1Look now at the rest, gentlemen, so that you may understand that no crime can be imagined with which this man has not defiled himself. 1In lesser matters it is most disgraceful to cheat a partner, and just as disgraceful as that of which I spoke before; 1and not without reason, because the man who has shared his affairs with another thinks he has gained help for himself. 1To whose good faith, then, will he flee for refuge, when he is injured through the good faith of the man to whom he has entrusted himself? 1And those offences most deserve punishment which are hardest to guard against. 1We can keep ourselves covered towards strangers; those closest to us must see many things more openly; 1how can we guard against a partner?
1even if we fear him, we injure the claims of duty. 1Rightly, then, did our ancestors think that the man who had cheated a partner ought not to be counted among good men. 117But Titus Roscius did not cheat a single partner in a money matter — which, though serious, still seems somehow bearable — but nine most honourable men, his partners in the same duty, embassy, office and commission, he led on, deceived, abandoned, handed over to their opponents, and cheated with every kind of fraud and treachery; 117men who could suspect nothing of his wickedness, ought not to have had to fear a partner in their office, did not see his malice, and believed his empty words.
117And so now those most honourable men, because of his trickery, are thought to have been insufficiently cautious and far-sighted; 117while he, who was first a traitor and then a deserter, who first disclosed his partners' plans to their opponents and then entered into partnership with those very opponents, even terrifies and threatens us, decked out with three estates, that is, with the rewards of his crime. 117In a life of this kind, gentlemen, among these many great outrages, you will find this crime too which is the subject of this trial. 118For you ought to inquire in this way: where you see many things done greedily, many audaciously, many dishonestly, many treacherously, there believe that crime too lies hidden among all those outrages.
118And yet this one at least is not hidden at all, for it is so plain and exposed to view that it is not inferred from those crimes which are known to be in him, but rather, if there is perhaps any doubt about one of those, it is proved by this one. 118Well then, I ask, gentlemen? 118does that trainer seem to have retired altogether from the sword by now, or this pupil to yield even a little to his master in skill? 118Their greed is equal, their dishonesty alike, their shamelessness the same, their audacity twin.