Roscius, QUINTUS

Roscius, QUINTUS, was born at Solonium, a village near Lanuvium, and rose to be the greatest comic actor in Rome. So much was he admired that many of the Roman aristocracy befriended him, and the dictator Sulla, as a token of favour, presented him with a gold ring, the symbol of the equestrian order. Among his most admiring and affectionate patrons Roscius also numbered Cicero, who, at the commencement of his career, received lessons in the art of elocution from the great comedian, and even in later life used to make trials of skill with his instructor as to which of them rendered a thought most clearly and effec- tively—the orator by his diction, or the comedian by his gesticulation. So sensible was Roscius of the distinction he enjoyed in sharing the intimacy, and even the friendly emulation of the great orator, that he came to look upon his art as one of no small importance and dignity, and wrote a treatise on the comparative methods and merits of eloquence and acting. Cicero's friendship was of use to him in another way, for on his being sued at law by C. Fannius Chærea for the sum of 50,000 sesterces, Cicero defended him before the judex Piso (probably 68 B.C.) in his extant oration, Pro Q. Roscio Comædo. He died 62 B.C., having attained such perfection in his peculiar art that to be a 'Roscius' became synonymous with pre-eminence in every profession, and leaving, like his famous contemporary, Æsopus the tragedian, an immense fortune, realised upon the stage. See Ribbeck, Die Römische Tragödie (Leip. 1875).—For the 'Young Roscius,' see BETTY.