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

[72] Therefore, he did not seem at all bitter after the taste he had had of his discourse. One or two days passed, when the matter appeared somewhat doubtful. He wanted the agent and some security for the money. Then Bulbus addresses the man with a cheerful countenance, as caressingly as he can “What will you do,” says he, “O Paetus?” (For Stalenus had chosen this surname for himself from the images of the Aelii, lest if he called himself Ligur, he should seem to be using the name of his nation rather than that of his family.) “Men are asking me where the money is about which you talked to me.” On this that most manifest rogue, fed on gains acquired by tampering with the courts of justice, as he had now all his hopes and all his heart set upon that sum of money which he had got in his house, begins to frown. (Recollect his face, and the expression that you have seen him put on.) He complains that he has been thrown out by Oppianicus; and he, a man wholly made up of fraud and lies, and who had even improved those vices which he had by nature, by careful study, and by a regular sort of system of wickedness, declares positively that he has been cheated by Oppianicus; and he adds this assertion,—that he will be condemned by the vote which in his case every one was to give openly.