The Case for the Prosecution in the Ciceronian Era

Chapter Two: In M. Fonteium

chapter two In M. Fonteium n 69 B.C., on the heels of his successful prosecution of Verres for extortion, Cicero defended Fonteius, charged with the same crime. A later rhetorical writer reveals that Cicero tried to distinguish between the two cases: “. . . ut pro Fonteio Marcus Tullius exsequitur, quod eius causa non sit eadem quae Verris” [ . . . as in his speech for Fonteius Cicero develops the argument that his case is not the same as that of Verres].1 Since Cicero had just prosecuted Verres and was now defending Fonteius, it is quite natural that he would want his audience to think that the two cases were entirely different. The initial reaction of the modern reader may be to agree with Cicero, since Cicero’s Verrines, which occupy a thick Oxford Classical Texts volume, dwarf what remains of his Pro Fonteio, only twenty-one pages in length in an Oxford Classical Texts edition. Moreover, the outlooks of the two speeches are so different—not surprisingly, given the two opposing roles of the same orator. Yet an analysis of the Pro Fonteio reveals hints, noted by commentators, that the charges made by the prosecution against Fonteius and the methods used to support them were similar to those that Cicero had used against Verres. Therefore, we can use the extensive material on the prosecution of Verres as a model by which to understand better the prosecution of Fonteius. 59 I 60 The Case for the Prosecution Moreover, the result of such an analysis will, I hope, help us not only to better understand the role of Fonteius but also to see the trial of Verres in a more realistic light, as Gruen has urged us to do—as a commonplace and typical example of an extortion trial.2 If the trial of Verres was, as Gruen says, a minor event, rather than the scandal of the century, it provides us with a typical example of an extortion trial that is useful for understanding how extortion trials worked in general. By showing Cicero trying to refute in his Pro Fonteio the prosecutor’s lines of argument that he himself had employed the year before with such apparent conviction in the Verrines, I hope to convey the message that in both trials, the case for the prosecution was presented, not the views of the individual prosecutor. Similar kinds of trials gave rise to similar accusations, regardless of who the prosecutor was. This chapter on the prosecution of Fonteius has a different structure from the following ten analyses of other prosecutions. Here, the material on the participants, the charges, and the procedural and substantive arguments (speci‹cally, chronology, defendant, patroni, prosecutors, the provinces involved, allegations not constituting extortion [involving the defendant’s actions prior to the governorship and his military performance while governor], charges of extortion, witnesses, documents, and the outcome ) will be presented in explicit comparison with the trial of Verres. The result will be to magnify somewhat the importance of the trial of Fonteius and to bring the trial of Verres down to the level of a typical extortion case. Verres and Fonteius held governorships during roughly the same period. Verres served as urban praetor in 74, governed Sicily in 73–71, and was prosecuted immediately on his return. Fonteius served as governor in Transalpine Gaul for three years in the mid-seventies (Cic. Font. 32); he may have served as praetor in the ‹rst of these years and as propraetor in the next two or as propraetor in all three years.3 For those trying to understand the 69 B.C. trial of Fonteius based on his activities as governor, either possible chronology presents a problem, although the latter possibility presents a lesser one. We (perhaps rashly) expect an extortion trial to occur immediately after the termination of the of‹ce in which the extortion is said to have occurred. Was there a gap of at least two and possibly three years in which the case was not pursued, even as the evidence grew cold? We can only speculate on the answer. It may be a mistake, in the absence of suf‹cient evidence, to date extortion trials to the year immediately following a governorship. It may have taken a long time to gather the necessary evidence and locate appropriate witnesses in an area where the spread of civilization was uneven. Also, the passage in 70 B.C. of the lex...