Aulus Cluentius is said to have corrupted a tribunal with money, in order to procure the condemnation of his innocent enemy, Statius Albius. I will prove, O judges, in the first place, (since that is the principal wickedness charged against him, and the chief pretext for casting odium upon him, that an innocent man was condemned through the influence of in your minds whether I have money,) that no one was ever brought before a court on heavier charges, or with more unimpeachable witnesses against him to prove them. In the second place, that a previous examination into the matter had been made by the very same judges who afterwards condemned him, with such a result that he could not possibly have been acquitted, not only by them, but by any other imaginable tribunal. When I have demonstrated this, then I will prove that point which I am aware is particularly indispensable, that that tribunal was indeed tampered with, not by Cluentius, but by the party hostile to Cluentius; and I will enable you to see clearly in the whole of that cause what the facts really were—what mistake gave rise to—and what had its origin in the unpopularity undeservedly stirred up against Cluentius.

The first point is this, from which it may be clearly seen that Cluentius had the greatest reason to confide in the justice of his cause, because he came down to accuse Albius relying on the most certain facts and unimpeachable witnesses. While on this topic, it is necessary for me, O judges, briefly to explain the accusations of which Albius was convicted. I demand of you, O Oppianicus, to believe that I speak unwillingly of the affair in which your father was implicated, because I am compelled by considerations of good faith, and of my duty as counsel for the defence. And, if I am unable at the present moment to satisfy you of this, yet I shall have many other opportunities of satisfying you at some future time; but unless I do justice to Cluentius now, I shall have no subsequent opportunity of doing justice to him. At the same time who is there who can possibly hesitate to speak against a man who has been condemned and is dead, on behalf of one unconvicted and living, when in the case of him who is being so spoken against conviction has taken away all danger of further disgrace, and death all fear of any further pain? and when, on the other hand, no disaster can happen to that man on behalf of whom one is speaking, without causing him the most acute feeling and pain of mind, and without branding his future life with the greatest disgrace and ignominy?

And that you may understand that Cluentius was not induced to prosecute Oppianicus by a disposition fond of bringing accusations, or by any fondness for display or covetousness of glory, but by nefarious injuries, by daily plots against him, by hazard of his life, which has been every day set before his eyes, I must go back a little further to the very beginning of the business; and I entreat you, O judges, not to be weary or indignant at my doing so—for when you know the beginning, you will much more easily understand the end. Aulus Cluentius Habitus, this man's father, O judges, was a man by far the most distinguished for valour, for reputation and for nobleness of birth, not only of the municipality of Larinum, of which he was a native, but also of all that district and neighbourhood. When he died, in the consulship of Sulla and Pompeius, a. u. c. 666. Twenty-two years before this time. he left this son, a boy fifteen years old, and a daughter grown up and of marriageable age, who a short time after her father's death married Aulus Aurius Melinus, her own cousin, a youth of the fairest possible reputation, as was then supposed, among his countrymen, for honour and nobleness.

This marriage subsisted with all respectability and all concord; when on a sudden there arose the nefarious lust of an abandoned woman, united not only with infamy but even with impiety. For Sassia, the mother of this Habitus, (for she shall be called his mother by me, just for the name's sake, although she behaves towards him with the hatred and cruelty of an enemy,)—she shall, I say, be called his mother; nor will I even so speak of her wickedness and barbarity as to forget the name to which nature entitles her; (for the more lovable and amiable the name of mother is, the more will you think the extraordinary wickedness of that mother, who for these many years has been wishing her son dead, and who wishes it now more than ever, worthy of all possible hatred.) She, then, the mother of Habitus, being charmed in a most impious matter with love for that young man, Melinus, her own son-in-law, at first restrained her desires as she could, but she did not do that long. Presently, she began to get so furious in her insane passion, she began to be so hurried away by her lust, that neither modesty, nor chastity, nor piety, nor the disgrace to her family, nor the opinion of men, nor the indignation of her son, nor the grief of her daughter, could recall her from her desires.

She seduced the mind of the young man, not yet matured by wisdom and reason, with all those temptations with which that early age can be charmed and allured. Her daughter, who was tormented not only with the common indignation which all women feel at injuries of that sort from their husbands, but who also was unable to endure the infamous prostitution of her mother, of which she did not think that she could even complain to any one without committing a sin herself, wished the rest of the world to remain in ignorance of this her terrible misfortune, and wasted away in grief and tears in the arms and on the bosom of Cluentius, her most affectionate brother.

However, there is a sudden divorce, which appeared likely to be a consolation for all her misfortunes. Cluentia departs from Melinus; not unwilling to be released from the infliction of such injuries, yet not willing to lose her husband. But then that admirable and illustrious mother of hers began openly to exult with joy, to triumph in her delight, victorious over her daughter, not over her lust. Therefore she did not choose her reputation to be attacked any longer by uncertain suspicions; she orders that genial bed, which two years before she had decked for her daughter on her marriage, to be decked and prepared for herself in the very same house, having driven and forced her daughter out of it. The mother-in-law marries the son-in-law, no one looking favourably on the deed, no one approving it, all foreboding a dismal end to it.