caussam? Quid ut proficerent? Qui comperisti? Et ut rem perspicuam quam paucissimis verbis agam, dubitari hoc potest, Recuperatores, utri oppugnasse videantur, qui ad villam venerunt, an qui in villa manserunt? qui occisi sunt, an ii ex quorum numero saucius factus est nemo? qui cur facerent caussa non fuit, an ii qui fecisse se confitentur? Verum ut hoc tibi credam, metuisse te ne oppugnarere, quis hoc statuit unquam, aut cui concedi sine summo omnium periculo potest, ut eum jure potuerit occidere, a quo metuisse se dicat ne ipse posterius occideretur? Cetera desiderantur. 55. villa] Cod. UILLAM.-'saucius: hoc statuit...... occideretur' are from Cod. sauccius.'-The last words, Quis Quintilian, Inst. Or. v. 13, 21. 6 PRO M. FONTEIO ORATIO. INTRODUCTION. M. FONTEIUS was the son of M. Fonteius, the legatus of P. Servilius Caepio. The father lost his life at Asculum at the commencement of the Social War (c. 18). The son filled many offices before he was praetor of the Gallia Provincia. Cicero (c. 3) speaks of Fonteius having been a triumvir and a quaestor, and of having discharged both duties ante oculos;' whence Niebuhr concludes that the 'triumviratus' of which Cicero speaks was a 'triumviratus monetalis,' or a superintendence of the Roman moneta (mint). Drumann affirms that he was a triumvir col. ded. s. agr. divid. The quaestorship of Fonteius was after the enactment of the Lex Valeria (c. 3), and before his legatio in Spain, the time of which is fixed by Cicero (adventu L. Sullae) at B.C. 83, in the consulship of Scipio and Norbanus (Liv. Epit. 85). This was the year in which Sertorius fled to Spain. He was afterwards legatus in Macedonia, during which time he repelled a Thracian invasion. There is no evidence that he held the office of praetor in Rome; and it seems likely that when he was elected, he was sent into the Provincia. During the campaign of Pompeius against Sertorius, Fonteius was praetor of Gallia, and Cicero (c. 7) says that he was praetor during the year in which one of Pompeius' armies wintered in Gallia. This may show that Fonteius was two years at least in Gallia, as the army of Pompeius would spend in Gallia the end of one year and the beginning of the next. It appears to have been in the beginning of B.C. 75 that Metellus and Pompeius left the neighbourhood of the Pyrenees to recommence the campaign against Sertorius (Appian, B. C. i. 110). Fonteius during his praetorship sent supplies to the Roman armies in Spain (c. 6); but we cannot learn from Cicero with certainty whether these supplies were sent before or after the army of Pompeius wintered in Gallia. The letter of Pompeius to the Senate (Sallust, Frag. Hist. Lib. iii.) says that in the year before the year in which he was writing Gallia supplied the army of Metellus in Spain. Pompeius wrote after the battle on the Durius or Turia, and the defeat of Herennius and the capture of Valentia. The year in which the supplies were sent into Spain is fixed by Drumann at B.C. 75, and the year in which the army of Pompeius wintered in Gallia at B.C. 74. It is uncertain whether the third year of Fonteius' praetorship was B.c. 76 or B.C. 73. Niebuhr assumes that Fonteius began his Gallic praetorship in B.c. 75, the year in which he sent supplies to Spain, and accordingly his three years' governorship must have been completed in B.C. 73. But the argument is not very clear on this point. Pompeius in his letter speaks of Gallia having supplied the army of Metellus the year before (superiore anno), which may imply that Gallia aided the Spanish army before Fonteius was in Gallia, for Metellus was in Spain in B.C. 78; or, if Pompeius is speaking of the supplies of Metellus sent by Fonteius, he may refer to the year B.c. 77, the year before Pompeius went to Spain, which was B.C. 76. But the whole matter is so confused, that it is impossible to settle the chronology further than this, that the Gallic praetorship of Fonteius was contemporaneous with part of the time when Pompeius was in Spain. The year in which this speech was delivered is not certain, but it was after the enactment of the Lex Aurelia (B.c. 70), which took the Judicia from the Senators, and made the Judices eligible from the Senatores, Equites, and Tribuni Aerarii. Fonteius was tried as it seems under the Lex Cornelia Repet. (B.C. 81), which was founded on the Lex Servilia (B.c. 106, or 105; but the date is uncertain). The prosecutor of Fonteius was M. Plaetorius, and the subscriptor was M. Fabius. The Galli of the Provincia sent their witnesses to Rome to bear evidence against Fonteius, and among them Indutiomarus, a chief of the Allobroges. The witnesses in defence of Fonteius were from Spain, Macedonia, Massilia, and Narbo, the soldiers of the army of Pompeius who had wintered in Gallia, and Publicani and other Romans who had been in Gallia during the praetorship of Fonteius. This prosecution and the defence must have cost a large sum of money. The case was heard twice, or rather adjourned from the first hearing to the second; which was allowed both by the Lex Servilia and the Lex Cornelia. The fragments of this speech belong to the second 'actio;' and in its present state it is obscure. The fragment which Niebuhr discovered in a Vatican Palimpsest supplies a part of the defect at the beginning of the speech. Cicero in his speeches against Verres reviewed all the life of the accused, all his public acts, though the conduct of Verres in Sicily was the only ground of the prosecution. The prosecutor Plaetorius did the same in the case of Fonteius, and Cicero had not only to VOL. II. M reply to the charge of Repetundae brought against Fonteius for his conduct in Gallia, but to defend all his public acts previous to his praetorship. Niebuhr, M. Tullii Ciceronis Orationum Pro M. Fonteio, &c. Romae, 1820; Drumann, Geschichte Roms, V. Tullii, § 18. The oration Pro M. Fonteio in the new edition of Orelli's Cicero is edited by C. Halm, who has given the readings of a very old Codex 'qui in tabulario basilicae Vaticanae asservatur.' This is V. He has also given the collation of another MS., which is marked S. that V is the original of all the MSS. of this oration. He observes M. TULLII CICERONIS PRO M. FONTEIO ORATIO. I. FRAGMENTA. Fragmenta e cod. palimpsesto Vatic. a Niebuhrio edita. ** oportuisse; an ita dissolvit, ut omnes alii dissolverunt? Nam ita ego defendo M. Fonteium, judices, itaque contendo, post legem Valeriam latam * * * te 1. itaque contendo,] For 'et ita contendo' (Niebuhr). It is only necessary to give this second 'ita' its proper emphasis in order to make the meaning clear. legem Valeriam] See Pro P. Quintio, c. 4. This Lex was enacted in the consulship of L. Valerius Flaccus, B.c. 86. After 'latam' Niebuhr added a M. Fonteio,' though Fonteius was not, as he admits, the first quaestor who made payments pursuant to the Lex Valeria; but he followed, as Niebuhr says, the example of previous quaestors. This is clearly not the meaning of the passage. We want the name of the quaestor who first made payments pursuant to the Lex Valeria, as Mommsen observes. The words 'hunc omnium superiorum,' &c. show that Mommsen's remark is true. The Lex Valeria reduced existing debts to one-fourth. It was a declaration of general insolvency, such as was made at Rome sometimes. In England we have a court always open for settling the affairs of insolvents, where creditors often get nothing. Niebuhr observes that such leges' as this could only apply to debts contracted before quaestore usque ad Titum Cris the enactment of the 'leges;' which is obvious enough. It appears that the 'aerarium' also, according to the Lex Valeria, paid its debts quandrante,' or at the rate of one-fourth instead of the whole. The question which Cicero discusses here is whether Fonteius as quaestor made the payments as he ought to have done. Hirtuleius seems to have been the quaestor of the year in which the Lex Valeria was enacted. Niebuhr explains the 'tabulae dodrantariae et quadrantariae' thus. When Hirtuleius on the public account made a payment of one-fourth of a debt, he would enter it as a payment of the whole debt; but, in order to keep the accounts straight, he must also enter three-fourths of the amount on the other side. If he received one-fourth on account of a debt due to the aerarium, he must enter three-fourths on the other side. usque] Cod. has usquae.' We know how often the terminations 'quae' and 'que' were confounded. Niebuhr cites as an instance, from the Cenotaphium Pisanum Caii Caesaris, the forms 'coloniae nostre,' |