M. Tullius Cicero, Orations: Three orations on the Agrarian law, the four against Catiline, the orations for Rabirius, Murena, Sylla, Archias, Flaccus, Scaurus, etc. (ed. C. D. Yonge)

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THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO IN DEFENCE OF MARCUS AEMILIUS SCAURUS. ¹

THE ARGUMENT

Marcus Scaurus was the stepson of Sulla, in the time of whose triumph he had behaved with the greatest moderation. He had been aedile, in which office he had exhibited the games with the greatest magnificence, so as greatly to embarrass his private fortunes. He then became praetor and afterwards having received Sardinia as his province, he lost his character for moderation, being said to have treated the natives with rapacity and excessive arrogance. After his return to Rome, he obtained some celebrity by defending some persons under prosecution; and among others Caius Cato.

At the end of June A. U. C. 699, he returned to Rome to stand for the consulship; on which he was accused by Publius Valerius Triarius, (a young man of a high reputation for industry and eloquence) of acts of oppression and extortion among the Sardinians. And the trial came on before Marcus Cato, who was a great friend of Triarius, only three days after Caius Cato had been acquitted by the exertions of Scaurus. Lucius Marius and Marcus and Quintus Pacuvius seconded Triarius in the prosecution, these two last having had a commission given to them to go to Corsica and Sardinia to inquire into the state of the case there, which commission they had neglected, excusing themselves on the ground that the consular comitia were at hand and that they were afraid that while they were away Scaurus would buy the consulship, and so get the means of oppressing other provinces.

Scaurus relied on the support of Pompeius with whom he was connected by marriage; and he was defended by Cicero and five other advocates among whom was Quintus Hortensius. While the prosecution was going on, Faustus Sulla, the son of the great Sulla, and half brother of Scaurus, who was also quaestor at the time, came out among the people severely wounded crying out that Scaurus' competitors had attempted to murder him. He went about with three hundred armed guard prepared to defend himself, if need were, by force; Scaurus also made a speech on his own behalf and produced a great effect on the judges by the recollection of his own aedileship and the recollection of his father's high character. He was acquitted, but he did not succeed in obtaining the consulship.

I.

[1. a.]
**** It was desirable above all things for Marcus Scaurus, O judges, to return (as he has always been most especially anxious and attentive to do) the dignity of his race, and family, and name, without incurring the hatred of any one, and without either giving offence to or receiving annoyance from
***

[But since his adverse destiny has brought about this state of things, he does not think that he ought to grumble at meeting with the same fortune as his father, who was more than once compelled by his enemies to plead his cause as a defendant.]

[1. b.] [We know that the most eminent man of our state was accused by Marcus Brutus. Orations are extant from which it can be seen that many things were said against Scaurus himself. Falsely. No one doubts that; but still they were said and urged against him as accusations by his enemy.]
*****

he also was tried before the people, when Cnaeus Domitius, a tribune of the people, instituted the prosecution
***

[2.]
**** He was prosecuted by Quintus Servilius Caepio, under the Servilian law, at the time when the tribunals of judges were furnished exclusively by the equestrian body; and after Publius Rutilius was condemned, no one could appear so innocent as to have no reason to fear that tribunal.

******

[3.]
**** again also that guardian of the republic was accused of treason by the same man, under the Varian law. And not long before he was attacked by Quintus Varius, a tribune of the people.

[And now, O judges, his enviers and enemies seek to bring disgrace on the son of this man who was in his time attacked by the false accusations of many men, by an ignominious prosecution on the ground of extortion. And I have thought it due to the memory of his most illustrious father to undertake his cause.]

[4. a.]
**** for I not only admired that man as every one else did, but I also loved him above all things. For when I was burning with a desire for glory, he first encouraged me to hope that virtue without any assistance from fortune could, by means of labour and perseverance, arrive at the object of its desires.
***

[4. b.]
**** and since the prosecution has been loaded with a vast heap of charges, but without any great diversity or variety of kind; [if] I were to reply to these generally [rather than by arguments on each separate charge, I should appear to have fallen short of what I owe to the cause, and to my own duty. Nevertheless, O judges, we will first unfold the whole cause to you, and consider it when we have laid it open before your eyes. And by this means you will most easily arrive at the understanding of the things about which it is necessary for us to speak, and of the arguments which you are required to follow.]

[4. c.]
**** a man of the name of Bostar, a Norensian, fleeing from Sardinia
*** [Triarius alleges as an article of accusation, that he was recalled from his flight by the insidious blandishments of Scaurus, and received at his table inhospitality, and then murdered by poison by his host and
*** ]
*** that he was buried before Scaurus's supper was taken away.
***

[4. d.] [And how slight are the grounds for any suspicion of poison having been administered, O judges, will appear immediately, if you will only consider the many causes which frequently produce sudden death.]
***

[4. e.] [Scaurus was a man so happily situated by fortune, that he could not only retain his own possessions with the greatest ease, but that he was more likely to be able to acquire new] ones, than to be forced to sell what he had. Come, then, while I defend Scaurus, O Triarius, you defend the mother [of Bostar, whom I accuse of being implicated in this crime.]
***

[I have also refuted that assertion of yours] that you were afraid that
**** [unless, as Bostar had died intestate, he had managed the matter in such a way as if the inheritance belonged to himself, and as if this did not seem to him a sufficient reason for putting Bostar to death by poison.]

[4. f.] [But Scaurus]
**** could not by any possibility have entered on the possession of that property.
***

[5.] If, in truth, O judges, I were speaking in defence of Lucius Tubulus, who is reported to have been the most wicked and most audacious man that ever lived, still I should not be afraid that if he were accused of having given poison to any guest or companion of his while he was supping with him, though he was not his heir, and had no quarrel with him
*** [any one would think that credible.]

[6.] [I come now to the charge of incontinence, and intemperate lust with which the accuser has endeavoured to brand Scaurus and his character,] when Aris would not give up [the very wife, says he, whom he himself loved
***** to his inflamed lust and unbridled desire.]
***

[7.] He was compelled to make his escape secretly out of Sardinia.
***

[Forsooth, he left his wife behind him and consulted his own safety by flight, just as beavers, they say, flying from the hunters]
**** ransom themselves with that part of their body on account of which they are chiefly sought for!
*** [8.] [But even though Scaurus had at all times been the most dissolute and licentious of all men, still that is incredible, O judges, which Triarius added, that the wife of Aris was reduced to such distress by the licentiousness of the praetor as to seek a remedy for her embarrassment by hanging herself. For the very first desire which is implanted in man by nature, and one which we have in common with the very beasts, is that which prompts and induces a man to preserve his life, and which instigates him to shun death and all those things which seem likely to produce death.]

¹ This oration is in a very corrupt and fragmentary state. It is here translated as corrected and filled up by Beier in the edition of Orellius. Beier's "supplements," as Orellius calls them, are inserted between brackets [ ].

This text is based on the following book(s):
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
OCLC: 4709897