hing is known, was
abrogated by his brother. In 74 Cotta obtained the province of Gaul, and
was granted a triumph for some victory of which we possess no details;
but on the very day before its celebration an old wound broke out, and
he died suddenly. According to Cicero, P. Sulpicius Rufus and Cotta were
the best speakers of the young men of their time. Physically incapable
of rising to passionate heights of oratory, Cotta's successes were
chiefly due to his searching investigation of facts; he kept strictly to
the essentials of the case and avoided all irrelevant digressions. His
style was pure and simple. He is introduced by Cicero as an interlocutor
in the _De oratore_ and _De natura deorum_ (iii.), as a supporter of the
principles of the New Academy. The fragments of Sallust contain the
substance of a speech delivered by Cotta in order to calm the popular
anger at a deficient corn-supply.

See Cicero, _De oratore_, iii. 3, _Brutus_, 49, 55, 90, 92; Sallust,
_Hist. Frag._; Appian, _Bell. Civ._ i. 37.

His brother, LUCIUS AURELIUS COTTA, when praetor in 70 B.C. brought in a
law for the reform of the jury lists, by which the judices were to be
eligible, not from the senators exclusively as limited by Sulla, but
from senators, equites and _tribuni aerarii_. One-third were to be
senators, and two-thirds men of equestrian census, one-half of whom must
have been _tribuni aerarii_, a body as to whose functions there is no
certain evidence, although in Cicero's time they were reckoned by
courtesy amongst the equites. In 66 Cotta and L. Manlius Torquatus
accused the consuls-elect for the following year of bribery in connexion
with the elections; they were condemned, and Cotta and Torquatus chosen
in their places. After the suppression of the Catilinarian conspiracy,
Cotta proposed a public thanksgiving for Cicero's services, and after
the latter had gone into exile, supported the view that there was no
need of a law for his recall, since the law of Clodius was legally
worthless. He subsequently attached himself to Caesar, and it was
currently reported that Cotta (who was then quindecimvir) intended to
propose that Caesar should receive the title of king, it being written
in the books of fate that the Parthians could only be defeated by a
king. Cotta's intention was not carried out in consequence of the murder
of Caesar, after which he retired from public life.

See Cicero, Orelli's _Onomasticon_; Sallust, _Catiline_,