After his death Sassia, that abandoned woman, immediately began to devise plots against her
 son. She determined to have an investigation made into the death of her husband. She bought of
 Aulus Rupilius, whom Habitus had employed as his physician, a slave of the name of
 Strato , as if she were following the example of
 Habitus in purchasing Diogenes. She said that she was going to investigate the conduct of this
 Strato , and of some servant of her own. Besides that,
 she begged of that young Oppianicus that slave Nicostratus, whom she thought to be too
 talkative, and too faithful to his master, for judicial examination. As Oppianicus was at that
 time quite a boy, and as that investigation was being instituted about the death of his own
 father, although he thought that that slave was a well-wisher both to himself and to his father,
 still he did not venture to refuse anything. The friends and connections of Oppianicus, and many
 also of the friends of Sassia herself, honourable men, and accomplished in every sense of the
 word, are invited to attend. The investigation is carried on by means of the severest tortures.
 When the minds of the slaves had been tried both with hope and fear, to induce them to say
 something in the examination, still, compelled (as I imagine) by the authority of those who were
 present, and by the power of the tortures, they adhered to the truth, and said that they knew
 nothing of the matter. The examination was adjourned on that
 day, by the advice of the friends who were present. After a sufficient interval of time, they
 are summoned a second time. The examination is repeated all over again. No degree of the most
 terrible torture is emitted. The witnesses who had been summoned turned away, and could scarcely
 bear to witness it. The cruel and barbarous woman began to storm, and to be furious that her
 plans were not proceeding as she had hoped that they would. When the torturer and the very
 tortures themselves were worn out, and still she would not desist, one of the men who had been
 summoned as witnesses, a man distinguished by honours conferred on him by the people, and endued
 with the highest virtue, said that he plainly saw that the object was not to find out the truth,
 but to compel them to give some false evidence. After the rest had shown their approbation of
 these words, it was resolved by the unanimous opinion of them all, that the examination had been
 carried far enough. Nicostratus is restored to Oppianicus;
 Sassia goes to Larinum with her friends, grieving, because she thought that her son would
 certainly be safe; since not only no true accusation could be proved against him, but there
 could not be even any false suspicion made to attach to him, and since not only the open attacks
 of his enemies were unable to injure him, but even the secret plots of his mother against him
 proved harmless to him. After she came to Larinum, she, who had pretended to be persuaded that
 poison had been previously given to her husband by that man
 Strato , immediately gave him a shop at Larinum,
 properly furnished and provided for carrying on the business of an apothecary. 
 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. 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. 
 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, and Strato 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.