For Aulus Caecina (49-52)

Now, then, you cannot deny that violence was offered. The question now is, how he was driven away who was prevented from approaching. For a man who is driven away must manifestly be removed and thrust down from the place which he is occupying. And how can that happen to a man who absolutely never was in the place at all from which he says that he was driven? What shall we say? If he had been there, and if under the influence of fear, he had fled from the place when he saw the armed men, would you then say that he had been driven away? I think so. Will you then, who decide disputes with such care and such subtlety, by expressions and not by equity,—you who interpret laws, not by the common advantage of the citizen, but by their letter,—will you be able to say that a man has been driven away who has never been touched? What! Will you say that he has been thrust down from his place? For that was the word which the praetors used formerly to use in their interdicts. What do you say? Can any one be thrust down who is not touched? Must we not, if we will stick to the strict letter, understand that that man only is thrust down on whom hands are laid? It is quite inevitable, I say, if we wish to make words and facts tally exactly with each other, that no one should be decided to have been thrust down, unless he be understood to have had hands laid on him, and so to have been removed and pushed headlong down by personal violence. But how can any one have been treated so, unless he has been removed from a higher place to a lower one?

A man may have been driven away, he may have been put to flight, he may have been cast out; but it is absolutely impossible for any one to have been pushed down, not only who has never been touched, but who, if he has been touched, has been touched on even and level ground. What then? Are we to think that this interdict was framed for the sake of those men alone, who could say that they had been precipitated from high ground? for those are the only people who can properly be said to have been driven down. [*]

Is this doubtful, that there is not such an abundance of words,—I will not say in our language, which is confessedly poor, but not in any other language either,—as to enable every imaginable thing and circumstance to be expressed by its own fixed end appropriate name? Is it doubtful that we have no need of words when the matter, for the sake of which words were first invented, is thoroughly understood? What law, what resolution of the senate, what edict of a magistrate, what treaty, or covenant, (to return to men's private affairs,) what will, what judicial decision, what bond, what formula of bargain or agreement cannot be invalidated and torn to pieces, if we choose to bend facts to words, and leave out of the question the intention, and design, and authority of those who wrote them?

In truth, even our familiar and daily discourse will cease to have any coherence, if we are to spend all our time in word catching. Lastly, there will be no such thing at all as any domestic rule, if we grant this to our slaves, that they are to obey the letter of our commands, and not attend to what may be gathered from the spirit of our expressions. Must I produce instances of all these things? Do not different examples in each separate glass occur to every one of you, which may be a proof that right does not depend only on the strict words of the law, but that words are meant to be subservient to the intentions and purposes of men?