[56]
There remains the charge respecting the poison for me to consider; a charge
of which I can neither discover the origin nor guess the object. For what
reason was there for Caelius desiring to give poison to that woman? Was it
in order to save himself from being forced to repay the gold? Did she demand
it back? Was it to save himself from being accused? Did any one impute
anything to him? In short, would any one ever have mentioned him if he had
not himself instituted a prosecution against somebody? Moreover you heard
Lucius Herennius say that he would never have caused annoyance to Caelius by
a single word, if he had not prosecuted his intimate friend a second time on
the same charge, after he had been already acquitted once. Is it credible
then, that so enormous a crime was committed without any object? And do you
not see that an accusation of the most enormous wickedness is invented
against him in order that it may appear to have been committed for the sake
of facilitating the other wickedness?
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. George Bell & Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1891.
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