Murder Trials by Cicero & Marcus Tullius Cicero

Author:Cicero & Marcus Tullius Cicero
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Ancient, Rome, Law, Legal History, Literary Collections, Essays
Publisher: Penguin Books Limited
Published: 1975-07-15T05:15:16+00:00

judges, did not bring one single accusation which was not brought against Fidiculanius as well. Their cases, each one of them, were the same as his in every detail. Now, Attius, in launching your charges today, it has been clear how greatly you have relied on the decisions in these previous trials. So what I have just been saying confronts you with a plain alternative. Either you have to protest that the acquittal of Fidiculanius was mistaken, or if you concede that it was right then you are obliged to make the further admission that Oppianicus’ conviction was not brought about by bribery after all.

The correctness of my argument is surely proved by what followed after the acquittal of Fidiculanius: for none of the other judges who had acted in Oppianicus’ trial were taken to court. To quote the convictions some of them may have received for giving bribes (in the annual elections of state officials), a matter which involves quite a different law,1 is entirely irrelevant, however specific the charges may have been and however numerous the witnesses. As far as the proceedings against Oppianicus were concerned, the issue was whether they had committed the crime of taking bribes, not giving them; and if you are going to say that the taking of bribes told against them even when they were being tried under the law for giving bribes, it would obviously have counted against them a great deal more if their trials had been held under the law which is concerned with the taking of bribes.2 And, secondly, if your allegation that they had taken bribes at the Oppianicus trial was so convincing that, quite regardless of the specific law (against giving bribes) under which they were being prosecuted, the taking of bribes still remained the charge which proved responsible for their ruin, then why on earth were Fidiculanius’ colleagues not likewise put on trial for the same offence? After all, there was no lack of possible accusers, or for that matter of inducements either.

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