M. Tullius Cicero, Pro S. Roscio Amerino, ed. Albert Curtis Clark, 58

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[58] 21 quid mihi ad defendendum dedisti, bone accusator? quid hisce autem ad suspicandum? ne¹ exheredaretur veritus est. audio, sed qua de causa vereri debuerit nemo dicit. habebat pater in animo. planum fac. nihil est; non quicum deliberaverit², quem certiorem fecerit, unde istud vobis suspicari in mentem venerit. cum hoc modo accusas, Eruci, nonne hoc palam dicis: ego quid acceperim scio, quid dicam nescio; unum illud³ spectavi quod Chrysogonus aiebat neminem isti patronum futurum; de bonorum emptione deque ea societate neminem esse qui verbum facere auderet hoc tempore⁴? haec te opinio falsa in istam fraudem impulit; non me hercules verbum fecisses, si tibi quemquam responsurum putasses.

Pro S. Roscio Amerino. M. Tullius Cicero. ed. Albert Curtis Clark. Oxford. 1908.

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Funding provided by National Endowment For The Humanities (NEH).

Current edition Perseus

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

Translations (1)

For Sextus Roscius of Ameria Perseus (Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 1. Yonge, Charles Duke, translator. London: Bell, 1903.) — 58 focus

[58] What have you given me to defend my client against, my good accuser? And what ground have you given these judges for any suspicion? He was afraid of being disinherited. I hear you. But no one says what ground he had for fear. His father had it in contemplation. Prove it. There is no proof; there is no mention of any one with whom he deliberated about it—whom he told of it; there is no circumstance from which it could occur to your minds to suspect it. When you bring accusations in this manner, O Erucius, do you not plainly say this? “I know what I have received, but I do not know what to say. I have had regard to that alone which Chrysogonus said, that no one would be his advocate; that there was no one who would dare at this time to say a word about the purchase of the property, and about that conspiracy.” This false opinion prompted you to this dishonesty. You would not in truth have said a word if you had thought that any one would answer you.

Notes on the current edition

Pro S. Roscio Amerino

1. ne neque ς

2. deliberaverit σχ: deliberavit cett.: deliberarit ed. V

3. illud σχψ: illum cett.

4. hoc tempore auderet ed. Mediol.

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

ejus modi ,

quo uno maleficio , of such a kind, that in this one crime (rel. clause of result).

voltu , by a look.

postularet , . . .

cogebant , would compel it if the case required: see § 517 , b (308, b); cf. B. 304, 3; G. 597, R.3; H. 583, I (5

jura cogebant is equivalent to a verb of necessity, and hence the imperf. indic. in the apodosis appears with the imperf. subj. in the protasis.

auditum sit , a general condition; subj. because integral part of the result clause.

tu (emphatic), you, a professional prosecutor.

censes : the word used to express deliberate judgment, after discussion or the like.

mores , character, as resulting from habits of life;

naturam (next line), natural disposition.

tu : emphatic, as opposed to the general run of accusers. Cicero is here using the famous "argument from probability," a favorite with ancient orators and rhetoricians from the fifth century B.C. "For example, if a physically weak man be accused of an assault, he is to ask the jury, 'Is it probable that a weakling like me should have attacked anybody?' while if the accused is a strong man he is to claim that it is improbable that he should have committed an assault in a case where his strength was sure to be used as a presumption against him."

M. Tullius Cicero Pro S. Roscio Amerino 58

ed. Albert Curtis Clark

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