V
IN BEHALF OF ARCHIAS THE POET[1]
(61 B.C.)
If there be any natural ability in me, O judges,—and I know how slight that is; or I have any practise as a speaker,—and in that line I do not deny that I have some experience; or if I have any method in my oratory, drawn from my study of the liberal sciences, and from that careful training to which I admit that at no part of my life have I ever been disinclined; certainly, of all those qualities, this Aulus Licinius is entitled to be among the first to claim the benefit from me as his peculiar right. For as far as ever my mind can look back upon the space of time that is past, and recall the memory of its earliest youth, tracing my life from that starting-point, I see that Archias was the principal cause of
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- ↑ Delivered in Rome in 61 B.C. Translated by Charles Duke Yonge. Slightly abridged.
It is explained in the "argument" that Archias was a Greek poet, a native of Antioch, who came to Rome in the train of Lucullus, when Cicero was a child. Cicero had been for some time a pupil of his and had retained a great regard for him. A man of the name of Gracchus now prosecuted him as a false pretender to the rights of a Roman citizen, according to the provisions of the lex Papiria, and Cicero defended him. The greatest part of this oration is occupied, not in legal arguments, but in a panegyric on Archias, who is believed to have died soon afterward. It was nearly forty years previous that he had first come to Rome.
