The speech was successful. Flaccus was acquitted, and the acquittal may have hastened Cicero’s own banishment. But for us the particularly interesting part of this brilliant effort is contained in §§ 66-69. After he has disposed of the various charges of peculation and extortion, he turns to the charges made by the Jews:
Next comes the malicious accusation about the gold of the Jews. No doubt that is the reason why this case is being tried so near the Aurelian terrace. It is this count in the indictment, Laelius, that has made you pick out this place, and that is responsible for the crowd about us. You know very well how numerous that class is, with what unanimity they act, and what strength they exhibit in the political meetings. But I shall frustrate their purpose. I shall speak in a low tone, just loud enough for the jury to hear. There is no lack of men, as you very well know, to stir these fellows up against me and every patriotic citizen; and I have no intention of making the task of such mischief-makers lighter by any act of mine.
The facts are these: Every year it has been customary for men representing the Jews to collect sums in gold from Italy and all our provinces for exportation to Jerusalem. Flaccus in his provincial edict forbade this to be done in Asia.
Now, gentlemen, is there a man who can honestly refuse commendation to this act? That gold should not be exported is a matter which the senate had frequently voted, and which it did as recently as my own consulship. Why, it is a proof of Flaccus’ vigorous administration that he took active steps against a foreign superstition, as it is an indication of a lofty sense of duty that he dared defy, where the public weal was concerned, the furious mass of Jews that frequently crowd our meetings.
But, we are told, when Jerusalem was captured, the conqueror Gn. Pompey touched nothing in that shrine. And that was very wisely done on Pompey’s part, as in so many other acts of that commander. In so suspicious and slanderous a city as ours, he would leave nothing for his detractors to take hold of. But I do not believe, and I cannot suppose you do, that it was the religion of such a nation as the Jews, recently in arms against Rome, that deterred our illustrious general. It was rather his own self-respect.
In view of these considerations, just wherein does the accusation lie? You do not anywhere charge theft; you do not attack the edict; you admit due process of law; you do not deny that the moneys were openly confiscated upon official investigation. The testimony itself discloses that the whole matter was carried on by men of rank and position. At Apamea, Sextus Caesius, a Roman knight and a gentleman of whose honor and integrity there can be no question, openly seized and weighed out in the forum at the feet of the praetor a little less than a hundred pounds of gold. At Laodicea an amount somewhat more than twenty was seized by Lucius Peducaeus, a member of this very jury; at Adramytus, ... by the governor’s representative, L. Domitius. A small quantity was also seized at Pergamon. The accounts of the gold so seized have been audited. The gold is in the treasury. There is no charge of theft. The purpose of the charge is to excite odium against my client. It is not the jury that the prosecution is addressing, but the audience, the crowd about us.
Religious scruples, my dear Laelius, are primarily national concerns. We have our own, and other states have theirs. And as a matter of fact, even while Jerusalem was standing, and the Jews were at peace with us, there was very little in common between the religious customs of which their rites are examples and those which befit an empire as splendid as ours, or a people of our character and dignity. Our ancestral institutions are as different from theirs as they well can be. Now, however, there surely can be all the less obligation upon us to respect Jewish religious observances when the nation has demonstrated in arms what its feelings are toward Rome, and has made clear how far it enjoyed divine protection by the fact that it has been conquered, scattered, enslaved.
There are a number of difficulties with the passage. The text of the final sentence is doubtful—but the discussion of that point will be reserved for the Notes.[[237]]
We cannot suppose that Cicero was guilty of deliberate misstatement on matters about which he could be immediately confuted. We must therefore accept his assertion that this count in the indictment did not charge theft or malversation, but merely public confiscation of the funds in question. It is undoubtedly a fact that the exportation of the precious metals had been frequently forbidden, although the senatorial resolution to this effect was far from being a law, but with this precedent and even without it no one could very well deny that it was within the imperium of a proconsul to make such a regulation if he saw fit.[[238]]
One may well ask with Cicero, Ubi ergo crimen est? The point seems to be that previous officials had interpreted the rule to refer to exportation for commercial purposes, and had exempted from its operation contributions for religious purposes. Doubtless the self-imposed temple tax of the Jews was not the only one of its kind. If custom had sanctioned that exemption, Flaccus’ act would be felt as an act of oppression, since the strict or lenient enforcing of the edict on this point was purely a matter of discretion.[[239]] Flaccus’ successor, Quintus Cicero, a brother of the orator, seems to have reverted to the former practice.