Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/52

 44 CICERO. of great power in the city, and supported also by the assistance of Crassus, was accused before him of extortion, and that, in confidence on his own interest and the dili- gence of his friends, whilst the judges were debating about the sentence, he went to his house, where hastily trim- ming his hair and putting on a clean gown, as already acquitted, he was setting off again to go to the Forum ; but at his hall door meeting Crassus, who told him that he was condemned by all the votes, he went in again, threw himself upon his bed, and died immediately. This verdict was considered very creditable to Cicero, as show- ing his careful management of the courts of justice. On another occasion, Vatinius, a man of rude manners and often insolent in court to the magistrates, who had large swellings on his neck, came before his tribunal and made some request, and on Cicero's desiring further time to consider it, told him that he himself would have made no question about it, had he been prcetor. Cicero, turning quickly upon him, answered, " But I, you see, have not the neck that you have." * When there were but two or three days remaining in his office, Manilius was brought before him, and charged with peculation. ManUius had the good opinion and favor of the common people, and was thought to be prose- cuted only for Pompey's sake, whose particular friend he was. And therefore, when he asked a space of time before his trial, and Cicero allowed him but one day, and that the next only, the common people grew highly offended, because it had been the custom of the praetors to allow ten days at least to the accused : and the tribunes of the people having called him before the people, and accused liim, he, desiring to be heard, said, that as he had in Greek and Latin the sign of the no doubt or difficulty. So in the pushing, unscrupulous man, who life of Marius.
 * The strong, thick neck was both would take no refusal and stick at