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

Aebutius is present at the sale—he bids—many purchasers are deterred, some from goodwill to Caesennia, some by the price—the farm is knocked down to Aebutius; Aebutius promises the money to the banker, which piece of evidence that excellent man is using now to prove that the purchase was made for himself. As if we either denied that it had been knocked down to him, or as if there were at the time any one who doubted that it had been bought for Caesennia, when most men actually knew, nearly all had heard, and when even these judges might conjecture, that, as money was due to Caesennia from that inheritance, it was exceedingly advantageous for her that it should be invested in farms; and since those farms which were especially desirable for the woman were being sold, and since he was bidding whom no one wondered to see acting for Caesennia, no one could possibly suspect was buying them for himself. [17] When this purchase had been made, the money was paid by Caesennia; and of this that man thinks that no account can be produced, because he himself has detained her account-books, and because he has the account-books of the banker in which the money is entered as having been paid by him, and credit is given to him for it, as having been received from him; as if it could have been properly done in any other manner. When everything had been settled in thus way, as we are now stating in this defence of ours, Caesennia took possession of the farm and let it; and not long afterwards she married Aulus Caecina. To cut the matter short, the woman died having made a will. She makes Caecina her heir to the extent of twenty-three twenty-fourths of her fortune; of the remaining twenty-fourth she leaves two-thirds to Marcus Fulcinius, a freedman of her first husband, and one-third she leaves to Aebutius. This seventy-second part of her property she meant to be a reward to him for the interest he had taken in her affairs, and for any trouble that they might have caused him. But he thinks that he can make this small fraction a handle for disputing the whole.