It is said, too, that Licinius Macer, a man who had great power in the city on his own account and also enjoyed the help of Crassus, was tried before Cicero for fraud, and that, relying upon his influence and the efforts made in his behalf, he went off home while the jurors were still voting, hastily trimmed his hair and put on a white toga in the belief that he had been acquitted, and was going forth again to the forum; but Crassus met him at the house-door and told him that he had been convicted unanimously, whereupon he turned back, lay down upon his bed, and died.
Edition :
Plutarch Lives VII: Demosthenes and Cicero, Alexander and Caesar, ed. E. H. Warmington, trans. Bernadotte Perrin (The Loeb Classical Library 99), Cambridge - London 1967 (first ed. 1919).
Notes :
The circumstances of Crassus'death, the political differences and the positive impact it has on Cicero's reputation as a "scrupulous presiding officer" (Plut. Cic. 9, 3.) leads to a possible assumption that this death was a violent death.
