For Aulus Caecina (76-80)

But the cause of the Roman people, the laws of the state, all the property, fortune, and possessions of every one will again become uncertain and doubtful. This will be established, this will be settled by your authority; that, if you hereafter have a dispute with any one about ownership, if you drive him away when he has once entered on his property, you must make restitution; but if, as he is coming to enter, you meet him with an armed multitude and repel him, put him to flight, and heat him off while still only on his road, then you shall not make restitution. Then you will establish this principle as law and justice, that violence can only exist where there is murder, that it has nothing to do with the intention or the will; that, unless blood be spilt, there has been no violence offered; that it is wrong to say that a man has been driven away, who has been prevented from entering; that no man can be driven away except from a place where he has planted his footsteps.

Decide therefore now, whether it is of the greatest importance for the spirit of the law to be adhered to, and for equity to prevail, or for all laws to be twisted according to their literal expressions. Do you, I say, O judges, now decide which of these things appears to you the most desirable. While speaking of this, it happens very conveniently that Caius Aquillius, that most accomplished man, is not here now, who was here a little while ago, and who has frequently been present during this trial; (for if he were present, I should be more afraid to speak of his virtue and prudence; because he himself would feel a degree of modesty at hearing his own praises, and a similar kind of modesty would cramp me while praising a man to his face;) and whose authority, it has been said, ought not to be too much deferred to in this cause. I am not afraid of saying more in praise of such a man than you yourselves either feel, or are willing to hear expressed before you.

Wherefore I will say this, that too much weight cannot be given to the authority of that man whose prudence the Roman people has seen proved in taking precautions, not in deceiving men; who has never made a distinction between the principles of civil law and equity; who for so many years has given the Roman people the benefit of his abilities, his industry, and his good faith, which have been always ready and at their service; who is so just and virtuous a man, that he appears to be a lawyer by nature, not by education; so skillful and prudent a man, that not only some learning, but that even goodness appears to be the offspring of civil law; whose abilities are so great, whose good faith is so pure, that, whatever you draw from thence, you feel you are drawing in a pure and clear state.

So that you are entitled to great gratitude from us when you say that that man is the author of our defence. But I marvel why you, when you say that any one has formed an opinion unfavourable to me, produce the man who is my authority for my arguments, but say nothing of him who is yours. But, however, what does the man on whom you rely say? “In whatever terms a law is framed and drawn up ⋯”

When I produced many instances, and alleged even the very grounds of all justice, to prove that in many cases all right and the principles of justice and reason were at variance with the words of the written law; and that that had always prevailed most, which had most authority and justice in it; he comforted me, and showed me that in this cause I had no reason for anxiety, for that the actual words in which the securities were drawn up were on my side, if I considered them carefully. “How so?” said I.—“Because,” said he, “undoubtedly Caecina was driven away by armed men with violence from some place or other; if not from the place to which he desired to come, at all events from that place from which he fled.” What then?—“The praetor,” says he, “has enjoined in his interdict that he shall be replaced in that place from which he was driven away, whatever that place may be from which he was driven away. But Aebutius, who confesses that Caecina was driven away from some place or other, must clearly have forfeited his security, since he falsely says that he has replaced him.”