[89]
Caius Caecilius was the arbitrator of the settlement come to in that case. How noble, how
upright, how conscientious a man! Caius Sextilius was a witness to it, the son of Lurco's
sister—a modest, and consistent, and sensible man. If there was any violence
employed in the business, any fraud, any fear, any trickery, still who compelled any
arrangement to be made at all? who compelled the parties to have recourse to an arbitrator?
What will you say, if all that money was restored to this young man by Lucius Flaccus? if it
was claimed by him? if it was collected for him? and if this was done through the agency of
this Antiochus who is here in court the freedman of this youth's father, and a man most highly
esteemed by the elder Flaccus? Do we not then seem not only to escape from the charge of
covetousness, but even to deserve the credit of very extraordinary liberality? For he gave up
to the young man his relation the whole of their joint inheritance, which by law ought to have
belonged to both of them in equal shares; and he himself touched none of Valeria's property.
What he had resolved to do, being influenced by the young man's amiable character, and not by
the great amount of his patrimony, that he not only did, but did most liberally and
courteously. From which it ought to be understood that he had not taken the money in violation
of the laws, when he was so very liberal in abandoning the inheritance.
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