Talk:Pro Roscio Amerino

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Restructuring Article[edit]

Although there is much to its credit, I feel this article is problematic, and needs some attention.

The opening section, detailing Sulla's rise to power, is too long, has no citations, and is of doubtful relevance to the page at hand: all of that information is available on the relevant articles on Sulla or Marius. I propose to reduce it to two or three sentences, at most.

There follows a good summary of Sex. Roscius Sen.'s murder and the build up to the case. However, this material is then repeated later in the 'Content of the speech' section. I intend to synthesise these into one section.

Finally, the section on 'Scholarly observations'. There is a lot of very nice material here, clearly added by someone with genuine interest in the case and its scholarly reception. However, there is rather a lot of it, and I question how relevant some of it is to an encyclopedia entry: why include the observations of these select scholars only, and not others? For now, I am loath to touch this section, but I will perhaps revisit it in the future.

Drivingrevilo (talk) 08:42, 5 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Indictment of Erucius[edit]

The article states "It seems the prosecution based their argument upon the cui bono principle: namely, since Sextus Roscius had the most to gain from murdering his father, he was the most likely candidate.". I don't think this is correct. Cicero himself used the cui bono principle against Magnus, Capito and Chrysogonus - but I've never seen Erucius use it. Instead, the indictment was based on the fact that

Junior was ordered to work on his father's lands (purportedly against his will)
Senior purportedly had plans to disown Junior
Junior and Senior purportedly hated each other

In what way would Junior even have the most gain? Cicero plausibly said that the "poor Junior lost everything" (bona, pater).

xpple (talk) 20:19, 29 March 2021 (UTC +2)