M. Tullius Cicero, For Aulus Cluentius
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

After Oppianicus had been condemned, immediately Lucius Quinctius, an excessive seeker after popularity, who was accustomed to catch at every wind of report, and at every word uttered in the assemblies, thought that he had an opportunity of rising himself, by exciting odium against the senators; because he thought that the decisions of that body were already falling into disfavour in the eyes of the people. One or two assemblies are held, very violent and stormy: a tribune of the people kept loudly asserting that the judges had taken money to condemn an innocent prisoner: he kept saying, that the fortunes of all men were at stake; that there were no courts of justice; that no one could be safe who had a wealthy enemy. Men ignorant of the whole business, who had never even seen Oppianicus, and who thought that a most virtuous citizen, that a most modest man had been crushed by money, being exasperated by this suspicion, began to demand that the whole matter should be brought forward and inquired into, and in fact, to require an investigation of the whole business; and at that very time Stalenus, having been sent for by Oppianicus, came by night to the house of Titus Annius, a most honourable man, and a most intimate friend of my own.