Pro Cluentio Ed by Gg Ramsay Author:George Gilbert Ramsay General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1869 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: (Lex Sempronia' appears to have continued in force until superseded by the ' Lex Cornelia.' SECT. 8. -- On the particular Chapter] of the 'Lex Cornelia' which applied to the case of Cluentius. It appears that Cluentius was charged with having caused poison to be administered to three different persons (60-62), and this offence would fall under the Fifth Chapter of the Cornelian Law. It is perfectly clear, however, that little stress was laid upon this part of his case by the accuser. Cicero, at the very opening of his speech, calls upon the jury to observe that his opponent 'timide et diffidenter attingere rationem veneficii criminum;'and however little weight we may attach to the ex parte statement of a forensic pleader, it is not credible that Cicero would have ventured to pass over the charges so lightly and almost contemptuously had they not been in reality frivolous. Out of the seventy-one Chapters into which the speech is divided, three only (60-62) are devoted to the exposition and refutation of these alleged murders, and the evidence by which they are rebutted is, if fairly stated, quite irresistible. There can be little doubt that they were employed by the prosecutor merely as a pretext for bringing Cluentius before a Roman jury, and that he counted upon obtaining a conviction by rekindling the flame of odium which had . blazed forth so fiercely against all who had been mixed up with the ' ludicium lunianum.' Hence we infer that the chief object kept in view by Attius, in his opening speech, was to refresh the memory of those whom he was addressing, to recall to their recollection all the pr...« less