'I urge you, Marcus Fannius, as chairman of this court, to look at the enormous crowd that has gathered for this trial. What has drawn them here? Ah, yes, the nature of the accusation is sensational in the extreme. A Roman court has not heard a case of murder in a very long time — though in the interim there have certainly been no lack of abominable murders! Those who have gathered here are sick of murder; they long for justice. They want to see criminals harshly punished. They want to see crime put down with frightful severity.
'That is what we ask for harsh punishments and the full severity of the law. Usually it is the accusers who make such demands, but not today. Today it is we, the accused, who appeal to you, Fannius, and your fellow judges, to punish crime with all the vehemence you can muster. For if you do not — if you fail to seize this opportunity to show us where the judges and the courts of Rome stand — then we have clearly reached that point where all limits to human greed and outrage have been swept aside. The alternative is anarchy, absolute and unbounded. Capitulate to the accusers, fail to do your duty, and from this day forward the slaughter of the innocent will no longer be done in the shadows and hidden by legal subterfuge. No, such murders will be committed here in the very Forum itself, Fannius, before the very platform where you sit. For what is the aim of this trial, except that theft and murder can be committed with impunity?
'I see two camps before the Rostra. The accusers: those who have laid claim to the property of my client, who directly profited from the murder of my client's father, who now seek to goad the state into killing an innocent man. And the accused: Sextus Roscius, to whom his accusers have left nothing but ruin, to whom his father's death brought not only grief, but destitution, who now presents himself before this court with armed guards at his back — not for the protection of the court, as Erucius sneeringly implies, but for his own protection, for fear he may be murdered on the spot before your very eyes! Which of these parties is truly on trial here today? Which has invited the wrath of the law?
'No mere description of these bandits will suffice to acquaint you with the blackness of their characters. No simple catalogue of their crimes will make manifest their degree of high-handedness in daring to accuse Sextus Roscius of parricide. I-must begin at the beginning and recount for you the whole course of events that have led to this moment. Then you will know the full degradation to which an innocent man has been subjected. Then you will understand completely the audacity of his accusers and the unspeakable horror of their crimes. And you will see as well, not fully but with frightening clarity, the calamitous state into which this republic has fallen.'
Cicero was like a man transformed. His gestures were strong and unequivocal. His voice was passionate and clear. Had I seen him from a distance I would not have recognized him. Had I heard him from another room I would not have known his voice.
I had witnessed such transformations before, but only in the theatre or on certain religious occasions, when one expects to be startled by the elasticity of the human vessel. To see it occur before my eyes in a man I thought I knew was startling. Had Cicero known all along that such a change would come upon him in his moment of need? Had Rufus and Tiro? Surely they must have known, for there was no other way to account for the serene confidence that had never left them. What had they all been able to see in Cicero that I could not?
Erucius had entertained the crowd "with melodrama and bombast, and the mob had been well satisfied. He had threatened the judges to their faces, and they had suffered his abuse in silence. Cicero seemed determined to stir true passion in his listeners, and his hunger for justice was infectious. His decision to indict Chrysogonus from the beginning had been a bold gamble. At the very mention of the name, Erucius and Magnus were thrown into a visible panic. Clearly they had expected a meek opposition that would offer as rambling and circumstantial an oration as their own. Instead Cicero plunged into the tale up to his neck, omitting nothing.
He described the circumstances of the elder Sextus Roscius, his connections in Rome and his long-standing feud with the cousins Magnus and Capito. He described their notorious characters. (Capito he compared to a scarred and hoary gladiator, and Magnus to an old fighter's protege who had already surpassed his master in wreaking havoc.) He specified the time and place of Sextus Roscius's murder, and noted the odd fact that Mallius Glaucia had ridden all night to take a bloody dagger and report the death to Capito in Ameria. He detailed the connection between the cousins and Chrysogonus; the illegal proscription of Sextus Roscius after his death and after all such proscriptions had ceased by law; the useless protestations of the town council of Ameria; the acquisition of the Roscius estate by Chrysogonus, Magnus, and Capito; their attempts to eliminate Sextus Roscius the younger and his flight to Caecilia Metella in Rome. He reminded the judges of the query applied to every crime by the great. Lucius Cassius Longinus Ravilla: who profits?
When he approached the matter of the dictator, he did not flinch; he seemed almost to smirk. 'I remain convinced, good Judges, that all this took place without the knowledge, indeed beneath the notice, of the venerable Lucius Sulla. After all, his sphere is vast and wide; national affairs of the utmost importance claim all his attention as he busily repairs the wounds of the past and forestalls the threats of the future. All eyes are on him; all power resides in his sure hands. To build peace or wage war — the choice, and the means to carry it out, are his and his alone. Imagine the host of petty miscreants who surround such a man, who watch and wait for those occasions when his attention is fully concentrated elsewhere so that they may rush in and take advantage of the moment. Sulla the Fortunate he truly is, but surely, by Hercules, there is no one so beloved by Fortune that there does not lurk within his vast household some dishonest slave or, worse still, a cunning and unscrupulous, ex-slave.'
He consulted his notes and refuted every point of Erucius's oration, ridiculing its simplemindedness. He countered Erucius's argument that Sextus Roscius's obligations to remain in the country had been a sign of discord between father and son with a long digression on the value and honour of rural life — always a pleasing theme to citified Roman ears. He protested that the slaves who had witnessed the murder could not be called as witnesses, because their new owner — Magnus, who now kept them hidden away in the house of Chrysogonus — refused to allow it.
He meditated on the horrors of parricide, a crime so grave that a conviction demanded absolute proof. 'I would almost say that the judges must see the son's hands sprinkled with blood if they are to believe a crime so monstrous, so foul, so unnatural!' He described the ancient punishment for parricide, to the crowd's mingled horror and fascination.
His oration was so exhaustive and lengthy that the judges began sliifting in their seats, no longer from the alarm of hearing Sulla's name, but from restlessness. His voice began to grow hoarse, even though he occasionally took sips from a cup of water hidden behind the podium. I began to think he was stalling for time, though I couldn't imagine why.
For some while Tiro had been absent from the bench of the accused — relieving himself, I had assumed, since I felt a growing need to do the same thing myself. At that very moment Tiro came hobbling briskly along the gallery, leaning on his crutch, and took his place at the bench. From atop the Rostra Cicero looked down and raised an eyebrow. Some sort of signal passed between them, and they both smiled.