For Quintus Roscius the Actor (21-25)

Wherefore consider over and over again, O Caius Piso, who is said to have cheated, and who to have been cheated. Roscius is said to have cheated Fannius? What is that? The honest man is said to have cheated the rogue; the modest man, the shameless one; the chaste man, the perjurer; the unpractised man, the cunning one; the liberal man is said to have cheated the covetous one. It is incredible how, if Fannius were said to have cheated Roscius, each fact would appear probable from the character of each man; both that Fannius had acted wickedly, and that Roscius had been cheated by his imprudence. So when Roscius is accused of having cheated Fannius, both parts of the story are incredible, both that Roscius should have sought anything covetously, and that Fannius should have lost anything by his good-nature.

Such is the beginning. Let us see what follows. Quintus Roscius has cheated Fannius of 50,000 sesterces. On what account? Saturius smiles; a cunning fellow, as he seems to himself. He says, for the sake of the fifty thousand sesterces. I see; but yet I ask why he was so exceedingly desirous of this particular fifty thousand sesterces? For certainly, O Marcus Perperna and Caius Piso, they would not have been of such consequence to either of you, as to make you cheat your partner. I ask, then, why they were of such consequence to Roscius! Was he in want of money? No, he was even a rich man. Was he in debt? On the contrary, he was living within his income. Was he avaricious? far from it; even before he was a rich man he was always most liberal and munificent.

Oh, in the name of good faith, of gods, and men! he who once refused to make a gain of three hundred thousand sesterces—for he certainly both could and would have earned three hundred thousand sesterces if Dionysia [*] can earn two hundred thousand,—did he seek to acquire fifty thousand by the greatest dishonesty, and wickedness and treachery? And that sum was immense, this trifling; that was honourable, this sordid; that was pleasant, this bitter; that would have been his own, this must have been stated on an action and a trial. In these last ten years he might have earned six millions of sesterces most honourably. He would not; he undertook the labour entitled to gain, but refused the gain of his labour. He did not yet desist from serving the Roman people; he has long since ceased to benefit himself.

Would you even do this, O Fannius? And if you were able to receive such profits, would you not act with all your gestures, and even at the risk of your life? Say now that you have been cheated of fifty thousand sesterces by Roscius, who has refused such enormous sums, not because he was too indolent to labour for them, but out of a magnificence of liberality. What now shall I say of these things which I know to a certainty occur to your minds, O judges? Roscius cheated you in a partnership. There are laws, there are formularies [*] established for every case, that no one may make a blunder, either as to the legal description of injury which he has suffered, or as to the sort of action he should bring; for public formulae have been given by the praetor to suit every evil, or vexation, or inconvenience, or calamity, or injury which any one can suffer and to them each private action is adapted.

And as this is the case, I ask why you have not Roscius as your partner before an arbitrator? Did you not know the formula? It was most notorious. Were you unwilling to adopt severe proceedings? Why so? On account of your ancient intimacy? Why then do you injure him now? On account of the integrity of the man? Why then do you accuse him now? On account of the magnitude of the crime? Is it so? The man whom you could not circumvent before an arbitrator, to whose decision such a matter properly belonged, will you seek to convict before a judge, who has no power of arbitrating in it? Either, then, bring this charge where it may be discussed, or do not bring it where it may not: although the charge is already done away with by your own evidence; for when you declined to adopt that formula, you showed that he had committed no fraud against the partnership. Oh, he made a covenant. Has he account-books, or not? If he has not, how is the covenant shown? If he has, why do you not tell us?