Pro A. Cluentio

He sought a fine. According to what law? Because he had not taken the oath to observe the law: a thing which never yet was brought against any man as a crime: and because Caius Verres, the city praetor, a very conscientious and careful man, had not the list out of which judges were to be chosen in the place of those who had been rejected, in that book which was then produced full of erasures. On all these accounts Caius Junius was condemned, O judges, for these trivial and unproved reasons, which had no business to have been ever brought before the court at all. And therefore he was defeated, not on the merits of his case, but by the time.

Do you think that this decision ought to be any hindrance to Cluentius? On what account? If Junius had not appointed the judges in the place of those who had been objected to according to law—if he had omitted to take the oath to obey the law—does it follow that any decision bearing on Cluentius's case was pronounced or implied in his condemnation? “No,” says he; “but he was condemned by these laws, because he had committed an offence against another law.” Can those who admit this urge also in defence that that was a regular decision? “Therefore,” says he, “the praetor was hostile to Junius on this account, because the tribunal was thought to have been bribed by his means.” Was then the whole cause changed at this time? Is the case different, is the principle of that decision different, is the nature of the whole business different now from what it was then? I do not think that of all the things that were done then anything can be altered.