Wherefore, all party feeling being now out of the question, for time has removed that, my oration has begged you to dismiss it from your minds, and your good faith and justice has discarded it from an inquiry into truth; it is there besides in the cause that remains in doubt? It is perfectly notorious that bribery was practiced or attempted at that trial. The question is, By whom was it practiced; by the prosecutor, or by the defendant? The prosecutor says, “In the first place, I was prosecuting him on the most serious charges, so that I had no need of bribery; in the second place, I was prosecuting a man who was already condemned, so that he could not have been saved even by bribery; and lastly, even if he had been acquitted, my position and my fortune would have been uninjured by his acquittal.” What does the defendant say, on the other hand? “In the first place, I was alarmed at the very number and atrocity of the charges; in the second place, I felt that, after the Fabricii had been condemned on account of their being privy to my wickedness, I was condemned myself; lastly, I was in such a condition that my whole position and all my fortunes depended entirely on that one trial, from which I was in danger.”

Come now, since the one had many and grave reasons for bribing the judges, and the other had none, let us try to trace the course of the money itself. Cluentius has kept his accounts with the greatest accuracy; and this system has this in it, that by that means nothing can possibly be added to or taken from the income without its being known. It is eight years after that cause occupied men's attention that you are now handling, stirring up, and inquiring into everything which relates to it, both in his accounts and in the papers of others; and in the meantime you find no trace of any money of Cluentius's in the whole business. What then? Can we trace the money of Albius by the scent, or can you guide us, so that we may be able to enter into his very chamber, and find it there? There are in one place six hundred and forty thousand sesterces; they are in the possession of one most audacious man; they are in the possession of a judge. What would you have more?

Oh, but Stalenus was not commissioned to corrupt the judges by Oppianicus, but by Cluentius. Why, when the judges were retiring to deliberate, did Cluentius and Canutius allow him to go away? Why, when they were going to give their votes, did they not require the presence of Stalenus the judge, to whom they had given the money Oppianicus did not for him; Quinctius did demand his presence. The tribunitian power was interposed to prevent a decision being come to without Stalenus. But he condemned him. To be sure, for he had given this condemnatory vote as a sort of pledge to Bulbus and the rest to prove that he had been cheated by Oppianicus. If, therefore, on one side, there is a reason for corrupting the tribunal; on one side, money; on one side, Stalenus; on one side, every description of fraud and audacity: and on the other side, modesty, an honourable life, and no suspicion of corruption, and no object in corrupting the tribunal; allow, now that the truth is made clear and all error dispelled, the discredit of that baseness to adhere to that side to which all the other wickednesses are attached; and allow the odium of it to depart at last from that man, whom you do not perceive to have ever been connected with any fault.

Oh, but Oppianicus gave Stalenus money, not to corrupt the judges, but to conciliate their favour. Can you, O Attius, can a man endued with your prudence, to say nothing of your knowledge of the world, and practice in pleading, say such a thing as this? For they say that he is the wisest man; to whom everything which is necessary is sure to occur of his own accord; and that he is next best to him, who is guided by the clever experience of another. There is an epigram in the Greek anthology from which these sentiments of Cicero seem to be taken:—ou(=tos me\n pana/ristos, o(\s au)to\s pa/nta noh/sh|, e)sqlo\s d' au)= ka)/keinos, o(\s eu)= ei)po/nti pi/qhtai, o(/s de/ ke mh/t' au)/to\s noe/h|, mh/t' a)/llou a)kou/wn e)n qumw=| ba/llhtai, o(/d' au)=t' a)xrh/ios a)nh/r. But in folly it is just the contrary; for he is less foolish to whom no folly occurs spontaneously, than he who approves of the folly which occurs to another. That idea of conciliating favour Stalenus thought of, while the case was fresh, when he was held by the throat as it were; or rather, as people said at the time, he took the hint from Publius Cethegus, when he published that fable about conciliation and favour.

For you can recollect that this was what men said at the time; that Cethegus, because he hated the man and because he wished to get rid of such rascality out of the republic, and because he saw that he who had confessed that, while a judge, he had secretly and irregularly taken money from a defendant, could not possibly get off, had given him treacherous advice. If Cethegus behaved dishonestly in this matter, he appears to me to have wished to get rid of an adversary; but if the case was such that Stalenus could not possibly deny that he had received the money, (and nothing could be more dangerous or more disgraceful than to confess for what purpose he had received it,) the advice of Cethegus is not to be blamed.