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Updated: June 3, 2025
He soon after defended the great comedian Roscius on a charge of fraud in a civil speech still extant, and apparently towards the end of the same year was married to Terentia, a lady of high birth, with whom he lived for upwards of thirty years. In 75 B.C. Cicero was elected quaestor, and obtained the province of Sicily under the Praetor Sextus Peducaeus.
The attention given to the acoustic arrangements of the Greeks may be inferred from Vitruv. v. 5, 8. H. N. xxxv. 4, 23; Val. Among the few minor poems preserved from this epoch there occurs the following epigram on this illustrious actor: -Constiteram, exorientem Auroram forte salutans, Cum subito a laeva Roscius exoritur.
At this moment Lucius Caesar, a distant kinsman, and the praetor Roscius arrived, as they said, with a private message from Pompey. The message was nothing. The object was no more than to gain time. But Caesar had no wish for war, and would not throw away a chance of avoiding it. He bade his kinsman tell Pompey that it was for him to compose the difficulties which had arisen without a collision.
His start back with horror, when he beheld his face, I shall never forget: it outdid the young Roscius, when he saw the ghost of Hamlet. Having wetted his fore-finger with his tongue, the old mate tried to remove the stain of the caustic, but the "d dpot" still remained, and we, like so many young imps, surrounded him, roaring with laughter.
Not only did he defend Rabirius Postumus, when accused by Cæsar of the assassination of Saturninus, and address the people against offering violence to L. Roscius on account of the unpopular lex theatralis, but he even resisted the restoration to their civil rights of the sons of the men proscribed by Sulla, avowedly on the ground of the necessity of maintaining the established order, though he knew and confessed the justice of the proposal.
The open Forum demands a fuller, and more elevated tone: and he is the Orator for me, who is so universally admired that when he is to plead an interesting cause, all the benches are filled beforehand, the tribunal crowded, the clerks and notaries busy in adjusting their seats, the populace thronging about the rostra, and the judge brisk, and vigilant; he, who has such a commanding air, that when he rises up to speak, the whole audience is hushed into a profound silence, which is soon interrupted by their repeated plaudits, and acclamations, or by those successive bursts of laughter, or violent transports of passion, which he knows how to excite at his pleasure; so that even a distant observer, though unacquainted with the subject he is speaking upon, can easily discover that his hearers are pleased with him, and that a Roscius is performing his part on the stage.
Q. Catulus, my friend and colleague's father, was enamored with your fellow-citizen Roscius, on whom he wrote these verses: As once I stood to hail the rising day, Roscius appearing on the left I spied: Forgive me, Gods, if I presume to say The mortal's beauty with th' immortal vied. Roscius more beautiful than a God! yet he was then, as he now is, squint-eyed.
But Crassus answered, that if he had the least concern for his life, he would never have entrusted himself in their hands, but sent two brothers of the name of Roscius, to inquire on what terms, and in what numbers they should meet. These Surena ordered immediately to be seized, and himself with his principal officers came up on horseback, and greetings him, said, "How is this, then?
He delighted to choose his companions among actors, and was fond of sitting at wine not only with Quintus Roscius the Roman Talma but also with far inferior players; indeed he was himself not a bad singer, and even wrote farces for performance within his own circle.
Now as Catulus could produce no effect, he retired from the Rostra; when Roscius came forward, nobody listened, but he made signs with his fingers that they should not appoint Pompeius to the sole command, but should give him a colleague.
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