Roman life in the days of Cicero

ase among us, each judge had a jury, who gave their verdict on the evidence which they had heard. But this verdict was not, as with us, the verdict of the whole jury, given only if

L. (non liquet, "It is not clear") if the case seemed su

d of having poisoned his step-father, Oppianicus, and various other persons. Cicero, who was praetor that year (

rinum, who were very much interested in all that concerned the splendor of their temple services, resisted the claim, and asked Cluentius to plead their case. Cluentius consented. While the cause was going on, it occurred to Oppianicus to get rid of his opponent by poison. He employed an agent, and the agent put the matter into the hands of his freedman, a certain Scamander. Scamander tried to accomplish his object by bribing the slave of the physician who was attending Cluentius. The physician was a needy Greek,

ncipled member of the Senate, he now had recourse. He went, of course, with a large sum in his hand-something about five thousand six hundred pounds of our money. With this the senator-Staienus by name-was to bribe sixteen out of the thirty-two jurymen. They were to have three hundred and fifty pounds apiece for their votes, and Staienus was to have as much for his own vote (which would give a majority), and something over for his trouble. Staienus conceived the happy idea of appropriating the whole, and he managed it in this way. He accosted a fellow-juror, whom he knew to be as unprincipled as

Guilty." Rumors too of foul play had spread about. The two circumstances caused some of the more respectable jurors to hesitate. In the end five voted for acquittal, ten said "Not Proven," and seventeen "Guilty." Oppianicus suffered nothing worse than b

en a chest and abstracting from it a quantity of silver coin and five pounds weight of gold. At the same time he murdered two of his fellow-slaves, and threw their bodies into the fish-pond. Suspicion fell upon the missing slaves. But when the chest came to be closely examined, the opening was found to be of a very curious kind. A friend remembered that he had lately seen among the miscellaneous articles at an auction a circular saw which would have made just such an opening. It was found that this saw had been bought by the physician. He was now charged with the crime. Thereupon a young lad who had been his accomplice came forward and told the story. The bodies were found in the fish-pond. The guilty slave was tortured. He confessed the deed, and he also confessed, his mistress declared, that he

imes which had been proved against the dead Oppianicus as upon any thing el

n Gaul. The poor woman called her kinsfolk together and implored them to undertake the task of recovering him. At the same time she made a will, leaving the bulk of her property to her daughter's son, the younger Oppianicus, but providing for the missing man a legacy of between three and four thousand pounds. The elder Oppianicus was not disposed to see so large a sum go out of the family. Dinaea fell ill, and he brought her his own physician. The p

onsible if any harm should be found to have happened to the missing man. A few days afterwards the agents themselves returned. They had found the man, but he was dead. Oppianicus dared not face the burst of rage which this news excited, and fled from Larinum. But he was not at the end of his resources. The Civil War between Sulla and the party of Marius (for Marius himself was now dead) was raging, and Oppianicus fled to the camp of Metellus Pius, one of Sulla's lieutenants. There he represented himself as one who had suffered for the party. Metellus had himself fought in the Social War, and fought against the side to which the murder

d by all his acquaintances. Then he had taken up his quarters in a farmhouse in the Falernian country. From these he was driven away by a quarrel with the farmer, and removed to a small lodging which he had hired outs

ay, drunk off its contents, and instantly expired. The answer to this was complete. The young man had not instantly expired. On the contrary, he had died after an illness of several days, and this illness had had a different cause. He was already out of health when he came to the breakfast, and he had made himself worse by eating and drinking too freely, "as," says the orator, "young men will do." He then called a witness to whom no one could object, the father of the deceased. "The least sus

a woman was coming with a great retinue and heavy money-bags, coming with the single object of bringing about the ruin of a son who was being tried for his life. In all those crowds there was not a man who did not think that every spot on which she set her foot needed to be purified, that the very earth, which is the mother of us all, was defiled by the presence of a mother so abominably wicked. There was not a single town in which she was allowed to stay; there was not an inn of all the many upon that road where the host did not shun the contagion of her presence

bringing a resolution of the local senate full of the praises of the accused, a deputation of the senators. Cicero turned to the deputation and begged them to stand up while the resolution was being read. They stood up and burst into tears, which indeed are much more common among the people of the south than among us, and of which no one sees any reason to be ashamed. "You see these tears,

f one of the witnesses at a trial connected with the case. "Less than fifty-three," he replied. "Exactly the sum," was the general cry from the spectators. The point of the joke is in the fact that the same word stood in Latin for the thousand paces which made a mile and the thousand coins by which sums of money were commonly reckoned.