Cicero - Anthony Everitt [47]
These made a powerful case for reform of the courts and the jury system and also allowed Cicero to demonstrate his mastery of presentation. He spoke explicitly on the subject. “Gentlemen of the jury, you must take thought and make provision for your public credit, for your good name, for your common interest in self-preservation. Your spotless characters make it impossible for you to behave badly, save at the cost of damaging and endangering the state. For if you are unable to arrive at a correct judgment in this case, the Roman People cannot expect that there will be other Senators who can. It will despair of the Senatorial Order as a whole and look around for some other type of man and some other method of administering justice.” Later in the autumn the Senatorial monopoly of juries was rescinded and their share of the membership reduced to one third, the remainder being allocated to equites and others.
On January 1, 69, Cicero took up his duties as Aedile and addressed the task of staging various festivals—that of Ceres with its circus games on or about April 19; ten days or so later, the celebrations in honor of Flora, goddess of flowers, with its program of popular plays and striptease shows; and from September 4 to 19 the great Roman Games (Ludi Romani), which featured drama performances and chariot races. Aediles were expected to supplement the official budget from their own pockets and there was fierce competition to stage the most splendid and extravagant events. Cicero’s resources were limited and he could not afford the kind of conspicuous expenditure with which Julius Caesar would cut a dash when he was Aedile later in the decade. However, his clientela in Sicily apparently made up for any deficiencies by flooding Rome with foodstuffs and so keeping the cost of living artificially low. This won Cicero golden opinions among the urban masses.
He continued to be very busy in the law courts, where his dominance was confirmed by Hortensius’s gradual withdrawal into a luxurious private life. He undertook no further prosecutions. Cicero led the defense in the trial of a provincial governor who faced corruption charges. Although probably a Verres on a small scale, he was presented as being completely innocent, beyond the shadow of a doubt. Cicero’s conscience was clear; he took the view that an advocate’s task was to win, not to uncover the truth. AS he observed towards the end of his life: “It is the judge’s responsibility always to seek the truth in trials; while it is the advocate’s to make out a case for what is probable, even if it doesn’t precisely correspond to the truth.”
In 68 the surviving correspondence with his old school friend Atticus begins. For the first few years only a handful of letters survives (the flood starts in 61), but they provide our first direct insight into Cicero’s personal life. Although Quintus, his younger brother, made no attempt to compete with him as a public speaker, he too set his sights on a political career and served as Quaestor. With Cicero playing matchmaker, Quintus had married Atticus’s sister, Pomponia, a couple of years earlier. Both husband and wife were hot tempered and the relationship was stormy. Sexual chemistry seems to have been lacking. In November 68, Cicero reported to Atticus his attempts to act as marriage counselor. He was anxious that “my brother, Quintus, should feel towards her as a husband ought. Thinking that he was rather out of temper I sent him a letter designed to mollify him as a brother, advise him as my junior and scold him as a man on the wrong track.” His efforts seem to have had some success, for in the following year he reported that Pomponia was pregnant. She gave birth to a son, who, following Roman custom, was named after his father.
In the same letter we meet other members of the family for the first time: Cicero’s wife, Terentia, who “has a bad attack of rheumatism,” and his daughter, “my darling little Tullia,” perhaps now seven