For Publius Quinctius (28-31)

While this is being done at Rome, meantime Quinctius, contrary to law and to custom, and to the edicts of the praetors, is driven by force by the slaves which belonged to both him and Naevius, as partners, from their common lands and estates.

Meantime Alphenus was fighting every day at Rome with that old gladiator. He had the people indeed on his side, because that fellow never ceased to aim at the head. [*] Naevius demanded that the agent should give security for payment on judgment being given. Alphenus says that it is not reasonable for an agent to give security, because the defendant would not be bound to give security if he were present himself. The tribunes are appealed to, and as a positive decision was demanded from them, the matter is terminated on the footing of Sextus Alphenus undertaking that Publius Quinctius should answer to his bail by the thirteenth of September.

Quinctius comes to Rome; he answers to his bail. That fellow, that most energetic man, the seizer of other men's goods, that invader, that robber, for a year and a half asks for nothing, keeps quiet, amuses Quinctius by proposals as long as he can, and at last demands of Cnaeus Dolabella, the praetor, that Quinctius should give security for payment on judgment being given, according to the formula, “Because he demands it of him whose goods he has taken possession of for thirty days, according to the edict of the praetor.” Quinctius made no objection to his ordering him to give security, if his goods had been possessed, in accordance with the praetor's edict. He makes the order; how just a one I do not say—this alone I do say, it was unprecedented: and I would rather not have said even this, since any one could have understood both its characters. He orders Publius Quinctius to give security to Sextus Naevius, to try the point whether his goods had been taken possession of for thirty days, in accordance with the edict of the praetor. The friends who were then with Quinctius objected to this: they showed that a decision ought to be come to as to the fact, so that either each should give security to the other, or else that neither should; that there was no necessity for the character of either being involved in the trial.

Moreover, Quinctius himself cried out that he was unwilling to give security, lest by so doing he should seem to admit that his goods had been taken possession of in accordance with the edict: besides, if he gave a bond in that manner, he should be forced (as has now happened) to speak first in a trial affecting himself capitally. Dolabella (as high-born men are wont to do, who, whether they have begun to act rightly or wrongly, carry either conduct to such a height that no one born in our rank of life can overtake them) perseveres most bravely in committing injustice: he bids him either give security or give a bond; and meantime he orders our advocates, who objected to this, to be removed with great roughness.