[28]
And common report brought this miserable news to his
mother before any one of Oppianicus's household brought her news of it. She, when she had
heard at one and the same time, that she was deprived not only of her son, but even of the sad
office of celebrating his funeral rites, came instantly, half dead with grief, to Larinum, and there performs funeral obsequies over again
for her already buried son. Ten days had not elapsed when his other infant son is also
murdered; and then Sassia immediately marries Oppianicus, rejoicing in his mind, and feeling
confident of the attainment of his hopes. No wonder she married him, when she saw him so eager
to propitiate her, not with ordinary nuptial gifts, but with the deaths of his sons. So that
other men are often covetous of money for the sake of their children, but that man thought it
more agreeable to lose his children for the sake of money.
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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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