HORTENSIUS, QUINTUS (114-5o B.c. ), surnamed Hor talus, Roman orator and advocate. At the age of nineteen he made his first speech at the bar, and shortly afterwards success fully defended Nicomedes III. of Bithynia, one of Rome's de pendants in the East, who had been deprived of his throne by his brother. From that time his reputation as an advocate was estab lished. As the son-in-law of Q. Lutatius Catulus he was attached to the aristocratic party. The senatorial control of the courts reintroduced by Sulla helped him, as many of his clients were ex-governors accused of extortion. He became quaestor in 81, aedile in 75, praetor in 72 and consul in 69. In the year before his consulship he came into collision with Cicero in the case of Verres, and from that time his supremacy at the bar was lost. But after 63 Cicero joined the party to which Hortensius belonged. Consequently, in political cases, the two men were often engaged on the same side (e.g., in defence of Rabirius, Murena, Publius Cornelius Sulla and Milo). After Pompey's return from the East in 61, Hortensius withdrew from public life and devoted himself to his profession. In 5o, the year of his death, he successfully defended Appius Claudius Pulcher when accused of treason and corrupt practices by P. Cornelius Dolabella.
Hortensius's speeches are not extant. His oratory, according to Cicero, was of the Asiatic style, a florid rhetoric, better to hear than to read. He had a wonderfully tenacious memory (Cicero, Brutus, 88, 95), and could retain every point in his opponent's argument. His action was highly artificial, and his manner of folding his toga was noted by tragic actors of the day (Macrobius, Sat. iii. 13. 4). He also possessed a fine musical voice, which he could skilfully command. He was very rich, and noted for the luxury of his houses and table. He wrote a treatise on general questions of oratory, erotic poems (Ovid, Tristia, ii. 441), and an Annales (Veil. Pat. ii. 16. 3) .