What does Naevius say to all
 this? Forsooth, he laughs at our madness in expecting a consideration of the highest
 duty, or looking for the practices of good men in his conduct. What have I to do, says
 he, with all this sanctimoniousness and punctiliousness? Let good men, says he, look to
 these duties, but let them think of me thus; let them ask not what I have, but by what
 means I have acquired it, and in what rank I was born, and in what manner I was brought
 up. I remember, there is an old proverb about a buffoon; “that it is a much
 easier thing for him to become rich than to become the head of a family.”
 This is what he says openly by his actions, if he
 does not dare to say it in words. If in truth he wishes to live according to the
 practices of good men, he has many things to learn and to unlearn, both which things are
 difficult to a man of his age. I did not hesitate, says he, when the recognizances were forfeited, to claim the
 confiscation of his goods. It was wickedly done; but since you claim this for yourself;
 and demand that it be granted to you, let us grant it. What if he has not forfeited his
 recognizances? if the whole of that plea has been invented by you with the most extreme
 dishonesty and wickedness? if there had actually been no securities given in any cause
 between you and Publius Quinctius? What shall we call you? Wicked? why, even if the
 recognizances had been forfeited, yet in making such a demand and confiscation of his
 goods, you were proved to be most wicked. Malignant? you do not deny it. Dishonest? you
 have already claimed that as your character, and you think it a fine thing. Audacious?
 covetous? perfidious? those are vulgar and worn-out imputations, but this conduct is
 novel and unheard-of. What then are we to say? I fear
 forsooth lest I should either use language severer than men's nature is inclined to
 bear, or else more gentle than the cause requires. You say that the recognizances were
 forfeited. Quinctius the moment he returned to Rome asked you on what day the recognizances were drawn. You answered at
 once, on the fifth of February. Quinctius, when departing, began to recollect on what
 day he left Rome for Gaul : he goes to his journal, he finds the day of his
 departure set down, the thirty-first of January. If he was at Rome on the fifth of February we have nothing to say
 against his having entered into recognizances with you.