[76]
But the cause
of the Roman people, the laws of the state, all the property, fortune, and possessions of
every one will again become uncertain and doubtful. This will be established, this will be
settled by your authority; that, if you hereafter have a dispute with any one about ownership,
if you drive him away when he has once entered on his property, you must make restitution; but
if, as he is coming to enter, you meet him with an armed multitude and repel him, put him to
flight, and heat him off while still only on his road, then you shall not make restitution.
Then you will establish this principle as law and justice, that violence can only exist where
there is murder, that it has nothing to do with the intention or the will; that, unless blood
be spilt, there has been no violence offered; that it is wrong to say that a man has been
driven away, who has been prevented from entering; that no man can be driven away except from
a place where he has planted his footsteps.
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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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