For M. Tullius (35)

What will Quinctius say to this? Surely he has nothing to say, no one point, I will not say on which he is able to stand, but on which he even imagines that he is able. For, first of all, he advanced this argument, that nothing can be done by the malice of a household. By this topic he was tending not merely to defend Fabius, but to put an end utterly to all judicial proceedings of this sort. For if that is brought before the court with reference to a household, which a household is absolutely incapacitated from doing, there is evidently no trial at all; all must inevitably be acquitted for the same reason.