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The Lex Sempronia Ne Qms Iudicio Circumveniatur

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

N. J. Miners
N. J. Miners
Affiliation:
King's College, Lagos
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Extract

All we know of this law is to be found in Cicero's Pro Cluentio. Elsewhere we have only one passing reference to it. However, this speech seems to give us the main clause of the bill as it appeared after incorporation in the Lex Cornelia de sicariis el veneficis: ‘Qui tribunus militum legionibus quattuor primis quive quaestor, tribunus plebis’ —deinceps omnes magistratus nominavit—‘quive in senatu sententiam dixit dixerit, qui eorum coiit, coierit, convenit, convenerit quo quis iudicio publico condemnaretur de eius capite quaerito.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 8 , Issue 3-4 , November 1958 , pp. 241 - 243
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1958

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References

1 I thank Mr. F. A. Lepper for his help in preparing this article for publication and Mr. A. N. Sherwin-White for criticism of an earlier draft. The remaining blemishes are my own.

2 Cic. Brutus 48.

3 Pro Cluentio 148.

4 e.g. Carcopino, Histoire Romaine.

5 History of Rome, trans. Dickson, , iii. 355 (Macmillan, 1908)Google Scholar. So also Lange, Romische Alterthumer, iii. 30 (1871).Google Scholar

6 Greenidge, , A History of Rome 133–70 B.C. i. 216 f. (1904).Google Scholar

7 Last, C.A.H. ix. 53 f. and 70 (criticizing Greenidge).Google Scholar

8 Sherwin-White, in J.R.S., 1952, p. 46 n. 23.Google Scholar

1 Scullard's revised edition of Marsh, , History of the Roman World 146–30, p. 409 (1954)Google Scholar. and Badian, , A.J.P., 1954, pp. 376 ff.Google Scholar

2 Pro Cluentio 146 referring to Cluentius' alleged bribery at the first trial; and 193 referring to Sassia's activities in the present one. Circumvenire is also used alone four times in the speech with the same meaning (sees. 9. 30. 79. 90).

3 Cicero is here translating from Plato's Apology 32: Iudicio circumvenire need not only refer to securing an unjust verdict by bribery. These are both cases of unjust verdicts where none was involved. Palamedes was condemned on forged evidence (Hyginus, , Fabulae 105Google Scholar) and Ajax failed to obtain the arms of Achilles because of Odysseus' influence with the jury (Pindar, , Nem. 8. 26). (I owe this point to Mr. Lepper.)Google Scholar

4 Appian, , Bellum Civile I. 22.Google Scholar

5 Note also that Cicero describes the law as pro plebe (148) and not pro provincialibus.

1 It is not clear from Plutarch whether Gaius proposed to reform the quaestio by enrolling a new album of equestrian indices from which juries would be drawn equally with the senatorial album (as argues, Badian in A.J.P., 1954, pp. 377 ff.); or whether he intended to augment the senate with 300 equites who would in consequence form part of the senatorial album (so Mommsen and Last).Google Scholar

2 Last would totally disagree with this interpretation: ‘It is difficult to suggest a method less offensive to senatorial susceptibilities than this’ (C.A.H. ix. 70Google Scholar). Without referring to modern examples, the majority of the senate did not view with favour the proposal of Drusus in 91 B.C. even though it was designed for their benefit (Victor, , De Viris Illustribus 66).Google Scholar