Section XX.

[a] Doctor Middleton says, “Of the seven excellent orations, which now remain on the subject of VERRES, the first two only were spoken; the one called, The Divination; the other, The first Action, which is nothing more than a general preface to the whole cause.  The other five were published afterwards, as they were prepared and intended to be spoken, if Verres had made a regular defence:  for as this was the only cause in which Cicero had yet been engaged, or ever designed to be engaged, as an accuser, so he was willing to leave those orations as a specimen of his abilities in that way, and the pattern of a just and diligent impeachment of a great and corrupt magistrate.”  Life of Cicero, vol. i. p. 86, 4to edit.

[b] The Digest enumerates a multitude of rules concerning exceptions to persons, things, the form of the action, the niceties of pleading, and, as the phrase is, motions in arrest of judgement. Formula, was the set of words necessary to be used in the pleadings.  See the Digest, lib. xliv. tit. 1. De Exceptionibus, Praescriptionibus, et Praejudiciis.  See also Cujacius, observat. xxiii.

[c] The oration for Marcus Tullius is highly praised by Macrobius, but is not to be found in Cicero’s works.  The oration for Aulus Caecina is still extant.  The cause was about the right of succession to a private estate, which depended on a subtle point of law, arising from the interpretation of the praetor’s interdict.  It shews Cicero’s exact knowledge and skill in the civil law, and that his public character and employment gave no interruption to his usual diligence in pleading causes.  Middleton’s Life of Cicero, vol. i. p. 116, 4to edit.

[d] Roscius, in the last period of the republic, was the comedian, whom all Rome admired for his talents.  The great esteemed and loved him for his morals.  AEsop, the tragedian, was his contemporary.  Horace, in the epistle to Augustus, has mentioned them both with their proper and distinctive qualities.

        ——­Ea cum reprehendere coner
     Quae GRAVIS AESOPUS, quae DOCTUS ROSCIUS egit.

A certain measured gravity of elocution being requisite in tragedy, that quality is assigned to the former, and the latter is called DOCTUS, because he was a complete master of his art; so truly learned in the principles of his profession, that he possessed, in a wonderful degree, the secret charm that gave inimitable graces to his voice and action.  Quintilian, in a few words, has given a commentary on the passage in Horace.  Grief, he says, is expressed by slow and deliberate accents; for that reason, AEsop spoke with gravity; Roscius with quickness; the former being a tragedian, the latter a comedian. Plus autem affectus habent lentiora; ideoque Roscius citatior, AEsopus gravior fuit, quod ille comoedias, his tragoedias egit. Lib. xi. cap. 1.  Cicero was the great