Cicero’s Rhetorical Tactics in the Trial of Lucius Licinius Murena

Abstract

In November 63 BC, Cicero delivered his speech in defence of the army commander Lucius Licinius Murena, who was running for the office of consul the following year. Murena was accused by his competitors and their supporters of electoral bribery, or ambitus. Murena’s conviction would not only have ended his political career but would have put the republic in grave danger because following such a decision the leadership of the state would have been taken over at the beginning of 62 BC by a single consul instead of two, who would have been unable to cope with the threat of the conspiracy exposed, fuelled by Catiline. Cicero was therefore called upon to defend—beyond the honour of a member of the Roman political elite—the very stability of the Roman state, as he himself clearly articulates in his oratio. This exceptional situation would have prompted the orator to accept Murena’s defence, despite the fact that the accusation had been made by Marcus Porcius Cato, a statesman of exceptional moral authority who had consistently adhered to the principles of Stoic ethics throughout his career, and by Servius Sulpicius Rufus, the most eminent legal expert of the time and a good friend of Cicero. In his defence speech, the orator does not focus primarily on contrasting the personal merits of his competitors Licinius Murena and Sulpicius Rufus but rather compares their careers, their work as strategists and scholars in the legal sciences—interweaving his own fundamental vocation—and as orators, placing them on the scales of service to the state and the public good. Cicero offers a spiritual assessment, sprinkled with humour. The end of the trial is well known: the court acquitted Murena, who was thus able to begin his term as consul the following year, taking over the position from Cicero, his defender. In what follows, we will first examine the historical background of the speech Pro Murena, providing more detail on the political events surrounding the delivery of the speech, as this oratio appears during the unmasking of the conspiracy initiated by Catiline, so it cannot be extracted from the context of the turbulent political relations of those months. Next, in the course of analysing the legal background of the trial, we will review the method of electing consuls in the last century of the republic, namely the presentation of electoral bribes organically linked to this process, and the not necessarily effective legislative efforts aimed at punishing the commission of ambitus. Finally, we will move on to presenting the rhetorical tactics adopted in Pro Murena, the contentio dignitatis, namely the typical strategy applied in trials involving cases of ambitus, through which Cicero compared the career development and personalities of rival candidates: through this approach, the orator sought not so much to prove his client’s innocence in relation to the accusation of electoral bribery but rather to demonstrate Murena’s, the winner of the election, aptitude for the dignity of consul, and at the same time his opponent’s, Sulpicius Rufus’s, inability to hold this office.