Pro S. Roscio Amerino

PRO SBX. ROSCIO, §§ 9— 14.. 5
and sternly impartial ; tliis is tlie first trial for a long time
tliat is being held for murder, thougli foul and shameful
murders have been committed in tlie meantime. AU liope
tbat witli you for praetor this courfc will effect their deliverance
from evident cases of crime and the bloodshed that is
daily occurring.
12. The loud appeals that prosecutors have been accustomed
to malce in other trials, we who are pleading in this
case make use of on this occasion : we ask you, Marcus
Fannius, and you, gentlemen of the Jury, to punish crimes
with all possible severity, to withstand men of reckless
daring with all possible fortitude, to reflect upon this fact,
that imless you display your real purpose in this case,
there is now such an outburst of evil passions and crime
and recklessness that murders will be committed not only
in secret but even here in the forum before your tribunal,
Marcus Fannius, before your feet, gentlemen of the Jury,
amidst these very benches.
13. For what else are they trying to effect by this trial
except that the doing of such a deed may be lawful ? The
accusers are the men who have seized my clienfs property
the defendant is the man whom they have left nothing but
ruin ; the accusers are the men to whom the murder of
the father of Sextus Eoscius was an advantage : the
defendant is a man to whom his father's death brought
not only grief but destitution ; the accusers are the men
wliose chief desire was to cut the throat of this very man :
the defendant is the man who has actually come to this
very court with an escort, that he may not be slain here on
this very spot before your own eyes ; in fine, the accusers
are the men whom the people are demanding for trial
the defendant is the man who alone has been left over to
survive the horrible massacre perpetrated by those men.
14. And to enable you to understand more readily,
gentlemen of the Jury, that the deeds tliemselves were
more shocking than my description of them, I will set
before you the history of the case from its commencement,
my object being to enable you to apprehend more readily
the distress of my guiltless client, the reckless daring of
our opponents, and the disastrous state o£ our country.