35.
[98]
In a case so evident as this must we seek for arguments, or hunt for conjectures? Do
you not seem, O judges, actually to behold with your own eyes what you have been
hearing? Do you not see that unhappy man, ignorant of his fate, returning from supper?
Do you not see the ambush that is laid? the sudden attack? Is not Glaucia before your
eyes, present at the murder? Is not that Titus Roscius present? Is he not with his own
hands placing that Automedon in the chariot, the messenger of his most horrible
wickedness and nefarious victory? Is he not entreating him to keep awake that night? to
labour for his honour? to take the news to Capito as speedily as possible?
[99]
Why
was it that be wished Capito to be the first to
know it? I do not know, only I see this, that Capito is a partner in this property. I see that, of thirteen farms, he
is in possession of three of the finest.
[100]
I hear
besides, that this suspicion is not fixed upon Capito for the first time now; that he has gained many infamous
victories; but that this is the first very splendid 1 one which he has gained at Rome; that there is no manner of committing murder in which he has not
murdered many men; many by the sword, many by poison. I can even tell you of one man
whom, contrary to the custom of our ancestors, he threw from the bridge into the
Tiber, when he was not sixty years of age;
2 and if
he comes forward, or when he comes forward, for I know that he will come forward, he
shall hear of him.
[101]
Only let him come; let him unfold
that volume of his which I can prove that Erucius wrote for him, which they say that he
displayed to Sextus Roscius, and threatened that he would mention everything contained
in it in his evidence. O the excellent witness, O judges; O gravity worthy of being
attended to; O honourable course of life! such that you may with willing minds make your
oaths depend upon his testimony! In truth we should not see the crimes of these men so
clearly if cupidity, and avarice, and audacity, did not render them blind.
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1 The Latin word is lemniscatus, literally, adorned with ribbons hanging down all from a garland or crown. Palma lemniscata is a palm branch (i.e. a token of victory,) given to a gladiator or general when the victory was very remarkable. Cicero understands it of a murder which was connected with very great gains. Riddle, Lat. Dict. v. Lemniscatus.
2 There is a pun here on the word pons. Pons means not only a bridge, but also the platform over which men passed to give their votes at elections; and men above sixty had no votes, and all having none were called depontati or dejecti de ponte.
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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