Pro M. Tullio

and though he knew that the Aquilian law [*](The Lex Aquilia provided for the damages which any one was to pay to the owner, in the case of his having unlawfully killed any slave or quadruped. Actions under this law were limited to damage done by actual contact, though the subject of them was extended afterwards. Vide Smith, Dict. Ant. p. 313, in voc. Damni injuria Actio.)about damage existed, still he thought, that, as in the time of our ancestors both men's estates and their desires were less, and as their families, not being very numerous, were restrained by fear of important consequences, it very seldom happened that a man would be killed, and it was thought a nefarious and unprecedented atrocity; and therefore, that there was at that time no need of a system of judicial procedure with reference to bodies of men collected in a violent manner and armed; (for he thought that if any one established a law or a tribunal for matters which were not usual, he seemed not so much to forbid them as to put people in mind of them.)

In these times, when after a long civil war our manners had so far degenerated that men used arms with less scruple, he thought it necessary to establish a system of judicial procedure, with reference to the whole of a man's household, in the formula, “Which was said to have been done by the household,” and to assign judges,

in order that the matter might be decided as speedily as possible; and to affix a severe punishment, in order that audacity might be repressed by fear, and to take away that outlet, “Damage unjustly caused.”

That which in other causes ought to have weight, and which has weight by the Aquilian law, namely, that damage had been caused by armed slaves in a violent manner, ---

Men must decide themselves when they could lawfully take arms, collect a band, and put men to death. When an action was assigned, this alone was to be the point at issue, “whether it appeared that damage had been inflicted by the malice of the household, by men collected and armed acting in a violent manner,” and the word “unjustly” was not to be added; he thought that he had put an end to the audacity of wicked men when he had left them no hope of being able to make any defence.

Since, then, you have now heard what this judicial procedure is, and with what intention it was established, now listen, while I briefly explain to you the case itself, and its attendant circumstances.

Marcus Tullius had a farm, inherited from his father, in the territory of Thurium, O judges, which he was never sorry to have, till he got a neighbor who preferred extending the boundaries of his estate by arms, to defending them by law. For Publius Fabius lately purchased a farm of Caius Claudius, a senator,—a farm bordering on that of Marcus Tullius,—dear enough, for nearly half as much again (though in a wretched state of cultivation, and with all the buildings burnt down) as Claudius himself had given for it when it was in a good and highly ornamented condition, though he had paid an extravagant price for it. ---

I will add this also, which is very important to the matter. When the commander-in-chief died, though he wished to invest a sum of money, got I know not how, in a farm, he did not so invest it, but he squandered it. I do not very greatly wonder that, hampered as he was by his own folly, he wished to extricate himself how he could. But this I cannot marvel at sufficiently, this I am indignant at, that he strives to remedy his own folly at the expense of his neighbours, and that he endeavoured to pacify his own ill-temper by the injury of Tullius.

There is in that farm a field of two hundred acres, which is called the Popilian field, O judges, which had always belonged to Marcus Tullius, and which even his father had possessed. That new neighbour of his, full of wicked hope, and the more confident because Marcus Tullius was away, began to wish for this field, as it appeared to him to lie very conveniently for him, and to be a convenient addition to his own farm. And at first, because he repented of the whole business and of his purchase, he advertised the farm for sale. But he had had a partner in the purchase, Cnaeus Acerronius a most excellent man. He was at Rome, when on a sudden messengers came to Marcus Tullius from his villa, to say that Publius Fabius had advertised that neighbouring farm of his for sale, offering a much larger quantity of land than he and Cnaeus Acerronius had lately purchased.