For Publius Quinctius (46-50)

Can no means be found, O Caius Aquillius, for a man's arriving at his rights as expeditiously as maybe without the disgrace and infamy and ruin of any one else? Forsooth, if anything were owed, he would ask for it: he would not prefer that all sorts of trials should take place, rather than that one from which all these arise. He, who for so many years never even asked Quinctius for the money, when he had an opportunity of transacting business with him every day; he who, from the time when he first began to behave ill, has wasted all the time in adjournments and respiting the recognizances; he who, after he had withdrawn his recognizance drove Quinctius by treachery and violence from their joint estate; who, when he had ample opportunity, without any one's making objection, to try a civil action, [*] chose rather a charge that involved infamy; who, when he is brought back to this tribunal, whence all these proceedings arise, repudiates the most reasonable proposals; confesses that he is aiming, not at the money, but at the life and heart's blood of his adversary;—does he not openly say, “if anything were owing to me, I should demand it, and I should long ago have obtained it;

I would not employ so much trouble, so unpopular a course of legal proceeding, and such a band of favourers of my cause, if I had to make a just demand; I have got to extort money from one unwilling, and in spite of him; I have got to tear and squeeze out of a man what he does not owe; Publius Quinctius is to be cast down from all his fortune; every one who is powerful, or eloquent, or noble, must be brought into court with me; a force must be put upon truth, threats must be bandied about, dangers must be threatened; terrors must be brandished before his eyes, that being cowed and overcome by these things, he may at last yield of his own accord.” And, in truth, all these things, when I see who are striving against us, and when I consider the party sitting opposite to me, seem to be impending over, and to be present to us, and to be impossible to be avoided by any means. But when, O Caius Aquillius, I bring my eyes and my mind back to you, the greater the labour and zeal with which all these things are done, the more trifling and powerless do I think them. Quinctius then owed nothing, as you prove yourself.

But what if he had owed you anything? would that have at once been a reason for your requiring leave from the praetor to take possession of his goods? I think that was neither according to law, nor expedient for any one. What then does he prove? He says that he had forfeited his recognizances.

Before I prove that he had not done so, I choose, O Caius Aquillius, to consider both the fact itself and the conduct of Sextus Naevius, with reference to the principles of plain duty, and the common usages of men. He, as you say, had not appeared to his recognizances; he with whom you were connected by relationship, by partnership, by every sort of bond and ancient intimacy. Was it decent for you to go at once to the praetor? was it fair for you at once to demand to be allowed to take possession of his goods according to the edict? Did you betake yourself to these extreme measures and to these most hostile laws with such eagerness as to leave yourself nothing behind which you might be able to do still more bitter and cruel?

For, what could happen more shameful to any human being, what more miserable or more bitter to a man; what disgrace could happen so heavy, what disaster can be imagined so intolerable? If fortune deprived any one of money, or if the injustice of another took it from him, still while his reputation is unimpeached, honour easily makes amends for poverty. And some men, though stained with ignominy, or convicted in discreditable trials, still enjoy their wealth; are not forced to dance attendance (which is the most wretched of all states) on the power of another; and in their distresses they are relieved by this support and comfort; but he whose goods have been sold, who has seen not merely his ample estates, but even his necessary food and clothing put up under the hammer, with great disgrace to himself; he is not only erased from the list of men, but he is removed out of sight, if possible, even beneath the dead. An honourable [*] death forsooth often sets off even a base life, but a dishonoured life leaves no room to hope for even an honourable death.

Therefore, in truth, when a man's goods are taken possession of according to the praetor's edict, all his fame and reputation is seized at the same time with his goods. A man about whom placards are posted in the most frequented places, is not allowed even to perish in silence and obscurity; a man who has assignees and trustees appointed to pronounce to him on what terms and conditions he is to be ruined; a man about whom the voice of the crier makes proclamation and proclaims his price,—he has a most bitter funeral procession while he is alive, if that may be considered a funeral in which men meet not as friends to do honour to his obsequies, but purchasers of his goods as executioners, to tear to pieces and divide the relics of his existence.