M. Tullius Cicero, For Aulus Caecina
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

[80] When I produced many instances, and alleged even the very grounds of all justice, to prove that in many cases all right and the principles of justice and reason were at variance with the words of the written law; and that that had always prevailed most, which had most authority and justice in it; he comforted me, and showed me that in this cause I had no reason for anxiety, for that the actual words in which the securities were drawn up were on my side, if I considered them carefully. “How so?” said I.—“Because,” said he, “undoubtedly Caecina was driven away by armed men with violence from some place or other; if not from the place to which he desired to come, at all events from that place from which he fled.” What then?—“The praetor,” says he, “has enjoined in his interdict that he shall be replaced in that place from which he was driven away, whatever that place may be from which he was driven away. But Aebutius, who confesses that Caecina was driven away from some place or other, must clearly have forfeited his security, since he falsely says that he has replaced him.”