Political Speeches (Oxford World's Classics) (53 page)

I formally declare
: Curio jokingly uses the same language as that used by the consul presiding over the elections when officially announcing the result.

the transfer of the courts
: to the equestrian order. The people Cicero claims to be quoting, ‘all the best people’, were senators.

were drawing lots
: to decide which praetor would be in charge of which court.

Marcus Metellus
: Marcus Caecilius Metellus, brother of the Lucius Metellus who had succeeded Verres in Sicily and of the Quintus Metellus who had just been elected consul (with Hortensius) for 69. We learn below at §30 that he was one of the jurors in this trial.

a number of chests … to a Roman equestrian
: these chests of money had been used for bribery at the consular and praetorian elections which had just taken place (as the reference to these elections in the next section makes clear). The identities of the senator and equestrian are not known.

at my election
: the impending aedilician elections, at which Verres hoped to prevent Cicero being elected aedile for 69.

when he had been standing for the praetorship
: in 75.

the Romilian tribe
: the first of the thirty-one rural tribes. Its territory lay on the right bank of the Tiber, on land said to have been taken from Veii by Romulus; see L. R. Taylor,
The Voting Districts of the Roman Republic
(Rome, 1960), 38.

preoccupied and tied down by the present trial
: and therefore not in a position to prosecute them.

most wholeheartedly
: Cicero was top of the poll (
Pis
. 2).

Quintus Metellus
: Quintus Caecilius Metellus, consul-elect of 69, the brother of Marcus Metellus and of Lucius, Verres’ successor in Sicily. After his consulship he became governor of Achaea and Crete; in Crete he defeated the pirates (68–67) and organized the island as a Roman province (66), thus earning for himself the
cognomen
‘Creticus’.

the preliminary votes at his election
: Cicero claims that when the consular elections took place, Verres bribed the centuries that voted first (consuls were elected by the centuries in the centuriate assembly, not by the tribal assembly) to vote for Metellus; Metellus then repaid the favour by assuring Verres that he would help him out at his trial in 69. Cicero’s play on words seems forced in English translation but is much neater in Latin, where
praerogativa
means both ‘the century which votes first in the centuriate assembly’ and also ‘a forecast’ (here, a forecast of Metellus’ goodwill,
translated loosely as ‘a preliminary vote of confidence’). At elections, later centuries often took their lead from the way the first ones voted (so it made sense to target bribes at the first ones); the choice of the first century was therefore seen as a forecast of the eventual result (cf.
Phil
. 2.82).

The second consul-elect
: Quintus Metellus. He was second because Hortensius was top of the poll.

Lucius Metellus
: Lucius Caecilius Metellus, brother of Quintus and Marcus. He went on to become consul in 68, but died early in his year of office.

‘I am consul … comes to no harm’
: this little speech conveys, as Cicero intends, a strong impression of the arrogance and power of the Metelli (note that Metellus says he is consul, although still only consul-elect). Their arrogance is borne out by a famous letter of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer (the husband of Clodia Metelli) to Cicero in 62: ‘So I am dressed in mourning—I, who am in command of a province, in command of an army, who am fighting a war! It was not like this in our ancestors’ time …’ (
Fam
. 5.1.2).

the power of two praetors
: Lucius Metellus, governor of Sicily, was technically propraetor (in this translation I use the word ‘governor’ for ease of comprehension, though the Romans had no such term, referring instead to proconsuls and propraetors).

you were made consul not by fate
: an allusion to a line attributed to Naevius (third century
BC
), ‘By fate the Metelli become consuls at Rome’ (on Naevius and the Metelli, see H. B. Mattingly,
Historia
, 9 (1960), 414–39). If Verres really made this remark, it would be one of several indications that he had a lively sense of humour (cf. §40).

So he will have two consuls … on his side
: i.e. if the trial is delayed until 69.

Manius Glabrio
: see note on §4 above. Cicero described him as ‘lazy and negligent’ many years later at
Brut
. 239 (46
BC
).

the colleague of our prosecutor
: he and Cicero had been elected plebeian aediles for 69. He must have progressed to the praetorship since Cicero mentions him at
Att
. 1.1.1 as a possible rival (though not a serious one) for the consulship of 63.

in Junius’ court
: Gaius Junius had presided over a controversial trial in 74, when Aulus Cluentius Habitus had accused his stepfather Statius Abbius Oppianicus of attempting to poison him; Oppianicus was convicted by a majority of one. It was widely believed that Oppianicus was innocent of the charge and that Cluentius had obtained his conviction by bribing the jury (‘the terrible corruption that took place’); Junius was afterwards fined on a technicality, his career ruined. Oppianicus died in exile, and in 66 his son accused Cluentius in turn of having poisoned him; Cicero defended Cluentius (in
Pro Cluentio
), denied that his client had been responsible for the corruption in the earlier trial (the so-called Junius trial), and secured his acquittal.

Quintus Manlius and Quintus Cornificius
: Manlius’ identity is uncertain. Cornificius progressed to the praetorship and stood against Cicero for the consulship of 63 (at
Att
. 1.1.1 Cicero views his candidature as as much of a joke as Caesonius’). Tribunes of the plebs took up office on 10 December.

Publius Sulpicius
: quaestor-elect; quaestors took up office on 5 December. Since he was already a senator (all the jurors in this case were senators), he must have been appointed to the senate by Sulla, but not yet have held a senatorial magistracy.

Marcus Crepereius … Lucius Cassius … Gnaeus Tremellius
: military tribunes-elect (i.e. designated for the more prestigious, elected military tribunates, not simply appointed). Gnaeus Tremellius Scrofa had been quaestor in 71; the other two were presumably also ex-quaestors. Tremellius had military experience: he served under Crassus against Spartacus, and was defeated and wounded, in 71. He became praetor in the early 50s, and then probably held a provincial governorship in 51–50. He is not to be confused with the older man of the same name who was an agricultural authority and appears as an interlocutor in Varro’s
De re rustica
.

Marcus Metellus’ place
: Marcus Metellus, the praetor-elect who was to assume the presidency of the court in 69, was also one of the jurors in 70.

virtually the entire jury will have changed
: eight jurors would have changed. The total number of jurors in unknown, but for Cicero’s statement to make sense (and allowing for some moderate exaggeration) it can hardly have been more than twelve or fifteen.

the Votive Games
: the Votive Games were held on 16 August–1 September (August had twenty-nine days), the Roman Games on 4–18 September, the Games of Victory on 27–31 October, and the Plebeian Games on 4–17 November. The Votive Games celebrated Pompey’s victory in the war against Sertorius in 72, and the Games of Victory Sulla’s victory over the Marians in 82. The other two sets of games were traditional (see first note on
Ver
. 2.5.36 below).

among the jurors I rejected
: see first note on §10 above. In view of what Cicero is about to say, it is surprising that he did not reject Metellus; presumably the jurors that he did reject were even more hostile.

who had previously … to the test
: i.e. when Cicero served as a quaestor in Sicily in 75.

all my youthful energy
: Cicero was in fact 36.

our entire order
: the senatorial order.

in that place
: the rostra. Cicero is threatening to conduct prosecutions as plebeian aedile before the plebeian assembly.

the grandest … spectacle of my aedileship
: aediles were expected to put on games. During his aedileship Cicero put on three sets of games, but is not known to have undertaken any prosecutions.

Let me advise, warn, and give notice
: the traditional formula used when declaring war.

the ten years
: actually eleven; the courts were transferred to the senate by the
lex Cornelia
of 81.

for nearly fifty years
: actually only forty-one (or forty-two); equestrian juries in extortion trials were established by the
lex Acilia
of 122 (or 123) and abolished in 81.

Quintus Calidius
: praetor in 79 (elected with the help of the Metelli) and governor of Nearer Spain in 78; he was convicted of extortion in 77. The jury consisted of his fellow senators, who would naturally have taken his side; those who voted against him had been bribed by the prosecution. The point of his remark was that it was understandable if the jurors voted against a fellow senator in return for a truly massive bribe, but it reflected badly on him if they did so for only a relatively modest sum.

the senator Publius Septimius
: Publius Septimius Scaevola was convicted of extortion, apparently against the Apulians, in 72. In the assessment of damages, the amount he had to pay was increased to take account of the fact that he had allegedly accepted a bribe when serving on the jury in the trial of Oppianicus in 74 (see fifth note on §29 above). Cf.
Clu
. 138–9, where Cicero attempts to explain away this passage by saying that he may not have said it at all, but that if he did, then he was not saying something he knew to be true, but was merely reporting a rumour.

Gaius Herennius and Gaius Popillius
: the former may have been tribune in 88 or 80, and may equally have been killed while serving under Sertorius in Spain in 76 or 75; the latter is entirely unknown. The dates of their trials are also unknown.

Marcus Atilius
: Marcus Atilius Bulbus, one of the jurors in the trial of Oppianicus. He was convicted of tampering with a legion in Illyricum; the date of the trial is unknown.

Gaius Verres was drawing lots as city praetor
: i.e. drawing lots to decide which members of a panel assigned to a particular case that was coming up for trial should be selected as jurors (exactly as at §16, where see note). The case Cicero is referring to, held in 74, is unknown (it is not, for once, the trial of Oppianicus, since on that occasion a ‘proper trial’ was indeed held).

a senator was found
: Gaius Aelius Paetus Staienus, quaestor in 77, a juror in the Oppianicus trial.

with symbols of different colours
: see first note on §17 above. Cicero is alluding to the flagrant use of bribery at the trial of Aulus Terentius Varro for extortion in 74, at which Varro was successfully defended by his cousin Hortensius.

a powerful friend
: Hortensius.

those of the second to his advocates
: this was in fact technically illegal.

The
lex Cincia
of 204
BC
prohibited advocates from accepting fees or gifts in return for their services; but it was regularly flouted. Verres is known to have given Hortensius a valuable bronze sphinx as payment for defending him.

when the rejection of jurors was being held
: see first note on §10 above.

the restoration of the tribunes’ powers
: in 81 Sulla had removed the tribunes’ power to initiate legislation and to exercise limited jurisdiction, had curtailed their right of veto, and had disqualified them from holding further public office. In 75 the disqualification from office had been removed; the other powers were restored in 70 by the consuls Pompey and Crassus.

Quintus Catulus
: Quintus Lutatius Catulus, son of the consul of 102 and himself consul in 78 and censor in 65; in 78–77 he was chiefly responsible for suppressing his colleague, the rebel Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. He was a strong defender of the Sullan settlement, and was the leader of the conservatives in the senate in the 70s and 60s, opposing the
lex Gabinia
in 67 and the
lex Manilia
in 66; he also opposed Caesar in 63. He had previously resisted the restoration of the tribunes’ powers; his change of mind in 70 allowed both the restoration of the tribunes’ powers and the abolition of senatorial juries to proceed without serious opposition. His sister was the wife of Hortensius.

illustrious
: Cicero refers to senators as
clarissimi
and to
equites
(less commonly) as
splendidi
. This was a standard convention and in order to reproduce it in English I have translated these words throughout (when they refer to individuals) as ‘illustrious’ and ‘worthy’ respectively.

outside the city
: Pompey still held his grant of military power (given to him for his war against Sertorius in Spain and against Spartacus’ slave revolt), but in law this would be forfeited if he were to cross the city boundary and enter Rome. He did not want to give up his power because (1) this would make him ineligible for a triumph (he would no longer be a general), and (2) it would expose him to prosecution (holders of official power could not be prosecuted until their power had expired and they returned to the status of an ordinary citizen). He therefore held his triumph on the last day of December 71, and became consul (and immune from prosecution) on 1 January 70.

the law about the tribunes
: the law restoring their powers, passed earlier in the year.

of slender means
: and therefore unable to bribe his jurors. The senator’s identity is unknown.

a different order altogether
: the equestrian order.