The Case for the Prosecution in the Ciceronian Era

Chapter Nine: In A. Cluentium Habitum

chapter nine In A. Cluentium Habitum icero’s speech in defense of A. Cluentius Habitus is by far his longest forensic speech.1 He delivered it at a trial (TLRR no. 198) in 66 B.C., launched in reaction to a trial eight years earlier (TLRR no. 149)—itself connected directly to two other cases (TLRR nos. 147–48)—that was so celebrated it even gained its own name (iudicium Iunianum), one which reverberated through at least seven other cases in the next few years (TLRR nos. 153–54, 159–61, 170, 172, possibly 162). Yet the individuals involved came from the lower end of the social strata visible to us today, the domi nobiles from municipia across the Apennines from Rome, who as individuals were politically dominant only in their own regions and were secondary actors within the city of Rome, though as a group they could be a signi‹cant force, and who therefore appear less in our extant literary sources than their real importance probably warranted. Cicero’s Pro Cluentio provides us with more information about them, their families, and their environments than does any other source from the period, unlike most of the other extant criminal speeches, which involve people from the upper classes of the city of Rome.2 Sex. Roscius senior and junior are partial exceptions, but as we have seen (in chapter 8), the father was well integrated into the Roman scene, and the 173 C 174 The Case for the Prosecution son, despite Cicero’s protestations of innocence and impotence, had strong ties to members of Rome’s most powerful families. In 66 B.C., Abbius Oppianicus, son of the defendant in 74 B.C., brought a prosecution against Cluentius, a member of the equestrian order (Cic. Clu. 156), under the lex Cornelia de sicariis et de vene‹ciis. In part, he claimed to be upholding his own interests, since he claimed that the defendant had tried to murder him (as is discussed later in this chapter), but the prosecution was an act of ‹lial piety, as even Cicero admits (“. . . qui pietate ad accusandum excitatus es” [ . . . who were motivated by family feeling to prosecute], 172), for the defendant of 66 had in 74 successfully prosecuted the prosecutor’s father. Oppianicus junior remained silent throughout the trial, with “tacita pietate” [silent family feeling] (65), and left the actual presentation of the case to the advocate, T. Attius3 of Pisaurum, also a Roman knight. Cicero avoids attacking Oppianicus, since no one could blame him for attempting to gain revenge on the man who, without a doubt, had ruined his father. But Cicero portrays him as being in the grip of his stepmother Sassia, not only because she had been married to his father, but also because, three years before the trial, she had gotten him engaged to marry her own daughter by a previous marriage (179). With this tie and her own control over the will of his father, she planned to induce him to undertake the prosecution of Cluentius.4 Cicero provides a brief overview of Attius’s speech. . . . T. Attium Pisaurensem, cuius accusationi respondi pro A. Cluentio , qui et accurate dicebat et satis copiose, eratque praeterea doctus Hermagorae praeceptis, quibus etsi ornamenta non satis opima dicendi, tamen, ut hastae velitibus amentatae, sic apta quaedam et parata singulis causarum generibus argumenta traduntur. (Brutus 271) [ . . . Titus Attius of Pisaurum, whose accusation I answered in defense of Aulus Cluentius, who [Attius] spoke both with careful preparation and eloquently enough, and was moreover learned in the teachings of Hermagoras, by which certain rhetorical points are delivered, points that are appropriate and prepared for each kind of case, like javelins ‹tted with thongs for the light-armed troops, although insuf‹ciently ample rhetorical ornaments are provided.] (The italicized words are from the Douglas commentary.) The reference to Hermagoras carries two implications.5 First, along with Cicero’s previous representation of the teaching of Hermagoras, it suggests that Cicero judged that Attius possessed more technical competence in preparing material to be used in the speech than persuasive force: “ex hac inopi ad ornandum, sed ad inveniendum expedita Hermagorae disciplina” [[He was] from the school of Hermagoras, which is meager in adornment, though useful for invention] (263).6 Second and more speci‹cally, Cicero’s evaluation of Attius’s speech tells us something about its content. Hermagoras developed the (st£oij or in Latin, status) theory, which...