Pro A. Cluentio

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.