170
Now, by fear of what could Habitus have been influenced, that he should have endeavoured to commit so great a crime? What reason could any one have had for fearing Oppianicus, already condemned to punishment for his crimes, and banished from the city? What did Cluentius fear? Did he fear being attacked by a ruined man? or being accused by a convict? or being injured by the evidence of an exile? But if, because Habitus hated him, he, on that account, did not wish him to live, was he such a fool, as to think that a life which he was then living, the existence of a convict, of an exile, of a man abandoned by every one? whom, on account of his odious disposition, no one was willing to admit into his house, or to visit, or to speak to, or even to look at?