Speech Analysis And Analysis Of Edicts In Cyrene

I did my speech analysis on EDICTS OF AUGUSTUS AND DECREE OF THE SENATE ON THE JUDICIAL PROCESS IN CYRENE, 64 B.C., I choose this as my topic because of my major in pre-law and I thought it had relevance to my study’s. I have come to find that this topic is not only hard to write about, but also hard to find sources on, so the entirety of my paper is taken exactly from the speech its self. In my speech analysis, I will be talking about the six edicts in this document, and trying to correlate the events with the shaping of the future and the reasons these laws were put in place. In the first edict, it starts by explaining that Emperor Caesar Augustus, pontifex maximus, is proclaiming these edicts to be law. He begins with explaining that the

Emperor Caesar Augustus says that there had been complaints from the geek civilians living in Cyrene that the roman jurors are unfair and unjust when prosecuting Greeks, Emperor Caesar Augustus even says he has witnessed this by saying, “and since I myself have learned that some innocent persons have been overwhelmed in this way and have suffered the death penalty”. He states that the problem is how and who the juror selection pool is based on. According to Cesar the juror requirements are as follows “there are altogether 215 Roman citizens of every age whose census rating is 2,500 denarii or more, and that the jurors are drawn from this number”, this is the problem the Greeks had with the system they believed that not only is the system rigged against them because the jury was made up of only roman citizens, but also the class of people on the jury were lower so they would form cliques to work together for their self-interest. So, to fix this Cesar has a decree that should help the Greeks feel like they are getting true justice. Cesar proclaims that his new way of picking jurors will be less biased and work way better than

But Cesar then proclaims, “for all other matters, it is my pleasure that Greeks shall be appointed as jurors, unless the accused or the defendant wishes to have Roman citizens as jurors”. This means that Greeks will be the jury unless the defendant wants romans on the jury which removes the argument that romans have it out for the Greeks living in Cyrene. He also removed the biased by saying the Greek jurors will not be from the city that the defendant or the plaintiff belong to. The fifth edict seems to be more of an announcement that another decree from another document had been passed. He doesn’t give to much detail on what this decree was but he does say, “that to all those persons living in the provinces may be clear the great concern which I and the Senate have, that no one of our subjects may suffer any unfair treatment or may be subjected to unfair exactions”. This means that subject that may not be roman citizens but live within the provinces of the roman empire shall not be treated unfairly which I am sure was a big concern for property owners of non-citizens then wondering if government officials would tax them higher for not being citizens or taking property away all together so this edict made sure they were treated fairly and