Pro A. Caecina

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.

Why, then, in that interdict which is of almost daily occurrence, “whence he drove me by violence,” is this added, “when I was in possession,” if no one can be driven away who is not in possession; or why is not the same addition made to the interdict “about armed men,” if inquiry ought to be made whether a man was the owner or no? You say that no man can be driven away, but one who is the owner. I assert that, if any one be driven away without men being collected and armed, then he who confesses that he has driven him away must gain his cause, if he can show that he was not the owner. You say that a man cannot be driven away unless he is the owner. I prove from this interdict “about armed men,” that he, who can prove that the man who has been driven away was not the owner, still must inevitably lose his cause, if he confesses that he was driven away at all.

Men are driven away in two ways, either without the employment of men collected together and armed, or by means of them, and by violence. There are two separate interdicts for two dissimilar cases. In the first and formal kind of violence, it is not enough for a man to be able to prove that he was driven away, unless he is also able to show that he was driven away when he was in possession. And even that is not enough, unless he can show that he was in possession, having become so neither by violence, nor by underhand practices, nor by having begged the property. Therefore, he who said that he had replaced him is often accustomed to avow loudly that he drove him away by violence; but he adds this, “He was not in possession.” Or again, when he has admitted even this, still he gains his cause if he can prove that the man had obtained possession from him either by violence, or by underhand practices, or by begging for it.