And she was not only diligent in providing an
 accuser for her son, but she also planned how to furnish him with the requisite weapons. Hence
 were all those tamperings with the slaves, both by means of threats and of promises; hence those
 repeated and cruel investigations into the death of Oppianicus; to which at last it was not the
 moderation of the woman, but the authority of her friends that put a limit. From the same
 wickedness proceeded that investigation conducted at Larinum three years afterwards. The false
 reports of the investigation were fabricated by the same frantic criminality. From that same
 frenzy proceeded also that abominable cutting out of her victim's tongue; and lastly, the whole
 contrivance of this accusation has been managed and carried out by her. And when she had herself sent the accuser armed with all these weapons against
 her son to Rome , she remained herself a little while at
 Larinum, for the sake of seeking out and hiring witnesses. But afterwards, when news was brought
 to her that this man's trial was coming on, she immediately flew hither, to prevent any
 diligence being wanting on the part of the accusers, or any money to the witnesses; or perhaps
 lest she, as his mother, should lose this sight which she had so eagerly desired, of this man's
 mourning habit, and grief, and melancholy condition. 
 But now, what sort of journey do you think that woman had to Rome ? which I, by means of the neighbourhood of the people of Aquinum and
 Venafrum, heard and ascertained from many people. What throngings of the people were there in
 these cities! what groanings of men and women! that a woman should go from Larinum, should go
 all the way from the Adriatic to Rome , with a large
 retinue, and great sums of money, in order to be the more easily able to convict and oppress by
 a capital charge, falsely trumped up, her own son! 
 There was not one of all those people (I may almost say)
 who did not think that every place required purifying, by which she had passed on her journey;
 no one who did not think the very earth itself, the common mother of us all, polluted by the
 footsteps of that wicked mother. Accordingly, she could not stay long in any city; of all that
 number of people, who might have been her entertainers, not one was found who did not flee from
 the contagion of her sight. She trusted herself to night and solitude, rather than to any city
 or to any host. But now, which of us does she think is
 ignorant of what she is doing, of what she is contriving, of what she is thinking? We know whom
 she has addressed herself to, whom she has promised money to, whose good faith she has
 endeavoured to undermine by means of bribes. Moreover, we are acquainted with her nocturnal
 sacrifices, which she thinks are secret, and her wicked prayers, and her abominable vows; in
 which she makes even the immortal gods to be witnesses of her wickedness, and does not perceive
 that the minds of the gods are propitiated by piety, by religion, and holy prayers, not by a
 polluted superstition, nor by victims slain to conciliate their sanction for acts of wickedness.
 This insanity and barbarity of hers I may well feel sure that the immortal gods have rejected
 with disgust from their altars and temples. Do you now, O judges, whom fortune has appointed to be a sort of other gods, as it were, to
 Aulus Cluentius, my client, throughout his whole life, ward off this savage attack of his mother
 from her son's head. Many men, while sitting as judges, have pardoned the sins of the children
 out of pity for the parents;—we now entreat you, hot to give up the most virtuously spent life
 of this man to the inhumanity of his mother, especially when you may see all his fellow-citizens
 in his municipality on the other side of the question. Know all of you, O judges, (it is a most
 incredible statement, but still a perfectly true one,) that all the men of Larinum, who have
 been able to do so, have come to Rome , in order by
 their zeal, and by the display of their numbers, to comfort this man as far as they could, in
 this his great danger; know that that town is at the present moment delivered to the keeping of
 children and women, and that it is now, at this time of common peace over Italy , defended by its domestic forces only. But even those who
 are left behind are equally eager with those whom you see present here, and are harassed day and
 night by anxiety about the result of this trial.