Book 5
10.116
Secondly we may urge that the right to refuse payment could not have been conferred by the victor because he possesses only what he holds, but a right, being incorporeal, cannot be grasped by the hand. i.e. a right can only be transferred by the possessor, not by force or seizure. It is more difficult to discover this principle than, once discovered, to defend it with arguments such as that the position of an heir and a conqueror are fundamentally different, since right passes to the one and property to the other.
10.117
It is further an argument peculiar to the subject matter of the case that the right over a public debt could not have passed to the victor, because the repayment of a sum of money lent by a whole people is due to them all, and as long as any single one of them survives, he is creditor for the whole amount: but the Thebans were never all of them to a man in Alexander's power.
