AULUS CLUENTIUS HABITUS  , of Larinum in Samnium, the

hero of a Roman cause celebre . In 74 B.C. he accused his step-father Statius Albius Oppianicus of an attempt to poison him; had it been successful, the property of Cluentius would have fallen to his mother Sassia . Oppianicus and two others were condemned, and some years later Oppianicus died in exile . But the verdict was looked upon with suspicion, and it was known for a fact that one of the jurymen had received a large sum of money for distribution amongst his colleagues . The result was the degradation of Cluentius himself and several of the jurymen . In 66, Sassia induced her stepson Oppianicus to charge Cluentius with having caused the elder Oppianicus to be poisoned while in exile . On this occasion the defence was undertaken by Cicero in the extant speech Pro Cluentio . In the end Cluentius was acquitted . Cicero afterwards boasted openly that he had thrown dust in the eyes of the jury (Quintilian, Instit. ii . 17 . 21, who quotes this speech more than any other) . His efforts are chiefly devoted to proving that the condemnation of the elder Oppianicus was just and in no way the result of the jury having been bribed by Cluentius; only a small portion of the end of the speech deals with the specific charge .

It was generally believed that the verdict in the former trial was an unfair one; and this

opinion was most prejudicial to Cluentius . But even if it could be shown that Cluentius had bribed the jury-men, this did not prove that he had poisoned Oppianicus, although it supplied a sufficient reason for wishing to get him out of the way . The speech delivered by Cicero on this occasion is considered one'of his best . Editions of the speech by W . Y . Fausset (1887), W . Ramsay (1883) ; see also H . Nettleship, Lectures and Essays (1885) .