[162]
You have said, “when a relation of Publius Aelius had been
disinherited by his will, this man, who was no relation of his, was declared his
heir.” Publius Aelius acted so from his knowledge of Habitus's merit. He was not
present at the making of the will, and that will was signed by Oppianicus as a witness. You
have said, “that he refused to pay Florius a legacy bequeathed to him in the
will.” That is not the case; but as thirty sesterces had been written instead of
three hundred, and as it did not appear to him to have been very carefully worded, he only
wished him to consider what he received as due to his liberality. He first denied that the
money was legally due, but, having done so, he then paid it without any dispute. You have
said, “that the wife of a certain Samnite named Caelius was, after the war,
recovered from Cluentius.” He had bought the woman as a slave from the brokers; but
the moment that he heard that she was a free woman he restored her to Caelius without any
action.
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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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