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'With the death of Gaius, this hope for a kind of immortality died in his father, Sextus Roscius. But he had another son still living, you may protest. True, but in that son he saw not his own reflection, true and straight as one sees it in a pool of clear water. Instead he saw an image of himself like that reflected from a crushed silver plate, distorted, twisted, and taunting. Even after the death of Gaius, Roscius pater still considered disinheriting his only surviving son. Certainly there were plenty of other, more worthy cousin candidates to be his heir within the family, not least his cousin Magnus — that same Magnus who sits beside me at the accuser's bench, who loved his cousin enough to see that his murder does not go unpunished.
'Young Sextus Roscius fiendishly plotted the death of his father. The exact details we do not know and ca
Thank the gods for a man like Magnus, who keeps his eyes and ears open and is not afraid to step forward and accuse the guilty! That very night his trusted freedman, Mallius Glaucia, came to him here in Rome with news of his dear cousin's murder. Magnus immediately dispatched Glaucia to carry the news to his good cousin Capito back home in Ameria.
'And now irony, bitter and yet strangely just, enters the tale alongside tragedy. For by a peculiar twist of fortune that man was not to inherit the fortune he had committed parricide to obtain. Now as I said before, this is not a political court, nor is this a political trial. We are not concerned here with the drastic measures forced upon the state in the recent years of upheaval and uncertainty. And so I will not try to explain the curious process by which it came about that Sextus Roscius pater, to most appearances a good man, was nevertheless found to be among those on the lists of the proscribed when certain conscientious officers of the state looked into the matter of his death. Somehow the old man had escaped with his life for months! What a fortunate man he must have been, or else how clever!
'And yet — what irony! filius kills pater to secure his inheritance, only to discover that the inheritance has already been claimed by the state! Imagine his chagrin! His frustration and despair! The gods played an appalling joke on that man, but what man can deny either their infinite wisdom or their sense of humour?
'In due course the property of the late Sextus Roscius was sold at auction. The good cousins Magnus and Capito were among the first to bid, since they were intimate with the estates and knew their value, and thus they became what they should have been all along, the heirs of the late Sextus Roscius. So it is that sometimes Fortune rewards the just and punishes the wicked.
'And now — what of that man! Magnus and Capito suspected his guilt, indeed they were almost certain of it. But out of pity for his family they offered him shelter on their newly acquired estates. For a time there was an unsteady peace between the cousins — that is, until Sextus Roscius gave himself away. First it was discovered that he had held back various items of property that had been duly proscribed by the state — in other words, the man was no better than a common thief, stealing from the people of Rome what was duly theirs by right of law. (Ah, Judges, you yawn at an accusation of embezzlement, and rightly so — what is that, compared to his greater crime?) When Magnus and Capito demanded that he give these things up, he threatened their lives. Now, had he been sober, he probably would have held his tongue. But ever since the death of his father he had drunk excessively — as guilty men are known to do. Indeed, to all his other vices, Sextus Roscius had added drunke
Tearing for his own life, and because it was his duty, Magnus decided to bring charges against that man. Meanwhile Roscius slipped out of his grip and escaped to Rome, back to the very scene of his crime; but the eye of the law watches even the heart of Rome, and in a city of a million souls he could not hide himself
'Sextus Roscius was located. Normally, even when accused of the most heinous crime, a Roman citizen is given the opportunity to renounce his citizenship and escape into exile rather than face trial, if that is his choice. But so severe was the crime committed by that man that he was placed under armed guard to await his trial and punishment. And why? Because the crime he has committed goes far beyond the mere offence of one mortal against the person of another. It is a blow against the very foundations of this republic and the principles that have made it great It is an assault on the primacy of fatherhood. It is an insult to the very gods, and to Jupiter above all, father ofthe gods.
'No, the state ca
Erucius paused to mop his brow. Everyone in the square was watching him with an almost dreamlike concentration. Cicero and his fellow advocates were no longer rolling their eyes and mocking Erucius behind their sleeves; they looked rather worried. Sextus Roscius had turned to stone.
Erucius resumed. 'I have spoken of the insult rendered to divine Jupiter by that man and his unspeakably vile crime. It is an insult as well, if I might digress only a little, to the Father of our restored Republic!' Here Erucius made quite a show of spreading his arms wide as if in supplication to the equestrian statue of Sulla, which seemed, from the angle at which I sat, to be granting him a condescending smile. 'I need not even speak his name, for his eye is on us all at this very moment. Yes, his watchful eye is on everything we do in this place, in our dutiful roles as citizens, judges, advocates, and accusers. Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Ever Fortunate, restored the courts, Sulla reignited the fire of justice in Rome after so many years of darkness; it is up to us to see that villains such as that man are withered to ashes by its flame. Or else I promise you, esteemed Judges, that retribution will fall on all our heads from above, like hail descending from an angry black sky.'
Erucius struck a pose and held it for a long moment. His ringer pointed to heaven. His brows were drawn together, and he glowered like a bull at the gathered judges. He had spoken of Jupiter's retribution, but what we all had heard was that Sulla himself would be angered at a verdict of not guilty. The threat could not have been more explicit,