There was a woman of Larinum, named Dinea, the
mother-in-law of Oppianicus, who had three sons, Marcus Aurius, Numerius Aurius, and Cnaeus
Magius, and one daughter, Magia, who was married to Oppianicus. Marcus Aurius, quite a young
man, having been taken prisoner in the social war at Asculum, fell into the hands of Quintus Sergius, a senator, who was convicted of
assassination, and was put by him in his slaves' prison. But Numerius Aurius, his brother, died,
and left Cnaeus Magius, his brother, his heir. Afterwards, Magia, the wife of Oppianicus, died;
and last of all, that one who was the last of the sons of Dinea, Cnaeus Magius, also died. He
left as his heir that young Oppianicus, the son of his sister, and enjoined that he should share
the inheritance with his mother Dinea. In the meantime an informant comes to Dinea, (a man
neither of obscure rank, nor uncertain as to the truth of his news,) to tell her that her son
Marcus Aurius is alive, and is in the territory of Gaul, in slavery.
The woman having lost her
children, when the hope of recovering one of her sons was held out to her, summoned all her
relations, and all the intimate friends of her son, and with tears entreated them to undertake
the business to seek out the youth, and to restore to her that son whom fortune had willed
should be the only one remaining to her out of many. Just when she had begun to adopt these
measures, she was taken ill. Therefore she made a will in these terms: she left to that son four
hundred thousand sesterces; and she made that Oppianicus who has been already mentioned, her
grandson, her heir. And a few days after, she died. However, these relations, as they had
undertaken to do while Dinea was alive, when she was dead, went into the Gallic territory to
search out Aurius, with the same man who had brought Dinea the information.
In the meantime, Oppianicus being, as you will have proved to you by many circumstances, a man
of singular wickedness and audacity, by means of some Gaul, his intimate friend, first of all corrupted that informer with a bribe, and
after that, at no great expense, managed to have Aurius himself got out of the way and murdered.
But they who had gone to seek out and recover their relation, send letters to Larinum, to the Aurii the relations of that young man, and
their own intimate friends, to say that the investigation was very difficult for them, because
they understood that the man who had given the information had been since bribed by Oppianicus.
And these letters Aulus Aurius, a brave and experienced man, and one of high rank in his own
city, the near relation of the missing Marcus Aurius, read openly in the forum, in the hearing
of plenty of people, in the presence of Oppianicus himself, and with a loud voice declared that
he would prosecute Oppianicus if he found that Marcus Aurius had been murdered.
The feelings, not only of his relations, but also of all the citizens
of Larinum, are moved by hatred of Oppianicus, and
pity for that young man. Therefore, when Aulus Aurius, he who had previously made this
declaration, began to follow the man with loud cries and with threats, he fled from Larinum, and betook himself to the camp of that most
illustrious man, Quintus Metellus.
After that flight, the
witness of his crime, and of his consciousness of it, he never ventured to commit himself to the
protection of a court of justice, or of the laws,—he never dared to trust himself unarmed among
his enemies; but at the time when violence was stalking abroad, after the victory of Lucius
Sulla, he came to Larinum with a body of armed men,
to the great alarm of all the citizens; he carried off the quatuorviri, “The highest magistrates of a colonia were the decemviri or
quatuorviri, so called as the numbers might vary, whose functions may be compared with those of
the consulate at Rome, before the establishment of
the praetorship. Their principal duties were the administration of justice.”—Smith, Dict. Ant.
p. 259, v. Colonia. whom the citizens of that
municipality had elected; he said that he and three others had been appointed by Sulla; and he
said that he received orders from him to take care that that Aurius who had threatened him with
prosecution and with danger to his life, and the other Aurius, and Caius Aurius his son, and
Sextus Vibius, whom he was said to have employed as his agent in corrupting the man who had
given the information, were proscribed and put to death. Accordingly, when they had been most
cruelly murdered, the rest were ale thrown into no slight fear of proscription and death by that
circumstance. When these things had been made manifest at the trial, who is there who can think
it possible that he should have been acquitted?
And these things are trifles. Listen to what follows, and you will wonder, not that Oppianicus
was at last condemned, but that he remained for some time in safety.
In the first place, remark the audacity of the man. He was anxious to marry Sassia, the mother
of Habitus, her whose husband, Aulus Aurius, he had murdered. It is hard to say whether he who
wished such a thing was the more impudent, or she who consented was the more heartless. However,
remark the humanity and virtue of both of them.
Oppianicus
asks, and most earnestly entreats Sassia to marry him. But she does not marvel at his
audacity,—does not scorn and reject his impudence, she is not even alarmed at the idea of the
house of Oppianicus, red with her husband's blood; but she says that she has a repugnance to
this marriage, because he has three sons. Oppianicus, who coveted Sassia's money, thought that
he must seek at home for a remedy for that obstacle which was opposed to his marriage. For as he
had an infant son by Novia, and as a second son of his, whom he had had by
Papia, was being brought up under his mother's eye at
Teanum in Apulia, which is about eighteen miles from
Larinum, on a sudden, without alleging any reason,
he sends for the boy from Teanum, which he had previously never been accustomed to do, except at
the time of the public games, or on days of festival. His miserable mother, suspecting no evil,
sends him. He pretended to set out himself to Tarentum;
and on that very day the boy, though at the eleventh hour he had been seen in public in good
health, died before night, and the next day was burnt before daybreak.
And common report brought this miserable news to his mother before any one of
Oppianicus's household brought her news of it. She, when she had heard at one and the same time,
that she was deprived not only of her son, but even of the sad office of celebrating his funeral
rites, came instantly, half dead with grief, to Larinum, and there performs funeral obsequies over again for her already buried
son. Ten days had not elapsed when his other infant son is also murdered; and then Sassia
immediately marries Oppianicus, rejoicing in his mind, and feeling confident of the attainment
of his hopes. No wonder she married him, when she saw him so eager to propitiate her, not with
ordinary nuptial gifts, but with the deaths of his sons. So that other men are often covetous of
money for the sake of their children, but that man thought it more agreeable to lose his
children for the sake of money.
I see, O judges, that you, as becomes your feelings of humanity, are violently moved at these
enormous crimes now briefly related by me. What do you think must have been their feelings who
had not only to hear of these wicked deeds, but also to sit in judgment on them? You are hearing
of a man, in whose case you are not the judges,—of a man whom you do not see,—of a man whom you
now can no longer hate, —of a man who has made atonement to nature and to the laws, whom the
laws have punished with banishment, nature with death. You are hearing of these actions, not
from any enemy, you are hearing of them without any witnesses being produced; you are hearing of
them when those things which might be enlarged upon at the greatest length are stated by me in a
brief and summary manner. They were hearing of the actions of a man with reference to whom they
were bound to deliver their judgment on oath,—of a man who was present, whose infamous and
hardened countenance they were looking upon,—of a man whom they hated on account of his
audacity,—of him whom they thought worthy of every possible punishment. They were hearing the
relation of these crimes from his accusers; they were hearing the statements of many witnesses;
they were hearing a serious and long oration on each separate particular from Publius Canutius,
a most eloquent man.
And is there any man who, when he has
become acquainted with these things, can suspect that Oppianicus was taken unfair advantage of,
and crushed at his trial, though he was innocent? I will now mention all the other things in a
lump, O judges, in order to come to those things which are nearer to, and more immediately
connected with, this cause.
I entreat you to recollect that it was no part of my original intention to bring any
accusation against Oppianicus, now that he is dead; but that as I wish to persuade you that the
tribunal was not bribed by my client, I use this as the beginning and foundation of my
defence,—that Oppianicus was condemned, being a most guilty and wicked man. He himself gave a
cup to his own wife Cluentia, who was the aunt of that man Habitus, and she while drinking it
cried out that she was dying in the greatest agony; and she lived no longer than she was
speaking, for she died in the middle of this speech and exclamation. And besides the suddenness
of this death, and the exclamation of the dying woman, everything which is considered a sign and
proof of poison was discovered in her body after she was dead.
And by the same poison he killed Caius Oppianicus his brother,—and even this was not enough.
Although in the murder of his brother no wickedness seems to have been omitted, still he
prepared beforehand the road by which he was to arrive at his abominable crime by other acts of
wickedness. For, as Auria, his brother's wife, was in the family way, and appeared to be near
the time of her confinement, he murdered her also with poison, so that she and his own brother's
child, whom she bore within her, perished at the same time. After that he attacked his brother;
who, when it was too late, after he had drank that cup of death, and when he was uttering loud
exclamations about his own and his wife's death, and was desirous to alter his will, died during
the actual expression of this intention. So he murdered the woman, that he might not be cut off
from his brother's inheritance by her confinement; and he deprived his brother's children of
life before they were able to receive from nature the light which was intended for them; so as
to give every one to understand that nothing could be protected against him, that nothing was
too holy for him, from whose audacity even the protection of their mother's body had been unable
to preserve his own brother's children.
I recollect that a certain Milesian woman, when I was in Asia, because she had by medicines brought on abortion, having been bribed to do
so by the heirs in reversion, was convicted of a capital crime; and rightly, inasmuch as she had
destroyed the hope of the father, the memory of his name, the supply of his race, the heir of
his family, a citizen intended for the use of the republic. How much severer punishment does
Oppianicus deserve for the same crime? For she, by doing this violence to her person, tortured
her own body; but he effected this same crime through the torture and death of another. Other
men do not appear to be able to commit many atrocious murders on one individual, but Oppianicus
has been found clever enough to destroy many lives in one body.
Therefore when Cnaeus Magius, the uncle of that young Oppianicus, had become acquainted with
the habits and audacity of this man, and, being stricken with a sore disease, had made him, his
sister's son, his heir, summoning his friends, in the presence of his mother Dinea, he asked his
wife whether she was in the family way; and when she said that she was, he begged of her after
his death to live with Dinea who was her mother-in-law, till she was confined, and to take great
care to preserve and to bring forth alive the child that she had conceived. Accordingly, he
leaves her in his will a large sum, which she was to receive from his child if a child was born,
but leaves her nothing from the reversionary heir.
You see
what he suspected of Oppianicus; what his opinion of him was is plain enough. For though he left
his son his heir, he did not leave him guardian to his children. Now, learn what Oppianicus did;
and you will see that Magius, when dying, had an accurate foresight of what was to happen. The
money which had been left to her from her child if any was born, that Oppianicus paid to her at
once, though it was not due; if, indeed, it is to be called a payment of a legacy, and not wages
for procuring abortion; and she, having received that sum, and many other presents besides,
which were read out of the codicils of Oppianicus's will, being subdued by avarice, sold to the
wickedness of Oppianicus that hope which she had in her womb, and which had been so commended to
her care by her husband.
It would seem now that nothing could possibly be added to this wickedness: listen to the end.—The woman who, according to
the solemn request of her husband, ought not for ten months to have ever entered any house but
that of her mother-in-law; five months after her husband's death married Oppianicus himself. But
that marriage did not last long, for it was entered into, not with any regard to the dignity of
wedlock, but from a partnership in wickedness.
What more shall I say? How notorious, while the fact was recent, was the murder of Asinius of
Larinum, a wealthy young man! how much talked
about in every one's conversation! There was a man of Larinum of the name of Avilius, a man of abandoned character and great poverty,
but exceedingly skillful in rousing and gratifying the passions of young men; and as by his
attentions and obsequiousness he had wormed himself into the acquaintance of Asinius, Oppianicus
began forthwith to hope, that by means of this Avilius, as if he were an instrument applied for
the purpose! he might catch the youth of Asinius, and take his father's wealth from him by
storm. The plan was devised at Larinum; the
accomplishment of it was transferred to Rome. For they
thought that they could lay the foundations of that design more easily in solitude, but that
they could accomplish a deed of the sort more conveniently in a crowd. Asinius went to
Rome with Avilius; Oppianicus followed on their
footsteps. How they spent their time at Rome, in what
revels, in what scenes of debauchery, in what immense and extravagant expenses, not only with
the knowledge, but even with the company and assistance of Oppianicus, would take me a long
while to tell, especially as I am hurrying on to other topics. Listen to the end of this
pretended friendship.
When the young man was in some woman's
house, and passing the night there, and staying there also the next day, Avilius, as had been
arranged, pretends that he is taken ill, and wishes to make his will—Oppianicus brings witnesses
to sign it, who knew neither Asinius nor Avilius, and calls him Asinius; and he himself departs,
after the will has been signed and sealed in the name of Asinius. Avilius gets well immediately.
But Asinius in a very short time is slain, being tempted out to some sand-pits outside the
Esquiline gate, by the idea that he was being taken to
some villa.
And after he had been missed a day or two, and
could not be found in those places in which he was usually to be sought for, and as Oppianicus
was constantly saying in the forum at Larinum that
he and his friends had lately witnessed his will, the freedmen of Asinius and some of his
friends, because it was notorious that on the last day that Asinius had been seen, Avilius had
been with him, and had been seen with him by many people, proceed against him, and bring him
before Quintus Manilius, who at that time was a triumvir. There were many
triumviri, but the triumviri
capitales, which are meant here, were regular magistrates elected by the people,
they succeeded to many of the functions of the quaestores
parricidii, and in many points they resembled the magistracy of the Eleven at
Athens. Their court appears to have been near the
Maenian Column. Vide Smith, Dict. Ant. p, 1009, v. Triumvir. And Avilius at once,
without any witness or any informer appearing against him, being agitated by the consciousness
of his recent wickedness, relates everything as I have now stated it, and confesses that Asinius
had been murdered by him according to the plan of Oppianicus.
Oppianicus, while lying concealed in his own house, is dragged out by Manilius; Avilius the
informer is produced on the other side to face him. Why need you inquire what followed? Most of
you are acquainted with Manilius; he had never from the time he was a child, had any thoughts of
honour, or of the pursuit of virtue, or even of the advantage of a good character; but from
having been a wanton and profligate buffoon, he had, in the dissensions of the state, arrived
through the suffrages of the people at that office, to the seat of which he had often been
conducted by the reproaches of the bystanders. Accordingly he arranges the business with
Oppianicus; he receives a bribe from him; he abandons the cause after it was commended, and when
it was fully proved. And in this trial of Oppianicus the crime committed on Asinius was proved
by many witnesses, and also by the information of Avilius; in which, it was notorious that
Oppianicus's name was mentioned first among the agents; and yet you say that he was an
unfortunate and an innocent man, convicted by a corrupt tribunal.
What more? Did not your father, O Oppianicus, beyond all question, murder your grandmother
Dinea, whose heir you are? who, when he had brought to her his own physician, a well-tried man
and often victorious, (by whose means indeed he had slain many of his enemies,) exclaimed that
she positively would not be attended by that man, through whose attention she had lost all her
friends. Then immediately he goes to a man of Ancona, Lucius Clodius, a travelling quack, who had come by accident at that time
to Larinum, and arranges with him for four hundred
sesterces, as was shown at the time by his account-books. Lucius Clodius, being a man in a
hurry, as he had many more market towns to visit, did the business off-hand, as soon as he was
introduced; he took the woman off with the first draught he gave her, and did not stay at
Larinum a moment afterwards.