A prosecution for theft
 is commenced against him. For what else can any one suspect? Do you say this, that when a chest
 had been pillaged, money taken away, only some of it recovered, and when men had been murdered,
 that then an investigation into the death of Oppianicus was instituted? Who will you get to
 believe that? What is that you could possibly allege, that would be less possible? In the next
 place, to pass over the other points, was an investigator made into the death of Oppianicus
 three years after that death?—Yes, and being exasperated against him on account of her former
 grudge, she then, without the slightest reason, demanded that same Nicostratus, in order to
 submit him to the question. Oppianicus at first refused. After she threatened that she would
 take her daughter away from him, and alter her will, he, I will not say brought his most
 faithful servant to that most cruel woman, for her to subject him to the question, but he
 clearly gave him up to her for punishment. After three years had elapsed, then, the long projected investigation into the death of her
 husband was made; and what slaves were especially pointed at in the investigation ? I suppose
 some new circumstances were alleged in the accusation; some new men were involved in the
 suspicion. Strato and Nicostratus were those mentioned.
 What? had not an ample investigation into their conduct taken place at Rome ? Was it not so? The woman, now mad, not by disease, but with
 wickedness, though she had conducted an investigation at Rome , though it had been resolved, in accordance with the opinion of Titus Annius,
 Lucius Rutilius, Publius Saturius, and other most honourable men, that the investigation had
 been carried far enough, still, three years afterwards she attempted to institute an
 investigation into the conduct of the same men, allowing, I will not say no man, (lest you
 should say by chance that some one of the inhabitants of the colony was present,) but no
 respectable man to be present; and this investigation was in reality directed against the life
 of her son. Can you say, (for it occurs to me to think what
 possibly can be said, even if it has not been said as yet,) that when the investigation about
 the robbery was proceeding, Strato made some confession
 respecting the poisoning? By this single means, O judges, truth, though kept under by the
 wickedness of many, often raises its head, and the defence which has been cut away from
 innocence gets breathing time; either because they who are cunning in devising fraud, do not
 dare to execute all that they devise, or because they whose audacity is conspicuous and
 prominent, are destitute of the craftiness of malice. But if cunning were bold, or audacity
 crafty, it would scarcely be possible to resist them. Was there no robbery committed? Nothing
 was more notorious at Larinum. Did no suspicion attach to
 Strato ? On the contrary, he was accused on account of
 the circumstance of the saw, and he was also informed against by the boy who was his accomplice.
 Was that not stated in the investigation? Why, what other reason was there for making the
 investigation at all? Did Strato then, (this is what you
 are bound to say, and what Sassia was constantly saying at that time,) while the investigation
 was going on about the robbery, while under the torture, make any confession about the
 poisoning! Behold now, here is the case which I have just
 mentioned. The woman abounds in audacity, she is deficient in contrivance and in ability. For
 many documents of what came out in the investigation are preserved, which have been read to you,
 and made public, those very documents which he said were then sealed up; and in all these
 documents there is not one letter about theft. It never once occurred to her to write out the
 first speech of Strato about the robbery, and after
 that, to add to it some expression about poisoning, which might seem not to have been extracted
 by any interrogatory, but to have been wrung from him by pain. The investigation into the
 robbery was superseded by the suspicion of the poisoning, which was a previous subject for
 investigation, which this very woman herself had pointed out; who, after she had come to the
 resolution (being compelled thereto by the opinion of her friends,) that the examination had
 been pushed far enough, for three years afterwards loved that man
 Strato above all the other slaves, and held him in the
 greatest honour, and loaded him with all sorts of kindnesses. When, therefore, the investigation into a robbery was going on, and that robbery too which he, beyond dispute, had committed, did
 he then abstain from saying a word about that which was the subject of the investigation, but at
 once say something about the poisoning?
 And did he never say
 one word at all about the robbery, (even if not at the time when he ought to have said it,
 still) either at the end, or middle, at any part whatever of his examination? 
 You see now, O judges, that that wicked woman, with the same hand with which she would murder
 her son, if it were in her power, has made up this false report of the examination. And who, I
 should like to know, has signed this report of the examination? Name any one person. You will
 find no one except perhaps a man of that sort, whom I would rather mention than have no one
 named.