[125]
But as long as it is plain that Oppianicus was a man who was convicted of
having tampered with the public registers of his own municipality, of having made erasures in
a will, of having substituted another person in order to accomplish the forgery of a will, of
having murdered the man whose name he had put to the will, of having thrown into slavery and
into prison the uncle of his own son and then murdered him, of having contrived to get his own
fellow-citizens proscribed and murdered, of having married the wife of the man whom he had
murdered, of having given money for poisoning, of having murdered his mother-in-law and his
wife, of having murdered at one time his brother's wife, the children who were expected, and
his own brother himself,—lastly, of having murdered his own children; as he was a
man who was manifestly detected in procuring poison for his son-in-law,—who, when
his assistants and accomplices had been condemned, and when he himself was prosecuted, gave
money to one of the judges to influence by bribes the votes of the other
judges;—while, I say, all this is notorious about Oppianicus, and while the
accusation of bribery against Cluentius is not sustained by any one single proof, what reason
is there that that sentence of the censors, whether it is to be called their wish or their
opinion, should either seem to be any assistance to you, or to be able to overwhelm my
innocent client?
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