[47]
I would not employ so much trouble, so unpopular a course of
legal proceeding, and such a band of favourers of my cause, if I had to make a just
demand; I have got to extort money from one unwilling, and in spite of him; I have got
to tear and squeeze out of a man what he does not owe; Publius Quinctius is to be cast
down from all his fortune; every one who is powerful, or eloquent, or noble, must be
brought into court with me; a force must be put upon truth, threats must be bandied
about, dangers must be threatened; terrors must be brandished before his eyes, that
being cowed and overcome by these things, he may at last yield of his own
accord.” And, in truth, all these things, when I see who are striving against
us, and when I consider the party sitting opposite to me, seem to be impending over, and
to be present to us, and to be impossible to be avoided by any means. But when, O Caius
Aquillius, I bring my eyes and my mind back to you, the greater the labour and zeal with
which all these things are done, the more trifling and powerless do I think them.
Quinctius then owed nothing, as you prove yourself.
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