Pro A. Cluentio

A prosecution for theft is commenced against him. For what else can any one suspect? Do you say this, that when a chest had been pillaged, money taken away, only some of it recovered, and when men had been murdered, that then an investigation into the death of Oppianicus was instituted? Who will you get to believe that? What is that you could possibly allege, that would be less possible? In the next place, to pass over the other points, was an investigator made into the death of Oppianicus three years after that death?—Yes, and being exasperated against him on account of her former grudge, she then, without the slightest reason, demanded that same Nicostratus, in order to submit him to the question. Oppianicus at first refused. After she threatened that she would take her daughter away from him, and alter her will, he, I will not say brought his most faithful servant to that most cruel woman, for her to subject him to the question, but he clearly gave him up to her for punishment.

After three years had elapsed, then, the long projected investigation into the death of her husband was made; and what slaves were especially pointed at in the investigation ? I suppose some new circumstances were alleged in the accusation; some new men were involved in the suspicion. Strato and Nicostratus were those mentioned. What? had not an ample investigation into their conduct taken place at Rome? Was it not so? The woman, now mad, not by disease, but with wickedness, though she had conducted an investigation at Rome, though it had been resolved, in accordance with the opinion of Titus Annius, Lucius Rutilius, Publius Saturius, and other most honourable men, that the investigation had been carried far enough, still, three years afterwards she attempted to institute an investigation into the conduct of the same men, allowing, I will not say no man, (lest you should say by chance that some one of the inhabitants of the colony was present,) but no respectable man to be present; and this investigation was in reality directed against the life of her son.

Can you say, (for it occurs to me to think what possibly can be said, even if it has not been said as yet,) that when the investigation about the robbery was proceeding, Strato made some confession respecting the poisoning? By this single means, O judges, truth, though kept under by the wickedness of many, often raises its head, and the defence which has been cut away from innocence gets breathing time; either because they who are cunning in devising fraud, do not dare to execute all that they devise, or because they whose audacity is conspicuous and prominent, are destitute of the craftiness of malice. But if cunning were bold, or audacity crafty, it would scarcely be possible to resist them. Was there no robbery committed? Nothing was more notorious at Larinum. Did no suspicion attach to Strato? On the contrary, he was accused on account of the circumstance of the saw, and he was also informed against by the boy who was his accomplice. Was that not stated in the investigation? Why, what other reason was there for making the investigation at all? Did Strato then, (this is what you are bound to say, and what Sassia was constantly saying at that time,) while the investigation was going on about the robbery, while under the torture, make any confession about the poisoning!

Behold now, here is the case which I have just mentioned. The woman abounds in audacity, she is deficient in contrivance and in ability. For many documents of what came out in the investigation are preserved, which have been read to you, and made public, those very documents which he said were then sealed up; and in all these documents there is not one letter about theft. It never once occurred to her to write out the first speech of Strato about the robbery, and after that, to add to it some expression about poisoning, which might seem not to have been extracted by any interrogatory, but to have been wrung from him by pain. The investigation into the robbery was superseded by the suspicion of the poisoning, which was a previous subject for investigation, which this very woman herself had pointed out; who, after she had come to the resolution (being compelled thereto by the opinion of her friends,) that the examination had been pushed far enough, for three years afterwards loved that man Strato above all the other slaves, and held him in the greatest honour, and loaded him with all sorts of kindnesses.

When, therefore, the investigation into a robbery was going on, and that robbery too which he, beyond dispute, had committed, did he then abstain from saying a word about that which was the subject of the investigation, but at once say something about the poisoning? And did he never say one word at all about the robbery, (even if not at the time when he ought to have said it, still) either at the end, or middle, at any part whatever of his examination? You see now, O judges, that that wicked woman, with the same hand with which she would murder her son, if it were in her power, has made up this false report of the examination. And who, I should like to know, has signed this report of the examination? Name any one person. You will find no one except perhaps a man of that sort, whom I would rather mention than have no one named.

What do you say, O Titus Attius? will you bring before the court matter involving danger to a man's life, will you bring forward the information laid with respect to this wickedness, and the fortunes of another, all written down in this document, and yet refuse to name the author of this document, or the witness, or any one who will in any respect confirm it? And will such men as these judges, before whom we stand, approve of this destruction which you have drawn forth out of the mother's bosom against her most innocent son? Be it so then; these documents have no author. What next? Why is not the investigation itself reserved for the judges; for the friends and connections of Oppianicus, whom she had invited to be present before, and for this identical time? What was done to these men, Strato and Nicostratus?

I ask of you, O Oppianicus, what you say was done to your slave Nicostratus? whom you, as you were shortly about to accuse this man, ought to have taken to Rome, to have given him an opportunity of giving information; lastly, to have preserved him unhurt for examination, to have preserved him for these judges, and to have preserved him for this time. For, O judges, know that Strato was crucified, having had his tongue cut out; for there is no one of all the citizens of Larinum who does not know this. That frantic woman was afraid, not of her own conscience, not of the hatred of her fellow-citizens, not of the reports flying about among everybody; but, as if every one was not likely to be hereafter the witness of her wickedness, she was afraid of being convicted by the last words of a dying slave.

What a prodigy is this, O ye immortal gods! What shall we say of this enormity? What shall we call this enormous and inhuman wickedness, or where shall we say it has its birth? For now, in truth, you see, O judges, that I did not, at the beginning of my oration, say what I did about his mother without the strongest and most unavoidable necessity; for there is no evil, no wickedness, which she has not from the very beginning wished, and prayed for, and planned and wrought against her son. I say nothing of that first jury which she did him through her lust—I say nothing of her nefarious marriage with her son-in-law—I say nothing of her daughter driven from her husband by the profligate desires of her mother,—because they have relation, not to the existing danger of his life to my client, but to the common disgrace of the family. I say nothing of the second marriage with Oppianicus, to ensure which she first received from him his dead sons as hostages, and then married, to the grief of the family, and the destruction of her stepsons. I pass over how, when she knew that Aurius Melinus, whose mother-in-law she had formerly been, and whose wife she had been a little before that, had been proscribed and murdered by the contrivance of Oppianicus, she chose for herself that place as the abode and home of her married state, in which she might every day behold the proofs of the death of her former husband, and the spoils of his fortune.

This is what I complain of first of all,—that wickedness which is now at length thoroughly revealed, of the poisoning of Fabricius; which, being then recent, was suspicious to others, incredible to him, but which now appears plain and evident to everybody. In fact, his mother is hardly concealed in that act of poisoning; nothing was devised by Oppianicus without the counsel of that woman; and unless that had been the case, certainly she would not afterwards, when the affair was detected, have departed from him as from a wicked husband, but she would have fled from him as from a most pitiless enemy, and she would have for ever left that house overflowing with every imaginable wickedness.

She not only did not do that, but from that time forth she omitted no opportunity of planning some treachery or other, but day and night, she, a mother, directed all her thoughts to compassing the destruction of her son. But first, in order to confirm Oppianicus in his resolution of becoming the accuser of her son, she bound him to her by gifts and presents, by giving him her daughter in marriage, and by the hope of her inheritance. Therefore, among other people too, when sudden enmities have arisen between relations, we often see divorces and ruptures of connections take place; but this woman thought that no one could be sufficiently reined upon as the prosecutor of her son, unless he first married his sister. Other men, induced by new connections, often lay aside their ancient enmities; she thought that a connection with the family would be a pledge to ensure the strengthening of enmity.

And she was not only diligent in providing an accuser for her son, but she also planned how to furnish him with the requisite weapons. Hence were all those tamperings with the slaves, both by means of threats and of promises; hence those repeated and cruel investigations into the death of Oppianicus; to which at last it was not the moderation of the woman, but the authority of her friends that put a limit. From the same wickedness proceeded that investigation conducted at Larinum three years afterwards. The false reports of the investigation were fabricated by the same frantic criminality. From that same frenzy proceeded also that abominable cutting out of her victim's tongue; and lastly, the whole contrivance of this accusation has been managed and carried out by her.

And when she had herself sent the accuser armed with all these weapons against her son to Rome, she remained herself a little while at Larinum, for the sake of seeking out and hiring witnesses. But afterwards, when news was brought to her that this man's trial was coming on, she immediately flew hither, to prevent any diligence being wanting on the part of the accusers, or any money to the witnesses; or perhaps lest she, as his mother, should lose this sight which she had so eagerly desired, of this man's mourning habit, and grief, and melancholy condition. But now, what sort of journey do you think that woman had to Rome? which I, by means of the neighbourhood of the people of Aquinum and Venafrum, heard and ascertained from many people. What throngings of the people were there in these cities! what groanings of men and women! that a woman should go from Larinum, should go all the way from the Adriatic to Rome, with a large retinue, and great sums of money, in order to be the more easily able to convict and oppress by a capital charge, falsely trumped up, her own son!

There was not one of all those people (I may almost say) who did not think that every place required purifying, by which she had passed on her journey; no one who did not think the very earth itself, the common mother of us all, polluted by the footsteps of that wicked mother. Accordingly, she could not stay long in any city; of all that number of people, who might have been her entertainers, not one was found who did not flee from the contagion of her sight. She trusted herself to night and solitude, rather than to any city or to any host.

But now, which of us does she think is ignorant of what she is doing, of what she is contriving, of what she is thinking? We know whom she has addressed herself to, whom she has promised money to, whose good faith she has endeavoured to undermine by means of bribes. Moreover, we are acquainted with her nocturnal sacrifices, which she thinks are secret, and her wicked prayers, and her abominable vows; in which she makes even the immortal gods to be witnesses of her wickedness, and does not perceive that the minds of the gods are propitiated by piety, by religion, and holy prayers, not by a polluted superstition, nor by victims slain to conciliate their sanction for acts of wickedness. This insanity and barbarity of hers I may well feel sure that the immortal gods have rejected with disgust from their altars and temples.

Do you now, O judges, whom fortune has appointed to be a sort of other gods, as it were, to Aulus Cluentius, my client, throughout his whole life, ward off this savage attack of his mother from her son's head. Many men, while sitting as judges, have pardoned the sins of the children out of pity for the parents;—we now entreat you, hot to give up the most virtuously spent life of this man to the inhumanity of his mother, especially when you may see all his fellow-citizens in his municipality on the other side of the question. Know all of you, O judges, (it is a most incredible statement, but still a perfectly true one,) that all the men of Larinum, who have been able to do so, have come to Rome, in order by their zeal, and by the display of their numbers, to comfort this man as far as they could, in this his great danger; know that that town is at the present moment delivered to the keeping of children and women, and that it is now, at this time of common peace over Italy, defended by its domestic forces only. But even those who are left behind are equally eager with those whom you see present here, and are harassed day and night by anxiety about the result of this trial.

They think that you are going to deliver a decision, not about the fortunes of one of their citizens, but about the condition, and the dignity, and all the advantages of the whole municipality. For the industry of that man in the common service of the municipality is extreme, O judges; his kindness to each individual citizen, and his justice and good faith towards all men, are of the highest order. Besides, he so preserves his high rank among his countrymen, and the position which he has inherited from his ancestors, that he equals the gravity, and wisdom, and popularity, and character for liberality of his ancestors. Therefore they give their public testimony in his favour, in words which signify not only their opinion of, and their esteem for him, but also their own anxiety of mind and grief. And while their panegyric is being read, I beg of you, who have brought it hither, to rise up. [ The panegyric on Cluentius, in pursuance of the resolution of the senators of Larinum, is read.]

From the tears of these men, you, O judges, may easily imagine that the senators did not pass these resolutions without tears. Come now, how great is the zeal of his neighbours in his behalf, how incredible their good-will towards him, how great their anxiety for him. They have not, indeed, sent resolutions drawn up in papers of panegyric, but they have chosen their most honourable men, whom we are all acquainted with, to come hither in numbers, and to give their personal evidence in his favour. The Frentani are present, most noble men. The Marrucini a tribe of equal dignity, are present too. You see Roman knights, most honourable men, come to praise him from Teanum in Apulia, and from Luceria. Most honourable panegyrics have been sent from Bovianum, and from the whole of Samnium, and also the most honourable and noble men of these states have come too.

As for those men who have farms in the district of Larinum, or business as merchants, or flocks and herds, honourable men and of the highest character, it is impossible to say how eager and anxious they are. It seems to me that there are not many men so beloved by a single individual as he is by all these nations. How I wish that Lucius Volusienus were not absent from my client's trial, a man of the greatest virtue and most exalted character! How I wish that I could say that Publius Helvidius Rufus was present, the most accomplished of all the Roman knights! who, while, in this man's cause, he was kept awake night and day, and while he was instructing me in many of the facts of this case, has been stricken with a severe and dangerous illness; but even while in this state of suffering, he is not less anxious for the acquittal of Cluentius than for his own recovery. You shall witness the equal zeal of Cnaeus Tudicius, a senator, a most virtuous and honour able man, shown both in giving evidence and in uttering an encomium on him. We speak with the same hope, but with more diffidence, of you, O Publius Volumnius, since you are one of the judges of Aulus Cluentius. In short, we assert to you that the good-will of all his neighbours towards this man is unequalled.

His mother alone opposes the zeal of all these men, and their anxiety and diligence in his behalf, and my labour, who, according to the rules of old times, have pleaded the whole of this cause by myself, and also your equity, O judges, and your merciful dispositions. But what a mother! One whom you see hurried on, blinded by cruelty and wickedness,—whose desires no amount of infamy has ever restrained,—who, by the vices of her mind, has perverted all the laws of men to the foulest purposes,—whose folly is such, that no one can call her a human being,—whose violence is such, that no one can call her a woman,—whose barbarity is such, that no one can call her a mother. And she has changed even the names of relationships, and not only the name and laws of nature: the wife of her son-in-law, the mother-in-law of her son, the invader of her daughter's bed! she has come to such a pitch, that she has no resemblance, except in form, to a human creature.

Wherefore, O judges, if you hate wickedness, prevent the approach of a mother to a son's blood; inflict on the parent this incredible misery, of the victory and safety of her children; allow the mother (that she may not rejoice at being deprived of her son) to depart defeated rather by your equity. But if, as your nature requires, you love modesty, and beneficence, and virtue, then at last raise up this your suppliant, O judges, who has been exposed for so many years to undeserved odium and danger,—who now for the first time, since the beginning of that fire kindled by the actions and fanned by the desires of others, has begun to raise his spirits from the hope of your equity, and to breathe awhile after the alarms he has suffered,—all whose hopes depend on you,—whom many, indeed, wish to be saved, but whom you alone have the power to save.