1There remains, then, the charge about the poison; 1of which I can neither find the beginning nor unravel the end. 1For what reason was there why Caelius should wish to give poison to that woman? 1So as not to repay the gold? 1Did she ask for it back? 1So that the charge should not stick? 1Did anyone bring it against him? 1would anyone, in short, have mentioned it, if this man had not prosecuted someone? 1Indeed, you heard Lucius Herennius say that he would not have troubled Caelius with a single word, had Caelius not prosecuted his friend a second time on the same charge after he had been acquitted.
1Is it credible, then, that so great a crime was committed for no reason? 1and do you not see that a charge of a very great crime is being invented so that there may seem to have been a motive for undertaking another crime? 57To whom, after all, did he entrust it, whom did he use as helper, as partner, as accomplice, to whom did he trust so great a crime, to whom himself, to whom his own safety? 57To the woman's slaves? 57For that is what has been charged. 57And was this man, to whom you certainly allow talent, even if you take away his other qualities in your hostile speech, so mad as to entrust all his fortunes to another's slaves?
57But to what slaves? 57— for that very point matters greatly — to those whom he knew to be enjoying no ordinary condition of slavery but to be living more licentiously, more freely and more intimately with their mistress? 57For who does not see this, judges, or who is unaware, that in a house of that kind, in which the mistress of the household lives in the manner of a courtesan, in which nothing is done that is fit to be made public, in which strange lusts, extravagance, in short all unheard-of vices and scandals have their home, here slaves are not slaves, slaves to whom everything is entrusted, through whom it is done, who take part in the same pleasures, to whom secrets are confided, to whom even a good deal of the daily expenses and luxury overflows?
57Did Caelius, then, not see that? 58For if he was as intimate with the woman as you would have it, he knew that those slaves too were intimate with their mistress. 58But if he did not have so close an acquaintance as you make out, what intimacy could he have had with her slaves that was so great?