Pro A. Cluentio

Habitus prays to you, O judges, and with tears implores you, not to abandon him to odium, which ought to have no power in courts of justice; nor to his mother, whose vows and prayers you are bound to reject from your minds; nor to Oppianicus, that infamous man, already condemned and dead. But if any misfortune in this trial should overthrow this innocent man, verily, that miserable man, O judges, if indeed (which will be hard for him) he remains alive at all, will complain frequently and bitterly that that poison of Fabricius was ever detected. But if at that time that information had not been given, it would have been to that most unhappy man not poison, but a medicine to relieve him from many distresses; and, lastly, perhaps even his mother would have attended his funeral, and would have feigned to mourn for the death of her son. But now, what will have been gained by his escape then, beyond making his life appear to have been preserved from the snares of death which then surrounded him for greater grief, and beyond depriving him when dead of a place in his father's tomb?

He has been long enough, O judges, in misery. He has been years enough struggling with odium. No one has been so hostile to him, except his parent, that we may not think his ill-will satisfied by this time. You who are just to all men, who, the more cruelly any one is attacked, do the more kindly protect him, preserve Aulus Cluentius, restore him uninjured to his municipality. Restore him to his friends, and neighbours, and connections, whose eagerness in his behalf you see. Bind all those men for ever to you and to your children. This business, O judges, is yours; it is worthy of your dignity, it is worthy of your clemency. This is rightly expected of you, to release a most virtuous and innocent man, one dear and beloved by many men, at last from these his misfortunes; so that all men may see that odium and faction may be excited in popular assemblies, but that in courts of justice there is room only for truth.