[45]
But all this is common enough, and there is plenty of precedent for it in transactions of
our ancestors' time; that, when people came to assert their rights by force, if either party
beheld armed men ever so far off, they should at once depart, having called on their
companions to bear witness to the fact; and then they had a right to proceed to trial, and to
require the securities to be given according to the following formula:—“If
no violence had been offered contrary to the edict of the praetor.” Is it so? Is it
enough for proving violence to have been offered, to know that there are armed men; but not
enough for proof, to fall into their hands? Shall the sight of armed men avail to prove
violence, and shall their onset and attack not avail? Shall a man who departs quietly find it
more easy to prove that violence has been offered to him, than a man who has fled from it?
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