After the last speech which was delivered A. U. C. 674, Cicero went to Athens, where he remained eighteen months, and after his return he did not employ himself at first as an advocate but devoted himself rather to philosophical studies. But in the third year, A. U. C. 677, when his friend Roscius, the comic actor, was interested in a cause, he returned to the bar. The subject of the action in which this speech was this: A man of the name of Fannius Chaerea had articled a young slave to Roscius on condition that Roscius was to teach him the art of acting, and that he and Fannius were afterwards to share his earnings. The slave was afterwards killed and Roscius brought an action against the man who had killed him, Quintus Flavius by name and received as damages a farm worth 100,000 sesterces—for his half share in the slave, according to his own account, but as the full value of the slave according to Fannius but the fact was that Fannius also had brought an action against Flavius and had recovered similar damages. Fannius sued Roscius for 50,000 sesterces, as his share of the damages which he (Roscius) had received from Flavius, suppressing the fact of his having obtained a similar sum himself. The beginning of this speech is lost, and also a considerable portion at the end.
