For Aulus Caecina (17-20)

When this purchase had been made, the money was paid by Caesennia; and of this that man thinks that no account can be produced, because he himself has detained her account-books, and because he has the account-books of the banker in which the money is entered as having been paid by him, and credit is given to him for it, as having been received from him; as if it could have been properly done in any other manner. When everything had been settled in thus way, as we are now stating in this defence of ours, Caesennia took possession of the farm and let it; and not long afterwards she married Aulus Caecina. To cut the matter short, the woman died having made a will. She makes Caecina her heir to the extent of twenty-three twenty-fourths of her fortune; of the remaining twenty-fourth she leaves two-thirds to Marcus Fulcinius, a freedman of her first husband, and one-third she leaves to Aebutius. This seventy-second part of her property she meant to be a reward to him for the interest he had taken in her affairs, and for any trouble that they might have caused him. But he thinks that he can make this small fraction a handle for disputing the whole.

As he was in possession of the estate, and as Aebutius was exaggerating his seventy-second share unduly, Caecina, as heir, demanded an arbitrator, for the purpose of dividing the inheritance. And in a few days, when Aebutius saw that he could not pare anything off from Caecina's property by the terror of a law-suit, he gives him notice, in the forum at Rome, that that farm which I have already mentioned, and of which I have shown that he had become the purchaser on Caesennia's commission, was his own, and that he had bought it for himself What are you saying? you will say to me;—does that farm belong to Aebutius which Caesennia had possession of without the least dispute for four years, that is to say, ever since the farm was sold, as long as she lived? Yes, for the life-interest in that farm, and its produce, belonged to Caesennia, by the will of her husband.

As he was thus artfully planning this singular kind of action, Caecina determined, by the advice of his friends, to fix a day on which he would go to offer to take possession, and be formally driven off the farm. They confer on the subject; a day is agreed on to suit the convenience of both parties; Caecina, with his friends, comes on the appointed day to the castle of Axia, from which place the farm which is now in question is not far distant. There he is informed by many people that Aebutius has collected and armed a great number of men, both free-men and slaves. While some marvelled at this, and some did not believe it, lo! Aebutius himself comes to the castle. He gives notice to Caecina that he has armed men with him, and that, if he comes on the property, he shall never go away again. Caecina and his friends agreed that it was best to try how far they could proceed without personal danger.