THE ARGUMENT

When Gabinius, the colleague of Piso, returned from his province of Syria, he was prosecuted on two indictments; in the first prosecution Cicero appeared as a witness against him; but he was acquitted, as Cicero says in his letters to his brother Quintus, in consequence of the stupidity of Lentulus, the prosecutor, and the great exertion of Pompey, and the corruption of the judges. In the second prosecution Cicero was prevailed on by Pompey to defend him; but he was condemned to perpetual banishment.

The trial of Caius Rabirius Postumus, a Roman knight, arose out of that trial of Gabinius. It had been one of the articles against him, that he had received an enormous sum for restoring Ptolemy to his kingdom of Egypt; but when he was convicted, his estate was found inadequate to meet the damages which he was condemned to pay, and the deficiency was now demanded from those through whose hands the management of his money affairs had passed, and who were supposed to have been sharers in the spoil; and of these men the chief was Rabirius, who was now accused of having advised Gabinius to undertake Ptolemy’s restoration; of having accompanied him; of having been employed by him to solicit the payment of the money, and of having lived at Alexandria for that purpose in the king’s service as the public receiver of the king’s taxes, and wearing the dress of an Egyptian. The prosecution was instituted under the provisions of the Lex Julia, concerning extortion and peculation. It was conducted by Caius Memmius Gemellus. Rabirius was acquitted; and, though it was to please Pompey that Cicero had undertaken his defence, he afterwards attached himself to Caesar, and was employed by him in the war in Africa and in Sicily.