So, if someone calls a man a shield-caster, he is to be immune, since the law imposes a penalty for saying that a man has thrown away his shield, but not for saying he has cast it. Similarly, if you were one of the Eleven, you would not accept a prisoner arrested for stripping a man of his cloak or his shirt, unless he were given the name of clothes-stealer.

Nor, if someone abducted a child, would you accept him as a kidnapper. Now you have yourself taken proceedings for slander against the person who said you had cast your shield: yet it is not so written in the law, but the phrase is saying a man has thrown it away. How monstrous, then, that if such a thing is said about you, you should make play with the laws in the way I am doing now, and should be avenged on your enemies; but if you say such a thing yourself, you should claim to escape punishment!