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

[27] Oppianicus asks, and most earnestly entreats Sassia to marry him. But she does not marvel at his audacity,—does not scorn and reject his impudence, she is not even alarmed at the idea of the house of Oppianicus, red with her husband's blood; but she says that she has a repugnance to this marriage, because he has three sons. Oppianicus, who coveted Sassia's money, thought that he must seek at home for a remedy for that obstacle which was opposed to his marriage. For as he had an infant son by Novia, and as a second son of his, whom he had had by Papia, was being brought up under his mother's eye at Teanum in Apulia, which is about eighteen miles from Larinum, on a sudden, without alleging any reason, he sends for the boy from Teanum, which he had previously never been accustomed to do, except at the time of the public games, or on days of festival. His miserable mother, suspecting no evil, sends him. He pretended to set out himself to Tarentum; and on that very day the boy, though at the eleventh hour he had been seen in public in good health, died before night, and the next day was burnt before daybreak.