In the year A. U. C, 654, Lucius Saturninus, a tribune of the people, had been slain, in obedience to a decree of the senate, entrusting the safety of the republic to the consuls Caius Marius and Lucius Valerius Flaccus. Julius Caesar now suborned Titus Labienus, one of the present tribunes, to prosecute Rabirius, as being the person who had slain him, (the object of Caesar and his party being to put an end to, or at least a check upon, that prerogative of the senate by which, in a case of tumult, they could arm the city at once, by the customary vote, “Videant consules nequid respublica detrimenti capiat”; in obedience to which vote many seditious citizens had at different times been put to death without any trial, and this privilege of the senate had been a constant subject of complaint to the tribunes.) Julius Caesar procured himself to be appointed one of the duumviri, or two judges, who were to try the cause. Hortensius defended Rabirius, and proved that, though it would have been perfectly legal for Rabirius to slay Saturninus, still in point of fact he had nothing to do with his death, as he had been slain by a slave, who for the action had been emancipated by the people. Caesar, however, condemned Rabirius, who appealed to the people. And it was on the trial of this appeal that the following oration was delivered. Labienus would not allow Cicero to exceed half-an-hour in his defence; and, to raise the greater indignation against Rabirius, he exposed the picture of Saturninus in the rostra, as of one who had fallen a martyr to the liberties of the people.
