For Publius Quinctius (11-15)

And that you may the more easily do this, I will endeavour to make you understand how this matter has been managed and carried out. Caius Quinctius was the brother of this Publius Quinctius; in other respects a sufficiently prudent and attentive head of a family, but in one matter a little less wise, inasmuch as he formed a partnership with Sextus Naevius, a respectable man, but one who had not been brought up so as to be acquainted with the rights of partnership, or with the duties of a head of an established family. [*] Not that he was wanting in abilities; for Sextus Naevius as a buffoon was never considered without wit, nor as a crier was he reckoned unmannerly. What followed? As nature had given him nothing better than a voice, and his father had left him nothing besides his freedom, he made gain of his voice, and used his freedom for the object of being loquacious with impunity.

So there was no reason in the world for your taking him as a partner, except that he might learn with your money what a harvest money can produce. Nevertheless, induced by acquaintance and intimacy with the man, Quinctius, as I have said, entered into a partnership with him as to those articles which were procured in Gaul. He had considerable property in cattle, and a well-cultivated and productive farm. Naevius is carried off from the halls of Licinius, [*] and from the gang of criers, into Gaul and across the Alps; there is a great change in his situation, [*] none in his disposition; for he who from his boyhood had been proposing to himself gain without any outlay, as soon as he spent anything himself and brought it to the common stock, could not be content with a moderate profit.

Nor is it any wonder if he, who had his voice for sale, thought that those things which he had acquired by his voice would be a great profit to him; so that without much moderation, he carried off whatever he could from the common stock to his private house for himself. And in this he was as industrious as if all who behaved in a partnership with exact good faith, were usually condemned in a trial before an arbitrator. [*] But concerning these matters I do not consider it necessary to say what Publius Quinctius wishes me to mention; although the cause calls for it: yet as it only calls for it, and does not absolutely require it, [*] I will pass it over.

When this partnership had now subsisted many years, and when Naevius had often been suspected by Quinctius, and was not able conveniently to give an account of the transactions which he had carried on according to his caprice, and not on any system, Quinctius dies in Gaul, when Naevius was there too, and dies suddenly. By his will he left this Publius Quinctius his heir, in order that, as great grief would come to him by his death, great honour should also accrue to him.

When he was dead, Publius Quinctius soon after goes into Gaul. There he lives on terms of intimacy with that fellow Naevius. There they are together nearly a year, during which they had many communications with one another about their partnership, and about the whole of their accounts and their estate in Gaul; nor during that time did Naevius utter one single word about either the partnership owing him anything, or about Quinctius having owed him anything on his private account. As there was some little debt left behind, the payment of which was to be provided for at Rome, this Publius Quinctius issues notices that he shall put up to auction in Gaul, at Narbonne, those things which were his own private property.