppose Chrysogonus was an act that called for disinterested courage, and nothing in Cicero's career is more to his credit. By his successful conduct of the case he obtained the well-merited rank of a leader among the rising advocates of Rome. The Defence of Roscius was the first of Cicero's public orations or pleas; and it is criticised by the author himself in his Orator, ch. 30.

C

Cicero's Apology for Appearing in the Defence.

`REDO ego vos, judices, mirari quid sit quod, cum tot summi oratores hominesque nobilissimi sedeant, ego potissimum surrexerim, qui neque aetate neque ingenio neque auctoritate sim cum his, qui sedeant, comparandus. Omnes 5 hi, quos videtis adesse, in hac causa injuriam novo scelere conflatam putant oportere defendi, defendere ipsi propter iniquitatem temporum non audent; ita fit ut adsint propterea quod officium sequuntur, taceant autem idcirco quia periculum vitant.

ΙΟ

Minime.

2. Quid ergo? Audacissimus ego ex omnibus? At tanto officiosior quam ceteri ? Ne istius quidem laudis ita sim cupidus, ut aliis eam praereptam velim. Quae me igitur res praeter ceteros impulit, ut causam Sex. Rosci reciperem? Quia, si quis horum dixisset, quos videtis 15 adesse, in quibus summa auctoritas est atque amplitudo, si verbum de re publica fecisset, id quod in hac causa multo plura dixisse quam dixisset puta

fieri necesse est,