[20]
Such questions have to be
considered, not merely in connection with the statement of the charges or the reasons alleged, but with
reference to the nature of the case in its entirety.
For instance, the question of cruelty is considered
with regard to the charge of high treason brought
against Rabirius1 by Labienus; of inhumanity in the
case of Tubero who accused Ligarius when he was
an exile and attempted to prevent Caesar from
pardoning him; of arrogance as in the case of the
charge brought against Oppius2 on the strength of
a letter of Cotta.
1 Rabirius was accused of causing the death of Saturninus forty years after the event.
2 P. Oppius, quaestor to M. Aurelius Cotta in Bithynia, was charged by Cotta in a letter to the senate with misappropriation of supplies for the troops and with an attempt on his life. Cicero defended him in 69 B.C. The speech is lost.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.
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