[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.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. George Bell & Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1891.
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