Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/824

Rh 806 CLUENTIUS. Schoenium, and of Upoa^diai. Mention is made of a choral song in which he used all the three ancient modes of music, so that the first strophe was Do- rian, the second Phrj'gian, and the third Lj'dian, (Plut. de Mus. 3. p. 1132, c, 5. p. 1133, a., 8. p. 1134, a. b., 17. p. 1136, £; Heracl. Pont. p. 140 ; Paus. x. 7. $ 3.) [P. S.J CLO'NIUS (KKdvLos). 1. The leader of the Boeotians in the war against Troy, was slain by Agenor. (Horn. //. ii. 495, xv. 340 ; Died. iv. 67 ; Hygin. Fab. 97.) 2. Two companions of Aeneas, the one of whom was slain by Tumus, and the other by Messapus. (Virg. Aen. ix. 574, x. 749.) There is a fourth mythical personage of this name. (Apollod. iii. 12. $5.) [L.S.] CLOTHO. [MoiRAE.] CLUE'NTIA. 1. Sister of the elder A. Cluen- tius Habitus. She was one of the numerous wives of Statins Albius Oppianicus, and, according to the representation of Cicero, was poisoned by her hus- band (pro Cluent. 10). This Cluentia, in Orelli's Onomasticon Tullianum^ seems to be confounded with her niece. [No. 2,] 2. Daughter cf the elder A. Cluentius Habitus. Soon after her father's death she married her first cousin A. Aurius Melinus, from whom she was soon divorced in order to make way for her own mother, Sassia, who had conceived a passion for the husband of her daughter. (Pro Cluent. 5.) [W.R.] L. CLUE'NTIUS, called A. Cluentius by Eu- tropius (v. 3), was one of the generals of the Ita- lians in the Social War. He gained a victory over Sulla in the neighbourhood of Pompeii, but was soon after defeated with great loss by Sulla, B. c. 89. Thirty thousand of his men are said to have fallen in their flight towards Nola, and twenty thousand, among whom was Cluentius himself, be- fore the walls of that town, as the inhabitants would admit them by only one gate, for fear lest Sulla's troops should rush in with thenu (Appian, B. C. i. 50; Eutrop. I.e.; comp. Cic de Div. i. 33; Val. Max. i. 6. § 4 ; Plin. //. N. xxii. 6.) A. CLUE'NTIUS HA'BITUS. 1. A native of Larinum, highly respected and esteemed not only in his own municipium but in the whole sur- rounding country, on account of his ancient des- cent, unblemished reputation, and great moral worth. He married Sassia, and died in B. c. 88, leaving one son and one daughter. (Pro Cluent. 5.) In modern editions of Cicero the cognomen Aritus uniformly appears instead oi Habitus., hav- ing been first introduced, in opposition to all the best MSS. both of Cicero and Quintilian, by Lam- binus at tlie suggestion of Cujaccius, who main- tained, that Habitus must in everj' case be consi- dered as a corruption of the transcribers, and ap- pealed for the confirmation of liis opinion to the Florentine MS. of the Digest (48. tit. 19. s. 39), where, however, upon examination the reading is found to be Abiius. Accordingly, Orelli, following Kiebuhr and Classen, has restored the ancient form in his Onomasticon, although not in the text of the oration. (Rlieinisches Museum for 1827, p. 223.) 2. Son of the foregoing and his wife Sassia, was also a native of Larinum, born about B. c. 103. (Pro Cluent. 5.) In B. c. 74, being at Rome, he accused his own step-father, Statins Albius Oppia- nicus, of having attempted to procure his death by poison. The cause was heard before a certain C. CLUENTIUS. Junius during a period when a strong feeling pre- vailed with regard to the venality of the criminal judices, who were at that epoch selected from the senate exclusively. Shortly before the trial, a re- port was spread abroad, and gained general credit, that bribery had been extensively practised by those interested in the result. Accordingly, when a verdict of guilty was pronounced by a very small majorit)', including several individuals of notori- ously bad character, when it became known that one of the concilium had been irregularly intro- duced, and had voted against the defendant with- out hearing the evidence, and when, above all, it was ascertained beyond a doubt that one of the most infamous of the judices who had condemned Oppianicus had actually received a large sum of money for distribution among his fellows, the be- lief became universal that Cluentius had by the foulest practices obtained the conviction of an in- nocent man. Indignation being thus strongly ex- cited, it was exhibited most unequivocally. No opportunity was allowed to pass of inflicting con- dign punishment on the obnoxious judices. Junius, the judex quaestionis, a man rising rapidly to emi- nence, was forced by the popular clamour to retire from public life ; Cluentius and many others of those concerned were disgraced by the censors, and the Judicium Junianum or Albianum Judicium became a by-word for a corrupt and unrighteous judgment, no one being more ready to take advan- tage of the outcry than Cicero himself, Avlien in- sisting, at the trial of Verres, on the necessity of obliterating the foul stain which had thus sullied the reputation of the Roman courts. (In Vcrr. act. i. 10, 13 — Q^ pro Caedn. 10; Pseudo-Ascon. in Verr. act. i. p. 141 ; SchoL Gronov. p. 395, ed. Orelli.) Eight years after these events, in B. c. QQ^ Clu- entius was himself accused by young Oppianicus, son of Statius Albius who had died in the interval, of three distinct acts of poisoning, two of which, it was alleged, had proved successful. The attack was conducted by T. Accius Pisaurensis; the de- fence was undertaken by Cicero, at that time pmetor. It is perfectly clear, from the whole te- nor of the remarkable speech delivered upon this occasion, from the small space devoted to the refu- tation of the above charges, and from the meagre and defective evidence by which they were sup- ported, that comparatively little importance was attached to them by the prosecutor, that they were merely employed as a plausible pretext for bring- ing Cluentius before a Roman court, and that his enemies grounded their hopes of success almost entirely upon the prejudice which was known to exist in men's minds on account of the Judicium Junianum.) — a prejudice which had already proved the ruin of many others when arraigned of various offences. Hence it would appear that the chief object kept in view hy Accius in his opening ad- dress was to refresh the memories of his hearers, to recall to their recollections all the circumstances connected with the previous trial, and the punish- ments Avhich had been inflicted on the guilty judices. Consequently, the greater portion of the repl}-- is devoted to the same topics ; the principal aim of Cicero was to undeceive his audience with regard to the real state of the facts, to draw a vivid picture of the life and crimes of the elder Oppianicus and Sassia, proving them to be mon- sters of guilt, and thus to remove the "inveterata