IT was at this juncture that Cicero undertook his first cause; or, as we should say of an advocate, held his first brief.

What this case was we cannot now ascertain. It is certain that it was not the case of Publius Quintius, for in his speech on that occasion he expressly tells us that he had been retained, and had spoken in several causes previously. But we may perhaps safely assume that it is the first of his speeches that have come down to us. It was delivered when he was twenty-five years old. The case is rather a complicated one, and affords us a curious insight into the. mysteries of Roman law, of which some knowledge is required to be able to understand it. The argument of Cicero is clear and logical, showing that he was well versed in the technicalities of his profession, and fully able even at that early age to cope with such an antagonist as Hortensius, who was "retained" on the other side. But the facts are not of sufficient interest to make it worth while to detail. them in this biography.

When he was in his twenty-seventh year, about the same age as that at which Demosthenes first came forward as a public prosecutor and delivered his speech against Androtion, Cicero made his first appearance in the Forum in a criminal trial for life and death, and defended Sextus Roscius of Ameria, who was accused of parricide, the prosecutor being Chrysogonus. He acquitted himself so well on this occasion that he tells us that business began to flow rapidly in upon

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him; and there was no cause too important to be entrusted to his care. In fact his speech for Roscius-although his first in a public or state trial-was the turning-point of his forensic career. We are reminded by it of what is told of Thurlow's appearance in the great Douglas case; and Erskine's defence in the Greenwich Hospital case, when, hastening home from the court, he exclaimed in triumph to his wife," Voilà! the nonsuit of cow-beef!" Pasquier also, the great French advocate of the sixteenth century, dated all his success from a speech he made in defence of the University of Paris, after he had toiled in thankless obscurity for fourteen years at the bar. As we have now arrived at the period when Cicero was fairly launched on his brilliant career as an advocate, it may be interesting and useful to attempt to give in a note a clear idea of the courts and mode of procedure in ancient Rome. The points of contrast with our own are sufficiently striking; but yet there are points of resemblance which serve like stepping-stones to bridge over the distance which separates us from the times of Cicero, and enable us to understand them better.1

1 The following account I have borrowed from a work I wrote some years ago, called Hortensius, or the Advocate, London, Murray, 1849:

In carly times the distinction between that part of the oblong space where the comitia curiata, or assemblies of the patrician burghers, were held, and what was properly the Forum or market-place, was well known and recognised; but afterwards the whole of the open ground embraced in the above description was called generally the Forum, and chiefly used for proceedings of a judicial nature. Formerly the speakers, when they ascended the rostra, turned towards the comitium, close to which stood the curia or senate-house, in order to deliver their harangues; but Caius Licinius, as Cicero and Varro inform us, or Caius Gracchus, according to Plutarch, introduced the custom of facing the Forum, and thereby doing homage to the power of the sovereign people.

"But many other changes took place before the age of Cicero, both as to the physical aspect of the Forum and

the uses that were made of it. Splendid basilicas or halls, which were used both as courts of law and marts of commerce, occupied the site of the old shops, and were distinguished by different names such as Porcia, Fulvia, Opimia, and Julia. They were surrounded by colonnades or porticoes for the convenience of walking up and down, and of taking shelter when a shower of rain interrupted proceedings in the Forum. At a still later period they became the models of, or were converted into, Christian churches. In these basilicas were tried civil actions, such as came under the cognisance of the centumvirs; but public or state trials took place in the open air, either in the comitium or other part of the Forum in the former if the matter was referred to the burghers at large as judges, in the latter if it was made the subject of an inquiry before the judices decuriati.

"In the basilica were four courts, called tribunalia, in which the different members of the centumviral body sat at the same time for the despatch of

DEFENDS SEXTUS ROSCIUS.

To return, however, to the trial of Roscius. Sextus Roscius the elder was an inhabitant of the municipal town of Ameria, where he had considerable property and was much respected. While making a short stay at Rome he was murdered one night near the Palatine baths as he was

returning from a party of friends.

The news of his death

was brought by a freedman of Titus Roscius, at daybreak This next morning, to Ameria, a distance of fifty-six miles. T. Roscius, surnamed Magnus, as well as another member of the same family surnamed Capito, were both natives of judicia publica. And first as to the former. In the earliest times of which we have any account the kings of Rome themselves presided at the trials, just as was the case sometimes in France in the middle ages; for we are told that the good king St. Louis, in the thirteenth century, used, after hearing mass in the summer season, to lay himself at the foot of an oak in the wood of Vincennes, and make his courtiers sit round him, when all who wished were allowed to approach him; and he would ask aloud if there were any present who had suits. When the parties appeared he used to bid two of his bailiffs determine their cause in his presence upon the spot.

at

"But after the expulsion of the kings, this jurisdiction was exercised by the consuls, and subsequently, and down to a very late period in Roman history, by the prætors. It is to the authority and forms of procedure under the latter that Their we must chiefly pay attention. number was originally two- and they were called Prætor urbanus and Prætor peregrinus but afterwards they were increased, and the number varied In the time different periods. of Cicero there appear to have been twelve. They did not, however, personally attend the hearing of all causes, and give judgment themselves, but were empowered, and indeed in many cases were obliged by law, to appoint judges for the purpose. When the prætor tried causes, he was said cognoscere-either de tribunali or de plano. The former term was used when he sat upon a raised seat or tribunal, and heard the case formally argued before him; the latter, when, as was frequently the case, he administered the law in a more familiar manner -conversing with the parties and standing on the same level with them. Strange as this may appear, it was undoubtedly the custom at Rome. Suitors frequently addressed the prætor even in the street, or at his own house, for a redress of their grievances; and some

times even in the Court he did not
ascend the tribunal, but let the parties
speak to him on the subject of their dis-
pute, which he determined on the spot.*
In all these cases he was said cognoscere
de plano. The thing most analogous
to this amongst ourselves is the practice
before a judge at chambers, where a vast
amount of most important business con-
nected with litigation is transacted; but
it is very certain that no such scene
would be acted there as we are told by
Suetonius sometimes occurred, even
when the imperial Cæsar himself dis-
posed of causes in this manner.
says that the barristers ventured to pre-
sume so much upon the good nature of
Claudius, that when he descended from
the tribunal they used to call out to him
to stop, and pull him by his robe, or
even catch hold of his leg, and impor-
tune him to attend to the motions which
they had to make.

He

"When the prætor held his court de tribunali, he summoned to his aid a number of assessors, called judices, who sat on each side of him a little behind his seat. These were selected on ordinary occasions out of the centumviral body, who formed a kind of judicial college at Rome; but very little is known of their constitution or peculiar functions. According to Festus, three were chosen out of each tribe, and as there were thirty-five tribes, these would amount to one hundred and five, which may have been the origin of their name, as being in round numbers a hundred men. We know that in the courts of the centumviri were tried causes involving the most dry and technical Questions were thus points of law. discussed relating to adverse possession, guardian and ward, pedigree, the law of

*Heinecc. Syntag. lib. iv. tit. 6.; Polleti Hist. Fori. Rom. lib. i. c. 5. Heineccius says that this mode of hearing causes must not be confounded with summary jurisdiction; for many cases which were to be disposed of summarily were obliged to be determined de tribunali. It is impossible, however, not to consider it as a very summary mode of settling disputes.

DEFENDS SEXTUS ROSCIUS.

Ameria, and enemies of Sextus. The latter left a son, also named Sextus, whose life had hitherto been passed in the country, where he attended to the cultivation of his father's estate, to which he was entitled to succeed at the death of the latter. But the Roscii were determined to deprive him debtor and creditor, party walls, ancient lights, easements, the validity of wills, and in short almost everything connected with the rights and liabilities of parties.