For Publius Quinctius (56-60)

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.

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.

What then? how can this be found out? Lucius Albius went with him, a man of the highest honour; he shall give his evidence. Some friends accompanied both Albius and Quinctius; they also shall give their evidence. Shall the letters of Publius Quinctius, shall so many witnesses, all having the most undeniable reason for being able to know the truth, and no reason for speaking falsely, be compared with your witness to the recognizance?

And shall Publius Quinctius be harassed in a cause like this? and shall he any longer be subjected to the misery of such fear and danger? and shall the influence of an adversary alarm him more than the integrity of the judge comforts him? For he always lived in an unpolished and uncompanionable manner; he was of a melancholy and unsociable disposition; he has not frequented the Forum, or the Campus, or banquets. He so lived as to retain his friends by attention, and his property by economy; he loved the ancient system of duty, all the splendour of which has grown obsolete according to present fashions. But if, in a cause where the merits were equal, he seemed to come off the worse, that would be in no small degree to be complained of; but now, when he is in the right, he does not even demand to come off best; he submits to be worsted, only with these limitations, that he is not to be given up with his goods, his character, and all his fortunes, to the covetousness and cruelty of Sextus Naevius.

I have proved what I first promised to prove, O Caius Aquillius, that there was absolutely no cause why he should make this demand; that neither was any money owed, and that if it were owed ever so much, nothing had been done to excuse recourse being had to such measures as these. Remark now, that the goods of Publius Quinctius could not possibly have been taken possession of in accordance with the praetor's edict. Recite the edict. “He who for the sake of fraud has lain hid.” That is not Quinctius, unless they be hid who depart on their own business, leaving an agent behind them. “The man who has no heir.” Even that is not he. “The man who leaves the country in exile.” At what time, O Naevius, do you think Quinctius ought to have been defended in his absence, or how? Then, when you were demanding leave to take possession of his goods? No one was present, for no one could guess that you were going to make such a demand; nor did it concern any one to object to that which the praetor ordered not to be done absolutely, but to be done according to his edict.