In defending his client, Cicero relied as much upon the terrible list of crimes which had been proved against the dead Oppianicus as upon any thing else. Terrible indeed it was, as a few specimens from the catalogue will prove.
Among the wealthier inhabitants of Larinum was a certain Dinaea, a childless widow. She had lost her eldest son in the Social War (the war carried on between Rome and her Italian allies), and had seen two others die of disease. Her only daughter, who had been married to Oppianicus, was also dead. Now came the unexpected news that her eldest son was still alive. He had been sold into slavery, and was still working among a gang of laborers on a farm in Gaul. The poor woman called her kinsfolk together and implored them to undertake the task of recovering him. At the same time she made a will, leaving the bulk of her property to her daughter's son, the younger Oppianicus, but providing for the missing man a legacy of between three and four thousand pounds. The elder Oppianicus was not disposed to see so large a sum go out of the family. Dinaea fell ill, and he brought her his own physician. The patient refused the man's services; they had been fatal, she said, to all her kinsfolk. Oppianicus then contrived to introduce to her a traveling quack from Ancona. He had bribed the man with about seventeen pounds of our money to administer a deadly drug. The fee was large, and the fellow was expected to take some pains with the business; but he was in a hurry; he had many markets to visit; and he gave a single dose which there was no need to repeat.
Meanwhile Dinaea's kinsfolk had sent two agents to make inquiries for the missing son. But Oppianicus had been beforehand with them. He had bribed the man who had brought the first news, had learned where he was to be found, and had caused him to be assassinated. The agents wrote to their employers at Larinum, saying that the object of their search could not be found, Oppianicus having undoubtedly tampered with the person from whom information was to be obtained. This letter excited great indignation at Larinum; and one of the family publicly declared in the market-place that he should hold Oppianicus (who happened to be present) responsible if any harm should be found to have happened to the missing man. A few days afterwards the agents themselves returned. They had found the man, but he was dead. Oppianicus dared not face the burst of rage which this news excited, and fled from Larinum. But he was not at the end of his resources. The Civil War between Sulla and the party of Marius (for Marius himself was now dead) was raging, and Oppianicus fled to the camp of Metellus Pius, one of Sulla's lieutenants. There he represented himself as one who had suffered for the party. Metellus had himself fought in the Social War, and fought against the side to which the murdered prisoner belonged. It was therefore easy to persuade him that the man had deserved his fate, and that his friends were unworthy persons and dangerous to the commonwealth. Oppianicus returned to Larinum with an armed force, deposed the magistrates whom the towns-people had chosen, produced Sulla's mandate for the appointment of himself and three of his creatures in their stead, as well as for the execution of four persons particularly obnoxious to him. These four were, the man who had publicly threatened him, two of his kinsfolk, and one of the instruments of his own villainies, whom he now found it convenient to get out of the way.
The story of the crimes of Oppianicus, of which only a small part has been given, having been finished, Cicero related the true circumstances of his death. After his banishment he had wandered about for a while shunned by all his acquaintances. Then he had taken up his quarters in a farmhouse in the Falernian country. From these he was driven away by a quarrel with the farmer, and removed to a small lodging which he had hired outside the walls of Rome. Not long afterwards he fell from his horse, and received a severe injury in his side. His health was already weak, fever came on, he was carried into the city and died after a few days' illness.
Besides the charge of poisoning Oppianicus there were others that had to be briefly dealt with. One only of these needs to be mentioned. Cluentius, it was said, had put poison into a cup of honey wine, with the intention of giving it to the younger Oppianicus. The occasion, it was allowed, was the young man's wedding-breakfast, to which, as was the custom at Larinum, a large company had been invited. The prosecutor affirmed that one of the bridegroom's friends had intercepted the cup on its way, drunk off its contents, and instantly expired. The answer to this was complete. The young man had not instantly expired. On the contrary, he had died after an illness of several days, and this illness had had a different cause. He was already out of health when he came to the breakfast, and he had made himself worse by eating and drinking too freely, "as," says the orator, "young men will do." He then called a witness to whom no one could object, the father of the deceased. "The least suspicion of the guilt of Cluentius would have brought him as a witness against him. Instead of doing this he gives him his support. Read," said Cicero to the clerk, "read his evidence. And you, sir," turning to the father, "stand up a while, if you please, and submit to the pain of hearing what I am obliged to relate. I will say no more about the case. Your conduct has been admirable; you would not allow your own sorrow to involve an innocent man in the deplorable calamity of a false accusation."
Then came the story of the cruel and shameful plot which the mother had contrived against her son. Nothing would content this wicked woman but that she must herself journey to Rome to give all the help that she could to the prosecution. "And what a journey this was!" cried Cicero. "I live near some of the towns near which she passed, and I have heard from many witnesses what happened. Vast crowds came to see her. Men, ay, and women too, groaned aloud as she passed by. Groaned at what? Why, that from the distant town of Larinum, from the very shore of the Upper Sea, a woman was coming with a great retinue and heavy money-bags, coming with the single object of bringing about the ruin of a son who was being tried for his life. In all those crowds there was not a man who did not think that every spot on which she set her foot needed to be purified, that the very earth, which is the mother of us all, was defiled by the presence of a mother so abominably wicked. There was not a single town in which she was allowed to stay; there was not an inn of all the many upon that road where the host did not shun the contagion of her presence. And indeed she preferred to trust herself to solitude and to darkness rather than to any city or hostelry. And now," said Cicero, turning to the woman, who was probably sitting in court, "does she think that we do not all know her schemes, her intrigues, her purposes from day to day? Truly we know exactly to whom she has gone, to whom she has promised money, whose integrity she has endeavored to corrupt with her bribes. Nay, more: we have heard all about the things which she supposes to be a secret, her nightly sacrifice, her wicked prayers, her abominable vows."
He then turned to the son, whom he would have the jury believe was as admirable as the mother was vile. He had certainly brought together a wonderful array of witnesses to, character. From Larinum every grown-up man that had the strength to make the journey had come to Rome to support their fellow-townsman. The town was left to the care of women and children. With these witnesses had come, bringing a resolution of the local senate full of the praises of the accused, a deputation of the senators. Cicero turned to the deputation and begged them to stand up while the resolution was being read. They stood up and burst into tears, which indeed are much more common among the people of the south than among us, and of which no one sees any reason to be ashamed. "You see these tears, gentlemen," cried the orator to the jury. "You may be sure, from seeing them, that every member of the senate was in tears also when they passed this resolution." Nor was it only Larinum, but all the chief Samnite towns that had sent their most respected citizens to give their evidence for Cluentius. "Few," said Cicero, "I think, are loved by me as much as he is loved by all these friends."
Cluentius was acquitted. Cicero is said to have boasted afterwards that he had blinded the eyes of the jury. Probably his client had bribed the jury in the trial of his step-father. That was certainly the common belief, which indeed went so far as to fix the precise sum which he paid. "How many miles is your farm from Rome?" was asked of one of the witnesses at a trial connected with the case. "Less than fifty-three," he replied. "Exactly the sum," was the general cry from the spectators. The point of the joke is in the fact that the same word stood in Latin for the thousand paces which made a mile and the thousand coins by which sums of money were commonly reckoned. Oppianicus had paid forty thousand for an acquittal, and Cluentius outbid him with fifty thousand ("less than fifty-three") to secure a verdict of guilty. But whatever we may think of the guilt or innocence of Cluentius, there can be no doubt that the cause in which Cicero defended him was one of the most interesting ever tried in Rome.