[187]
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.
