M. Tullius Cicero, For Aulus Cluentius
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

One, two, three years did Sassia remain quiet, so that she seemed rather to be wishing and hoping for some misfortune to her son, than to be planning and contriving any such thing against him. [179] Then in the meantime, in the consulship of Hortensius and Metellus, in order that she might persuade Oppianicus, who was occupied about other matters, and thinking of nothing of the sort, to this accusation, she betroths to him against his will her own daughter, her whom she had borne to his father-in-law, in order that she might have him in her power, now that he was bound to her by this marriage, and also by the hope of her will. Nearly about the same time, Strato, that great physician, committed a theft and murder in his own house in the following manner: —As there was in his house a chest, in which he knew there was a good deal of money and gold, he murdered by night two slaves, while they were asleep, and threw their bodies into a fishpond. Then he cut out the bottom of the chest, and took out . . . . sesterces, and five pounds' weight of gold, with the knowledge of one of his slaves, a boy not grown up. [180] The theft being discovered the next day, all the suspicion attached to those slaves who did not appear. When the cutting out of the bottom of the chest was noticed, men asked how that could have been done? One of the friends of Sassia recollected that he had lately seen at an auction, among a lot of very small things, a crooked and twisted saw sold, with teeth in every direction; and by such an instrument as this it seemed that the bottom of the chest might have been cut round in the manner in which it was. To make my story short, inquiry is made of the auctioneer. That saw is found to have become the property of Strato. When suspicion was excited in this manner, andStrato was openly accused, the boy who had been privy to the deed got alarmed; he gave information of the whole business to his mistress; the men were found in the fishpond; Strato was thrown into prison; and the money, though not all of it, was found in his shop. [181] 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.