1But you too understand that these points are trifling; 1let us look at the point we began with, than which no surer proof of hatred can possibly be found. 1'The father was thinking of disinheriting his son.' 1I do not ask for what reason; 1I ask how you know; 1and yet you ought to have stated and listed all the reasons, and it was the duty of a conscientious accuser, charging so great a crime, to set out all the son's vices and faults that could have so inflamed the father as to bring him to overcome nature itself, to cast out of his heart that love planted deep within it, and lastly that he was a father 1to make him forget; 1and these things, I believe, could not have happened without great faults on this man's part.
54But I grant you leave to pass over those things which, by keeping silent, you concede do not exist; 54this at least, that he wished to disinherit him, you certainly ought to make plain. 54What, then, do you bring forward to make us think that this was so? 54Truthfully you can say nothing; 54at least invent something plausible, so that you may not plainly seem to be doing what you are openly doing: making sport of this poor man's fortunes and of the standing of these distinguished men. 54He wanted to disinherit his son. 54For what reason? 54'I don't know.' 54Did he disinherit? 54'No.' Who prevented him? 54'He intended to.' 54He intended to?
54whom did he tell? 54'No one.' 54What is this but to abuse the court, the laws and your majesty for gain and for caprice: to accuse in this way, and to allege what you not only cannot make plain but do not even try to? 55There is not one of us, Erucius, who does not know that you have no quarrel with Sextus Roscius; 55everyone sees for what reason you come here as his enemy; 55they know that you were brought here by this man's money. What of it, then? 55Even so, your greed for gain ought to have been such that you thought the good opinion of these men and the Remmian law ought to count for something.