Gaius quinctius raised livestock in gaul. when he died in 83 B.C., his interest in the ranch passed to his brother Publius. So, unfortunately, did his debts and a somewhat problematic relationship with his partner, a man named Sextus Naevius. To make matters worse, Publius Quinctius had no great head for business. He failed to settle the debts he had inherited and then, when the partners proved unable either to maintain or to liquidate the partnership fairly, he and Naevius resorted to a series of legal moves and countermoves, actions and procrastinations, appeals and counterappeals. The situation eventually grew so unsatisfactory that Naevius went to the urban praetor, a certain Burrienus, and won authority to seize the disputed property outright. He did so, leaving the suddenly deprived Quinctius to challenge his action. That proved to be difficult. By 81 there was a new praetor, Cn. Cornelius Dolabella, who refused to reconsider the circumstances of his predecessor's judgment or the legality of his edict. Dolabella instead defined the outstanding issue between the partners in terms both narrow and negative: to claim redress, Quinctius would have to show that his goods had not been seized in accordance with Burrienus' original edict.

The hearing that followed was Cicero's first surviving case, and the record preserves all the marks of a losing proposition. The young advocate – he was then only twenty-six – faced serious obstacles. He was joining a complex affair in medias res: Quinctius' original representative had abandoned the case (3, 34).