4.
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.
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