Kitap 3
20
About the same time the praetor M. Caelius Rufus, espousing the cause of the debtors, at the beginning of his magistracy placed his tribunal close to the chair of G. Trebonius, the city praetor, and promised to assist anyone who should appeal about the valuation and the payments to be fixed by an arbitrator, in accordance with Caesar’s arrangements when present in Rome. But through the equitable decrees and humanity of Trebonius, who was of opinion that in this crisis law should be administered with clemency and moderation, it happened that none could be found to originate an appeal. For to make the excuse of poverty and to complain either of one’s own calamities or of the calamitous times and to set forth the difficulties of sale is possible for a man of merely ordinary spirit, but for persons who admit their indebtedness to cling to the whole of their possessions, what an audacious, what a shameless spirit does that mark! And thus no one was found to make this demand. And so Caelius proved himself harder to deal with than the very persons whose interests were concerned; and, lest he should seem to have taken up a disgraceful cause to no purpose, his next step was to promulgate a law that the money owed shall be paid without accumulation of interest on that day six years.
