Pro A. Cluentio

After Oppianicus had been condemned, immediately Lucius Quinctius, an excessive seeker after popularity, who was accustomed to catch at every wind of report, and at every word uttered in the assemblies, thought that he had an opportunity of rising himself, by exciting odium against the senators; because he thought that the decisions of that body were already falling into disfavour in the eyes of the people. One or two assemblies are held, very violent and stormy: a tribune of the people kept loudly asserting that the judges had taken money to condemn an innocent prisoner: he kept saying, that the fortunes of all men were at stake; that there were no courts of justice; that no one could be safe who had a wealthy enemy. Men ignorant of the whole business, who had never even seen Oppianicus, and who thought that a most virtuous citizen, that a most modest man had been crushed by money, being exasperated by this suspicion, began to demand that the whole matter should be brought forward and inquired into, and in fact, to require an investigation of the whole business; and at that very time Stalenus, having been sent for by Oppianicus, came by night to the house of Titus Annius, a most honourable man, and a most intimate friend of my own.

By this time the whole business is known to every one;—what Oppianicus said to him about the money; how he said that he would restore the money; how respectable men heard the whole of their conversation, having been placed in a secret place with that view; how the whole matter was laid open, and mentioned publicly in the forum, and how all the money was extorted from and compelled to be restored by Stalenus. The character of this Stalenus, already known to and thoroughly ascertained by the people, was such as to make no suspicion unnatural; still, those who were present in the assembly did not understand that the money which he had promised to pay on behalf of the defendant, had been kept back by him.—For this they were not told. They were aware that reports of bribery had been at work in the court of justice; they heard that a defendant had been condemned who was innocent; they saw that he had been condemned by Stalenus's vote. They judged, because they knew the man that it had not been done for nothing. A similar suspicion existed with respect to Bulbus, and Gutta, and some others.