Cicero: Pro Sexto Roscio

"When young Cicero rose to plead the case of Sextus Roscius, the prosecutor was visibly relieved that this unknown was his opponent and not one of the established advocates (禮60). Once the trial was concluded, there was no case to which he was thought unequal (Brut. 312). This career-making speech contains an almost fully formed approach to juror persuasion and to the psychology of criminality. It is also a risky speech in which the young C. excoriates a favorite of the powerful Sulla besides taking rhetorical risks, especially the purple passage about the parricide's punishment that embarrassed him in later years (Orat.107). If, like Desmoulins' teacher at the Coll獺ege Louis-le-Grand, one is put off by the domineering figure of C. the senior statesman,1this speech shows instead a modest and struggling young orator of great appeal"--Provided by publisher.