Pro P. Quinctio

Meantime Alphenus was fighting every day at Rome with that old gladiator. He had the people indeed on his side, because that fellow never ceased to aim at the head. [*](There is an allusion here to the fights of gladiators, in which the people disapproved of that gladiator who aimed too constantly at the vital parts of his adversary, so as to make the combat short. There is a pun here, caput meaning the head or life of the gladiator, and also the condition of a citizen.) Naevius demanded that the agent should give security for payment on judgment being given. Alphenus says that it is not reasonable for an agent to give security, because the defendant would not be bound to give security if he were present himself. The tribunes are appealed to, and as a positive decision was demanded from them, the matter is terminated on the footing of Sextus Alphenus undertaking that Publius Quinctius should answer to his bail by the thirteenth of September.

Quinctius comes to Rome; he answers to his bail. That fellow, that most energetic man, the seizer of other men's goods, that invader, that robber, for a year and a half asks for nothing, keeps quiet, amuses Quinctius by proposals as long as he can, and at last demands of Cnaeus Dolabella, the praetor, that Quinctius should give security for payment on judgment being given, according to the formula, “Because he demands it of him whose goods he has taken possession of for thirty days, according to the edict of the praetor.” Quinctius made no objection to his ordering him to give security, if his goods had been possessed, in accordance with the praetor's edict. He makes the order; how just a one I do not say—this alone I do say, it was unprecedented: and I would rather not have said even this, since any one could have understood both its characters. He orders Publius Quinctius to give security to Sextus Naevius, to try the point whether his goods had been taken possession of for thirty days, in accordance with the edict of the praetor. The friends who were then with Quinctius objected to this: they showed that a decision ought to be come to as to the fact, so that either each should give security to the other, or else that neither should; that there was no necessity for the character of either being involved in the trial.

Moreover, Quinctius himself cried out that he was unwilling to give security, lest by so doing he should seem to admit that his goods had been taken possession of in accordance with the edict: besides, if he gave a bond in that manner, he should be forced (as has now happened) to speak first in a trial affecting himself capitally. Dolabella (as high-born men are wont to do, who, whether they have begun to act rightly or wrongly, carry either conduct to such a height that no one born in our rank of life can overtake them) perseveres most bravely in committing injustice: he bids him either give security or give a bond; and meantime he orders our advocates, who objected to this, to be removed with great roughness.

Quinctius departs much embarrassed; and no wonder, when so miserable a choice was offered him, and one so unjust, that he must either himself convict himself of a capital offence if he gave security, [*](Because the giving security now would be an admission that he had forfeited his recognizances before; which was liable to be punished with infamia) or open the cause himself in a capital trial if he gave a bond. As in the one case there was no reason why he should pass an unfavourable sentence on himself (for sentence passed by oneself is the hardest sentence of all), but in the other case there was hope of coming before such a man as a judge, as would show him the more favour the more without interest he was, he preferred to give a bond. He did so. He had you, O Caius Aquillius, for the judge; he pleaded according to his bond; in what I have now mid consists the sum and the whole of the present trial.