Aulus Cluentius Habitus, a wealthy citizen of Larinum in Samnium, and subject of a Roman cause célèbre.
In 74 BC, he accused his stepfather 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 was found guilty.[1] It is almost certain that both sides attempted to bribe the jury.[2] The case became notorious as an example of a prosecutor obtaining a guilty verdict through his money.
In 66 BC, Sassia induced her stepson Oppianicus to charge Cluentius with having poisoned the elder Oppianicus. The prosecutor in the trial was Titus Accius. The defense was undertaken by Cicero; his extant speech Pro Cluentio, written up after the trial, is regarded as a model of oratory and Latin prose. Cluentius was acquitted and Cicero subsequently boasted that he had thrown dust in the eyes of the jury "...se tenebras iudicibus offudisse in causa Cluenti gloriatus est". This was reported by Quintilian, Instit. ii. 17. 21, who quotes this speech more than any other.[1]
- ^ a b One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Cluentius Habitus, Aulus". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 568–569. This further references:
- Editions of Cicero's speech by William Yorke Fausset (1887), W. Ramsay (1883)
- Henry Nettleship, Lectures and Essays (1885).
- ^ Cicero, In Verrem II
