But is any answer given to me with reference to that which I have already mentioned, that this
 interdict was so framed, not only as to facts, and as to its meaning, but also as to its
 expressions, that nothing appeared to require any alteration? Listen carefully, O judges, I
 beseech you, for it becomes your wisdom to recognise, not my prudence, but that of our
 ancestors; for I am not going to mention what I myself have discovered, but a thing which did
 not escape their notice. When an interdict is issued respecting acts of violence, they were
 aware that there are two descriptions of causes to which the interdict had reference: one, if a
 man had been driven by violence from the place in which he was; the other, if he was driven from
 the place to which he was coming; and either of these may take place, and nothing else can, O
 judges. Consider this then, if you please. If any one has
 driven my household away from my farm, he has driven me too from that place. If any one came up
 to me with armed men, outside my farm, and prevented me from entering, then he has driven me,
 not out of that place, but from that place. For these two classes of actions they invented one
 phrase which sufficiently expressed them both; so that, whether I had been driven out of my
 farm, or from my farm, still I should be replaced by one and the same interdict, containing the
 words “from which you . . . ” these words “from which” comprehend either case: both out of which
 place, and from which place. Whence was Cinna driven? Out of the city. Whence was
 Carbo driven? From the city. Whence were the Gauls
 driven? From the Capitol. Whence were they driven who were
 with Gracchus? Out of the Capitol. You see, therefore, that by this one phrase two things are
 signified, both out of what place, and from what place; and when the praetor orders me to be
 replaced in that place, he orders me to be so on this understanding, just as if the Gauls had
 demanded of our ancestors to be replaced in the situation from which they had been driven, and
 if by any force they had been able to obtain it, it would not, I imagine, have been right for
 them to be replaced in the mine, by which they had attacked the Capitol, but in the Capitol
 itself. For this is understood—“Replace him in the place from which you drove him away,” whether
 you drove him out of the place, or from the place. This now is plain enough; replace him in that
 place; if you drove him out of this place, replace him in it; if you drove him from this place,
 replace him in that place, not out of which, but from which he was driven. Just as if a person
 at sea, when he had come near to his own country, were on a sudden driven off by a storm, and
 were to wish, as he had been driven off from his country, to be restored to his former position.
 What he would wish, I imagine, would be this,—that fortune would restore him to the place from
 which he had been driven; not so as to replace him in the sea, but in the city which he was on
 his way to. So too, (since now we are necessarily hunting out the meaning of words from the
 similarity of the circumstances,) he who demands to be restored to the place from which he was
 driven,—that is to say, whence he was driven, —demands to be restored to that very place itself.
 As the words lead us to this conclusion, so too the case itself forces us to think and
 understand the same thing. In truth, Piso , (I am
 returning now back to the first points of my defence,) if any one drives you out of your own
 house with violence, by means of armed men, what will you do? I suppose you will prosecute him
 by means of this same interdict which we have been employing. What now, if, when you are
 returning home from the forum, any one shall with armed men prevent you from entering your own
 house, what will you do? You will avail yourself of the same interdict. When, therefore, the
 praetor has issued his interdict commanding you to be replaced in the place from which you were
 driven, you will interpret that interdict just as I do now, and as it is plain it should be
 interpreted. As that phrase “from which place” is of equal power in both cases, and as you are
 ordered to be replaced in that place, you will interpret it that you are just as much entitled
 to be replaced in your own house if you have been driven out of the courtyard, as if you have
 been driven out from the inmost chambers of the house. But in order, O judges, that there should be no doubt on your part, whether you choose to
 regard the fact, or the words, that you ought to decide in our favour, there arises now, when
 every one of their expedients has been defeated and rendered useless, another argument in
 defence, that a man can be driven away, who is at the time in possession, but that a man who is
 not in possession cannot possibly be. Therefore, if I have been driven away from your house, I
 ought not to be replaced there; but, if you yourself have, you ought. Just count up how many
 false arguments there are in that defence, O Piso . And
 first of all, notice this, that you are by this driven from that assertion which you made, that
 no one could be driven away from a place, unless he was in the place previously; now you allow
 that a man who is the owner of a place can be driven away from it, even if he is not actually in
 it at the moment, but you say that a man who is not the owner cannot be driven away.