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Updated: May 5, 2025
It was possible again for a leader of the people to make his voice heard; not, however, because he was the leader of the people, but because he was the head of a coalition. The man of the hour was Caius Memmius, who was tribune elect for the following year. He was an orator, vehement rather than eloquent, of a mordant utterance, and famed in the courts for his power of attack.
Sallust alludes, it is true, to the fact of the speech he puts into the mouth of the tribune Memmius being essentially genuine, but the speeches given in the senate on the occasion of the Catilinarian conspiracy are very different from the same orations as they appear in Cicero. Livy makes his ancient Romans wrangle and chop logic with all the subtlety of a Hortensius or a Scaevola.
Memmius, anxious for the dignity of his unusual proceedings which were being marred by this frantic outburst, used all his efforts to secure order and a patient hearing, and succeeded at length in imposing silence on the crowd a silence which perhaps marked that psychological moment when pent up feeling had found its full expression and passion had given way to curiosity.
Again, as in the discussion which had followed the fall of Cirta, the debates in the senate dragged on and there was a prospect of the question being indefinitely shelved a result which, when the popular agitation had cooled, would have meant the acceptance of the existing state of things. Again the stimulus to greater rapidity of decision was supplied by Memmius.
The eagerly awaited day arrived, on which the scandal-loving ears of the people were to be filled to the full with the iniquities of their rulers, on which their long-cherished suspicions should be changed to a pleasantly anticipated certainty. Memmius summoned his Contio and produced the king. Even the suppliant garb of Jugurtha did not save him from a howl of execration.
Yet did not he compass his end, because the architects told Memmius Regulus, who was commanded to remove that statue of Jupiter, that the workmanship was such as would be spoiled, and would not bear the removal.
This fatal termination of his life, which perhaps proceeded from insanity, was ascribed by his friends and admirers to his concern for the banishment of one Memmius, with whom he was intimately connected, and for the distracted state of the republic.
The wild-beast hunt was put off to a future occasion. Next follow me into the campus. Bribery is raging: "and I a sign to you will tell." The rate of interest from being four percent, on the 15th of July has gone up to eight percent. You will say, "Well, I don't mind that." What a man! What a citizen! Memmius is supported by all Cæsar's influence.
But Caius Lentulus Marcellinus, who was never reckoned a bad Speaker, was esteemed a very eloquent one in his Consulship. He wanted neither sentiment, nor expression; his voice was sweet and sonorous; and he had a sufficient stock of humour. C. Memmius, the son of Lucius, was a perfect adept in the belles lettres of the Greeks; for he had an insuperable disgust to the literature of the Romans.
Pressure is being applied to prevent the trials taking place. It looks like an interregnum again. The consuls desire to hold the comitia: the accused don't wish it, and especially Memmius, because he hopes that Cæsar's approach may secure him the consulship. But he is at a very low ebb. Domitius, with Messalla as his colleague, I think is a certainty. Scaurus has lost his chance.
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