vote[74] "guilty," "acquitted," or "not proven," as they do in
Scotland. They were, in fact, jurymen rather than judges. It does not
seem that any amount of legal lore was looked for specially in the
judges, who at different periods had been taken from various orders
of the citizens, but who at this moment, by a special law enacted by
Sulla, were selected only from the Senators. We have ample evidence
that at this period the judges in Rome were most corrupt. They were
tainted by a double corruption: that of standing by their order
instead of standing by the public--each man among them feeling that
his turn to be accused might come--and that also of taking direct
bribes. Cicero on various occasions--on this, for instance, and
notably in the trial of Verres, to which we shall come soon--felt
very strongly that his only means of getting a true verdict from the
majority of judges was to frighten them into temporary honesty by the
magnitude of the occasion. If a trial could be slurred through with
indifferent advocates, with nothing to create public notice, with no
efforts of genius to attract admiration, and a large attendance and
consequent sympathy the judgment would, as a matter of course, be
bought. In such a case as this of Sextus Roscius, the poor wretch
would be condemned, sewed up in his bag, and thrown into the sea, a
portion of the plunder would be divided among the judges, and nothing
further would be said about it. But if an orator could achieve for
himself such a reputation that the world would come and listen to him,
if he could so speak that Rome should be made to talk about the trial,
then might the judges be frightened into a true verdict. It may
be understood, therefore, of what importance it was to obtain the
services of a Cicero, or of a Hortensius, who was unrivalled at the
Roman bar when Cicero began to plead.

There were three special modes of oratory in which Cicero displayed