of some assassins, took money
to influence his decision so undisguisedly, that the next year Publius
Scaevola, being tribune of the people, made a motion before the people,
that an inquiry should be made into the case. In accordance with which
decree of the people, Cnaeus Caepio, the consul, was ordered by the senate
to investigate the affair. Tubulus immediately went into banishment, and
did not dare to make any reply to the charge, for the matter was
notorious.

XVII. We are not, therefore, inquiring about a man who is merely wicked,
but about one who mingles cunning with his wickedness, (as Quintus
Pompeius(32) did when he repudiated the treaty of Numantia,) and yet who
is not afraid of everything, but who has rather no regard for the stings
of conscience, which it costs him no trouble at all to stifle; for a man
who is called close and secret is so far from informing against himself,
that he will even pretend to grieve at what is done wrong by another; for
what else is the meaning of the word crafty (_versutus_)? I recollect on
one occasion being present at a consultation held by Publius Sextilius
Rufus, when he reported the case on which he asked advice to his friends
in this manner: That he had been left heir to Quintus Fadius Gallus; in
whose will it had been written that he had entreated Sextilius to take
care that what he left behind him should come to his daughter. Sextilius
denied that he had done so. He could deny it with impunity, for who was
there to convict him? None of us believed him; and it was more likely that
he should tell a lie whose interest it was to do so, than he who had set
down in his will that he had made the request which he ought to have made.
He added, moreover, that having sworn to comply with the Voconian(33) law,
he did not dare to violate it, unless his friends were of a contrary
opinion. I myself was very young when I was present on this occasion, but
there were present also many men of the highest character, not one of whom
thought that more ought to be given to Fadia than could come to her under
the provisions of the Voconian law. Sextilius retained a very large
inheritance; of which, if he had followed the opinion of those men who
preferred what was right and honourable to all profit and advantage, he
would never have touched a single penny. Do you think that he was
afterwards anxious and uneasy in his mind on that account? Not a bit of
it: on the contrary, he was a rich man, owing