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A popular vote obtained and declared by a faction fight in the forum was still a popular vote, and if supported by sufficient violence would be valid. There had been street fighting of the kind when Cicero had defended Caius Cornelius, in the year after his Prætorship; there had been fighting of the kind when Rabirius had been condemned in his Consulship.
The father of this Rabirius, says Cicero, had been a distinguished member of the equestrian order, and "fortissimus et maximus publicanus"; not greedy of money, but most liberal to his friends in other words, he was not a miser, for that character was rare in this age, but lent his money freely in order to acquire influence and consideration.
This is particularly observable in his defence of Cluentius, where prejudices, suspicions, and difficulties are encountered with the most triumphant ingenuity; in the antecedent probabilities of his Pro Milone; in his apology for Muræna's public, and Cælius's private life, and his disparagement of Verres's military services in Sicily; it is observable too in the address with which the Agrarian law of Rullus, and the accusation of Rabirius, both popular measures, are represented to be hostile to public liberty; with which Milo's impolitic unconcern is made a touching incident; and Cato's attack upon the crowd of clients which accompanied the candidate for office, a tyrannical disregard for the feelings of the poor.
XII. He likewise suborned some one to prefer an impeachment for treason against Caius Rabirius, by whose especial assistance the senate had, a few years before, put down Lucius Saturninus, the seditious tribune; and being drawn by lot a judge on the trial, he condemned him with so much animosity, that upon his appealing to the people, no circumstance availed him so much as the extraordinary bitterness of his judge.
RABIRIUS is worth remarking for the extraordinary impression he made on his contemporaries. Ovid speaks of him as Magni Rabirius oris, a high compliment; and Velleius Paterculus goes so far as to couple him with Virgil as the best representative of Augustan poetry! His Alexandrian War was perhaps drawn from his own experience, though, if so, he must have been a very young man at the time.
His boyish works show a great and admirable talent, and a desire for the best style rare at that time of life. We have lately lost much in Valerius Flaccus. The inspiration of Salcius Bassus was vigorous and poetical, but old age never succeeded in ripening it. Rabirius and Pedo are worth reading, if you have time.
For this end he sent to Rome a large sum of money to buy the votes of the senators, and he borrowed a further sum of Rabirius Posthumus, one of the richest farmers of the Roman taxes, which he spent on the same object. But though the Romans never tried to turn him out of his kingdom, he did not get the wished-for decree before he went to Rome in the twenty-fourth year of his reign.
The supply of water, according to Appian, was cut off by others, before Marius began to move. These turbulent times are spoken of by Cicero in his oration for C. Rabirius, c. 11. Cicero was restored in like manner. One Publius Furius, a tribune, the son of a man who had once been a slave, successfully opposed the return of Metellus during his year of office.
He also defended C. Rabirius, prosecuted by Iulius Cæsar for the murder of Saturninus as long ago as B.C. 100, and later in the year defended Murena on a charge of ambitus. Finally, the three Catilinarian speeches illustrate the event which coloured the whole of Cicero's life. In B.C. 62 his brother Quintus was prætor and Cicero defended in his court P. Sulla, accused of complicity with Catiline.
Rabirius probably had not killed Saturninus, nor did any one now care whether he had done so or not. The trial had been brought about notoriously by the agency of Cæsar, who caused himself to be selected by the Prætor as one of the two judges for the occasion; and Cæsar's object as notoriously was to lessen the authority of the Senate, and to support the democratic interest.
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