SERVIUS SULPICIUS

RUFUS (c. 106—43 B.C.)  , surnamed Lemonia from the tribe to which he belonged, Roman orator and jurist . He studied rhetoric with Cicero; and accompanied him to Rhodes in 78 B.C . Finding that he would never be able to rival his teacher he gave up rhetoric for law (Cic . Brut . 41) . In 63 he was a candidate for the consulship, but was defeated by L . Licinius Murena (q.v.), whom he subsequently accused of bribery; in 51 he was successful . In the Civil War, after considerable hesitation, he threw in his lot with Caesar, who made him proconsul of Achaea in 46 . He died in 43 while on a mission from the senate to Antony at Mutina . He was ac-corded a public funeral, and a statue was erected to his memory in front of the Rostra . Two excellent specimens of Sulpicius's style are preserved in Cicero (Ad . Pam. iv .

5 and 12) .

Quintilian (Instil. x . 1, 116) speaks of three orations by Sulpicius as still in existence; one of these was the speech against Murena, another Pro or Contra Aufidium, of whom nothing is known . He is also said to have been a writer of erotic poems . It is as a. jurist, however, that Sulpicius was chiefly distinguished . He left behind him a large number of treatises, and he is often quoted in the Digest, although direct extracts are not found (for titles see Teuffel-Schwabe, Hist. of Roman Lit . 174, 4) . His chief characteristics were lucidity, an intimate acquaintance with the principles of civil and natural law, and an unrivalled power of expression . See R . Schneider, De Servio Sulpicio Rufo (Leipzig, 1834); O . Earlowa, Romische Rechtsgeschichte, vol. i . (Leipzig, 1885) ; the chief ancient authority is Cicero .