M. Tullius Cicero, Pro S. Roscio Amerino, 112

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[112] Why do you undertake a commission, if you are either going to neglect it or to turn it to your own advantage? Why do you offer yourself to me, and by feigned service hinder and prevent my advantage? Get out of the way, I will do my business by means of some one else. You undertake the burden of a duty which you think you are able to support; a duty which does not appear very heavy to those who are not very worthless themselves. 39 This fault therefore is very base, because it violates two most holy things, friendship and confidence; for men commonly do not entrust anything except to a friend, and do not trust any one except one whom they think faithful. It is therefore the part of a most abandoned man, at the same time to dissolve friendship and to deceive him who would not have been injured unless he had trusted him.

Pro S. Roscio Amerino. M. Tullius Cicero. London. 1903.

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Current edition Perseus

For Sextus Roscius of Ameria (English) (Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 1. Yonge, Charles Duke, translator. London: Bell, 1903.)

Editions (1)

Pro Sex. Roscio Amerino Perseus (Cicero. M. Tulli Ciceronis Orationes, Volume 1. Clark, Albert Curtis, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908.) — 112 focus

[112] quid recipis mandatum, si aut neglecturus aut ad tuum commodum conversurus es? cur mihi te offers ac meis commodis officio simulato officis et obstas? recede de medio; per alium transigam. suscipis onus offici quod te putas sustinere posse; quod maxime¹ videtur grave eis qui minime ipsi leves sunt. 39 ergo idcirco turpis haec culpa est, quod duas res sanctissimas violat, amicitiam et fidem. nam neque mandat quisquam fere nisi amico neque credit nisi ei quem fidelem putat. perditissimi est igitur hominis simul et amicitiam dissolvere et fallere eum qui laesus non esset, nisi credidisset.

Commentary

Notes on Pro S. Roscio Amerino (Select Orations of Cicero (Allen and Greenough's Edition). Greenough, James Bradstreet; Kittredge, George Lyman, editors. Boston, London: Ginn & Company, 1897.) focus

diem .

tabulas : confiscated property belonged to the state, and public records of its seizure and sale were, of course, kept.

nulla , not at all: § 290 (191); B. 239; G. 325, R.6; H. 513, 3 (457, 3); H.-B. 245.

redierunt = relata sunt.

facetius , more cleverly: in the case supposed, the pretended proscription would never have occurred and the property would have been taken without even the forms of law.

ante tempus , too early, i.e. before it is time to raise so trivial a question as that of a title to property (Roscius is now on trial for his life).

reduviam curem (proverbial), treat a sore finger, i e. in a case of life and death I deal only with some trifling ailment. For mood see § 535 , e (320, e); B. 283, 3; G. 586 H. 592 (517); H.-B. 523.

non . . . rationem . . . ducit , he does not take account (a mercantile phrase).

M. Tullius Cicero Pro S. Roscio Amerino 112

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