censure of Sallustius. What would Cicero's
character be, if we had it from some one who belonged to the party of
Catiline? and what is it as we know it from his own writings?
Insincere, changing with the times, timid, revengeful, and, when he
was under the influence of fear, cruel.]

[Footnote 296: The Greek word ([Greek: theatron]) from which came the
Roman Theatrum and our word Theatre, means a place for an exhibition
or spectacle. The Roman word for dramatic representations is properly
Scena. I do not know when the men and women had separate seats
assigned to them in the theatres. A law of the tribune L. Roscius Otho
B.C. 68 fixed the places in the theatres for the different classes,
and it may have assigned separate seats to the women.]

[Footnote 297: Valeria was the daughter of M. Valerius Messala. She
could not be the sister of Hortensius, for in that case her name would
be Hortensia. The sister of the orator Hortensius married a Valerius
Messala.]

[Footnote 298: Plutarch has translated the Roman word Imperator by the
Greek Autocrator ([Greek: Autokrator]), "one who has absolute power;"
the title Autocrator under the Empire is the Greek equivalent of the
Roman Imperator, but hardly an equivalent at this time. (See the Life
of Caesar.)]

[Footnote 299: This was the Quintus Roscius whom Cicero has so often
mentioned and in defence of whom he made a speech which is extant. The
subject of the action against Roscius is not easy to state in a few
words. (See the Argument of P. Manutius, and the Essay of Unterholzner
in Savigny's _Zeitschrift_, &c. i. p. 248.) Roscius is called Comoedus
in the title of Cicero's oration and by Plutarch, but he seems to have
acted tragedy also, as we may collect from some passages in Cicero.
The general name at Rome for an actor was histrio; but the histrio is
also contrasted by Cicero (_Pro Q. Roscio_, c. 10) with the comoedus,
as the inferior compared with the higher professor of the art. Yet
Roscius is sometimes called a histrio. Roscius was a perfect master of
his art, according to Cicero; and his name became proverbial among the
Romans to express a perfect master of any art. (Cicero, _De Oratore_,
i. 28.) Cicero was intimate with Roscius, and learned much from him
that was useful to him as an orator. Roscius wrote a work in which he
compared oratory and acting. His professional gains were immense; and
he had a sharp eye after his own interest, as the speech of Cicero
shows.]