[42]
In this trial, you see the question is about violence; you see the question is about armed
men; you see that the demolition of houses, the ravaging of lands, the murders of men, fire,
plunder, and massacre are brought before the court. And do you wonder that those who assigned
this trial thought it sufficient that it should be inquired whether these cruel, and
scandalous, and atrocious actions had been done or not; not whether they had been done rightly
or wrongfully? The praetors, then, have not departed from the Aquilian law which was passed
about damage; but they appointed a very severe course of proceeding in the case of armed men
acting with violence. Not that they thought that no inquiry was ever to be made as to the
right or the wrong; but they did not think it fit that they who preferred to manage their
business by arms rather than by law should argue the question of right and wrong.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
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