Pro A. Caecina

Yes, and when there is a trial about arms, then urge all these arguments; but when there is a trial about law and justice, do not take shelter in such tame and meager evasions. For you will not find any judge or recuperator who will decide on a man's being armed as if it were his duty to inspect the arms of a trooper; but it will have just the same weight in his mind as if they were most completely armed, if they are found to have been equipped in such a manner as to be able to do violence to life or limb.

And, that you may more clearly understand of how small value words are,—if you by yourself, or if any one person had made an onset on me with shield and sword, and I had been driven away by these means, would you venture to say that the interdict spoke of armed men, but that in this case there had only been one armed man? I do not believe you would be so impudent. And yet see if you are not far more impudent now. For then, indeed, you might implore the assistance of all men, because men, in deciding on your case, were forgetting the native language; because unarmed men were being decided to be armed; because though an interdict had been framed expressly about many men, the deed had been done by one man only—one man was being decided to be many men.

But in causes like this words are not brought before the court, but that fact on account of which these words have been introduced into the interdict. Our legislators intended that restitution should be made, without exception, in every case in which violence had been offered, threatening life or limb. That generally takes place by the agency of men collected together and armed; but though the operation be different, still, if the danger is the same, the case is the same; and then they intended that the law should be the same. For the injury is not greater if inflicted by your household than if inflicted by your steward; nor if it was your own slaves who wrought it, is it greater than if the slaves of others, or people hired on purpose, had done so. It is no worse if your agent did it, than if your neighbor or your freedman was the person; nor if it was the work of men collected together on purpose, than if it was the deed of men who offered themselves voluntarily, or of your regular day-labourers. It is not a more serious injury if inflicted by armed men, than by unarmed men who had as much power to injure as if they had been armed; nor if it were caused by many, than if it were the work of one single armed man. For the facts are in an interdict expressed by the circumstances under which violence usually takes place. If the same violence has been committed under other circumstances, although it may not be comprehended in the strict language of the interdict, it still comes under the meaning and intention, and authority of the law.

I now come to that argument of yours, “I did not drive him away, if I never allowed him to approach.” I think that you yourself, O Piso, perceive how much narrower and how much more unreasonable that defence is, than if you were even to employ that other one, “They were not armed,— they had only bludgeons and stones.” If, in truth, the option were given to me, who do not profess to be a very fluent speaker, which argument I would prefer advancing in defence, either that a man had not been driven away who had been met on his entrance with violence and arms, or, that those men were not armed, who had neither swords nor shields; as far as proving my case goes, I should consider both the positions equally trifling and worthless; but as for making a speech about them, I think that I might find some arguments to make it appear that those men were not armed who had no shield nor any description of iron weapon; but I should be wholly at a loss if I had to maintain that a man who had been repulsed and put to flight had not been driven away.