§6sed refugit statim nec de pudicitia plura dixit veritus, credo, ne quem inridendi nobis daret et iocandi locum.
But he retreated immediately and said no more about her chastity, fearing, I suppose, lest he should give us any occasion for ridicule and joking.
constat enim illam cum deformitate summa fuisse, tum etiam senectute.
For it is well known that she was of the greatest ugliness, and also of advanced age.
qua re quae potest, quamvis salsa ista Sarda fuerit, ulla libidinis aut amoris esse suspicio?
Therefore, however witty that Sardinian woman of yours may have been, what suspicion can there be of any lust or love?
§7ac ne existimes, Triari, quod adferam, in dicendo me fingere ipsum et non a reo causam cognoscere, explicabo tibi quae fuerint opiniones in Sardinia de istius mulieris morte—nam fuerunt duae—quo etiam facilius
And lest you think, Triarius, that I myself am inventing in my speech what I bring forward, and not learning the case from the defendant, I will explain to you what the opinions were in Sardinia about that woman’s death—for there were two—by which also you may more easily...
§8te dixi, libidinosam atque improbam matrem infami ac noto adulterio iam diu diligebat.
...I told you, he had long loved his lustful and wicked mother in infamous and notorious adultery.
is cum hanc suam uxorem anum et locupletem et molestam timeret, neque eam habere in matrimonio propter foeditatem neque dimittere propter dotem volebat.
Since he feared this elderly, wealthy, and troublesome wife of his, he neither wished to keep her in marriage because of her ugliness, nor to divorce her because of her dowry.
itaque compecto cum matre Bostaris consilium cepit ut uterque Romam veniret; ibi se aliquam rationem inventurum quem ad modum illam uxorem duceret confirmavit.
And so, by agreement with the mother of Bostar, he formed a plan that both should come to Rome; there, he assured her, he would find some way to marry her.
§9hic opinio fuit, ut dixi, duplex, una non abhorrens a statu naturaque rerum, Arinis uxorem paelicatus dolore concitatam, cum audisset Arinem cum illa sua metus et fugae simulatione Romam se contulisse, ut, cum antea consuetudo inter eos fuisset, tum etiam nuptiis iungerentur, arsisse dolore muliebri et mori quam id perpeti maluisse.
Here the opinion, as I said, was twofold: one, not inconsistent with the state and nature of things, that the wife of Aris, excited by the pain of his keeping a mistress, when she heard that Aris had betaken himself to Rome with that woman under the pretense of fear and flight, so that, whereas there had previously been an intimacy between them, they might then also be joined in marriage, burned with womanly grief and preferred to die rather than to endure it.
§10altera non minus veri similis et, ut opinor, in Sardinia magis etiam credita, Arinem istum testem atque hospitem, Triari, tuum proficiscentem Romam negotium dedisse liberto ut illi aniculae non ille quidem vim adferret—neque enim erat rectum patronae—sed collum digitulis duobus oblideret, resticula cingeret, ut illa perisse suspendio putaretur.
The other, no less probable and, as I think, even more believed in Sardinia, was that this Aris of yours, Triarius, your witness and host, on his departure for Rome, gave a task to his freedman, not indeed to offer violence to that old woman—for that was not right toward his patroness—but to squeeze her neck with two fingers and encircle it with a small cord, so that she might be thought to have perished by hanging.
§11quae quidem suspicio valuit etiam plus ob hanc causam quod, cum agerent parentalia Norenses omnesque suo more ex oppido exissent, tum illa est a liberto suspendisse se dicta.
And this suspicion indeed prevailed even more for this reason: that when the people of Nora were celebrating the ancestral rites and all had gone out of the town according to their custom, it was then said by the freedman that she had hanged herself.
discessus autem solitudo ei qui patronam suffocabat fuit quaerenda, illi quae volebat mori non fuit.
But the solitude of their departure had to be sought by him who was suffocating his patroness; it did not have to be sought by her who wished to die.
§12confirmata vero suspicio est, quod anu mortua libertus statim tamquam opere confecto Romam est profectus, Aris autem, simul ac libertus de morte uxoris nuntiavit, continuo Romae matrem illam Bostaris duxit uxorem.
But the suspicion was confirmed because, as soon as the old woman was dead, the freedman immediately set out for Rome as if his work were done, and Aris, as soon as the freedman brought news of his wife’s death, immediately married that mother of Bostar at Rome.
§13en quibus familiis quam foedis, quam contaminatis, quam turpibus datis hanc familiam, iudices.
Behold, gentlemen of the jury, to what families, how foul, how contaminated, how shameful, you are delivering this family!
en quibus testibus commoti, de quo homine, de quo genere, de quo nomine sententias feratis, obliviscendum vobis putatis? matrum in liberos, virorum in uxores scelera cernitis, crudelitate mixtas libidines videtis immanis; duorum maximorum criminum auctores, quibus criminibus haec tota apud ignaros aut invidos infamata causa est, omni facinore et flagitio deformatos habetis.
Behold, moved by what witnesses, do you think you ought to forget about what kind of man, what kind of race, what kind of name you are to pass judgment? You see the crimes of mothers against children, of husbands against wives; you see monstrous lusts mixed with cruelty; you have the authors of two of the greatest charges, by which charges this whole cause has been defamed among the ignorant or envious, deformed by every crime and disgrace.
§14num igitur in his criminibus, iudices, residet etiam aliqua suspicio? non perpurgata sunt, non refutata, non fracta? qui igitur id factum est? quia dedisti mihi, Triari, quod diluerem, in quo argumentarer, de quo disputarem; quia genus eius modi fuit criminum quod non totum penderet ex teste, sed quod ponderaret iudex ipse per sese.
Is there then, gentlemen of the jury, any suspicion still remaining in these charges? Have they not been thoroughly cleared away, refuted, broken down? How then was this done? Because, Triarius, you gave me something to clear up, in which to argue, about which to dispute; because the nature of those charges was of such a kind as did not depend entirely on a witness, but which the judge himself would weigh by himself.
§15neque vero, iudices, quicquam aliud in ignoto teste facere debemus nisi ut argumento, coniectura, suspicione rerum ipsarum vim naturamque quaeramus.
Nor indeed, gentlemen of the jury, ought we to do anything else in the case of an unknown witness except to seek the force and nature of the facts themselves by argument, conjecture, and suspicion.
etenim testis non modo afer aut Sardus sane, si ita se isti malunt nominari, sed quivis etiam elegantior ac religiosior impelli, deterreri, fingi, flecti potest; dominus est ipse voluntatis suae, in quo est impunita mentiendi licentia.
For indeed, a witness, not only an African or indeed a Sardinian, if they prefer to be so called, but any witness, even one more refined and scrupulous, can be impelled, deterred, fashioned, and bent; he himself is the master of his own will, in whom there is an unpunished liberty of lying.