In this class we will read the text of Cicero’s speech for Aulus Cluentius (Pro Cluentio) as an example of Roman legal argument. In 66 BCE Cicero defended Aulus Cluentius on a charge of murdering his stepfather Statius Albius Oppianicus (de sicariis et veneficiis). Both men—as well as many others involved in the case--came from local towns in Roman Italy. The stakes for conviction: loss of civic status, essentially a social death. Cicero’s defense of his client provides a masterly example of courtroom defense strategies (the mustering of evidence, witness testimony, manipulation of legal procedures) and the courtroom story-telling that created presumptive realities of “wrong” and “truth,” of “innocence” or ”guilt.” The speech thus affords insight into questions of Roman courtroom procedure and judicial integrity, of the assimilation of Italians within the Roman social and political community and access to Roman law, and of the social expectations
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