Everything, O Caius Aquillius, is of such a nature that any one may be able to perceive
 that in this cause dishonesty and interest are contending with poverty and truth. How
 did the praetor order you to take possession? I suppose, in accordance with his edict.
 In what words was the recognizance drawn up? “If the goods of Publius
 Quinctius have been taken possession of in accordance with the praetor's
 edict.” Let us return to the edict. How does that enjoin you to take
 possession? Is there any pretence, O Caius Aquillius, if he took possession in quite a
 different way from that which the praetor enjoined, for denying that then he did not
 take possession according to the edict, but that I have beaten him in the trial? None, I
 imagine. Let us refer to the edict.—“They who in accordance with my
 edict have come into possession.” He is speaking of you, Naevius, as you
 think; for you say that you came into possession according to the edict. He defines for
 you what you are to do; he instructs you; he gives you precepts. “It seems
 that those ought to be in possession.” How? “That which they can
 rightly secure in the place where they now are, let them secure there; that which they
 cannot, they may carry or lead away.” What then? “It is not
 right,” says he, “to drive away the owner against his
 will.” The very man who with the object of cheating is keeping out of the way,
 the very man who deals dishonestly with all his creditors, he forbids to be driven off
 his farm against his will. As you are on your way to
 take possession, O Sextus Naevius, the praetor himself openly says to
 you—“Take possession in such manner that Naevius may have possession
 at the same time with you; take possession in such a manner that no violence may be
 offered to Quinctius.” What? how do you observe that? I say nothing of his not
 having been a man who was keeping out of the way, of his being a man who had a house, a
 wife, children, and an agent at Rome ; I say
 nothing of all this: I say this, that the owner was expelled from his farm; that hands
 were laid on their master by his own slaves, before his own household gods; I say 
 
 I say too that Naevius never even asked Quinctius for the money, when he was with him,
 and might have sued him every day; because he preferred that all the most perplexing
 modes of legal proceedings should take place, to his own great discredit, and to the
 greatest danger of Publius Quinctius, rather than allow of the simple trial about money
 matters which could have been got through in one day; from which one trial he admits
 that all these arose and proceeded. On which occasion I offered a condition, if he was
 determined to demand the money, that Publius Quinctius should give security to submit to
 the decision, if he also, if Quinctius had any demands upon him, would submit to the
 like conditions. I showed how many things ought to be
 done before a demand was made that the goods of a relation should be taken possession
 of; especially when he had at Rome his house,
 his wife, his children, and an agent who was equally an intimate friend of both. I
 proved that when he said the recognizances were forfeited, there were actually no
 recognizances at all; that on the day on which he says he gave him the promise, he was
 not even at Rome . I promised that I would make
 that plain by witnesses, who both must know the truth, and who had no reason for
 speaking falsely. I proved also that it was not possible that the goods should have been
 taken possession of according to the edict; because he was neither said to have kept out
 of the way for the purpose of fraud, nor to have left the country in banishment.
 The charge remains, that no one defended him at the
 trial. In opposition to which I argued that he was most abundantly defended, and that
 not by a man unconnected with him, nor by any slanderous or worthless person, but by a
 Roman knight, his own relation and intimate friend, whom Sextus Naevius himself had been
 accustomed previously to leave as his own agent. And that even if he did appeal to the
 tribunes, he was not on that account the less prepared to submit to a trial; and that
 Naevius had not had his rights wrested from him by the powerful interest of the agent;
 that on the other hand he was so much superior to us in interest that he now scarcely
 gives us the liberty of breathing.