[31]
And by the same poison he killed Caius Oppianicus his brother,—and even this was
not enough. Although in the murder of his brother no wickedness seems to have been omitted,
still he prepared beforehand the road by which he was to arrive at his abominable crime by
other acts of wickedness. For, as Auria, his brother's wife, was in the family way, and
appeared to be near the time of her confinement, he murdered her also with poison, so that she
and his own brother's child, whom she bore within her, perished at the same time. After that
he attacked his brother; who, when it was too late, after he had drank that cup of death, and
when he was uttering loud exclamations about his own and his wife's death, and was desirous to
alter his will, died during the actual expression of this intention. So he murdered the woman,
that he might not be cut off from his brother's inheritance by her confinement; and he
deprived his brother's children of life before they were able to receive from nature the light
which was intended for them; so as to give every one to understand that nothing could be
protected against him, that nothing was too holy for him, from whose audacity even the
protection of their mother's body had been unable to preserve his own brother's children.
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