[183]
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!
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
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