“No,” said
 I. “But what is that to the purpose?” “In
 truth,” said he, “that is what the cause turns upon.”
 “How so?” He then explains to me an affair of that sort, and at the
 same time an action of Sextus Naevius, which, if that alone were alleged, ought to be
 sufficient. And I beg of you, O Caius Aquillius, and of you the assessors, that you will
 attend to it carefully. You will see, in truth, that on the one side there were engaged
 from the very beginning covetousness and audacity, that on the other side truth and
 modesty resisted as long as they could. You demand to be allowed to take possession of
 his goods according to the edict. On what day I wish to hear you yourself, O Naevius. I
 want this unheard-of action to be proved by the voice of the very man who has committed
 it. Mention the day, Naevius. The twentieth of February. Right, how far is it from hence
 to your estate in Gaul ? I ask you, Naevius.
 Seven hundred miles. Very well: Quinctius is driven off the estate. On what day? May we
 hear this also from you? Why are you silent? Tell me the day, I say.—He is
 ashamed to speak it. I understand; but he is ashamed too late, and to no purpose. He is
 driven off the estate on the twenty-third of February, O Caius Aquillius. Two days
 afterwards, or, even if any one had set off and run the moment he left the court, in
 under three days, he accomplishes seven hundred miles. O incredible thing! O inconsiderate covetousness! O winged messenger! The agents and
 satellites of Sextus Naevius come from Rome ,
 across the Alps , among the Segusiani in two
 days. O happy man who has such messengers, or rather Pegasi. 
 Here I, even if all the Crassi were to stand forth with all the Antonies, if you, O
 Lucius Philippus, who flourished among those men, choose to plead this cause, with
 Hortensius for your colleague, yet I must get the best of it. For everything does not
 depend, as you two think it does, on eloquence. There is still some truth so manifest
 that nothing can weaken it. Did you, before you made
 the demand to be allowed to take possession of his goods, send any one to take care that
 the master should be driven by force off the estate by his own slaves? Choose whichever
 you like; the one is incredible; the other abominable; and both are unheard-of before
 this time. Do you mean that any one ran over seven hundred miles in two days? Tell me.
 Do you deny it? Then you sent some one beforehand. I had rather you did. For if you were
 to say that, you would be seen to tell an impudent lie: when you confess this, you admit
 that you did a thing which you cannot conceal even by a lies. Will such a design, so
 covetous, so audacious, so precipitate, be approved of by Aquillius and by such men as
 he is?