Early-career Prosecutors: Forensic Activity and Senatorial Careers in the Late Republic
Early-career Prosecutors: Forensic Activity and Senatorial Careers in the Late Republic
The focus of this chapter is on the ways in which members of the senatorial order in the late Republic (and those who aspired to join that order) exploited a knowledge of the law to further their careers. Cicero is the best-documented example, whose activity demonstrates a complex relationship between those who claimed expert theoretical knowledge of the law and those who spoke in the courts, between ‘jurists’ and ‘orators’. Drawing on the results of a ERC-funded project based at the University of Glasgow which is editing the fragments of Republican oratory (‘The Fragments of Republican Roman Oratory’), this chapter explores the intersections between political careers and the varieties of forensic activity. It argues that forensically-active senators formed only a very small proportion of the Senate, and that forensic activity was not a normal part of public life, but as a specialised task which only added consistent value to a career if pursued with diligence and a high degree of technical competence.
Keywords: prosecution, defence, senators, Cicero
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