And, now that this trial had taken place, now that Oppianicus was convicted in fact, and in the general opinion of every one, though he was not yet condemned by any sentence having been legally passed upon him, still Habitus did not at once proceed criminally against Oppianicus. He wished to know whether the judges were severe against those men only whom they had ascertained to have poison in their own possession, or whether they judged the intention and complicity of others in such crimes worthy of the same punishment. Therefore, he immediately proceeded against Caius Fabricius, who, on account of his intimacy with Oppianicus, he thought must have been privy to that crime; and, on account of the connection of the two causes, he obtained leave to have that cause taken first. Then this Fabricius not only did not bring to me my neighbours and friends the citizens of Aletrinum, but he was not able himself any longer to employ them as men eager in his defence, or as witnesses to his character.

For they and I thought it suitable to our humanity to uphold the cause of a man not entirely a stranger to us, while it was undecided, though suspicious; but to endeavour to upset the decision which had been come to, we should have thought a deed of great impudence. Accordingly he, being compelled by his desolate condition and necessity, fled for aid to the brothers Cepasii, industrious men, and of such a disposition as to think it an honour and a kindness to have any opportunity of speaking afforded them. Now this is a very shameful thing, that in diseases of the body, the more serious the complaint is, the more carefully is a physician of great eminence and skill sought for; but in capital trials, the worse the case is, the more obscure and unprincipled is the practitioner to whom men have recourse.

The defendant is brought before the court; the cause is pleaded; Canutius says but little in support of the accusation, it being a case, in fact, already decided. The elder Cepasius begins to reply, in a long exordium, tracing the facts a long way back. At first his speech is listened to with attention. Oppianicus began to recover his spirits, having been before downcast and dejected. Fabricius himself was delighted. He was not aware that the attention of the judges was awakened, not by the eloquence of the man, but by the impudence of the defence. After he began to discuss the immediate facts of the case, he himself aggravated considerably the unfavourable circumstances that already existed. Although he pleaded with great diligence, yet at times he seemed not to be defending the man, but only quibbling with the accusation. And while he was thinking that he was speaking with great art, and when he had made up this form of words with his utmost skill, “Look, O judges, at the fortunes of the men, look at the uncertainty and variety of the events that have befallen them, look at the old age of Fabricius;”—when he had frequently repeated this “Look,” for the sake of adorning his speech, he himself did look, but Caius Fabricius had slunk away from his seat with his head down.

On this the judges began to laugh; the counsel began to get in a rage, and to be very indignant that his cause was taken out of his mouth, and that he could not go on saying “Look, O judges,” from that place; nor was anything nearer happening, than his pursuing him and seizing him by the throat, and bringing him back to his seat, in order that he might be able to finish his summing up. And so Fabricius was condemned, in the first place by his own judgment, which is the severest condemnation of all, and in the second place by the authority of the law, and by the sentences of the judges. Why, now, need we say any more of this cause of Oppianicus? He was brought as a defendant before those very judges by whom he had already been condemned in ten previous examinations. By the same judges, who, by the condemnation of Fabricius, had in reality passed sentence on Oppianicus, his trial was appointed to come on first. He was accused of the gravest crimes, both of those which have already been briefly mentioned by me, and of many others besides, all of which I now pass over. He was accused before those men who had already condemned both Scamander the agent of Oppianicus, and Fabricius his accomplice in crime.

Which, O ye immortal gods! is most to be wondered at, that he was condemned, or that he dared to make any reply? For what could those judges do? If they had condemned the Fabricii when innocent, still in the case of Oppianicus they ought to have been consistent with themselves, and to have made their present decision harmonize with their previous ones. Could they themselves of their own accord rescind their own judgments, when other men, when giving judgment, are accustomed most especially to take care that their decisions be not at variance with those of other judges? And could those who had condemned the freedman of Fabricius, because he had been an agent in the crime, and his patron, because he had been privy to it, acquit the principal and original contriver of the whole wickedness? Could those who, without any previous examination, had condemned the other men from what appeared in the cause itself, acquit this man whom they knew to have been already convicted twice over?