There was a woman of Larinum , named Dinea, the
 mother-in-law of Oppianicus, who had three sons, Marcus Aurius, Numerius Aurius, and Cnaeus
 Magius, and one daughter, Magia, who was married to Oppianicus. Marcus Aurius, quite a young
 man, having been taken prisoner in the social war at Asculum , fell into the hands of Quintus Sergius, a senator, who was convicted of
 assassination, and was put by him in his slaves' prison. But Numerius Aurius, his brother, died,
 and left Cnaeus Magius, his brother, his heir. Afterwards, Magia, the wife of Oppianicus, died;
 and last of all, that one who was the last of the sons of Dinea, Cnaeus Magius, also died. He
 left as his heir that young Oppianicus, the son of his sister, and enjoined that he should share
 the inheritance with his mother Dinea. In the meantime an informant comes to Dinea, (a man
 neither of obscure rank, nor uncertain as to the truth of his news,) to tell her that her son
 Marcus Aurius is alive, and is in the territory of Gaul , in slavery. The woman having lost her
 children, when the hope of recovering one of her sons was held out to her, summoned all her
 relations, and all the intimate friends of her son, and with tears entreated them to undertake
 the business to seek out the youth, and to restore to her that son whom fortune had willed
 should be the only one remaining to her out of many. Just when she had begun to adopt these
 measures, she was taken ill. Therefore she made a will in these terms: she left to that son four
 hundred thousand sesterces; and she made that Oppianicus who has been already mentioned, her
 grandson, her heir. And a few days after, she died. However, these relations, as they had
 undertaken to do while Dinea was alive, when she was dead, went into the Gallic territory to
 search out Aurius, with the same man who had brought Dinea the information. In the meantime, Oppianicus being, as you will have proved to you by many circumstances, a man
 of singular wickedness and audacity, by means of some Gaul , his intimate friend, first of all corrupted that informer with a bribe, and
 after that, at no great expense, managed to have Aurius himself got out of the way and murdered.
 But they who had gone to seek out and recover their relation, send letters to Larinum , to the Aurii the relations of that young man, and
 their own intimate friends, to say that the investigation was very difficult for them, because
 they understood that the man who had given the information had been since bribed by Oppianicus.
 And these letters Aulus Aurius, a brave and experienced man, and one of high rank in his own
 city, the near relation of the missing Marcus Aurius, read openly in the forum, in the hearing
 of plenty of people, in the presence of Oppianicus himself, and with a loud voice declared that
 he would prosecute Oppianicus if he found that Marcus Aurius had been murdered. The feelings, not only of his relations, but also of all the citizens
 of Larinum , are moved by hatred of Oppianicus, and
 pity for that young man. Therefore, when Aulus Aurius, he who had previously made this
 declaration, began to follow the man with loud cries and with threats, he fled from Larinum , and betook himself to the camp of that most
 illustrious man, Quintus Metellus. After that flight, the
 witness of his crime, and of his consciousness of it, he never ventured to commit himself to the
 protection of a court of justice, or of the laws,—he never dared to trust himself unarmed among
 his enemies; but at the time when violence was stalking abroad, after the victory of Lucius
 Sulla, he came to Larinum with a body of armed men,
 to the great alarm of all the citizens; he carried off the quatuorviri, “The highest magistrates of a colonia were the decemviri or
 quatuorviri, so called as the numbers might vary, whose functions may be compared with those of
 the consulate at Rome , before the establishment of
 the praetorship. Their principal duties were the administration of justice.”—Smith, Dict. Ant.
 p. 259, v. Colonia . whom the citizens of that
 municipality had elected; he said that he and three others had been appointed by Sulla; and he
 said that he received orders from him to take care that that Aurius who had threatened him with
 prosecution and with danger to his life, and the other Aurius, and Caius Aurius his son, and
 Sextus Vibius, whom he was said to have employed as his agent in corrupting the man who had
 given the information, were proscribed and put to death. Accordingly, when they had been most
 cruelly murdered, the rest were ale thrown into no slight fear of proscription and death by that
 circumstance. When these things had been made manifest at the trial, who is there who can think
 it possible that he should have been acquitted? 
 And these things are trifles. Listen to what follows, and you will wonder, not that Oppianicus
 was at last condemned, but that he remained for some time in safety.