Pro A. Cluentio

There is one charge remaining, O judges; a charge of such a nature, that you may see from it the truth of what I said at the beginning of my speech,—that whatever misfortune has happened to Aulus Cluentius of late years, whatever anxiety or trouble he has at the present time, has all been contrived by his mother. You say that Oppianicus was killed by poison, which was administered to him in bread by some one of the name of Marcus Asellius, an intimate friend of his own; and that that was done by the contrivance of Habitus. Now, in this matter, I ask first of all what reason Habitus had for wishing to kill Oppianicus. For I admit that ill-will did exist between them; but men only wish their enemies to be slain, either because they fear them, or because they hate them.

Now, by fear of what could Habitus have been influenced, that he should have endeavoured to commit so great a crime? What reason could any one have had for fearing Oppianicus, already condemned to punishment for his crimes, and banished from the city? What did Cluentius fear? Did he fear being attacked by a ruined man? or being accused by a convict? or being injured by the evidence of an exile? But if, because Habitus hated him, he, on that account, did not wish him to live, was he such a fool, as to think that a life which he was then living, the existence of a convict, of an exile, of a man abandoned by every one? whom, on account of his odious disposition, no one was willing to admit into his house, or to visit, or to speak to, or even to look at?