20 CICERO’S DEFENCE OF SCΛURUS AND VATINIUS.
eloquent men of his time mostly indulged in their inclina-
tion to accuse, Cicero defended. If we consider tlιe persons
whose causes he pleaded, it certainly appears strange that he
spoke for men in whose favour I, for one, should not he able
to say a single word, and for actions which he himself detested ;
but, in many cases, this was the effect of his amiable disposi-
tion.6 As an instance, I will mention his defence of M. Aemilius
Scaurus, the son, in which he made an apostrophe to the father,
the deep hypocrite, who in his later years indeed was really
the worthy man of whom he had before only assumed the
appearance. Cicero greatly admired him ; for in his early youth
he had been kindly received by him, and it may perhaps have
been extremely flattering to Cicero to have attracted Scaurus'
attention. I cannot understand this admiration, and no one
can share it who knows Scaurus only from the facts which
history has transmitted to us. But Scaurus was a grand seigneur
and had been censor and princeps senatus, the first man of the
republic. IIis personal acquaintance with such a great personage
had made an indelible impression upon Cicero, the pleasing
remembrance of which diffused a lustre around the whole his-
tory of the man. I have myself experienced a similar impression
in my youth, and with similar consequences. I confess that a
great statesman, in whose house, as a young man, Iwasreceived
almost as in my own home, appears to me in a different light
from what he would do, if I had not known him personally.
I believe, therefore, that when the son of Scaurus was charged
with criminal acts, it was merely by his feelings towards
the father that Cicero was induced to try to spare him the
pain of seeing his son condemned. Cicero also defended P.
Vatinius, although he had, on a former occasion, spoken
against him with the utmost bitterness. But Cicero had for-
given him; and we must suppose that he pitied him, and
that his first speech had been too vehement and passionate.
He knew that Vatinius was generally hated, though he was
not bad in the same degree in which he was hated, as we see
from his letters, which, curious as they are, shew his gratitude
towards his patron. His accusers, moreover, were contemptible
persons. But independently of all this, the consciousness of
his power to protect and assist was so agreeable and pleasant
a feeling to him, that Cicero sometimes exercised that power
6 The German expression is Seine seh'ɑne Seele, for which it is difficult to find
an equivalent in English.
Cicero’s defence of a. gabinius.
21
in cases where ordinary men would have shrunk from it. He
Inmself said, deorum est mortalem juvare. His only act for
which I can find no excuse, is that he spoke for A. Gahinius;
but this was a sacrifice which he made to the republic, and by
which he hoped to win Pompey over to the good cause, and
he no doubt felt the degrading necessity very keenly. It is to
be lamented that he lived at a time when it was necessary to
be friendly towards villains, in order to do good. It is a great
pity that his defence of Gabinius is lost; it was of the same
kind as his speech for C. Eabirius Postumus, who was certainly
not innocent, and we may therefore conjecture its tone and
character. He assuredly did not assert that Gabinius was
innocent; but after all, we must remember that those courts
were not juries, whose object is simply to discover whether a
person is guilty or not, and over which there is a higher power
which may step in, either pardoning or mitigating the sen-
tence. In those quaestiones perpetuae the judges had stept into
the place of the people, who formerly judged in the popular
courts, and they pronounced their sentence in the capacity of
sovereign : they decided whether a person was guilty or not,
and might at the same time pardon. The people more fre-
quently pardoned than they acquitted, so that pardoning and
acquitting came to be regarded as identical; and as there was
no other place in which the pardoning power could manifest
itself, it was exercised in the courts of justice. Such a pardon-
ing power must exist in every state; for it is but too often true
that ubi summum jus, ibi summa injuria. This is the point of
view from which we have to consider the courts of justice and
the pleaders for the accused at that time. When the great
Kant, in his criticism of the power of judgment, depreciates
eloquence, and the vocation of an advocate, he does it in a
work which is itself written so eloquently, that he is, in some
measure, in contradiction with himself. Eloquence in our
courts of justice is certainly an evil, for in our whole admini-
stration of justice the object is simply to discover whether the
defendant is guilty or not; and every thing which might mis-
lead the jury ought to be avoided. If, on the other hand,
there existed a body of men to place the sentence before the
sovereign for ratification, or for the purpose of investigating
whether pardon could be granted, there an eloquent orator
would be in his proper sphere. I have been more minute on