CICERO
6 PRO CORNELIO II
Much less survives of the second speech for Cornelius. The main subject matter is the three witnesses (6 F 3 with note), who would have been called to testify after the set speeches of both sides.1 As Quintilian remarks (Inst. 5.7.6), such material was sometimes incorporated into defense speeches. This could be done in cases argued in more than one session (typically extortion cases), whereby witnesses testified at the end of the first session so that reference could be made to their testimony in the second session (cf., e.g., Scaur. 38–45a). Cicero has chosen to publish this material, as he did later in Against the Witness Vatinius, memorializing a phase of the trial of P. Sestius in 56. In our speech he had to beware of giving offense by aggressive questioning, since his further career depended on, if not the goodwill, at least the nonopposition of leading optimates. Hence, to remove the invective edge, he decided to repackage this material as if it were a conventional forensic speech; cf. analysis by Crawford 1994, 137; Guérin 2015, 156–61. A fragment evidently from his plan of
6 ON BEHALF OF CORNELIUS II
6 ON BEHALF OF CORNELIUS II
procedure suggests that Cicero divided the chief witnesses into two groups, whereby he portrays the leading members of the second group as ideological opponents of tribunician power (F 3), thus continuing the line of attack pursued in Corn. I (5 F 49–58). Some fragments show how he very politely backs the witness Q. Catulus into a corner by comparing Cornelius’ tribunate with the (from an optimate standpoint) more pernicious tribunate of Catulus’ maternal uncle, Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus (tr. pl. 104: F 4–7). The digression on the tribunate in the first speech has its counterpart here in a digression arguing that wealth is a relative value (F 8).2 The speech concludes with a glance back at the four-day course of the trial (F 9) and a peroration combining an appeal for pity for Cornelius with advice on the importance of safeguarding liberty (F 10–16).