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78 chapter three In L. Valerium Flaccum Valerius Flaccus was prosecuted in 59 B.C. for his activities as governor in Asia in 62. In the year before his governorship , as praetor in 63, he had aided Cicero in the suppression of the Catilinarian conspiracy, and Cicero now defended him. He was one of Cicero’s most distinguished clients; not only was he a patrician, but with the exception of his grandfather, C. Valerius Flaccus, he came from a direct, six-generation line of consulars going back to his namesake, the consul of 261.1 Yet Cicero’s brief was a dif‹cult one, and while he was able to secure an acquittal for Flaccus (according to Macrobius [Sat. 2.1.13], despite the defendant’s obvious guilt and by means of a joke no longer extant in the text of the speech in Macrobius’s day),2 his client’s career came to a virtual close. Except for a legateship under L. Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus in Macedonia in 56–55, Flaccus never held public of‹ce again, at least as far as we know, and most signi‹cantly, he never held the consulate, although he should have been a candidate for that of‹ce, as Cicero implies at the very beginning of his speech: “sperabam, iudices, honoris potius L. Flacci me adiutorem futurum quam miseriarum deprecatorem” [I hoped, jurors, that I would be supporting Lucius Flaccus rather than making entreaties to ward off his af›ictions] (Flac. 1).3 The strategy followed by the prosecution in this case is one that modern L. readers often scorn Roman advocates for not following: concentrating only on what is strictly germane to the charges of the case, vigorously collecting all available evidence, and disregarding the character and past life of the accused.4 Since Flaccus was acquitted, this was apparently not a successful strategy, and the reason is likely to lie, at least in part, in Cicero’s overall response to that strategy: Cicero argues that even if Flaccus has committed some misdeeds as governor, it is wrong of the prosecutors to pass over the defendant’s public service to Rome before his praetorship (Flac. 6) and the probity of his private life (7). Cicero maintains that any offenses Flaccus committed in the brief period when he was praetor should not outweigh his accomplishments over his entire lifetime: “annui temporis criminationem omnis aetas L. Flacci et perpetua vita defendet” [The whole lifetime of Lucius Flaccus and his entire life will fend off an indictment relating to a one-year period] (100).5 Cicero expresses the view that the prosecution’s strategy in the trial of Flaccus stood as a test to the Roman judicial system. Would it allow a Roman of distinguished family and background to be convicted on the basis of overwhelming evidence submitted primarily by foreigners? The trial of Flaccus took place in 59 B.C. and was probably ongoing in September of that year.6 It was probably held under the lex Cornelia de repetundis, rather than the lex Iulia de repetundis, which was passed during that year, but this is the subject of controversy. In his speech, Cicero refers to a new law (“lege hac recenti ac nova” [this freshly passed and new law] Flac. 13), but not necessarily as the law under which the trial of Flaccus was being held.7 The main effect that the identity of the statute could have on our understanding of the prosecution involves the number of witnesses. We know that the lex Iulia allowed the prosecution to summon up to 120 witnesses (as compared to forty-eight under the epigraphic extortion law [line 34]), and it is possible that the lex Iulia ‹rst provided for this increase.8 If the trial was held under the earlier law, the prosecutors in the trial of Flaccus did not have the advantage of being able to call as many witnesses as they could have if the trial took place under the new law.9 It is possible, although not necessarily the case, that the two extortion laws may have provided for different time limits for the speakers.10 The controversy about the law under which the trial was held depends in part on whether a prosecution authorized under one law, the lex Cornelia de repetundis, could have led to a trial under a new law on the same subject, the lex Iulia de repetundis.11 The prosecutor and his subscriptores could not match the...

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