M. Tullius Cicero, For Rabirius Postumus
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

For this cause is an inquiry, “What has become of the money?” a sort of appendix as it were to an action which has been already decided, and in which a man has been convicted. An action was brought successfully against Aulus Gabinius, and he was condemned in damages; but no securities were given for the payment of them, nor did the people get out of his property a sum sufficient for the payment of those damages. The law is impartial. The Julian law orders that what is deficient should be required of those into whose hands the money, which the man who has been convicted received, came. If this is a new provision in the Julian law,—as there are many clauses of a severer and stricter tendency than those which are found in the ancient laws,— let us also have this new description of tribunal before which to prosecute the inquiry. [9] But if this clause is transferred word for word not only from the Cornelian law but from the Servilian law, which is older still; then, in the name of the immortal gods, what is it that we are doing, O judges? Or what is this new principle of new legal proceedings that we are introducing into the republic? For the ancient mode of proceeding was well known to all of you, and if practice is the best of teachers it ought to be known to me above all men. For I have prosecuted men for extortion and peculation; I have sat as judge; I have conducted inquiries as praetor; I have defended many men; there is no step in such proceedings which can give a man any facility in speaking in which I have not taken a part.

This is what I assert:—that no one ever was put on his trial on the formula, “What had become of that money,” who had not been summoned as a witness on the action for damages. But in the action in this instance, no one was summoned except in consequence of something said by witnesses, or something which appeared in the accounts of private individuals, or in the accounts of the cities. [10] Therefore, when actions were being brought, those men were usually present who had some apprehension about themselves; and then when they were summoned, then, if they thought it advantageous for them, they proceeded at once to contradict what had been said. But if they were afraid of unpopularity, because the facts in question were recent, they answered at some future time; and when they had done this, many of them gained their object.