[74]
The judges who were to deliberate on the case
were thirty-two in number: an acquittal would be obtained by the votes of sixteen of them.
Forty thousand sesterces given to each judge ought to make up that number of votes, and then
the vote of Stalenus himself, who would be induced by the hope of a greater reward still,
would crown the whole, making the seventeenth. And it happened by chance, because the matter
was concluded in this way on a sudden, that Stalenus himself was not present. He was acting as
counsel for the defence in some cause or other before a judge. Habitus did not mind that, nor
did Canutius. But Oppianicus and his patron Lucius Quinctius were not so well pleased; and as
Lucius Quinctius was at that time a tribune of the people, he reproached Caius Junius the
judge most bitterly, and insisted upon it that they should not deliberate on their decision
without the presence of Stalenus, and as they appeared to be purposely rather careless in
communicating with him on the subject by means of the lictors, he himself went out of the
criminal court into the civil court, where Stalenus was engaged, and, as he had the power to
do, adjourned that court, and himself brought Stalenus back to the bench.
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