CICERO
12 DE PROSCRIPTORUM LIBERIS
Under the Roman Republic, the main issue was who would be admitted to the political class, with its associated advantages (cf. Pina Polo 1996, 65). The hardest fate was to have had full rights but for them to be stripped away. This is what happened to the children of the victims of Sulla’s proscriptions, and it was perceived as a great injustice.1 Cicero had sought to tap into this feeling for his client’s
12 T 1 = 11 T 1
12 T 2 Cic. Pis. 4
Ego adulescentis bonos et fortis, sed usos ea condicione fortunae ut si essent magistratus adepti, rei publicae statum convolsuri viderentur, meis inimicitiis, nulla senatus mala gratia comitiorum ratione privavi.
12 T 3 = 11 T 2
12 ON THE SONS OF THE PROSCRIBED
12 ON THE SONS OF THE PROSCRIBED (before the elections, 63 bc)
benefit at Rosc. Am. 153. In his consulship, probably around the time when the elections were to be held, i.e., in July but after no. 11 (see 11 T 1 and on 11 T 3), the issue of the restoration of their rights came to a head and had to be addressed by Cicero, probably in a public meeting (see T 2). Though his rhetoric managed to calm the agitation for the time being, the problem continued to fester until in 49 Mark Antony, acting as Caesar’s agent, enacted a law restoring their rights (LPPR 416; MRR 2:258).
12 T 1 = 11 T 1
12 T 2 Cicero, Against Piso
I excluded from the electoral process young men who, while good and gallant, were in such a position that they evidently would have uprooted the constitution had they obtained magistracies; I did so at the expense of personal enmity but without the senate’s incurring ill will.
12 T 3 = 11 T 2