M. Tullius Cicero, For Publius Quinctius
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

I ask these two questions. First of all, on what account Naevius did not complete the business he had undertaken; that is, why he did not sell the goods which he had taken possession of in accordance with the edict: Secondly, why out of so many other creditors no one reinforced his demand; so that you must of necessity confess that neither was any one of them so rash, and that you yourself were unable to persevere in and accomplish that which you had most infamously begun. What if you yourself, O Sextus Naevius, decided that the goods of Publius Quinctius had not been taken possession of according to the edict? I conceive that your evidence, which in a matter which did not concern yourself would be very worthless, ought to be of the greatest weight in an affair of your own when it makes against you. You bought the goods of Sextus Alphenus when Lucius Sulla, the dictator, sold them. You entered Quinctius in your books as the partner in the purchase of these goods.¹ I say no more. Did you enter into a voluntary partnership with that man who had cheated in a partnership to which he had succeeded by inheritance;