Quintus Caecilius Metellus addresses the praetor.

I regret Caesar, that Cassius Barbula seems to have become a bit disjointed by his loss in court before you recently in defense of my friend Drakus Domitius Cordatus. While he is correct that the Whip is awarded to the driver not the owner, he bases his statements upon assumptions with no basis in fact.

He stated that " Not only would some of those who got prize money in November have their totals reduced, but those in the lower places, who should have finished in the prize money, would have their totals increased." He is assuming that the races would have turned out differently than they did. This is by no means a certainty. Indeed, incorrectly labeling the experience of the drivers does not affect the race, it merely affects the betting.* Based upon this unsupported assumption, Barbula has suggested that the only fair action would be to disqualify the first four teams in the November Races. Again, there is no real reason to do so. A disinterested court appointed arbiter has already gone through the race results and determined that any irregularities were, in his words, minor. As we all know, the privileges of experience are minor, and rarely actually determine victory. That is instead up to the skill of the driver, the whims of Fortune and the gods themselves.

There is no reason to assume the November race results would have been any different than they appeared. Indeed, I may say that any continued desire for action on this should be chalked up to poor sportsmanship on the part of those who have not won recently: a characteristic I would hate to see attributed to either Caius Livius Numidicus or Publius Manlius Torquatus.

I myself spent many months without a win in the races. I did not seek to bring the aedile up on charges. I see no reason why this court should waste anymore of its valuable time on this case.


*I understand that it does affect the race outcomes based on the formula used in the spreadsheet, but we can hardly argue that here in character, can we?