[7] That which was the more important, and on account of which judicial proceedings were most especially instituted, has been long abolished by evil customs. For the more disgraceful a thing is, the more severely and the more promptly ought it to be punished; and yet those things which involve danger to a man's character are the slowest to be punished.
3
How, then, can it be right that the same cause which prompted the institution of legal proceedings, should also cause the delay that exists in coming to a decision? If any one, when he has given security,—when he has bound himself by one word, does not do what he has rendered himself liable to do, then he is condemned by the natural course of justice without any appeal to the severity of the judge. If a man, as a guardian, or as a partner, or as a person in a place of trust, or as any one's agent, has cheated any one, the greater his offence is, the slower is his punishment.
How, then, can it be right that the same cause which prompted the institution of legal proceedings, should also cause the delay that exists in coming to a decision? If any one, when he has given security,—when he has bound himself by one word, does not do what he has rendered himself liable to do, then he is condemned by the natural course of justice without any appeal to the severity of the judge. If a man, as a guardian, or as a partner, or as a person in a place of trust, or as any one's agent, has cheated any one, the greater his offence is, the slower is his punishment.
Pro A. Caecina. M. Tullius Cicero. Charles Duke Yonge (Translator). London. 1856.
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