Against Verres, Second Hearing, Book II
In C. Verrem Actio Secunda II
Headnote
Book II of the five-book Actio Secunda — “de iurisdictione,” on Verres’s administration of justice in Sicily. The book is built out of the praetor’s set-piece miscarriages: the rigged inheritance suits against Heraclius of Syracuse and Epicrates of Bidis (whose gymnasiarch trainer-favourites of Verres are made to claim the estates); the trial of Sopater of Halicyae — bribed for acquittal, then bribed again by the prosecutor for condemnation, and the money pocketed both ways; and at length the Sthenius affair, the longest single narrative in the Verrines so far, in which Verres turns on his own host at Thermae for refusing to help him strip Scipio’s bronze ornaments of Himera — contrives a charge of forging public records, condemns him in absentia in his prosecutor’s absence, and pursues him to Rome until ten tribunes of the plebs in joint edict (with the young Cicero pleading the case) refuse to hold him barred. The book then enlarges its scale: the auctioning of provincial senatorships, priesthoods, magistracies; the Cephaloedian intercalary month shortened by forty-five days to keep one rival out of an election; the censorship sold city by city from Timarchides’s bedroom; the two million sesterces extorted from the cities under the name of “statues”; and finally the scriptura partnership’s books at Syracuse, where Cicero finds Verres’s name half-erased and a fake “Verrucius” written in over the top — “the Verrine tail, as if dipped in mud, sunk into an erasure.” The praetor stripped Sicilian justice down to the price of a bribe, and the book is the record of the audit.
I must necessarily pass over many things, gentlemen, that I may be able somehow at last to speak about those matters which have been entrusted to my faith. For I have undertaken the case of Sicily; that province has drawn me to this business. Yet, having taken up this burden and received the Sicilian case, I have embraced something somewhat larger in mind. For I have undertaken the case of the whole order; I have undertaken the case of the commonwealth, since I thought that judgement could only be given rightly when not only a dishonest defendant should be brought up, but also a diligent and firm prosecutor should come into court.
multa mihi necessario, iudices, praetermittenda sunt, ut possim aliquo modo aliquando de his rebus quae meae fidei commissae sunt dicere. recepi enim causam Siciliae: ea me ad hoc negotium provincia attraxit. ego tamen hoc onere suscepto et recepta causa Siciliensi amplexus animo sum aliquanto amplius. suscepi enim causam totius ordinis, suscepi causam rei publicae, quod putabam tum denique recte iudicari posse si non modo reus improbus adduceretur, sed etiam diligens ac firmus accusator ad iudicium veniret.
Wherefore I must come the more quickly to the case of Sicily, leaving the rest of his thefts and disgraces aside, that I may be able both to act with my strongest powers and to have time enough for speaking. And before I speak of the misfortunes of Sicily, a few things, it seems to me, must be said about the dignity, antiquity, and usefulness of the province. For while you ought to take diligent thought of all our allies and provinces, especially of Sicily, gentlemen, for many and most just causes. First, because of all foreign nations Sicily was the first to attach herself to the friendship and faith of the Roman people. She was the first of all to be called a "province," which is the ornament of empire. She first taught our ancestors how splendid it is to rule over foreign peoples. Of all alone she has been such in faith and goodwill towards the Roman people that the cities of that island, which had once entered into our friendship, never afterwards revolted; the most distinguished have remained in friendship continuously.
quo mihi maturius ad Siciliae causam veniendum est relictis ceteris eius furtis atque flagitiis, ut et viribus quam integerrimis agere et ad dicendum temporis satis habere possim. atque antequam de incommodis Siciliae dico, pauca mihi videntur esse de provinciae dignitate, vetustate, utilitate dicenda. nam cum omnium sociorum provinciarumque rationem diligenter habere debetis, tum praecipue Siciliae, iudices, plurimis iustissimisque de causis, primum quod omnium nationum exterarum princeps Sicilia se ad amicitiam fidemque populi Romani adplicavit. prima omnium, id quod ornamentum imperi est, provincia est appellata; prima docuit maiores nostros quam praeclarum esset exteris gentibus imperare; sola fuit ea fide benivolentiaque erga populum Romanum ut civitates eius insulae, quae semel in amicitiam nostram venissent, numquam postea deficerent, pleraeque autem et maxime inlustres in amicitia perpetuo manerent.
So our ancestors had the step of empire towards Africa from this province. For the great resources of Carthage would not so easily have fallen, had not that supply of grain and that refuge for our fleets lain open. Wherefore Publius Africanus, when Carthage was destroyed, adorned the cities of the Sicilians with the most beautiful statues and monuments, that he might place the most monuments of victory among those whom he reckoned were most rejoicing in the victory of the Roman people.
itaque maioribus nostris in Africam ex hac provincia gradus imperi factus est; neque enim tam facile opes Carthaginis tantae concidissent nisi illud et rei frumentariae subsidium et receptaculum classibus nostris pateret. quare P. Africanus Carthagine deleta Siculorum urbis signis monumentisque pulcherrimis exornavit, ut, quos victoria populi Romani maxime laetari arbitrabatur, apud eos monumenta victoriae plurima conlocaret.
Finally that very Marcus Marcellus — whose virtue the enemies, whose pity the conquered, whose faith the rest of the Sicilians saw in Sicily — not only consulted for the allies in that war, but even, with the enemies overcome, restrained himself. The most beautiful city of Syracuse — which, while strongly fortified by hand, was also closed by the nature of its position by land and sea — when he had taken it by force and counsel, he not only allowed it to be safe, but left it so adorned that it would be at the same time a monument of victory, gentleness, and self-restraint, when men saw both what he had stormed, and whom he had spared, and what he had left. So great honour did he think should be paid to Sicily, that he thought even an enemy city ought not to be removed from an island of allies.
denique ille ipse M. Marcellus, cuius in Sicilia virtutem hostes, misericordiam victi, fidem ceteri Siculi perspexerunt, non solum sociis in eo bello consuluit, verum etiam superatis hostibus temperavit. Vrbem pulcherrimam Syracusas, —quae cum manu munitissima esset, tum loci natura terra ac mari clauderetur,—cum vi consilioque cepisset, non solum incolumem passus est esse, sed ita reliquit ornatam ut esset idem monumentum victoriae, mansuetudinis, continentiae, cum homines viderent et quid expugnasset et quibus pepercisset et quae reliquisset: tantum ille honorem habendum Siciliae putavit ut ne hostium quidem urbem ex sociorum insula tollendam arbitraretur.
So we have always so used that province for every purpose, that whatever it could bring forth from itself we considered not to be born among us, but already laid up in our home. When did it not give us what it owed at the proper day? When did it not promise of itself what it judged was needed? When did it refuse what was commanded? So that wise Marcus Cato called Sicily "the storehouse of our commonwealth, the nurse of the Roman commons." We indeed have experienced, in the greatest and most difficult Italian war, that Sicily was for us not as a storehouse, but as that ancient and well-stocked treasury of our ancestors. For without any expense to ourselves, by supplying hides, tunics, and grain, she clothed, fed, and armed our largest armies.
itaque ad omnis res sic illa provincia semper usi sumus ut, quicquid ex sese posset efferre, id non apud nos nasci, sed domi nostrae conditum iam putaremus. deberet non ad diem dedit? quando id quod opus esse putaret non ultro pollicita est? quando id quod imperaretur recusavit? itaque ille M. Cato sapiens cellam penariam rei publicae nostrae, nutricem plebis Romanae Siciliam nominabat. nos vero experti sumus Italico maximo difficillimoque bello Siciliam nobis non pro penaria cella, sed pro aerario illo maiorum vetere ac referto fuisse; nam sine ullo sumptu nostro, coriis, tunicis, frumentoque suppeditando, maximos exercitus nostros vestivit, aluit, armavit.
What of those things which perhaps we do not even feel, gentlemen — how great they are! That we have so many wealthier citizens, because they have a near, faithful, and profitable province where they easily run, where they gladly do business; whom Sicily in part dismisses with profit and gain by furnishing wares, in part keeps, that they may freely plough, pasture, do business, and finally place their seat and dwelling. Which is no small advantage to the commonwealth: that so great a number of citizens are kept so close to home in such good and fruitful matters.
quid? illa quae forsitan ne sentiamus quidem, iudices, quanta sunt! quod multis locupletioribus civibus utimur, quod habent propinquam fidelem fructuosamque provinciam, quo facile excurrant, ubi libenter negotium gerant; quos illa partim mercibus suppeditandis cum quaestu compendioque dimittit, partim retinet, ut arare, ut pascere, ut negotiari libeat, ut denique sedes ac domicilium conlocare; quod commodum non mediocre rei publicae est, tantum civium numerum tam prope a domo tam bonis fructuosisque rebus detineri.
And since our taxes and provinces are as it were certain estates of the Roman people, just as you take greatest delight in your nearby estates, so the Roman people delights in the suburb-like nearness of this province. Now indeed the patience, virtue, and frugality of the men themselves is such, gentlemen, that they seem closest to that ancient discipline of ours, not to this which has now grown common: nothing like the rest of the Greeks, no idleness, no luxury; on the contrary the highest labour in public and private affairs, the highest thrift, the highest diligence. So they love our men that they alone find neither publican nor businessman hateful.
et quoniam quasi quaedam praedia populi Romani sunt vectigalia nostra atque provinciae, quem ad modum vos propinquis vestris praediis maxime delectamini, sic populo Romano iucunda suburbanitas est huiusce provinciae. iam vero hominum ipsorum, iudices, ea patientia virtus frugalitasque est ut proxime ad nostram disciplinam illam veterem, non ad hanc quae nunc increbruit videantur accedere: nihil ceterorum simile Graecorum, nulla desidia, nulla luxuries, contra summus labor in publicis privatisque rebus, summa parsimonia, summa diligentia. sic porro nostros homines diligunt ut iis solis neque publicanus neque negotiator odio sit.
The wrongs of our magistrates they have so endured for many that they never before this time fled by public counsel to the altar of laws and your protection — although they had borne even that year which had so afflicted them that they could not be safe, unless Gaius Marcellus had come almost as by some fate, that twice from the same family the safety of Sicily should be established; and after that they had felt the unlimited command of Marcus Antonius. So they had received from their ancestors that the kindnesses of the Roman people towards the Sicilians were so great that they thought even the wrongs of our men ought to be borne.
magistratuum autem nostrorum iniurias ita multorum tulerunt ut numquam ante hoc tempus ad aram legum praesidiumque vestrum publico consilio confugerint, tametsi et illum annum pertulerant qui sic eos adflixerat ut salvi esse non possent, nisi C. Marcellus quasi aliquo fato venisset, ut bis ex eadem familia salus Siciliae constitueretur, et post M. Antoni infinitum illud imperium senserant. sic a maioribus suis acceperant, tanta populi Romani in Siculos esse beneficia ut etiam iniurias nostrorum hominum perferendas putarent.
The cities have given testimony in public against no man before this. They would have endured even this man, had he offended in a human manner, in customary fashion, finally in some one kind. But when they could not bear the luxury, the cruelty, the greed, the arrogance — when they had lost all their advantages, rights, and benefits from the senate and Roman people through the crime and lust of one man — they decided either to avenge his wrongs through you and pursue them, or, if they seemed unworthy to you for whom you should bring help and aid, to leave their cities and seats, since now, harassed by his wrongs, they had already left their fields.
in neminem civitates ante hunc testimonium publice dixerunt; hunc denique ipsum pertulissent, si humano modo, si usitato more, si denique uno aliquo in genere peccasset. sed cum perferre non possent luxuriem, crudelitatem, avaritiam, superbiam, cum omnia sua commoda, iura, beneficia senatus populique Romani unius scelere ac libidine perdidissent, hoc statuerunt, aut illius iniurias per vos ulcisci ac persequi, aut, si vobis indigni essent visi quibus opem auxiliumque ferretis, urbis ac sedes suas relinquere, quandoquidem agros iam ante istius iniuriis exagitati reliquissent.
With this plan they sought from Lucius Metellus by entire embassies that he succeed Verres as soon as possible. With this mind they so often before their patrons lamented their miseries. Moved by this grief, they laid before the consuls demands, which seemed to be not demands but charges against him. They even brought it about that I — whose faith and self-restraint they had known — almost from the state of my life, by their grief and tears, they led to prosecute the man, from whom my method and will was furthest removed; although in this case I seem to have undertaken many more parts of defence than of prosecution.
hoc consilio ab L. Metello legationes universae petiverunt ut quam primum isti succederet, hoc animo totiens apud patronos de suis miseriis deplorarunt, hoc commoti dolore postulata consulibus, quae non postulata sed in istum crimina viderentur esse, ediderunt. fecerunt etiam ut me, cuius fidem continentiamque cognorant, prope de vitae meae statu dolore ac lacrimis suis deducerent ut ego istum accusarem, a quo mea longissime ratio voluntasque abhorrebat; quamquam in hac causa multo pluris partis mihi defensionis quam accusationis suscepisse videor.
Finally from the whole province the most noble men and chief came publicly and privately. Each gravest and amplest city most vehemently pursued its wrongs. But how, gentlemen, did they come? For I seem to myself now that I ought to speak more freely before you for the Sicilians than perhaps they themselves wish: I shall consult their safety rather than their will. Do you think any defendant in any province has ever, in absence, been defended by such great resources, such great greed, against the inquiry of the prosecutor? The quaestors of both provinces who had served under Verres met me with their fasces.
postremo ex tota provincia homines nobilissimi primique publice privatimque venerunt, gravissima atque amplissima quaeque civitas vehementissime suas iniurias persecuta est. at quem ad modum, iudices, venerunt? videor enim mihi iam liberius apud vos pro Siculis loqui debere quam forsitan ipsi velint: saluti potius eorum consulam quam voluntati. ecquem existimatis umquam ulla in provincia reum absentem1 contra inquisitionem accusatoris tantis opibus, tanta cupiditate esse defensum? quaestores utriusque provinciae qui isto praetore fuerant cum fascibus mihi praesto fuerunt:
Their successors, vehemently devoted to him, generously treated from his provisions, were no less keen against me. See what he could do, who had four most zealous defenders and champions in one province as quaestors — but the praetor and his whole staff so zealous that it was easily plain that not so much was Sicily that province (which they had found empty), as Verres himself, who had departed full. They threatened the Sicilians if they decreed embassies against him, threatened those who had set out, generously promised others if they would praise him, kept by force and guards the gravest witnesses of private affairs, whom we had subpoenaed in their presence.
his porro qui successerunt, vehementer istius cupidi, liberaliter ex istius cibariis tractati, non minus acres contra me fuerunt. videte quid potuerit qui quattuor in una provincia quaestores studiosissimos defensores propugnatoresque habuerit, praetorem vero cohortemque totam sic studiosam ut facile appareret non tam illis Siciliam, quam inanem offenderant, quam Verrem ipsum, qui plenus decesserat, provinciam fuisse. minari Siculis si decrevissent legationes quae contra istum dicerent, minari si qui essent profecti, aliis si laudarent benignissime promittere, gravissimos privatarum rerum testis, quibus nos praesentibus denuntiavimus, eos vi custodiisque retinere.
When all these things had been done, yet know that there was only one city, the Mamertine, which sent embassies publicly to praise him. The chief man of that embassy, the most noble citizen of the city, Gaius Heius, you heard speak under oath: that a very large cargo ship was built for Verres at Messana publicly with forced labour. And the same Mamertine envoy, his praiser, said that Verres had taken not only his goods but even the sacred things and household gods handed down from his ancestors out of his house. Splendid praise, when in two matters the work of envoys is consumed at the same time — in praising and in demanding back! And by what reason that very city is friendly to him, will be told in its proper place. For you will find that the very causes of the Mamertines’ goodwill towards him are sufficient causes for his condemnation. No other city, gentlemen, praises him by public counsel.
quae cum omnia facta sint, tamen unam solam scitote esse civitatem Mamertinam quae publice legatos, qui istum laudarent, miserit. eius autem legationis principem, civitatis nobilissimum civem, C. Heium, iuratum dicere audistis isti navem onerariam maximam Messanae esse publice coactis operis aedificatam; idemque Mamertinorum legatus, istius laudator, non solum istum bona sua, verum etiam sacra deosque penatis a maioribus traditos ex aedibus suis eripuisse dixit. praeclara laudatio, cum duabus in rebus legatorum una opera consumitur, in laudando atque repetendo! atque ea ipsa civitas qua ratione isti amica sit, dicetur certo loco; reperietis enim, quae causae benivolentiae Mamertinis erga istum sint, eas ipsas causas satis iustas esse damnationis. Alia civitas nulla, iudices, publico consilio laudat.
The force of the highest command had power among very few men — not cities — to such an extent that either the most worthless from the most wretched and most deserted towns were found who set out without the order of people or senate, or those who had been decreed as envoys against Verres, and had received public testimony and instructions, were kept back by force and fear. Which I have not unwillingly seen happen in a few cases, by which the rest of so many and such great and weighty cities — finally all Sicily — might have more authority with you, when you saw that no force could keep them back, no danger could prevent them from trying whether their complaints have any weight with you, of the most ancient and most faithful allies.
vis illa summi imperi tantum potuit apud perpaucos homines, non civitates, ut aut levissimi quidam ex miserrimis desertissimisque oppidis invenirentur qui iniussu populi ac senatus proficiscerentur, aut ii qui contra istum legati decreti erant, et testimonium publicum mandataque acceperant, vi ac metu retinerentur. quod ego in paucis tamen usu venisse non moleste tuli, quo reliquae tot et tantae et tam graves civitates, tota denique Sicilia plus auctoritatis apud vos haberet, cum videretis nulla vi retineri, nullo periculo prohiberi potuisse quo minus experirentur ecquid apud vos querimoniae valerent antiquissimorum fidelissimorumque sociorum.
For what perhaps not a few of you have heard — that he is being praised publicly by the Syracusans — although in the previous hearing, from the testimony of Heraclius the Syracusan, you learned what kind that thing is, yet in another place I will show how the whole matter stands as far as that city is concerned. For you will understand that no men have anyone in such hatred as the Syracusans have and have had Verres. "But the Sicilians alone pursue him: the Roman citizens who do business in Sicily defend, love, wish him to be safe." First, if it were so, yet you in this inquiry on extortion, which has been established for the cause of allies by an allied law and trial, ought to hear the complaints of the allies.
nam quod fortasse non nemo vestrum audierit, istum a Syracusanis publice laudari, id tametsi priore actione ex Heraclii Syracusani testimonio cuius modi esset cognovistis, tamen vobis alio loco ut se tota res habeat, quod ad eam civitatem attineat, demonstrabitur. intellegetis enim nullis hominibus quemquam tanto odio quanto istum Syracusanis et esse et fuisse. at enim istum Siculi soli persequuntur: cives Romani qui negotiantur in Sicilia defendunt, diligunt, salvum esse cupiunt. primum, si ita esset, tamen vos in hac quaestione de pecuniis repetundis, quae sociorum causa constituta est lege iudicioque sociali, sociorum querimonias audire oporteret.
But you could understand in the previous hearing that the most honourable Roman citizens from Sicily, on very many and the greatest matters — both wrongs they themselves had received and those they knew had been done to others — were giving testimony. I confirm what I understand, gentlemen, thus. I seem to myself to have done a pleasing thing to the Sicilians, that I have pursued their wrongs by my labour, my enmities, my danger. No less pleasing have I done, I understand, for our citizens, who think that the safety of their right, of their freedom, of their affairs and fortunes consists in his condemnation.
sed intellegere potuistis priore actione civis Romanos honestissimos ex Sicilia plurimis maximisque de rebus, et quas ipsi accepissent iniurias et quas scirent esse aliis factas, pro testimonio dicere. ego hoc quod intellego, iudices, sic confirmo. videor mihi gratum fecisse Siculis quod eorum iniurias meo labore, inimicitiis, periculo sim persecutus: non minus hoc gratum me nostris civibus intellego fecisse, qui hoc existimant, iuris libertatis rerum fortunarumque suarum salutem in istius damnatione consistere.
Wherefore concerning his Sicilian praetorship I do not refuse but you so hear me that, if to any kind of men — whether of the Sicilians or of our citizens — if to any order, whether of farmers or of cattle-men or of merchants, he has been approved; if he has not been the common enemy and brigand of all of these; finally if he has spared anyone in any matter, that you also spare him. Who, as soon as Sicily fell to him by lot as a province, immediately at Rome, before he set out from the city, began to inquire and discuss with his men by what means he could in that province make the most money in one year. He did not wish to learn in the doing — although he was not raw and a recruit in the matter of provinces. He wished to come into Sicily prepared for plunder and meditated.
quapropter de istius praetura Siciliensi non recuso quin ita me audiatis ut, si cuiquam generi hominum sive Siculorum sive nostrorum civium, si cuiquam ordini sive aratorum sive pecuariorum sive mercatorum probatus sit, si non horum omnium communis hostis praedoque fuerit, si cuiquam denique in re umquam ulla temperarit, ut vos quoque ei temperetis. qui simul atque ei sorte provincia Sicilia obvenit, statim Romae, ab urbe antequam proficisceretur, quaerere ipse secum et agitare cum suis coepit quibusnam rebus in ea provincia maximam uno anno pecuniam facere posset. nolebat in agendo discere,—tametsi non provinciae rudis erat et tiro: sed Siciliae paratus ad praedam meditatusque venire cupiebat.
Splendid the omen of common talk and rumour cast forth by the multitude into that province, when from this man’s name they most ridiculously divined what he would do in the province! For who could doubt — when he recalled his flight and theft in the quaestorship, when he thought of the plunderings of towns and shrines in the legateship, when he saw the brigandages of the city praetorship in the Forum — what kind of man he would be in the fourth act of his dishonesty? And, that you may understand he had sought at Rome not only kinds of stealing but also definite names, hear an argument by which you may more easily judge of his singular shamelessness.
O praeclare coniectum a vulgo in illam provinciam omen communis famae atque sermonis, cum ex nomine istius quid iste in provincia facturus esset perridicule homines augurabantur! etenim quis dubitare posset, cum istius in quaestura fugam et furtum recognosceret, cum in legatione oppidorum fanorumque spoliationes cogitaret, cum videret in foro latrocinia praeturae, qualis iste in quarto actu improbitatis futurus esset? atque ut intellegatis eum Romae quaesisse non modo genera furandi, sed etiam nomina certissima, accipite argumentum quo facilius de singulari eius impudentia existimare possitis.
On the day he touched Sicily — see whether he came sufficiently prepared by that urban omen for sweeping out the province — immediately he sends letters from Messana to Halaesa (which I think he wrote in Italy, for as soon as he stepped from the ship he gave them): that Dio of Halaesa should come to him at once; that he wished to take cognizance of an inheritance which had come to his son from a kinsman, Apollodorus Laphiro.
quo die Siciliam attigit—videte satisne paratus ex illo omine urbano ad everrendam provinciam venerit,—statim Messana litteras Halaesam mittit (quas ego istum in Italia conscripsisse arbitror; nam simul atque e navi egressus est dedit ), Halaesinus ad se Dio continuo veniret; se de hereditate velle cognoscere quae eius filio a propinquo homine, Apollodoro Laphirone, venisset.
It was, gentlemen, a very great sum of money. This Dio, gentlemen, is the man now made Roman citizen by the kindness of Quintus Metellus, of whom by many leading witnesses and by the books of many you were satisfied in the previous hearing: that one million sesterces was counted out so that, with Verres taking cognizance, he might prevail in a case in which there could not be the slightest doubt. Besides, herds of the noblest mares were driven away; what silver and bedclothes were in his house were plundered. So Quintus Dion lost one million sesterces, on no other account than that an inheritance had come to him.
ea erat, iudices, pergrandis pecunia. hic est Dio, iudices, nunc beneficio Q. Metelli civis Romanus factus; de quo multis viris primariis testibus multorumque tabulis vobis priore actione satis factum est, HS deciens numerata esse ut eam causam, in qua ne tenuissima quidem dubitatio posset esse, isto cognoscente obtineret; praeterea greges nobilissimarum equarum abactos, argenti vestisque stragulae domi quod fuerit esse direptum; ita HS deciens Q. Dionem, quod hereditas ei venisset, nullam aliam ob causam perdidisse.
What of it? Under what praetor had this inheritance come to Dion’s son? Under the same as Annia, daughter of the senator Publius Annius; under the same as the senator Marcus Ligus — under the praetor Gaius Sacerdos. What of it? Did no one then trouble Dio? No more than Ligus under Sacerdos as praetor. What of it? Then who reported to Verres? No one — unless you suppose that the four-time informers had been waiting at the strait. When he was at Rome, he heard that a very great inheritance had come to a certain Sicilian Dio. The heir was ordered to set up statues in the forum; if he did not set them up, his hereditas was forfeit to Erucine Venus. Although they had been set up by the will, he supposed, since the name of Venus was in it, that he would find a cause for malicious prosecution.
quid? haec hereditas quo praetore Dionis filio venerat? eodem quo Anniae, P. Anni senatoris filiae, eodem quo M. Liguri senatori, C. Sacerdote praetore. quid? tum nemo molestus Dioni fuerat? non plus quam Liguri Sacerdote praetore. quid? tum ad Verrem quis detulit? nemo; nisi forte existimatis ei quadruplatores ad fretum praesto fuisse. ad urbem cum esset, audivit Dioni cuidam Siculo permagnam venisse hereditatem; heredem statuas iussum esse in foro ponere; nisi posuisset, Veneri Erycinae esse multatum. tametsi positae essent ex testamento, tamen putabat, quoniam Veneris nomen esset, causam calumniae se reperturum.
So he sets up someone to claim that inheritance for Erucine Venus. For not the quaestor claims it, as is the custom, who held Eryx mountain. A certain Naevius Turpio claims it — this man’s runner and emissary, the worst of all the four-time informers from that conventus, condemned for wrong-doing under Gaius Sacerdos as praetor. For the case was such that the praetor himself, although he was looking for a malicious prosecutor, could not find a more thoughtful one. He acquits this man for Venus, condemns him for himself. He preferred, of course, that men should sin rather than the gods: that he should rather take from Dio what was not allowed than that Venus should take what was not owed.
itaque adponit qui petat Veneri Erycinae illam hereditatem. non enim quaestor petit, ut est consuetudo, is qui Erycum montem obtinebat: petit Naevius Turpio quidam, istius excursor et emissarius, homo omnium ex illo conventu quadruplatorum deterrimus, C. Sacerdote praetore condemnatus iniuriarum; etenim erat eius modi causa ut ipse praetor, cum quaereret calumniatorem, paulo tamen consideratiorem reperire non posset. hunc hominem Veneri absolvit, sibi condemnat. maluit videlicet homines peccare quam deos: se potius a Dione quod non licebat, quam venerem quod non debebatur auferre.
Why should I now read the testimony of Sextus Pompeius Chlorus, who pleaded Dio’s case, who was present at all matters — a most honourable man, although a Roman citizen for his virtue’s sake long since, yet first and most noble of all the Sicilians? What of Quintus Caecilius Dion himself, a man most approved and most modest? What of Lucius Caecilius, of Lucius Ligus, of Titus Manilius, of Lucius Calenus — by all of whose testimonies the matter of Dion’s money has been confirmed? Marcus Lucullus said the same thing: that he had already known these wrongs of Dion, by reason of the hospitality which he had with him.
quid ego hic nunc Sex. Pompei Chlori testimonium recitem, qui causam Dionis egit, qui omnibus rebus interfuit, hominis honestissimi, tametsi civis Romanus virtutis causa iam diu est, tamen omnium Siculorum primi ac nobilissimi? quid ipsius Q. Caecili Dionis, hominis probatissimi ac pudentissimi? quid L. Caecili, L. Liguris, T. Manili, L. Caleni? quorum omnium testimoniis de hac Dionis pecunia confirmatum est. dixit hoc idem M. Lucullus, se de his Dionis incommodis pro hospitio quod sibi cum eo esset iam ante cognosse.
What? Has Lucullus, who was then in Macedonia, learned these things better than you, Hortensius, who were at Rome — to whom Dio fled, who about Dion’s wrongs most gravely complained by letters with Verres? Are these things new to you? Unforeseen? Now first do your ears receive this charge? Have you heard nothing from Dio, nothing from your mother-in-law Servilia, that leading lady, the old hostess of Dio? Do not many of my witnesses say what you yourself know? Did not the legal exception, not this man’s innocence, snatch you from being a witness for me on this charge? Read: "Testimonies of Lucullus, Chlorus, Dion." Does the Venus-man not seem to you to have sought a great enough sum of money under Venus’s name — a man who had set out for the province from Chelidon’s lap?
quid? Lucullus, qui tum in Macedonia fuit, melius haec cognovit quam tu, Hortensi, qui Romae fuisti, ad quem Dio confugit, qui de Dionis iniuriis gravissime per litteras cum Verre questus es? nova tibi haec sunt? inopinata? nunc primum hoc aures tuae crimen accipiunt? nihil ex Dione, nihil ex socru tua, femina primaria, Servilia, vetere Dionis hospita, audisti? nonne multa mei testes quae tu scis nesciunt? nonne te mihi testem in hoc crimine eripuit non istius innocentia, sed legis exceptio? recita. TESTIMONIA LVCVLLI, CHLORI, DIONIS. satisne vobis magnam pecuniam Venerius homo, qui e Chelidonis sinu in provinciam profectus esset, Veneris nomine quaesisse videtur?
Hear another no less shameless malicious prosecution in a smaller sum. Sosippus and Philocrates are brothers of Agyrium. Their father died twenty-two years ago. In whose will, in a certain place, if anything were forfeit, there was a fine to Venus. In the very twentieth year, when so many praetors, so many quaestors, so many malicious prosecutors had in the meantime been in the province, the inheritance was demanded from these men in Venus’s name. Verres takes cognizance of the case, receives money through Volcatius, near 400,000 sesterces, from the two brothers. You have heard the testimonies of many before. The Agyrium brothers won — in such a way that they departed empty and destitute.
accipite aliam in minore pecunia non minus impudentem calumniam. Sosippus et Philocrates fratres sunt Agyrinenses. Horum pater abhinc duo et xx annos est mortuus; in cuius testamento, quodam loco si commissum quid esset, multa erat Veneri. ipso vicensimo anno, cum tot interea praetores, tot quaestores, tot calumniatores in provincia fuissent, hereditas ab his Veneris nomine petita est. causam Verres cognoscit, pecuniam per Volcatium accipit, fere ad HS cccc milia, a duobus fratribus. multorum testimonia audistis antea. vicerunt Agyrinenses fratres ita ut egentes inanesque discederent.
"But that money did not reach Verres." What kind of defence is this? Is it asserted in this matter, or attempted? For the matter is novel to me. Verres set up the malicious prosecutor; Verres ordered him to be present; Verres took cognizance; Verres gave judgement. The greatest sums of money were given. Those who gave prevailed in their cases. Will you defend yourself to me thus: "That money was not counted out to Verres"? I help you. My witnesses say the same: they say they gave to Volcatius. What such great force was in Volcatius that he could take 400,000 sesterces from two men? Would anyone, if Volcatius had come of his own accord, have given him a single half-as? Let him come now, let him try; no one will receive him under his roof. But I say more: I charge you with having taken forty million sesterces against the laws; I deny that any one penny was counted out to you yourself. But when on account of your decrees, on account of your edicts, on account of your commands, on account of your judgements, money was given, it was not to be asked by whose hand it was counted, but by whose wrong it was extorted.
at enim ad Verrem pecunia ista non pervenit. quae ista defensio est? utrum adseveratur in hoc an temptatur? mihi enim res nova est. Verres calumniatorem adponebat, Verres adesse iubebat, Verres cognoscebat, Verres iudicabat; pecuniae maximae dabantur; qui dabant causas obtinebant. tu mihi ita defendas, ’ non est ista Verri numerata pecunia?’ adiuvo te; mei quoque testes idem dicunt; Volcatio dicunt sese dedisse. quae vis erat in Volcatio tanta ut HS cccc milia duobus hominibus auferret? ecquis Volcatio, si sua sponte venisset, unam libellam dedisset? veniat nunc, experiatur: tecto recipiet nemo. at ego amplius dico: HS quadringentiens cepisse te arguo contra leges; nego tibi ipsi ullum nummum esse numeratum; sed cum ob tua decreta, ob edicta, ob imperia, ob iudicia pecuniae dabantur, non erat quaerendum cuius manu numerarentur, sed cuius iniuria cogerentur.
Those chosen companions of yours were your hands. The prefects, the secretaries, the assistants, the doctors, the haruspices, the criers were your hands. The closer each was to you by kinship, by marriage, by some bond, the more he was thought your hand. That whole staff, which gave more evil to Sicily than if a hundred companies of fugitives had been there, was without controversy your hand. Whatever was taken by anyone of these, it must be judged not only given to you but counted out by your own hand. For if you approve this defence: "He did not himself receive it" — you may abolish all trials on extortion. No defendant will ever be brought up so guilty that he cannot use this defence. For when Verres uses it, what defendant will ever afterwards be so ruined that he is not referred to the innocence of Quintus Mucius, if compared with him? Nor do they now seem so much to defend Verres, as in Verres to test the method of defence.
comites illi tui delecti manus erant tuae; praefecti, scribae, accensi, medici, haruspices, praecones manus erant tuae; ut quisque te maxime cognatione adfinitate necessitudine aliqua attingebat, ita maxime manus tua putabatur; cohors tota illa, quae plus mali Siciliae dedit quam si centum cohortes fugitivorum fuissent, tua manus sine controversia fuit. quicquid ab horum quopiam captum est, id non modo tibi datum, sed tua manu numeratum iudicari necesse est. nam si hanc defensionem probabitis, ’ non accepit ipse,’ licet omnia de pecuniis repetundis iudicia tollatis. nemo umquam reus tam nocens adducetur qui ista defensione non possit uti; etenim cum Verres utatur, quis erit umquam posthac reus tam perditus qui non ad Q. innocentiam referatur, si cum isto conferatur? neque nunc tam isti mihi Verrem defendere videntur quam in Verre defensionis temptare rationem.
On which matter, gentlemen, you must take the highest care. This concerns the highest interest of the commonwealth, and the reputation of our order, and the safety of the allies. For if we wish to be reckoned innocent, we must answer not only for ourselves but for our companions. First of all care must be taken that we lead with us those who will look to our reputation and our life. Then, if in choosing men the hope of friendship has deceived us, we should both avenge it and dismiss them, always living in such a way that we judge an account must be rendered. This is from Africanus, that most generous man — but the generosity to be approved is that which is without danger to one’s reputation, as it was in him:
qua de re, iudices, magnopere vobis providendum est: pertinet hoc ad summam rem publicam et ad existimationem ordinis nostri salutemque sociorum. si enim innocentes existimari volumus, non solum nos, sed etiam nostros comites praestare debemus. primum omnium opera danda est ut eos nobiscum educamus qui nostrae famae capitique consulant; deinde, si in hominibus eligendis nos spes amicitiae fefellerit, ut vindicemus, missos faciamus, semper ita vivamus ut rationem reddendam nobis arbitremur. Africani est hoc, hominis liberalissimi—verum tamen ea liberalitas est probanda quae sine periculo existimationis est, ut in illo fuit:
when a certain old hanger-on, of the number of his friends, could not obtain from him that he be led as prefect to Africa, and bore it ill: "Do not wonder," he said, "if you do not obtain this from me. I have long been asking him, whom I judge will hold my reputation dear, to set out as my prefect, and so far I cannot obtain it." For in truth it should be sought much more from men, if we wish to be safe and honourable, that they go with us into the province, than that it be conferred as a kindness. But when you both invited your friends into the province as if into plunder, and with them and through them plundered, and gave them gold rings in public meeting, did you not consider that an account must be rendered by you not only of your own deeds but also of theirs?
cum ab eo quidam vetus adsectator et ex numero amicorum non impetraret uti se praefectum in Africam duceret, et id ferret moleste, ’ noli,’ inquit, ’mirari si tu hoc a me non impetras. ego iam pridem ab eo cui meam existimationem caram fore arbitror peto ut mecum praefectus proficiscatur, et adhuc impetrare non possum.’ etenim re vera multo magis est petendum ab hominibus, si salvi et honesti esse volumus, ut eant nobiscum in provinciam, quam in benefici loco deferendum. sed tu cum et tuos amicos in provinciam quasi in praedam invitabas et cum iis ac per eos praedabare et eos in contione anulis aureis donabas, non statuebas tibi non solum de tuis, sed etiam de illorum factis rationem esse reddendam?
When he had set up these great and rich profits for himself out of those cases which he himself had instituted, with his council — that is, with his staff — to take cognizance of, then he had invented that infinite kind for seizing innumerable money. It is doubtful to no one but that all the money of all is placed in the power of those who give judgement, and of those who judge; that none of you can hold his houses, none his farm, none his ancestral goods, if, when these have been demanded by anyone from any one of you, the dishonest praetor (against whom no one can intervene) gives whomever he wishes as judge, and the worthless and frivolous judge judges what the praetor has bidden.
cum hos sibi quaestus constituisset magnos atque uberes ex his causis quas ipse instituerat cum consilio, hoc est cum sua cohorte, cognoscere, tum illud infinitum genus invenerat ad innumerabilem pecuniam corripiendam. Dubium nemini est quin omnes omnium pecuniae positae sint in eorum potestate qui iudicia dant, et eorum qui iudicant, quin nemo vestrum possit aedis suas, nemo fundum, nemo bona patria obtinere, si, cum haec a quopiam vestrum petita sint, praetor improbus, cui nemo intercedere possit, det quem velit iudicem, iudex nequam et levis quod praetor iusserit iudicet.
If, indeed, this also is added — that the praetor gives judgement in such words that not even Lucius Octavius Balbus as judge, a man most skilled in law and duty, could judge otherwise — if the trial were of such a kind: "Let Lucius Octavius be judge. If it appears that the Capenate farm, concerning which it is at issue, is by the right of the Quirites Publius Servilius’s, and that farm is not restored to Quintus Catulus..." it would not be necessary for Lucius Octavius the judge either to compel Publius Servilius to restore the farm to Quintus Catulus, or to condemn the man whom he ought not. Of this kind was the entire praetorian law, the whole judicial business in Sicily, for three years under Verres as praetor. Decrees of this kind: "If he does not receive what you say is owed, prosecute. If he claims, lead him to court." He ordered Gaius Fuficius the claimant to be led, and Lucius Suettius, Lucius Racilius. Trials of this kind: those who were Roman citizens judged whether men were Sicilians, when Sicilians ought by their laws to be given to others; those who were Sicilians, whether men were Roman citizens.
si vero illud quoque accedit, ut praetor in ea verba iudicium det ut vel L. Octavius Balbus iudex, homo et iuris et offici peritissimus, non possit aliter iudicare, —si iudicium sit eius modi L. OCTAVIVS IVDEX ESTO. SI PARET FVNDUM CAPENATEM, QVO DE AGITVR, EX IVRE QVIRITIVM P. SERVILI ESSE, NEQVE IS FVNDVS Q. CATVLO RESTITVETVR, non necesse erit L. Octavio iudici cogere P. Servilium Q. Catulo fundum restituere, aut condemnare eum quem non oporteat? eius modi totum ius praetorium, omnis res iudiciaria fuit in Sicilia per triennium Verre praetore. decreta eius modi, SI NON ACCIPIT QVOD TE DEBERE DICIS, ACCVSES; SI PETIT, DVCAS: C. Fuficium duci iussit petitorem, L. Suettium, L. Racilium. iudicia eius modi: qui cives Romani erant iudicabant si Siculi essent, cum Siculos eorum legibus dari oporteret, qui Siculi, si cives Romani essent.
But, that you may embrace the whole kind of trials, learn first the rights of the Sicilians, then this man’s institutions. The Sicilians are by this rule: that what a citizen pursues against a citizen, he should contest at home by his own laws; what a Sicilian against a Sicilian not of the same state, that the praetor allots judges by the decree of the ten legates of Publius Rupilius (which he established by the opinion of the ten legates — which they call the lex Rupilia). What a private man claims from a people or a people from a private man, the senate from some city is given to judge, with alternate cities being rejected. What a Roman citizen claims from a Sicilian, a Sicilian judge; what a Sicilian from a Roman citizen, a Roman citizen is given. For other matters chosen judges from the conventus of Roman citizens are usually proposed. Between farmers and tithe-collectors trials are held under the grain law which they call the lex Hieronica.
verum ut totum genus amplectamini iudiciorum, prius iura Siculorum, deinde istius instituta cognoscite. Siculi hoc iure sunt ut, quod civis cum cive agat, domi certet suis legibus, quod Siculus cum Siculo non eiusdem civitatis, ut de eo praetor iudices ex P. Rupili decreto, quod is de decem legatorum sententia statuit, quam illi legem Rupiliam vocant, sortiatur. quod privatus a populo petit aut populus a privato, senatus ex aliqua civitate qui iudicet datur, cum alternae civitates reiectae sunt; quod civis Romanus a Siculo petit, Siculus iudex, quod Siculus a civi Romano, civis Romanus datur; ceterarum rerum selecti iudices ex conventu civium Romanorum proponi solent. inter aratores et decumanos lege frumentaria, quam Hieronicam appellant, iudicia fiunt.
All these things, under this praetor, were not only thrown into confusion but plainly snatched from both Sicilians and Roman citizens. First, their own laws: when a citizen was pursuing a citizen, either he gave whatever judge it suited him — a herald, a haruspex, his own physician — or, if a trial had been established by laws and they had come to a fellow-citizen as judge, the citizen could not freely give judgement. For learn the man’s edict, by which edict he had drawn all trials into his own power: "If anyone judged wrongly, he himself would take cognizance; when he had taken cognizance, he would punish." When he was doing this, no one doubted that — when the judge thought another would judge his own judgement and he himself would come into peril of his life on it — he would look to the will of the man who would judge him on his life on the spot.
haec omnia isto praetore non modo perturbata, sed plane et Siculis et civibus Romanis erepta sunt. primum suae leges: quod civis cum civi ageret, aut eum iudicem quem commodum erat,—praeconem, haruspicem, medicum suum,—dabat, aut si legibus erat iudicium constitutum et ad civem suum iudicem venerant, libere civi iudicare non licebat. edictum enim hominis cognoscite, quo edicto omnia iudicia redegerat in suam potestatem, SI QUI PERPERAM IVDICASSET, SE COGNITVRVM; CVM COGNOSSET, ANIMADVERSVRVM. Idque cum faciebat, nemo dubitabat quin, cum iudex alium de suo iudicio putaret iudicaturum seque in eo capitis periculum aditurum, voluntatem spectaret eius quem statim de capite suo putaret iudicaturum.
No chosen judges from the conventus, none proposed from the businessmen. This abundance, which I am saying, was the staff of judges — not of Quintus Scaevola (who nevertheless was not accustomed to give from his own staff), but of Gaius Verres. Of what kind do you suppose the staff was, of which this man was the chief? If anywhere you see the edict, "If any senate judges wrongly," I shall show that man too, if any one was given as judge, judged what he did not believe by the compulsion of this man. Out of the lex Rupilia no allotment, except when nothing concerned this man. By the lex Hieronica the trials of very many controversies were abolished under one heading. From the conventus and the businessmen no judges. You see what power he had: now learn the matters he conducted.
selecti ex conventu aut propositi ex negotiatoribus iudices nulli: haec copia, quam dico, iudicum cohors non Q. Scaevolae, qui tamen de cohorte sua dare non solebat, sed C. Verris. cuius modi cohortem putatis hoc principe fuisse? sicubi videtis edictum, Sl QVI PERPERAM IVDICARIT SENATVS, eum quoque ostendam, si quando sit datus, coactu istius quod non senserit iudicasse. ex lege Rupilia sortitio nulla, nisi cum nihil intererat istius; lege Hieronica iudicia plurimarum controversiarum sublata uno nomine omnia; de conventu ac negotiatoribus nulli iudices. quantam potestatem habuerit videtis, quas res gesserit cognoscite.
Heraclius, son of Hiero, is a Syracusan, a man among the foremost noble in his own home, and before this praetor probably the wealthiest of the Syracusans, now from no other calamity but this man’s greed and wrong the poorest. To him an inheritance came easily of three million sesterces by the will of his kinsman Heraclius. The house was full of the best chased silver and much bedclothes and precious slaves. In which matters who is ignorant of this man’s greeds and follies? It was talked of: that a great sum had been left to Heraclius; that not only Heraclius would be wealthy but also adorned with furniture, silver, clothing, slaves.
Heraclius est Hieronis filius Syracusanus, homo in primis domi suae nobilis et ante hunc praetorem vel pecuniosissimus Syracusanorum, nunc nulla alia calamitate nisi istius avaritia atque iniuria pauperrimus. huic hereditas ad HS facile triciens venit testamento propinqui sui Heraclii, plena domus caelati argenti optimi multaeque stragulae vestis pretiosorumque mancipiorum; quibus in rebus istius cupiditates et insanias quis ignorat? erat in sermone res, magnam Heraclio pecuniam relictam; non solum Heraclium divitem, sed etiam ornatum supellectile, argento, veste, mancipiis futurum.
Verres also hears this; and at first by that gentler artifice of his he attempts to approach Heraclius, to ask him for things to inspect which he would not return. Then he is admonished by certain Syracusans — these certain ones were Verres’s connections, whose wives Verres never thought belonged to others, Cleomenes and Aeschrio, who you will understand from the rest of the charges how powerful with him they were and on what disgraceful cause. These, as I say, admonish the man that the matter is splendid, packed with everything; but Heraclius himself is a man older in years, not most prompt; that besides the Marcelli, he had no patron whom he could approach or appeal to in his own right; that in that will, by which he had been written as heir, he ought to set up statues in the palaestra. "We shall arrange that the palaestrites say that they have not been set up in accordance with the will, and demand the inheritance, since they say it has been forfeited to the palaestra."
audit haec etiam Verres, et primo illo suo leniore artificio Heraclium adgredi conatur, ut eum roget inspicienda, quae non reddat. deinde a quibusdam Syracusanis admonetur,—hi autem quidam erant adfines istius, quorum iste uxores numquam alienas existimavit, Cleomenes et Aeschrio, qui quantum apud istum et quam turpi de causa potuerint ex reliquis criminibus intellegetis: hi, ut dico, hominem admonent rem esse praeclaram, refertam omnibus rebus, ipsum autem Heraclium hominem esse maiorem natu, non promptissimum; eum praeter Marcellos patronum, quem suo iure adire aut appellare posset, habere neminem; esse in eo testamento quo ille heres esset scriptus, ut statuas in palaestra deberet ponere. ’ faciemus ut palaestritae negent ex testamento esse positas, petant hereditatem, quod eam palaestrae commissam esse dicant.’
The plan pleased Verres. For he so foresaw that, when so great an inheritance came into controversy and was sought in court, it could not be that he himself should depart without plunder. He approves the plan; he is the author that they should begin to act as soon as possible, and attack a man of that age (least litigious) as tumultuously as possible. A suit is laid against Heraclius. At first all wonder at the dishonesty of the malicious prosecution. Then those who knew this man partly suspected, partly plainly saw that an eye had been cast at the inheritance. Meanwhile the day arrived on which Verres had edicted that he would by custom and by the lex Rupilia allot suits at Syracuse. He had come prepared for the allotment of this suit. Then Heraclius shows him that he could not be allotted on that day, because the lex Rupilia forbade a suit to be allotted within thirty days of when it had been written. Thirty days had not yet passed. Heraclius hoped that, if he should escape that day, before the next allotment Quintus Arrius (whom the province was then most eagerly expecting) would have succeeded.
placuit ratio Verri; nam hoc animo providebat, cum tanta hereditas in controversiam venisset iudicioque peteretur, fieri non posse ut sine praeda ipse discederet. adprobat consilium; auctor est ut quam primum agere incipiant, hominemque id aetatis minime litigiosum quam tumultuosissime adoriantur. scribitur Heraclio dica. primo mirantur omnes improbitatem calumniae; deinde qui istum nossent partim suspicabantur, partim plane videbant adiectum esse oculum hereditati. interea dies advenit quo die sese ex instituto ac lege Rupilia dicas sortiturum Syracusis iste edixerat. paratus ad hanc dicam sortiendam venerat. tum eum docet Heraclius non posse eo die sortiri, quod lex Rupilia vetaret diebus xxx sortiri dicam quibus scripta esset. dies xxx nondum fuerant. sperabat Heraclius, si illum diem effugisset, ante alteram sortitionem Q. Arrium, quem provincia tum maxime exspectabat, successurum.
Verres put off the day of all the suits, and fixed that day so that he could allot this suit of Heraclius after thirty days, by the law. After that day came, Verres begins to pretend that he wishes to allot. Heraclius approaches with his advocates and asks that he be allowed to dispute on equal right with the palaestrites, that is, with the Syracusan people. The adversaries demand that judges be given for the matter, chosen from those cities which gathered at that conventus, those who seemed best to Verres. Heraclius on the contrary demands that judges be given by the lex Rupilia, that the institutions of his predecessors, the authority of the senate, the right of all the Sicilians be not departed from.
iste omnibus dicis diem distulit, et eam diem constituit ut hanc Heraclii dicam sortiri post dies triginta ex lege posset. posteaquam ea dies venit, iste incipit simulare se velle sortiri. Heraclius cum advocatis adit et postulat ut sibi cum palaestritis, hoc est cum populo Syracusano, aequo iure disceptare liceat. adversarii postulant ut in eam rem iudices dentur, ex iis civitatibus quae in id forum convenirent electi, qui Verri viderentur: Heraclius contra, ut iudices ex lege Rupilia dentur, ut ab institutis superiorum, ab auctoritate senatus, ab iure omnium Siculorum ne recedatur.
Why should I demonstrate this man’s lust and crimes in giving judgement? Who of you has not learned of his city jurisdiction? Who under this praetor was ever able, with Chelidon unwilling, to bring a lawsuit? The province did not corrupt this man, as it has not no one. He was the same as he had been at Rome. When Heraclius said what all understood — that there is a definite right for the Sicilians on what right they should contest among themselves; that there was a lex Rupilia which the consul Publius Rupilius had given by the opinion of the ten legates; that all consuls and praetors had always preserved this in Sicily — Verres said he would not allot by the lex Rupilia: he gave five judges, those whom he found convenient.
quid ego istius in iure dicundo libidinem et scelera demonstrem? quis vestrum non in urbana iuris dictione cognovit? quis umquam isto praetore Chelidone invita lege agere potuit? non istum, ut non neminem, provincia corrupit; idem fuit qui Romae. cum id quod omnes intellegebant diceret Heraclius, ius esse certum Siculis inter se quo iure certarent, legem esse Rupiliam quam P. Rupilius consul de decem legatorum sententia dedisset, hanc omnis semper in Sicilia consules praetoresque servasse, negavit se e lege Rupilia sortiturum: quinque iudices, quos commodum ipsi fuit, dedit.
What are you to do with this man? What punishment to find worthy of his lust? Although it had been written for you — most worthless and most shameless of men — in what fashion you should give judges among the Sicilians; although the authority of an imperator of the Roman people, the dignity of the ten legates, the most illustrious men, the senatorial decree intervened (by which senatorial decree Publius Rupilius by the opinion of the ten legates had established laws in Sicily); although all before you as praetor had preserved the Rupilian laws both in other matters and especially in trials — did you dare for nothing in face of your plunder to count so many most sacred matters? Was no law to you, no religion, no shame for your reputation, no fear of trial? With you no man’s authority weighty, no precedent which you wished to follow?
quid hoc homine facias? quod supplicium dignum libidine eius invenias? praescriptum tibi cum esset, homo deterrime et impudentissime, quem ad modum iudices inter Siculos dares, cum imperatoris populi Romani auctoritas, legatorum decem, summorum hominum, dignitas, senatus consultum intercederet, quo senatus consulto P. Rupilius de decem legatorum sententia leges in Sicilia constituerat, cum omnes ante te praetorem Rupilias leges et in ceteris rebus et in iudiciis maxime servassent, tu ausus es pro nihilo prae tua praeda tot res sanctissimas ducere? tibi nulla lex fuit, nulla religio, nullus existimationis pudor, nullus iudici metus? nullius apud te gravis auctoritas, nullum exemplum quod sequi velles?
But, as I had begun to say — with five judges given by no law, by no institution, by no rejection, by no allotment, out of his lust, not who would take cognizance of the cause but who would judge what had been ordered — on that day nothing was done. They are ordered to be present the next day. Heraclius meanwhile, when he saw all snares being laid against his fortunes by the praetor, takes counsel by the opinion of his friends and kinsmen not to be present at the trial. So he flees from Syracuse that night. Verres next morning, having risen much earlier than ever before, orders the judges to be summoned. When he learned that Heraclius was not present, he begins to compel them to condemn the absent Heraclius. They remind him that, if it seems good to him, he should use his own institution and not compel them before the tenth hour to give judgement against an absent man for one present. They obtain this.
verum, ut institui dicere, quinque iudicibus nulla lege, nullo instituto, nulla reiectione, nulla sorte ex libidine istius datis, non qui causam cognoscerent, sed qui quod imperatum esset iudicarent, eo die nihil actum est; adesse iubentur postridie. Heraclius interea, cum omnis insidias fortunis suis a praetore fieri videret, capit consilium de amicorum et propinquorum sententia non adesse ad iudicium; itaque illa nocte Syracusis profugit. iste postridie mane, cum multo maturius quam umquam antea surrexisset, iudices citari iubet. Vbi comperit Heraclium non adesse, cogere incipit eos ut absentem Heraclium condemnent. illi eum commonefaciunt ut, si sibi videatur, utatur instituto suo nec cogat ante horam decimam de absente secundum praesentem iudicare: impetrant.
Meanwhile he himself and his friends and counsellors began to be much troubled, and to bear it ill that Heraclius had fled. They thought the condemnation of an absent man — especially of so great a sum — would be much more odious than if he had been condemned present. Added to this was that the judges had not been given by the lex Rupilia. They saw the matter would seem much more disgraceful and unjust. So while he wishes to correct this, his greed and dishonesty became more open. For he says he will not use those five judges. He orders — what should from the beginning have been done by the lex Rupilia — that Heraclius and those who had written the suit be summoned. He says he wishes to allot judges by the law. What he had not been able to obtain from him the day before — when Heraclius had begged and beseeched with many tears — it occurred to him the next day: that he ought by the lex Rupilia to allot the suits. He draws three from the urn. He orders them to condemn the absent Heraclius. So they condemn.
interea sane perturbatus et ipse et eius amici et consiliarii moleste ferre coeperunt Heraclium profugisse; putabant absentis damnationem, praesertim tantae pecuniae, multo invidiosiorem fore quam si praesens damnatus esset. eo accedebat quod iudices e lege Rupilia dati non erant; multo etiam rem turpiorem fore et iniquiorem visum iri intellegebant. itaque hoc dum corrigere vult, apertior eius cupiditas improbitasque facta est. nam illis quinque iudicibus uti se negat; iubet, id quod initio lege Rupilia fieri oportuerat, citari Heraclium et eos qui dicam scripserant; ait se iudices ex lege velle sortiri. quod ab eo pridie, cum multis lacrimis cum oraret atque obsecraret, Heraclius impetrare non potuerat, id ei postridie venit in mentem, ex lege Rupilia sortiri dicas oportere. educit ex urna tris; his ut absentem Heraclium condemnent imperat; itaque condemnant.
What madness, in evil hour, was this! When did you ever think you would have to render an account of your deeds? When did you reckon such men would hear of these matters? That an inheritance be claimed which is owed to no one for the praetor’s plunder? That a city’s name be interposed? That the foulest mask of malicious prosecution be put on a respectable city? Nor only this, but the matter so conducted that not even a pretence of equity be employed? For, by the immortal gods, what is the difference whether the praetor commands and compels by force someone to depart from all his goods, or gives a trial of this kind, by which trial without the case being heard he must be overturned from all his fortunes?
quae, malum, ista fuit amentia! Ecquando te rationem factorum tuorum redditurum putasti? ecquando his de rebus talis viros audituros existimasti? petatur hereditas ea, quae nulla debetur, in praedam praetoris? interponatur nomen civitatis? imponatur honestae civitati turpissima persona calumniae? neque hoc solum, sed ita res agatur ut ne simulatio quidem aequitatis ulla adhibeatur? nam, per deos immortalis, quid interest utrum praetor imperet vique cogat aliquem de suis bonis omnibus decedere, an huiusce modi iudicium det, quo iudicio indicta causa fortunis omnibus everti necesse sit?
For surely you cannot deny that you ought to have allotted judges by the lex Rupilia, especially when Heraclius demanded it. But if you say this — that with Heraclius’s consent you departed from the law — you yourself will entangle yourself, you yourself will be implicated by your defence. For why first did he not wish to be present, when he had judges from that number whom he had demanded? Then why did you allot other judges after his flight, if those who had previously been given you had given by the will of both? Then all the other suits at that conventus the quaestor Marcus Postumius allotted: this one alone you will be found to have allotted at that gathering.
profecto enim negare non potes te ex lege Rupilia sortiri iudices debuisse, cum praesertim Heraclius id postularet. sin illud dicis, te Heraclii voluntate ab lege recessisse, ipse te impedies, ipse tua defensione implicabere; quare enim primum ille adesse noluit, cum ex eo numero iudices haberet quos postularat? deinde tu cur post illius fugam iudices alios sortitus es, si eos qui erant antea dati utriusque dederas voluntate? deinde ceteras dicas omnis illo foro M. Postumius quaestor sortitus est: hanc solam tu illo conventu reperiere sortitus.
"Therefore," someone will say, "he gave that inheritance to the Syracusan people." First, even if I were willing to confess this, you would still be necessarily condemned. For it is not permitted that with impunity we may snatch from someone and hand over to another. But you will find that he plundered that inheritance in such a way that he did very few things secretly: that the Syracusan people came into the greatest odium by his disgrace, by another’s reward; that few Syracusans — those who now say they have come for the public laudation — both then were sharers of the plunder and now have come not to laud him but to a common assessment of suits. After he was condemned in absence, not only the inheritance which was disputed, which was three million sesterces, but all of Heraclius’s own ancestral goods (which were not less in money) were handed over to the palaestra of the Syracusans, that is, to the Syracusans, in possession.
ergo, inquiet aliquis, donavit populo Syracusano illam hereditatem. primum, si id confiteri velim, tamen istum condemnetis necesse est; neque enim permissum est ut impune nobis liceat, quod alicui eripuerimus, id alteri tradere. verum ex ista reperietis hereditate ita istum praedatum ut perpauca occulte fecerit; populum Syracusanum in maximam invidiam sua infamia, alieno praemio pervenisse, paucos Syracusanos,—eos qui nunc se publice laudationis causa venisse dicunt,—et tunc participes praedae fuisse et nunc non ad istius laudationem, sed ad communem litium aestimationem venisse. posteaquam damnatus est absens, non solum illius hereditatis de qua ambigebatur, quae erat HS triciens, sed omnium bonorum paternorum ipsius Heraclii, quae non minor erat pecunia, palaestrae Syracusanorum, hoc est Syracusanis, possessio traditur.
What praetorship is this? You snatch an inheritance which had come from a kinsman, had come by will, had come by laws — those goods which the man who had made the will (somewhat before he died) had handed over to this Heraclius for use and possession; on which inheritance, since he had died somewhat before you became praetor, there had been no controversy, no one had made mention. But let it be so. Snatch the inheritance from kinsmen, give to palaestrites; plunder another’s goods in the city’s name; overthrow laws, wills, the wishes of the dead, the rights of the living. Was it also necessary to expel Heraclius from his ancestral goods? — which, as soon as he had fled, how shamelessly, how openly, how bitterly, immortal gods, were those goods plundered! How calamitous that affair seemed to Heraclius, profitable to Verres, disgraceful to the Syracusans, miserable to all! For it is at once seen to: whatever chased silver was in those goods is brought to him, whatever Corinthian vessels, much bedclothes. No one doubted but that not only from that captured and crushed house, but from the whole province, all things must be brought to him. The slaves he wished he led off, others he distributed; an auction was held, in which his unconquered staff lorded it.
quae est ista praetura? eripis hereditatem quae venerat a propinquo, venerat testamento, venerat legibus; quae bona is qui testamentum fecerat huic Heraclio, aliquanto ante quam est mortuus, omnia utenda ac possidenda tradiderat, cuius hereditatis, cum ille aliquanto ante te praetorem esset mortuus, controversia fuerat nulla, mentionem fecerat nemo. verum esto. eripe hereditatem propinquis, da palaestritis, praedare in bonis alienis nomine civitatis, everte leges, testamenta, voluntates mortuorum, iura vivorum: num etiam patriis Heraclium bonis exturbare oportuit? qui simul ac profugit, quam impudenter, quam palam, quam acerbe, di immortales, illa bona direpta sunt! quam illa res calamitosa Heraclio, quaestuosa Verri, turpis Syracusanis, miseranda omnibus videbatur! nam illud quidem statim curatur, ut quicquid caelati argenti fuit in illis bonis ad istum deferatur, quicquid Corinthiorum vasorum, stragulae vestis: haec nemo dubitabat quin non modo ex illa domo capta et oppressa, verum ex tota provincia ad istum comportari necesse esset. mancipia quae voluit abduxit, alia divisit; auctio facta est, in qua cohors istius invicta dominata est.
But this is splendid. The Syracusans who had presided over Heraclius’s goods — in word over collecting them, in fact over distributing them — were rendering an account of these affairs in the senate. They said that several pairs of cups, valuable silver pitchers, much bedclothes, valuable slaves had been given to Verres. They said how much money had been given to each at his order. The Syracusans groaned, but yet endured. Suddenly it is read out that under one heading 300,000 sesterces had been given by the praetor’s order. The greatest cry arose of all — not only of the best men nor of those to whom it had always seemed unworthy that the goods of a private man had been snatched in the people’s name by the highest wrong, but even those very authors of the wrong and partners in some little portion of the plunder began to cry out that he should keep the inheritance for himself. So great a clamour arose in the senate-house that the people came running.
verum illud est praeclarum. Syracusani qui praefuerant his Heraclii bonis verbo redigendis, re dispertiendis, reddebant eorum negotiorum rationem in senatu; dicebant scyphorum paria complura, hydrias argenteas pretiosas, vestem stragulam multam, mancipia pretiosa data esse Verri; dicebant quantum cuique eius iussu nummorum esset datum. gemebant Syracusani, sed tamen patiebantur. repente recitatur uno nomine HS ccc iussu praetoris data esse. fit maximus clamor omnium, non modo optimi cuiusque neque eorum quibus indignum semper visum erat bona privati populi nomine per summam iniuriam erepta, verum etiam ipsi illi auctores iniuriae et ex aliqua particula socii praedae ac rapinarum clamare coeperunt sibi ut haberet hereditatem. tantus in curia clamor factus est ut populus concurreret.
The matter, learned by all the conventus, is quickly reported home to him. The man, hostile to those who had read it out, an enemy to all who had cried out, blazed with anger and bile. But yet he was then unlike himself. You know the man’s face, you know his audacity. Yet then by the talk of the people and the cry and the manifest theft of a great sum he was disturbed. When he had collected himself, he calls the Syracusans to him. Since he could not deny that money had been given by them, he did not seek far away (for he could not have proved it), but the next-handy man, almost a second son, whom he said had carried off that money. He shows that he will compel him to return it. He, after he heard this, took account of his own dignity, age, and nobility. He spoke before the senate, he showed that nothing concerned him; about Verres, what all saw, even he did not speak obscurely. So those Syracusans afterwards set up a statue, and he, as soon as he could, left Verres and departed from the province.
res ab omni conventu cognita celeriter isti domum nuntiatur. homo inimicus iis qui recitassent, hostis omnibus qui acclamassent, exarsit iracundia ac stomacho; verum tamen fuit tum sui dissimilis. Nostis os hominis, nostis audaciam; tamen tum rumore populi et clamore et manifesto furto grandis pecuniae perturbatus est. Vbi se collegit, vocat ad se Syracusanos; qui non posset negare ab illis pecuniam datam, non quaesivit procul alicunde, (neque enim probaret), sed proximum, paene alterum filium, quem illam pecuniam diceret abstulisse; ostendit se reddere coacturum. qui posteaquam id audivit, habuit et dignitatis et aetatis et nobilitatis suae rationem; verba apud senatum fecit, docuit ad se nihil pertinere; de isto, id quod omnes videbant, ne ille quidem obscure locutus est. itaque illi Syracusani statuam postea statuerunt, et is, ut primum potuit, istum reliquit de provinciaque decessit.
And yet they say he is accustomed to complain sometimes that, wretched man, he is being weighed down not by his own offences and charges, but by those of his men. You held the province three years; your son-in-law, a chosen young man, was with you one year; your comrades, brave men, your legates, left you the first year. One legate, Publius Tadius, who remained, was not so long with you. Who, if he had always been with you, would yet most carefully have spared not only your reputation, but much more his own. What is it that you accuse others? What is it that you think you can not only divert your fault to someone, but share it with another?
et tamen aiunt eum queri solere non numquam se miserum quod non suis, sed suorum peccatis et criminibus prematur. triennium provinciam obtinuisti; gener, lectus adulescens, unum annum tecum fuit; sodales, viri fortes, legati tui primo anno te reliquerunt; unus legatus P. Tadius qui erat reliquus non ita tecum multum fuit; qui si semper una fuisset, tamen summa cura cum tuae, tum multo etiam magis suae famae pepercisset. quid est quod tu alios accuses? quid est quam ob rem putes te tuam culpam non modo derivare in aliquem, sed communicare cum altero posse?
Those 300,000 sesterces are counted out to the Syracusans. How they later returned to Verres through the back door, by documents and witnesses, gentlemen, I shall make plain to you. From this iniquity and dishonesty of his, gentlemen, — because plunder from those goods had come to many Syracusans, against the will of the people and senate of Syracuse — those crimes also were committed (through Theomnastus and Aeschrio and Dionysodorus and Cleomenes) most against the will of the city: first, that the whole city be plundered, on which I have set apart another place for speaking; that all the statues, through those men I have named, all the ivory from sacred buildings, all painted panels everywhere, finally the very statues of the gods which he wished, he carried off. Then, that in the senate-house at Syracuse — that place which they call by the name "bouleuterion" — a most honourable and most distinguished place among them, where there is a bronze statue of that very Marcus Marcellus (who, at the law of war and victory which would have allowed him to take it, preserved that place for the Syracusans and gave it back), in that very place they should set up a gilded statue of Verres and another of his son: so that, while the memory of this man remained, the Syracusan senate could not be in the senate-house without tears and groans.
numerantur illa HS ccc Syracusanis. ea quem ad modum ad istum postea per pseudothyrum revertantur, tabulis vobis testibusque, iudices, planum faciam. ex hac iniquitate istius et improbitate, iudices, quod praeda ex illis bonis ad multos Syracusanos invito populo senatuque Syracusano venerat, et illa scelera quae per Theomnastum et Aeschrionem et Dionysodorum et Cleomenem invitissima civitate illa facta sunt: primum ut urbs tota spoliaretur, qua de re alius mihi locus ad dicendum est constitutus; ut omnia signa iste per eos homines quos nominavi, omne ebur ex aedibus sacris, omnis undique tabulas pictas, deorum denique simulacra quae vellet auferret; deinde ut in curia Syracusis, quem locum illi bouleuth/rion nomine appellant, honestissimo loco et apud illos clarissimo, ubi illius ipsius M. Marcelli,—qui eum Syracusanis locum, quem eripere belli ac victoriae lege posset, conservavit et reddidit,—statua ex aere facta est, ibi inauratam istius et alteram filio statuam ponerent, ut dum istius hominis memoria maneret senatus Syracusanus sine lacrimis et gemitu in curia esse non posset.
Through these same partners of Verres’s thefts, wrongs, and wives, the Marcelliae are abolished at Syracuse by his order, with the greatest groan and grief of the city. That festival they paid back as a debt to Gaius Marcellus’s recent kindnesses, and bestowed on the line, name, and family of the Marcelli with the greatest goodwill. Mithridates in Asia, when he had occupied that whole province, did not abolish the Mucia. Although an enemy — and an enemy in other matters too fierce and savage — yet he did not wish to violate an honour to a man consecrated by the religion of the gods. Did you not wish to grant to the Syracusans one festal day to the Marcelli, through whom they obtained the power of celebrating the rest of their festal days?
per eosdem istius furtorum iniuriarum uxorumque socios istius imperio Syracusis Marcellia tolluntur maximo gemitu luctuque civitatis, quem illi diem festum cum recentibus beneficiis C. Marcelli debitum reddebant, tum generi nomini familiae Marcellorum maxima voluntate tribuebant. Mithridates in Asia, cum eam provinciam totam occupasset, Mucia non sustulit. Hostis, et hostis in ceteris rebus nimis ferus et immanis, tamen honorem hominis deorum religione consecratum violare noluit: tu Syracusanos unum diem festum Marcellis impertire noluisti, per quos illi adepti sunt ut ceteros dies festos agitare possent?
But you splendidly set up Verria for them to celebrate, and that for that day what was needed for the rites and feasts should be let out for several years! Now, in such great shamelessness of his, something seems to be remitted, lest we strain everything, lest we seem to do everything with grief. For day, voice, and lungs would fail me, if I should now wish to cry aloud how miserable and unworthy it is for a festal day to exist by his name among those who consider themselves utterly extinguished by his work! O splendid Verria! Where, please, did you go, where did you not bring this day with you? For what house, what city did you visit, what shrine, finally, did you not leave overturned and swept clean? Wherefore let those things be called Verria, which are seen to be established not by name but by your hands and nature.
at vero praeclarum diem illis reposuisti Verria ut agerent, et ut ad eum diem quae sacris epulisque opus essent in compluris annos locarentur! iam in tanta istius impudentia remittendum aliquid videtur, ne omnia contendamus, ne omnia cum dolore agere videamur. nam me dies vox latera deficiant, si hoc nunc vociferari velim, quam miserum indignumque sit istius nomine apud eos diem festum esse qui se istius opera funditus exstinctos esse arbitrentur. O Verria praeclara! quo accessisti, quaeso, quo non attuleris tecum istum diem? etenim quam tu domum, quam urbem adisti, quod fanum denique, quod non eversum atque extersum reliqueris? quare appellentur sane ista Verria, quae non ex nomine sed ex manibus naturaque tua constituta esse videantur.
How easily wrong creeps in, and the habit of offending — how not easily it is checked — see, gentlemen. Bidis is a sufficiently slight town, not far from Syracuse. Here by far the first man of the city is a certain Epicrates. To him an inheritance of five hundred thousand sesterces had come from a certain woman, his kinswoman, and so close that — even if she had died intestate — Epicrates ought to be heir under the laws of the Bidini. That matter was recent which I described above, of Heraclius the Syracusan, who would not have lost his goods, had not an inheritance come to him. To this Epicrates also, as I said, an inheritance had come.
quam facile serpat iniuria et peccandi consuetudo, quam non facile reprimatur, videte, iudices. Bidis oppidum est tenue sane, non longe a Syracusis. hic longe primus civitatis est Epicrates quidam. huic hereditas HS quingentorum milium venerat a muliere quadam propinqua, atque ita propinqua ut, ea etiamsi intestata esset mortua, Epicratem Bidinorum legibus heredem esse oporteret. recens erat illa res quam ante demonstravi, de Heraclio Syracusano, qui bona non perdidisset nisi ei venisset hereditas. huic quoque Epicrati venerat, ut dixi, hereditas.
His enemies began to think that no less under the same praetor he could be overthrown from his goods, by which Heraclius had been overthrown. They establish the matter secretly. Through his interpreters they bring it to Verres. So the case is set up that the palaestrites of Bidis demand the inheritance from Epicrates, just as the Syracusan palaestrites had demanded it from Heraclius. You have never seen a praetor so palaestric. But he so defended the palaestrites that he himself went away the more anointed by them. Who at once, that something might be present, orders 80,000 sesterces to be counted out to one of his friends.
cogitare coeperunt eius inimici nihilo minus eodem praetore hunc everti bonis posse quo Heraclius esset eversus. rem occulte instituunt; ad Verrem per eius interpretes deferunt. ita causa componitur ut item palaestritae Bidini peterent ab Epicrate hereditatem, quem ad modum palaestritae Syracusani ab Heraclio petivissent. numquam 1 vos praetorem tam palaestricum vidistis; verum ita palaestritas defendebat ut ab illis ipse unctior abiret. qui statim, quo quid praesens esset, iubet cuidam amicorum suorum numerari HS LXXX.
The matter could not be sufficiently hidden. Through one of those who had been present Epicrates is informed. At first he began to make light of it and disregard it, because the case had nothing that could be argued. Then, when he thought of Heraclius and knew this man’s lust, he thought it most expedient to leave the province secretly. So he did. He set out for Rhegium. When this was heard, those who had given the money were boiling. They thought nothing could be done with Epicrates absent. For Heraclius had at least been present when judges were first given. About this man, who, before going to court, before any mention of controversy was even made, had departed — they thought nothing could be done. The men set out for Rhegium. They meet Epicrates. They show, what he knew — that they had given 80,000 sesterces. They ask him to see to it for them, by what had departed from themselves of money, to take security from himself in whatever manner he pleased: that no one would prosecute Epicrates about that inheritance.
res occultari satis non potuit; per quendam eorum qui interfuerant fit Epicrates certior. primo contemnere et neglegere coepit, quod causa prorsus quod disputari posset nihil habebat. deinde cum de Heraclio cogitaret et istius libidinem nosset, commodissimum putavit esse de provincia clam abire; itaque fecit; profectus est Regium. quod ubi auditum est, aestuare illi qui pecuniam dederant, putare nihil agi posse absente Epicrate; nam Heraclius tamen adfuerat, cum primo sunt dati iudices; de hoc qui, antequam aditum in ius esset, antequam mentio denique controversiae facta esset ulla, discessisset, putabant nihil agi posse. homines Regium proficiscuntur; Epicratem conveniunt; demonstrant, id quod ille sciebat, se HS LXXX dedisse; rogant eum ut sibi id quod ab ipsis abisset pecuniae curet, ab sese caveat quem ad modum velit, de illa hereditate cum Epicrate neminem esse acturum.
Epicrates dismisses the men, badly received from him in many words. They return from Rhegium to Syracuse. They begin, as happens, to complain among many that they had given 80,000 sesterces in vain. The matter spread and began to be in everyone’s mouth and talk. Verres returns to that Syracusan custom of his. He says he wishes to take cognizance about those 80,000 sesterces. He summons many. The Bidini say they gave to Volcatius. They do not add: "by his order." He calls Volcatius, orders the money to be returned. Volcatius, with most equal mind, brings the coins (who lost nothing), gives them back in the sight of many. The Bidini take the coins.
Epicrates homines multis verbis ab se male acceptos dimittit; redeunt illi Regio Syracusas, queri cum multis, ut fit, incipiunt se HS LXXX nummum frustra dedisse. res percrebruit et in ore atque sermone omnium coepit esse. Verres refert illam suam Syracusanam; ait se velle de illis HS LXXX cognoscere; advocat multos. dicunt Bidini Volcatio se dedisse; illud non addunt, ’iussu istius.’ Volcatium vocat, pecuniam referri imperat. Volcatius animo aequissimo nummos adfert, qui nihil amitteret, reddit inspectantibus multis: Bidini nummos auferunt.
Someone will say: "Why then do you blame Verres in this — a man who not only is no thief himself, but did not even allow another to be?" Pay attention; you will at once understand that this money, which only just appeared to leave him, returned by the same path. For what ought a praetor to have done, when, having taken cognizance with his council, he had learned that his companion had received money for the sake of corrupting the law, the decree, the judge — in which matter the praetor’s own life and reputation were concerned, but the Bidini had given money against the praetor’s reputation and fortunes? Ought he not both to punish the man who had received and those who had given? You who had instituted to punish those who had judged wrongly — which often happens through ignorance — do you allow these to depart with impunity, who because of your decree, because of your judgement, thought money should be either given or received?
dicet aliquis, ’ quid ergo in hoc Verrem reprehendis, qui non modo ipse fur non est, sed ne alium quidem passus est esse?’ attendite; iam intellegetis hanc pecuniam, quae via modo visa est exire ab isto, eodem semita revertisse. quid enim debuit praetor facere, cum consilio re cognita cum comperisset suum comitem iuris decreti iudici corrumpendi causa,—qua in re ipsius praetoris caput existimatioque ageretur, —pecuniam accepisse, Bidinos autem pecuniam contra praetoris famam ac fortunas dedisse? non et in eum qui accepisset animadvertisset et in eos qui dedissent? tu, qui institueras in eos animadvertere qui perperam iudicassent, —quod saepe per imprudentiam fit,—hos pateris impune discedere qui ob tuum decretum, ob tuum iudicium pecuniam aut dandam aut accipiendam putarant?
The same Volcatius was afterwards with you, a Roman knight, after such great disgrace received. For what is more disgraceful for a free-born man, what less worthy of a free man, than to be compelled in a great gathering by a magistrate to return a theft? If he had been of the mind that not only a Roman knight but any free man ought to be of, he would not have been able to look at you afterwards. He would have been your foe, your enemy, after such great contumely received — unless he had then connived with you and served your reputation rather than his. How friendly to you he then was, not only as long as he was with you in the province, but even now when you have already been left by your other friends, both you understand and we can guess. Or is this the only argument that nothing was done with this man’s knowledge — that Volcatius did not get angry with him? — that this man punished neither Volcatius nor the Bidini?
Volcatius idem apud te postea fuit, eques Romanus, tanta accepta ignominia; nam quid est turpius ingenuo, quid minus libero dignum quam in conventu maximo cogi a magistratu furtum reddere? qui si eo animo esset quo non modo eques Romanus, sed quivis liber debet esse, aspicere te postea non potuisset; inimicus, hostis esset tanta contumelia accepta, nisi tecum tum conlusisset et tuae potius existimationi servisset quam suae. qui quam tibi amicus non modo tum fuerit quam diu tecum in provincia fuit, verum etiam nunc sit cum iam a ceteris amicis relictus es, et tu intellegis et nos existimare possumus. an hoc solum argumentum est nihil isto imprudente factum, quod Volcatius ei non succensuit? quod iste neque in Volcatium neque in Bidinos animadvertit?
It is a great argument, but the greatest is this: that those very Bidini — with whom this man ought to have been angry, from whom he learned that, because they could do nothing by right with Epicrates (even if he were present), for that reason his decree had been tested by money — to those men, I say, Verres handed over not only that inheritance which had come to Epicrates, but, as in the Syracusan Heraclius, so in this case too — somewhat more atrociously, because Epicrates had not been called at all — his ancestral goods and fortunes to the Bidini. For he showed in a new way: if anyone should claim anything from an absent man, he would hear it. The Bidini approach, demand the inheritance. The agents demand that he refer them to their own laws or order a suit to be written under the lex Rupilia. The adversaries did not dare to speak against. No way out was found. They allege that the man had departed for the sake of fraud. They demand that he order the goods to be possessed.
est magnum argumentum, verum illud maximum, quod illis ipsis Bidinis, quibus iste iratus esse debuit, a quibus comperit, quod iure agere cum Epicrate nihil possent, etiamsi adesset, idcirco suum decretum pecunia esse temptatum: iis, inquam, ipsis non modo illam hereditatem quae Epicrati venerat, sed, ut in Heraclio Syracusano, item in hoc,—paulo etiam atrocius, quod Epicrates appellatus omnino non erat,—bona patria fortunasque eius Bidinis tradidit. ostendit enim novo modo, si quis quid de absente peteret, se auditurum. adeunt Bidini, petunt hereditatem; procuratores postulant ut se ad leges suas reiciat aut ex lege Rupilia dicam scribi iubeat. adversarii non audebant contra dicere: exitus nullus reperiebatur. insimulant hominem fraudandi causa discessisse; postulant ut bona possidere iubeat.
Epicrates owed not a single penny to anyone. His friends said that, if anyone claimed anything, they would suffer a trial, would give security for satisfying the judgement. When all plans were chilled, by Verres’s prompting they began to allege that Epicrates had corrupted public records — from which suspicion he was furthest removed. They demand the action of that matter. Friends refuse, lest any trial or his own taking cognizance be established about his reputation in his absence. And at the same time they did not cease to demand that he refer them to their own laws.
debebat Epicrates nummum nullum nemini; amici, si quis quid peteret, iudicio se passuros, iudicatum solvi satis daturos esse dicebant. cum omnia consilia frigerent, admonitu istius insimulare coeperunt Epicratem litteras publicas corrupisse, a qua suspicione ille aberat plurimum: actionem eius rei postulant. amici recusare ne quod iudicium neve ipsius cognitio illo absente de existimatione eius constitueretur, et simul illud idem postulare non desistebant ut se ad leges suas reiceret.
Verres, having found a wide opening, when he sees there is something his friends would not defend in Epicrates’s absence, declares that he will give the action of this matter on the first opportunity. When all clearly saw that not only had those coins which had departed from Verres in pretence returned to him, but he had afterwards taken much more, the friends ceased to defend Epicrates. Verres ordered the Bidini to take possession of and keep all of Epicrates’s goods. To those 500,000 sesterces of inheritance, his own old fifteen hundred thousand sesterces of property was added. Was the matter so set up from the beginning, or so brought to its conclusion at the end? Or is the sum so small, or is the man Verres such, that what I have said could seem to have been done for nothing?
iste amplam nactus, ubi videt esse aliquid quod amici absente Epicrate nollent defendere, adseverat se eius rei in primis actionem1 daturum. cum omnes perspicerent ad istum non modo illos nummos qui per simulationem ab isto exierant revertisse, sed multo etiam pluris eum postea nummos abstulisse, amici Epicratem defendere destiterunt, iste Epicratis bona Bidinos omnia possidere et sibi habere iussit. ad illa HS D hereditaria accessit ipsius antiqua HS quindeciens pecunia. Vtrum res ab initio ita ducta est an ad extremum ita perducta, an ita parva est pecunia, an is homo Verres ut haec quae dixi gratiis facta esse videantur?
Now hear about the misery of the Sicilians, gentlemen. Both Heraclius the Syracusan and this Bidian Epicrates, expelled from all their goods, came to Rome. Wearing mourning, with the longest beards and hair, they were at Rome for almost two years. When Lucius Metellus set out for the province, then they — well-recommended — set out together with Metellus. Metellus, as soon as he came to Syracuse, undid both — about Epicrates and about Heraclius. In the goods of each there was nothing that could be restored, except whatever had not been able to be moved from its place.
hic nunc de miseria Siculorum, iudices, audite. et Heraclius ille Syracusanus et hic Bidinus Epicrates expulsi bonis omnibus Romam venerunt; sordidati, maxima barba et capillo, Romae biennium prope fuerunt. cum L. Metellus in provinciam profectus est, tum isti bene commendati cum Metello una proficiscuntur. Metellus, simul ac venit Syracusas, utrumque rescidit, et de Epicrate et de Heraclio. in utriusque bonis nihil erat quod restitui posset, nisi si quid moveri loco non potuerat.
Metellus had splendidly done this on his first arrival — to undo and make void all of this man’s wrongs as far as he could. Because he had ordered Heraclius to be restored and it was not being done, whatever Syracusan senator was named by Heraclius, he ordered to be led to court. So very many were led. Epicrates indeed was at once restored. Other trials were undone at Lilybaeum, others at Agrigentum, others at Panhormus. The censuses which had been held under this praetor, Metellus had shown he would not preserve. The tithes which Verres had sold against the lex Hieronica, he had edicted he would sell again under the lex Hieronica. Everything Metellus did was such that he seemed not so much to be conducting his own praetorship as to be unweaving Verres’s. As soon as I came into Sicily, he changed.
fecerat hoc egregie primo adventu Metellus, ut omnis istius iniurias, quas modo posset, rescinderet et inritas faceret. quod Heraclium restitui iusserat ac non restituebatur, quisquis erat eductus senator Syracusanus ab Heraclio, duci iubebat; itaque permulti ducti sunt. Epicrates quidem continuo est restitutus. Alia iudicia Lilybaei, alia Agrigenti, alia Panhormi restituta sunt. census qui isto praetore sunt habiti non servaturum se Metellus ostenderat; decumas quas iste contra legem Hieronicam vendiderat sese venditurum Hieronica lege edixerat. omnia erant Metelli eius modi ut non tam suam praeturam gerere quam istius praeturam retexere videretur. simul atque ego in Siciliam veni, mutatus est.
A certain Laetilius had come to him in those two days, a man not foreign to letters — so this Verres always used him as a courier. He had brought several letters, among them one from home which had wholly changed the man. Suddenly Metellus began to say he wished everything for Verres’s sake; that he had friendship and kinship with him. All wondered that this had only now come into his mind, after he had killed him with so many deeds and decrees. There were those who supposed that Laetilius had come from Verres as a legate to mention favour, friendship, and kinship. From that time he began to seek public laudations from the cities, not only deterring witnesses with words but even keeping them by force. Unless I had at my coming somewhat repressed his attempts, and had fought among the Sicilians not by Metellus’s letters but by Glabrio’s letter and the law, I could not have summoned so many witnesses here.
venerat ad eum illo biduo Laetilius quidam, homo non alienus a litteris; itaque eo iste tabellario semper usus est. is epistulas compluris attulerat, in his unam domo quae totum mutarat hominem. repente coepit dicere se omnia Verris causa velle; sibi cum eo amicitiam cognationemque esse. mirabantur omnes hoc ei tum denique in mentem venisse, posteaquam tam multis eum factis decretisque iugulasset. erant qui putarent Laetilium legatum a Verre venisse, qui gratiam amicitiam cognationemque commemoraret. ex illo tempore a civitatibus laudationes petere, testis non solum deterrere verbis, sed etiam vi retinere coepit. quod nisi ego meo adventu illius conatus aliquantum repressissem, et apud Siculos non Metelli, sed Glabrionis litteris ac lege pugnassem, tam multos testis huc evocare non potuissem.
But, as I had begun to say, learn the miseries of the allies. That Heraclius and Epicrates went out far to meet me with all their household; arriving at Syracuse, they gave thanks weeping, wished to depart with me to Rome. Because there were several towns I still wished to visit, I arranged with the men what day they should be present for me at Messana. There they sent a messenger that they were being kept by the praetor. Whom I subpoenaed as witnesses, whose names I gave to Metellus, most eager to come, afflicted with the greatest wrongs — they have not yet come. By such a right are the allies, that they may not even be allowed to lament their own misfortunes.
verum, quod institui dicere, miserias cognoscite sociorum. Heraclius ille et Epicrates longe mihi obviam cum suis omnibus processerunt, venienti Syracusas egerunt gratias flentes, Romam mecum decedere cupiverunt. quod erant oppida mihi complura etiam reliqua quae adire vellem, constitui cum hominibus quo die mihi Messanae praesto essent. eo mihi nuntium miserunt se a praetore retineri. quibus ego testimonium denuntiavi, quorum edidi nomina Metello, cupidissimi veniendi, maximis iniuriis adfecti, adhuc non venerunt. hoc iure sunt socii ut iis ne deplorare quidem de suis incommodis liceat.
Now you have heard the testimony of Heraclius of Centuripa, an excellent and most noble youth, from whom 100,000 sesterces had been claimed by malicious prosecution and malice. Verres, by interposed penalties and compromises, saw to it that 400,000 sesterces was extorted; and because the judgement on the compromise had been made for Heraclius — when a Centuripan citizen had given judgement between two citizens — he ordered that to be void, and judged that judge to have judged falsely. He forbade him to be in the senate, to use any of the public privileges. If anyone struck him, he edicted that he would not give a trial of injury; whatever was sought from him, he would give a judge from his own staff; but to him no action of any matter would he give.
iam Heraclii Centuripini, optimi nobilissimique adulescentis, testimonium audistis; a quo HS C per calumniam malitiamque petita sunt. iste poenis compromissisque interpositis HS cccc extorquenda curavit, quodque iudicium secundum Heraclium de compromisso factum erat, cum civis Centuripinus inter duos civis diiudicasset, id inritum iussit esse eumque iudicem falsum iudicasse iudicavit; in senatu esse, locis commodisque publicis uti vetuit; si quis eum pulsasset, edixit sese iudicium iniuriarum non daturum; quicquid ab eo peteretur, iudicem de sua cohorte daturum, ipsi autem nullius actionem rei se daturum.
Such was the authority of this man that no one struck him — although the praetor in his province by word permitted, by deed urged it — nor did anyone claim anything from him, since Verres by his authority had shown the licence of malicious prosecution. But that grave disgrace remained on the man as long as Verres remained in the province. With this fear thrown into the judges — by a new manner, by no precedent — do you suppose that anything in Sicily has been judged but at this man’s nod? Does it seem only this matter was at stake (which yet was at stake) — that this money should be torn from Heraclius? Or also that, in which the greatest plunder lay — that, under the name of judgements, the goods and fortunes of all should be in this one man’s power?
quae istius auctoritas tantum valuit ut neque illum pulsaret quisquam, cum praetor in provincia sua verbo permitteret, re hortaretur, neque quisquam ab eo quicquam peteret, cum iste calumniae licentiam sua auctoritate ostendisset; ignominia autem illa gravis tam diu in illo homine fuit, quam diu iste in provincia mansit. hoc iniecto metu iudicibus novo more, nullo exemplo, ecquam rem putatis esse in Sicilia nisi ad nutum istius iudicatam? Vtrum id solum videtur esse actum, quod est tamen actum, ut haec Heraclio pecunia eriperetur, an etiam illud, in quo praeda erat maxima, ut nomine iudiciorum omnium bona atque fortunae in istius unius essent potestatem?
Now in capital trials, why should I gather each particular matter and case? Out of many similar I shall take those which seem most to surpass in dishonesty. There was a certain Sopater of Halicyae, a man at home among the foremost in wealth and honour. When he had been accused of a capital matter by his enemies before the praetor Gaius Sacerdos, he was easily acquitted in that trial. Against this same Sopater the same enemies, before Gaius Verres (when he had succeeded Sacerdos), laid the indictment of the same matter. The case seemed easy to Sopater, both because he was innocent and because he did not think Verres would dare to disapprove of Sacerdos’s judgement. The defendant is summoned. The case is conducted at Syracuse. The charges are handled by the prosecutor which had been previously dissolved not only by defence but also by judgement.
iam vero in rerum capitalium quaestionibus quid ego unam quamque rem colligam et causam? ex multis similibus ea sumam quae maxime improbitate excellere videbuntur. Sopater quidam fuit Halicyensis, homo domi suae cum primis locuples atque honestus; is ab inimicis suis apud C. Sacerdotem praetorem rei capitalis cum accusatus esset, facile eo iudicio est liberatus. huic eidem Sopatro idem inimici ad C. Verrem, cum is Sacerdoti successisset, eiusdem rei nomen detulerunt. res Sopatro facilis videbatur, et quod erat innocens et quod Sacerdotis iudicium improbare istum ausurum non arbitrabatur. citatur reus; causa agitur Syracusis; crimina tractantur ab accusatore ea quae erant antea non solum defensione, verum etiam iudicio dissoluta.
The case of Sopater was defended by Quintus Minucius, a Roman knight among the foremost splendid and honourable, and to you, gentlemen, not unknown. There was nothing in the case that seemed needing to be feared or even doubted at all. Meanwhile Verres’s freedman and assistant Timarchides — who is, as you have learned in the previous hearing from very many witnesses, the transactor and minister of all matters of this kind — comes to Sopater. He warns the man not to trust too much in Sacerdos’s judgement and his own case; that his prosecutors and enemies have it in mind to give the praetor money; but that the praetor for safety’s sake prefers to receive, and at the same time prefers, if it can be done, that the matter once judged should not be undone. Sopater, since this had come on him unexpected and unforeseen, was much disturbed; nor in the moment had he what to answer Timarchides, except that he would consider what to do, and at the same time he showed himself in the greatest financial difficulty. Afterwards he referred the matter to friends, who, when they were authors to him of redeeming his safety, came to Timarchides. Having set out his difficulties, he brings the man down to 80,000 sesterces, and counts out that money to him.
causam Sopatri defendebat Q. Minucius, eques Romanus in primis splendidus atque honestus, vobisque, iudices, non ignotus. nihil erat in causa quod metuendum aut omnino quod dubitandum videretur. interea istius libertus et accensus Timarchides, qui est, id quod ex plurimis testibus priore actione didicistis, rerum huiusce modi omnium transactor et administer, ad Sopatrum venit; monet hominem ne nimis iudicio Sacerdotis et causae suae confidat; accusatores inimicosque eius habere in animo pecuniam praetori dare; praetorem tamen ob salutem malle accipere, et simul malle, si fieri posset, rem iudicatam non rescindere. Sopater, cum hoc illi improvisum atque inopinatum accidisset, commotus est sane neque in praesentia Timarchidi quid responderet habuit, nisi se consideraturum quid sibi esset faciendum, et simul ostendit se in summa difficultate esse nummaria. post ad amicos rettulit; qui cum ei fuissent auctores redimendae salutis, ad Timarchidem venit. expositis suis difficultatibus hominem ad HS LXXX perducit, eamque ei pecuniam numerat.
After they came to plead the case, then truly all who defended Sopater were without fear or worry. There was no charge; the matter was judged; Verres had received the money. Who could doubt what was going to happen? The matter is not finished out that day; the trial is dismissed. A second time Timarchides comes to Sopater. He says his prosecutors are promising the praetor much greater money than this man had given. Therefore, if he had any sense, he should see what to do. The man — although he was a Sicilian and a defendant, that is, with unfair right and adverse moment — could not bear to hear Timarchides further. "Do," he said, "what you please. I shall not give more." His friends and defenders thought the same, and even more so because Verres, however he might present himself in that inquiry, yet had on his council honourable men from the Syracusan conventus, who had also been on Sacerdos’s council when this same Sopater was acquitted. They reasoned thus: that those same men could in no way condemn Sopater on the same charge, with the same witnesses, who had previously acquitted him. So with this one hope they came to the trial.
posteaquam ad causam dicendam ventum est, tum vero sine metu sine cura omnes erant qui Sopatrum defendebant. crimen nullum erat, res erat iudicata, Verres nummos acceperat: quis posset dubitare quidnam esset futurum? res illo die non peroratur, iudicium dimittitur. iterum ad Sopatrum Timarchides venit, ait accusatores eius multo maiorem pecuniam praetori polliceri quam quantam hic dedisset; proinde, si saperet, videret quid sibi esset faciendum. homo, quamquam erat et Siculus et reus, hoc est et iure iniquo et tempore adverso, ferre tamen atque audire diutius Timarchidem non potuit. ’ facite,’ inquit, ’quod libet; daturus non sum amplius.’ idemque hoc amicis eius et defensoribus videbatur, atque eo etiam magis quod iste, quoquo modo se in ea quaestione praebebat, tamen in consilio habebat homines honestos e conventu Syracusano, qui Sacerdoti quoque in consilio fuerant tum cum est idem hic Sopater absolutus. hoc rationis habebant, facere eos nullo modo posse ut eodem crimine eisdem testibus Sopatrum condemnarent idem homines qui antea absolvissent. itaque hac una spe ad iudicium venitur.
After they had come there, when the same men as usual had assembled in numbers on the council, and the whole defence of Sopater rested on this one hope — the numbers and dignity of the council, and the fact that they were (as I said) the same who had previously freed Sopater on that very charge — learn the man’s open dishonesty and audacity, hidden by no method, not even by dissimulation. Marcus Petilius, a Roman knight whom he had on his council, he orders to attend, because he was judge in a private case. Petilius refuses, because his friends, whom he wished to be on his council, Verres himself was keeping on his council. This generous man says he is not keeping any of those who wished to be present for Petilius. So all depart; for the others too obtain leave not to be kept, who said they wished to be present for one or the other of those who were then holding that trial. So this man alone is left with his most worthless staff.
quo posteaquam est ventum, cum in consilium frequentes convenissent idem qui solebant, et hac una spe tota defensio Sopatri niteretur, consili frequentia et dignitate, et quod erant, ut dixi, idem qui antea Sopatrum eodem illo crimine liberarant, cognoscite hominis apertam ac non modo non ratione, sed ne dissimulatione quidem tectam improbitatem et audaciam. M. Petilium, equitem Romanum, quem habebat in consilio, iubet operam dare, quod rei privatae iudex esset. Petilius recusabat, quod suos amicos, quos sibi in consilio esse vellet, ipse Verres retineret in consilio. iste homo liberalis negat se quemquam retinere eorum qui Petilio vellent adesse. itaque discedunt omnes; nam ceteri quoque impetrant ne retineantur; qui se velle dicebant alterutri eorum qui tum illud iudicium habebant adesse. itaque iste solus cum sua cohorte nequissima relinquitur.
Minucius, who was defending Sopater, did not doubt but that, since Verres had dismissed his council, he would not on that day inquire into the matter. When suddenly he is ordered to speak. He answers: "Before whom?" "Before me," he says, "if I seem suitable to you to judge of a Sicilian and Greek-ling." "You are suitable," he says, "but I would much wish there were present those who had been present before and had taken cognizance of the case." "Speak," he says; "those cannot be present." "By Hercules, indeed," said Minucius, "Petilius asked me also to be present for him on his council." And at the same time he began to leave the benches.
non dubitabat Minucius, qui Sopatrum defendebat, quin iste, quoniam consilium dimisisset, illo die rem illam quaesiturus non esset, cum repente iubetur dicere. respondet, ’ ad quos?’ ’ ad me,’ inquit, ’si tibi idoneus videor qui de homine Siculo ac Graeculo iudicem.’ ’ idoneus es,’ inquit, ’sed pervellem adessent ii qui adfuerant antea causamque cognorant.’ ’ dic,’ inquit; ’illi adesse non possunt.’ ’ nam hercule,’ inquit Minucius, ’me quoque Petilius ut sibi in consilio adessem rogavit’, et simul a subselliis abire coepit.
Verres, angry, follows the man with sharper words, and even began to threaten him more gravely because he was kindling such a charge and so much odium against him. Minucius, who at Syracuse so did business that he remembered his own right and dignity, and who knew that he ought so to increase his estate in the province as not to lose any of his liberty, answered the man what seemed best, and what that moment and case bore: he said he would not defend the case with the council dismissed and sent away. So he departed from the benches, and the same was done by Sopater’s other friends and advocates besides the Sicilians.
iste iratus hominem verbis vehementioribus prosequitur, atque ei gravius etiam minari coepit quod in se tantum crimen invidiamque conflaret. Minucius, qui Syracusis sic negotiaretur ut sui iuris dignitatisque meminisset, et qui sciret se ita in provincia rem augere oportere ut ne quid de libertate deperderet, homini quae visa sunt, et quae tempus illud tulit et causa, respondit, causam sese dimisso atque ablegato consilio defensurum negavit. itaque a subselliis discessit, idemque hoc praeter Siculos ceteri Sopatri amici advocatique fecerunt.
Although Verres is of incredible rashness and audacity, yet, suddenly left alone, he was afraid and confused. What to do, where to turn, he did not know. If he had then dismissed the inquiry, he saw that afterwards, with those summoned to his council whom he had sent away, Sopater would be acquitted. But if he had so condemned a wretched and innocent man, when he himself the praetor had been without a council, and the defendant without patron and advocates, and had undone Gaius Sacerdos’s judgement, he reckoned he could not bear so great odium. So he was boiling with doubt, turning himself this way and that not only in mind but in body, so that all who were present could understand that fear was fighting with greed in his soul. There was the greatest gathering of men, the highest silence, the highest expectation where his greed would burst forth. Often Timarchides, kindled, leaned down to his ear.
iste quamquam est incredibili importunitate et audacia, tamen subito solus destitutus pertimuit et conturbatus est; quid ageret, quo se verteret nesciebat. si dimisisset eo tempore quaestionem, post, illis adhibitis in consilium quos ablegarat, absolutum iri Sopatrum videbat; sin autem hominem miserum atque innocentem ita condemnasset, cum ipse praetor sine consilio, reus autem sine patrono atque advocatis fuisset, iudiciumque C. Sacerdotis rescidisset, invidiam se sustinere tantam non posse arbitrabatur. itaque aestuabat dubitatione, versabat se utramque in partem non solum mente, verum etiam corpore, ut omnes qui aderant intellegere possent in animo eius metum cum cupiditate pugnare. erat hominum conventus maximus, summum silentium, summa exspectatio quonam esset eius cupiditas eruptura; crebro se accensus demittebat ad aurem Timarchides.
Then at last Verres said: "Come, speak!" The defendant begs and beseeches that he take cognizance with the council. Then suddenly Verres orders the witnesses to be summoned. One and another speak briefly; nothing is asked; the herald announces that they have spoken. Verres — as if he feared lest Petilius, that private trial finished or postponed, should return to the council with the others — so hurrying jumps from his seat, and condemns an innocent man (acquitted by Gaius Sacerdos) without his case being heard, on the opinion of his secretary, his physician, and his haruspex.
tum iste aliquando ’ age dic!’ inquit. reus orare atque obsecrare ut cum consilio cognosceret. tum repente iste testis citari iubet; dicit unus et alter breviter; nihil interrogatur; praeco dixisse pronuntiat. iste, quasi metueret ne Petilius privato illo iudicio transacto aut prolato cum ceteris in consilium reverteretur, ita properans de sella exsilit, hominem innocentem a C. Sacerdote absolutum indicta causa de sententia scribae medici haruspicisque condemnat.
Keep, keep this man in the state, gentlemen, spare and preserve him, that there may be one to judge cases with you, who may give his vote in the senate without any greed about war and peace. Although that is less for us, less for the Roman people to labour over — of what kind his vote in the senate will be. For what authority will be his? When will he dare or be able to give his opinion? When will a man of so great luxury and idleness, except in the month of February, breathe upon the senate-house? But let him by all means come, decree war on the Cretans, set the Byzantines free, name King Ptolemy, say and feel everything Hortensius wishes; these things less concern us, less the crisis of our life, less the danger of our fortunes.
retinete, retinete hominem in civitate, iudices, parcite et conservate, ut sit qui vobiscum res iudicet, qui in senatu sine ulla cupiditate de bello et pace sententiam ferat. tametsi minus id quidem nobis, minus populo Romano laborandum est, qualis istius in senatu sententia futura sit. quae enim eius auctoritas erit? quando iste sententiam dicere audebit aut poterit? quando autem homo tantae luxuriae atque desidiae nisi Februario mense aspirabit in curiam? verum veniat sane, decernat bellum Cretensibus, liberet Byzantios, regem appellet Ptolomaeum, quae vult Hortensius omnia dicat et sentiat; minus haec ad nos, minus ad vitae nostrae discrimen, minus ad fortunarum nostrarum periculum pertinent.
This is capital, this is fearful, this is to be feared by every best man: that Verres, if by some force he should snatch himself from this trial, must necessarily be among the jurors, must give his vote on the life of a Roman citizen, must be in the army of the man who wishes to hold the command of the courts as standard-bearer. The Roman people refuses this; cannot bear it. It cries out and gives you leave that, if you delight in such men, if from that kind of man you wish to set up the splendour of your order and the ornament of the senate-house, by all means have him with you as senator, even, if you please, as juror over yourselves; but the men outside that order, on whose lives the splendid Cornelian laws give the power of rejecting no more than three jurors — they refuse to have this so cruel, so wicked, so unspeakable a man as judge.
illud est capitale, illud formidolosum, illud optimo cuique metuendum, quod iste, ex hoc iudicio si aliqua vi se eripuerit, in iudicibus sit necesse est, sententiam de capite civis Romani ferat, sit in eius exercitu signifer qui imperium iudiciorum tenere vult. hoc populus Romanus recusat, hoc ferre non potest; clamat permittitque vobis ut, si istis hominibus delectemini, si ex eo genere splendorem ordini atque ornamentum curiae constituere velitis, habeatis sane istum vobiscum senatorem, etiam de vobis iudicem, si vultis, habeatis; de se homines, si qui extra istum ordinem sunt, quibus ne reiciendi quidem amplius quam trium iudicum praeclarae leges Corneliae faciunt potestatem, hunc hominem tam crudelem, tam sceleratum, tam nefarium nolunt iudicare.
For if it is shameful — which to me of all things seems most disgraceful and most wicked — to take money for a judgement, to hold one’s faith and conscience put up at a price, how much more shameful, dishonest, unworthy is it to condemn the man from whom you have received money for acquittal — so that not even a praetor of brigands keeps the customs of faith! It is a crime to receive from a defendant; how much more from a prosecutor; how much more wickedly from both! When you had set out your faith for sale in the province, more weighty with you was he who gave the greater money. I grant it; perhaps someone has at some time done such a thing. But when you have received money and held your faith and conscience now mortgaged to one, you afterwards hand the same to the adversary for greater money: you betray both, and you hand it to whomever you wish, and to him whom you have deceived you do not even return the money?
etenim si illud est flagitiosum, quod mihi omnium rerum turpissimum maximeque nefarium videtur, ob rem iudicandam pecuniam accipere, pretio habere addictam fidem et religionem, quanto illud flagitiosius improbius indignius, eum a quo pecuniam ob absolvendum acceperis condemnare, ut ne praedonum quidem praetor in fide retinenda consuetudinem conservet! scelus est accipere ab reo: quanto magis ab accusatore, quanto etiam sceleratius ab utroque! fidem cum proposuisses venalem in provincia, valuit apud te plus is qui pecuniam maiorem dedit. concedo; forsitan aliquis aliquando eius modi quidpiam fecerit. cum vero fidem ac religionem tuam iam alteri addictam pecunia accepta habueris, postea eandem adversario tradideris maiore pecunia, utrumque falles, et trades cui voles, et ei quem fefelleris ne pecuniam quidem reddes?
What Bulbus, what Staienus do you bring me? What such monster or prodigy have we ever heard or seen — who transacts with the defendant, then settles with the prosecutor, sends away honourable men who knew the case and dismisses them from his council, and alone condemns the defendant whom he had acquitted, from whom he had received money, and does not return the money? Shall we have this man in the number of jurors? Shall this man hold the second senatorial decury as judge? Shall this man judge concerning a free man’s life? Shall the judicial tablet be entrusted to him — which he will mark not only with wax, but, if he sees fit, with blood?
quem mihi tu Bulbum, quem Staienum? quod umquam huiusce modi monstrum aut prodigium audivimus aut vidimus, qui cum reo transigat, post cum accusatore decidat, honestos homines, qui causam norint, ableget a consilioque dimittat, ipse solus reum absolutum, a quo pecuniam acceperit, condemnet pecuniamque non reddat? hunc hominem in iudicum numero habebimus? hic alteram decuriam senatoriam iudex obtinebit? hic de capite libero iudicabit? huic iudicialis tabella committetur? quam iste non modo cera, verum etiam sanguine, si visum erit, notabit.
For what of these things does he deny he did? That one thing only, what is necessary — that he received money. Why should he not deny it? But the Roman knight who defended Sopater, who was present at all his counsels and matters, Quintus Minucius, says under oath that money was given; says under oath that Timarchides said greater money was being given by the prosecutors. Many Sicilians will say this; all the Halicyenses will say it; even the praetexta-clad son of Sopater will say — who was deprived by this most cruel man of a most innocent father and his ancestral money.
quid enim horum se negat fecisse? illud videlicet unum, quod necesse est, pecuniam accepisse. quidni iste neget? at eques Romanus, qui Sopatrum defendit, qui omnibus eius consiliis rebusque interfuit, Q. Minucius, iuratus dicit pecuniam datam, iuratus dicit Timarchidem dixisse maiorem pecuniam ab accusatoribus dari; dicent hoc multi Siculi, dicent omnes Halicyenses, dicet etiam praetextatus Sopatri filius, qui ab isto homine crudelissimo patre innocentissimo pecuniaque patria privatus est.
But if I could not by witnesses make plain the matter of money, could you deny — or will you now deny — that, with your council dismissed, with the leading men who had been on Gaius Sacerdos’s council and used to be on yours removed, you gave judgement on a matter already judged? And that the man whom Gaius Sacerdos with his council, the case being heard, had acquitted, the same man you, your council removed, the case not heard, had condemned? When you confess these things, which were done in the open Forum at Syracuse before the eyes of the province — deny then by all means, if you wish, that you took money. You will find someone, I imagine, who, when he sees what was done in the open, asks what you did secretly — or who doubts whether to believe my witnesses or your defenders.
verum si de pecunia testibus planum facere non possem, illud negare posses aut nunc negabis, te consilio tuo dimisso, viris primariis qui in consilio C. Sacerdoti fuerant tibique esse solebant remotis, de re iudicata iudicavisse? teque eum quem C. Sacerdos adhibito consilio causa cognita absolvisset, eundem remoto consilio causa incognita condemnasse? cum haec confessus eris, quae in foro palam Syracusis in ore atque in oculis provinciae gesta sunt, negato tum sane, si voles, te pecuniam accepisse: reperies, credo, aliquem qui, cum haec quae palam gesta sunt videat, quaerat quid tu occulte egeris, aut qui dubitet utrum malit meis testibus an tuis defensoribus credere.
I have already said that I would not enumerate all his deeds in this kind, but choose those that most stood out. Hear now another famous deed of his, often mentioned in many places, of such a kind that all crimes seem to be in this one. Pay attention diligently; for you will find that crime born from greed, swelled through rape, and finished off and concluded by cruelty.
dixi iam ante me non omnia istius quae in hoc genere essent enumeraturum, sed electurum ea quae maxime excellerent. accipite nunc aliud eius facinus nobile et multis locis saepe commemoratum, et eius modi ut in uno omnia maleficia inesse videantur. attendite diligenter; invenietis enim id facinus natum a cupiditate, auctum per stuprum, crudelitate perfectum atque conclusum.
Sthenius is here who sits with us, of Thermae — before, known to many for the highest virtue and nobility, now to all for his own calamity and this man’s notable wrong. When Verres had used his hospitality, and had often not only been at his house at Thermae but had even lodged there, he carried off from his house everything which could a little move anyone’s heart or eyes. For Sthenius from his youth had with somewhat more zeal acquired these things: a more elegant household furniture in bronze, both Delian and Corinthian; painted panels; even silver of good workmanship — as the resources of a Thermitan man bore — enough. Which he had, when a young man in Asia, eagerly (as I said) gathered, not so much for his own pleasure as for the invitation and visits of our men, his friends and guest-friends.
Sthenius est, hic qui nobis adsidet, Thermitanus, antea multis propter summam virtutem summamque nobilitatem, nunc propter suam calamitatem atque istius insignem iniuriam omnibus notus. huius hospitio Verres cum esset usus, et cum apud eum non solum Thermis saepenumero fuisset, sed etiam habitasset, omnia domo eius abstulit quae paulo magis animum cuiuspiam aut oculos possent commovere. etenim Sthenius ab adulescentia paulo studiosius haec compararat: supellectilem ex aere elegantiorem et Deliacam et Corinthiam, tabulas pictas, etiam argenti bene facti, prout Thermitani hominis facultates ferebant, satis. quae cum esset in Asia adulescens studiose, ut dixi, compararat, non tam suae delectationis causa quam ad invitationes adventusque nostrorum hominum, suorum amicorum atque hospitum.
After Verres had carried all this off — some by asking, some by demanding, some by taking — Sthenius bore as he could. He was necessarily anguished in soul that this man had now made his house, adorned and furnished, naked and empty. Yet he shared his grief with no one. He thought a praetor’s wrongs should be borne in silence, a guest’s calmly.
quae posteaquam iste omnia abstulit, alia rogando, alia poscendo, alia sumendo, ferebat Sthenius ut poterat; angebatur animi necessario quod domum eius exornatam et instructam fere iam iste reddiderat nudam atque inanem; verum tamen dolorem suum nemini impertiebat; praetoris iniurias tacite, hospitis placide ferendas arbitrabatur.
Meanwhile that man, with that greed of his known and spread among all, when he had seen at Thermae certain most beautiful and most ancient statues set up in public, fell in love. He began to ask Sthenius to lend his service for taking them away and to help. But Sthenius not only refused, but even showed that it could in no way come about that the most ancient statues, monuments of Publius Africanus, should be taken from the town of the Thermitans, while the city was safe and the empire of the Roman people stood.
interea iste cupiditate illa sua nota atque apud omnis pervagata, cum signa quaedam pulcherrima atque antiquissima Thermis in publico posita vidisset, adamavit; a Sthenio petere coepit ut ad ea tollenda operam suam profiteretur seque adiuvaret. Sthenius vero non solum negavit, sed etiam ostendit fieri id nullo modo posse ut signa antiquissima, monumenta P. Africani, ex oppido Thermitanorum incolumi illa civitate imperioque populi Romani tollerentur.
For, that you may at the same time also learn Africanus’s humanity and equity — the Carthaginians had once captured the town of Himera, which had been among the foremost distinguished and adorned cities of Sicily. Scipio — who thought it worthy of the Roman people, the war finished, that the allies should recover their own through our victory — with Carthage taken, took care to restore to all the Sicilians what he could. Of those whom the calamity of war had left of the citizens of destroyed Himera, they had settled themselves at Thermae, in the same boundaries of land and not far from the old town; and they reckoned themselves as recovering their fathers’ fortunes and dignity when those ornaments of their ancestors were placed in their town.
etenim ut simul Africani quoque humanitatem et aequitatem cognoscatis, oppidum Himeram Carthaginienses quondam ceperant, quod fuerat in primis Siciliae clarum et ornatum. Scipio, qui hoc dignum populo Romano arbitraretur, bello confecto socios sua per nostram victoriam recuperare, Siculis omnibus Carthagine capta quae potuit restituenda curavit. Himera deleta quos civis belli calamitas reliquos fecerat, ii se Thermis conlocarant in isdem agri finibus neque longe ab oppido antiquo, et se patrum fortunas et dignitatem recuperare arbitrabantur cum illa maiorum ornamenta in eorum oppido conlocabantur.
There were several bronze statues; among them, of singular beauty, was Himera herself, formed in a woman’s figure and dress from the name of the town and the river. There was also a statue of the poet Stesichorus, an old man stooped with a book, finished (as men think) with the highest art — who was of Himera, but is and was throughout all Greece in highest honour and name for his ability. These Verres had coveted to madness. Even (which I almost passed over) there is a certain little she-goat, marvellously — as even we who are unskilled in these things can understand — skilfully and gracefully made. These and other things Scipio had not carelessly thrown away, for an intelligent man like Verres to take, but had restored to the Thermitans — not because he himself had no garden or suburban estate or any place at all where to put them, but because, if he had taken them home, they would not long have been called Scipio’s, but those of whomever they came to by his death. As they are now placed in those places, they always seem to me Scipio’s, and so are called.
erant signa ex aere complura; in his eximia pulchritudine ipsa Himera in muliebrem figuram habitumque formata ex oppidi nomine et fluminis. erat etiam Stesichori poetae statua senilis incurva cum libro summo, ut putant, artificio facta, qui fuit Himerae, sed et est et fuit tota Graecia summo propter ingenium honore et nomine. haec iste ad insaniam concupiverat. etiam, quod paene praeterii, capella quaedam est, ea quidem mire, ut etiam nos qui rudes harum rerum sumus intellegere possumus, scite facta et venuste. haec et alia Scipio non neglegenter abiecerat, ut homo intellegens Verres auferre posset, sed Thermitanis restituerat, non quo ipse hortos aut suburbanum aut locum omnino ubi ea poneret nullum haberet, sed quod, si domum abstulisset, non diu Scipionis appellarentur, sed eorum ad quoscumque illius morte venissent: nunc iis locis posita sunt ut mihi semper Scipionis fore videantur itaque dicantur.
When Verres demanded these things, and the matter was being discussed in the senate, Sthenius vehemently resisted, and (since he is among the foremost copious of the Sicilians in speaking) recalled many things: that to leave the city was more honourable for the Thermitans than to suffer to be taken from the city the monuments of their ancestors, the spoils of enemies, the kindnesses of a most distinguished man, the signs of the partnership of the Roman people and friendship. The minds of all were moved. No one was found who did not say it would be better to die. So this town, almost alone in the world, Verres found, from which he could carry off nothing of this kind — not by force out of the public, not in secret, not by command, not by favour, not by price. But these greeds of his I will set out in another place. Now I shall return to Sthenius.
haec cum iste posceret agereturque ea res in senatu, Sthenius vehementissime restitit multaque, ut in primis Siculorum in dicendo copiosus est, commemoravit: urbem relinquere Thermitanis esse honestius quam pati tolli ex urbe monumenta maiorum, spolia hostium, beneficia clarissimi viri, indicia societatis populi Romani atque amicitiae. commoti animi sunt omnium; repertus est nemo quin mori diceret satius esse. itaque hoc adhuc oppidum Verres invenit prope solum in orbe terrarum unde nihil eius modi rerum de publico per vim, nihil occulte, nihil imperio, nihil gratia, nihil pretio posset auferre. verum hasce eius cupiditates exponam alio loco; nunc ad Sthenium revertar.
Verres, vehemently angry with Sthenius and inflamed, renounces hospitality with him; emigrates from his house; or rather, leaves — for he had already moved out before. The most hostile enemies of Sthenius at once invite Verres into their own house, that they might inflame his mind against Sthenius by inventing some lie and accusing. These enemies were Agathinus, a noble man, and Dorotheus, who had Callidama, daughter of that very Agathinus, in marriage. Verres had heard about her, and so preferred to move to Agathinus’s son-in-law’s. One night had passed, when Verres so loved Dorotheus that you would say everything was in common between them; he so respected Agathinus as some kinsman and kinsman by marriage. Even that statue of Himera he now seemed to despise, because the figure and lineaments of his hostess pleased him much more.
iratus iste vehementer Sthenio atque incensus hospitium ei renuntiat, domo eius emigrat atque adeo exit; nam iam ante emigrarat. Eum autem statim inimicissimi Stheni domum suam invitant, ut animum eius in Sthenium inflammarent ementiendo aliquid et criminando. hi autem erant inimici Agathinus, homo nobilis, et Dorotheus, qui habebat in matrimonio Callidamam, Agathini eius filiam; de qua iste audierat, itaque ad generum Agathini migrare maluit. Vna nox intercesserat cum iste Dorotheum sic diligebat ut diceres omnia inter eos esse communia, Agathinum ita observabat ut aliquem adfinem atque propinquum; contemnere etiam signum illud Himerae iam videbatur, quod eum multo magis figura et liniamenta hospitae delectabant.
So he began to urge them to create some danger and fabricate some charge against Sthenius. They said they had nothing they could say. Then Verres openly showed and assured them that they would prove against Sthenius whatever they wished, as soon as they had brought it to him. So they did not procrastinate. They at once summon Sthenius, say public records have been corrupted by him. Sthenius demands that, since his own fellow citizens are proceeding against him about corrupted public records, and the action of that matter is by the laws of the Thermitans — and since the senate and Roman people had given back to the Thermitans (because they had always remained in friendship and faith) their city, fields, and laws, and Publius Rupilius afterwards had given laws to the Sicilians by senatorial decree, by the opinion of the ten legates, that fellow citizens should proceed among themselves by their own laws, and Verres himself had this in his edict — that on all these grounds he should refer Sthenius to his own laws.
itaque hortari homines coepit ut aliquid Sthenio periculi crearent criminisque confingerent. dicebant se illi nihil habere quod dicerent. tum iste iis aperte ostendit et confirmavit eos in Sthenium quidquid vellent, simul atque ad se detulissent, probaturos. itaque illi non procrastinant, Sthenium statim educunt, aiunt ab eo litteras publicas esse corruptas. Sthenius postulat ut, cum secum sui cives agant de litteris publicis corruptis, eiusque rei legibus Thermitanorum actio sit, senatusque et populus Romanus Thermitanis, quod semper in amicitia fideque mansissent, urbem agros legesque suas reddidisset Publiusque Rupilius postea leges ita Siculis ex senatus consulto de x legatorum sententia dedisset ut cives inter sese legibus suis agerent, idemque hoc haberet Verres ipse in edicto: ut de his omnibus causis se ad leges reiceret.
That man — of all men the most fair-minded, the most remote from all greed — assures him he will take cognizance himself, and orders him to be ready at the ninth hour for the case to be heard. It was not obscure what this wicked and unspeakable man was contriving. For he had not himself concealed it well enough, nor had the woman been able to keep silent. It was understood that he was driving at this: that, when he had condemned Sthenius without any proof and without a witness, then this unspeakable man should take from a noble man, of that age, his own guest-friend, the cruelest punishment by the rods. When this was plain, on the advice of his friends and guest-friends Sthenius fled from Thermae to Rome. He preferred to commit himself to winter and the waves rather than not escape that storm and calamity that hung common over all the Sicilians.
iste homo omnium aequissimus atque a cupiditate remotissimus se cogniturum esse confirmat; paratum ad causam dicendam venire hora nona iubet. non erat obscurum quid homo improbus ac nefarius cogitaret; neque enim ipse satis occultarat, nec mulier tacere potuerat. intellectum est id istum agere ut, cum Sthenium sine ullo argumento ac sine teste damnasset, tum homo nefarius de homine nobili atque id aetatis suoque hospite virgis supplicium crudelissime sumeret. quod cum esset perspicuum, de amicorum hospitumque suorum sententia Thermis Sthenius Romam profugit: hiemi fluctibusque sese committere maluit quam non istam communem Siculorum tempestatem calamitatemque vitaret.
That trustworthy and diligent man is ready and waiting at the ninth hour, orders Sthenius to be summoned. When he sees he is not present, he begins to burn with grief and to rage with anger. He sends Venus’s slaves to Sthenius’s house; he dispatches horsemen round his fields and farms. So while he waits to hear something certain, he does not leave the Forum before the third hour of night. Next morning he came down. He calls Agathinus to him. He orders him to speak about the public records against Sthenius in his absence. The case was such that, even with no adversary present, he could not before a hostile judge find anything to say.
iste homo certus et diligens ad horam nonam praesto est, Sthenium citari iubet. quem posteaquam videt non adesse, dolore ardere atque iracundia furere coepit, Venerios domum Stheni mittere, equis circum agros eius villasque dimittere. itaque dum exspectat quidnam sibi certi adferatur, ante horam tertiam noctis de foro non discedit. postridie mane descendit; Agathinum ad se vocat; iubet eum de litteris publicis in absentem Sthenium dicere. erat eius modi causa ut ille ne sine adversario quidem apud inimicum iudicem reperire posset quid diceret;
So he merely placed it on record in one phrase that, under Sacerdos as praetor, Sthenius had corrupted public records. Hardly had the man said this when our man pronounces: Sthenius is held to have corrupted public records. And to this the man of Venus adds besides — in a new way, with no precedent — that for that cause he will exact 500,000 sesterces from Sthenius’s goods for the Erucine Venus. And he immediately began to sell his goods. And he would have sold them, had there been the slightest delay in the money’s being counted out to him.
itaque tantum verbo posuit, Sacerdote praetore Sthenium litteras publicas corrupisse. vix ille hoc dixerat cum iste pronuntiat STHENIVM LITTERAS PVBLICAS CORRVPISSE VIDERI; et hoc praeterea addit homo Venerius novo modo nullo exemplo, OB EAM REM HS D VENERI ERYCINAE DE STHENI BONIS SE EXACTVRVM, bonaque eius statim coepit vendere; et vendidisset, si tantulum morae fuisset quo minus ei pecunia illa numeraretur.
After it had been counted out, he was not content with this iniquity. He pronounces openly from his chair and tribunal: If anyone wishes to indict the absent Sthenius on a capital charge, he will receive his name. And at the same time he began to urge Agathinus, his new kinsman by marriage and his guest, to take up the case and lodge the charge. Then Agathinus, in everyone’s hearing, said clearly that he would not do it; that he was not so far Sthenius’s enemy as to claim that he was answerable for a capital crime. At this point a certain Pacilius suddenly steps forward — a needy and worthless man — and says that, if it were lawful, he was willing to lodge the charge against an absent man. Verres says that it is lawful, that it is customary, and that he will receive the name. So the charge is lodged. He at once gives notice that Sthenius is to be present at Syracuse on the Kalends of December.
ea posteaquam numerata est, contentus hac iniquitate iste non fuit; palam de sella ac tribunali pronuntiat, Sl QVIS ABSENTEM STHENIVM REI CAPITALIS REVM FACERE VELLET, SESE EIVS NOMEN RECEPTVRVUM et simul ut ad causam accederet nomenque deferret, Agathinum, novum adfinem atque hospitem, coepit hortari. tum ille clare omnibus audientibus se id non esse facturum, neque se usque eo Sthenio esse inimicum ut eum rei capitalis adfinem esse diceret. hic tum repente Pacilius quidam, homo egens et levis, accedit; ait, si liceret, absentis nomen deferre se velle. iste vero et licere et fieri solere, et se recepturum; itaque defertur; edicit statim ut Kalendis Decembribus adsit Sthenius Syracusis.
Sthenius, having reached Rome, and having sailed (now that the season was against him) reasonably well, and having found everything fairer and gentler than the mind of his praetor and host, laid the matter before his friends. The thing, bitter and unworthy as it was, seemed so to all. So in the senate at once the consuls Gnaeus Lentulus and Lucius Gellius mention it: that it pleased them, if it pleased the conscript fathers, that it be established that absent men should not be made defendants in the provinces. They lay before the senate the whole case of Sthenius and this man’s cruelty and iniquity. Verres’s father was present in the senate, and weeping, was begging each senator one by one to spare his son. Yet he did not get far with it; for the will of the senate was at the highest. So sentences were being delivered: since Sthenius had been made defendant in his absence, no judgement on an absent man should take place; and if any had taken place, that it should not stand.
hic qui Romam pervenisset, satisque feliciter anni iam adverso tempore navigasset, omniaque habuisset aequiora et placabiliora quam animum praetoris atque hospitis, rem ad amicos suos detulit, quae, ut erat acerba atque indigna, sic videbatur omnibus. itaque in senatu continuo Cn. Lentulus et L. Gellius consules faciunt mentionem placere statui, si patribus conscriptis videretur, ne absentes homines in provinciis rei fierent rerum capitalium; causam Stheni totam et istius crudelitatem et iniquitatem senatum docent. aderat in senatu Verres pater istius, et flens unum quemque senatorum rogabat ut filio suo parceret; neque tamen multum proficiebat; erat enim summa voluntas senatus. itaque sententiae dicebantur: CVM STHENIVS ABSENS REVS FACTVS ESSET, DE ABSENTE IVDICIVM NVLLVM FIERI PLACERE, ET, Sl QVOD ESSET FACTVM, ID RATVM ESSE NON PLACERE.
On that day nothing could be transacted, both because the hour was late and because that father of his had found men to consume the time with speaking. Afterwards old Verres met all of Sthenius’s defenders and guest-friends; he asks and begs them not to attack his son, not to trouble themselves over Sthenius. He assures them that he will see to it that no harm is done him through his son: that he is sending sure men, for that very purpose, to Sicily by land and sea. And there was a space of nearly thirty days before the Kalends of December, the day on which Verres had given notice that Sthenius should be present at Syracuse.
eo die transigi nihil potuit, quod et id temporis erat et ille pater istius invenerat homines qui dicendo tempus consumerent. postea senex Verres defensores atque hospites omnis Stheni convenit, rogat eos atque orat ne oppugnent filium suum, de Sthenio ne laborent; confirmat iis curaturum se esse ne quid ei per filium suum noceretur; se homines certos eius rei causa in Siciliam et terra et mari esse missurum. et erat spatium dierum fere xxx ante Kalendas Decembris, quo die iste ut Syracusis Sthenius adesset edixerat.
Sthenius’s friends are moved. They hope that the son will be recalled from his madness by his father’s letters and messengers. Afterwards in the senate the case is not pursued. The household messengers come to him; they bring letters from his father before the Kalends of December, when even then to him the whole matter of Sthenius was still open. At the same time several letters on the same matter from many of his friends and connections are brought to him. At this point our man, who out of greed had never reckoned with duty, with danger, with piety, or with humanity — who thought neither the authority of his father in what he was warned of, nor his father’s wish in what he was begged for, ought to come before his lust — on the morning of the Kalends of December, as he had given notice, orders Sthenius to be summoned.
commoventur amici Stheni; sperant fore ut patris litteris nuntiisque filius ab illo furore revocetur. in senatu postea causa non agitur. veniunt ad istum domestici nuntii litterasque a patre adferunt ante Kalendas Decembris, cum isti etiam tum de Sthenio in integro tota res esset, eodemque ei tempore de eadem re litterae complures a multis eius amicis ac necessariis adferuntur. hic iste, qui prae cupiditate neque offici sui neque periculi neque pietatis neque humanitatis rationem habuisset umquam, neque in eo quod monebatur auctoritatem patris neque in eo quod rogabatur voluntatem anteponendam putavit libidini suae, mane Kalendis Decembribus, ut edixerat, Sthenium citari iubet.
Had your father sought this thing of you at the request of some friend, moved by kindness or by the wish to oblige, the will of a father ought still to have weighed most heavily with you. But when he sought it of you for your own life’s sake, and had sent sure men from his home, and these had come to you at a time when the whole matter was still open — not even then could a regard for, if not piety, at least your own safety, recall you to duty and sanity? He summons the defendant; no answer. He summons the prosecutor — (notice, please, gentlemen, how strongly fortune itself has set herself against this man’s madness; and at the same time see what chance came to the aid of Sthenius’s case) — the prosecutor summoned, Marcus Pacilius, by some chance did not answer, did not appear.
si abs te istam rem parens tuus alicuius amici rogatu benignitate aut ambitione adductus petisset, gravissima tamen apud te voluntas patris esse debuisset; cum vero abs te tui capitis causa peteret hominesque certos domo misisset, hique eo tempore ad te venissent cum tibi in integro tota res esset, ne tum quidem te potuit si non pietatis, at salutis tuae ratio ad officium sanitatemque reducere? citat reum; non respondit; citat accusatorem; (attendite, quaeso, iudices, quanto opere istius amentiae fortuna ipsa adversata sit, et simul videte qui Stheni causam casus adiuverit); citatus accusator, M. Pacilius, nescio quo casu non respondit, non adfuit.
If Sthenius had been made defendant in person, if he had been caught red-handed in his crime, still, the prosecutor not being present, Sthenius ought not to have been condemned. For if a defendant could be condemned in his prosecutor’s absence, I should not have come from Vibo to Velia in a tiny boat through the weapons of fugitives and pirates and your own men, at the time when all my haste went with risk to my life — and for this cause: that you should not be removed from the list of defendants if I did not appear by the day. The thing then which was most desired by you in your own trial — that I, when summoned, should not be present — why did you not think it ought to profit Sthenius, when his prosecutor had not appeared? So he saw to it that the end was found most like the beginning: him whom he had made defendant in his absence, that man, in the absence of the prosecutor, he condemns.
si praesens Sthenius reus esset factus, si manifesto in maleficio teneretur, tamen, cum accusator non adesset, Sthenium condemnari non oporteret. etenim si posset reus absente accusatore damnari, non ego a Vibone Veliam parvulo navigio inter fugitivorum ac praedonum ac tua tela venissem, quo tempore omnis illa mea festinatio fuit cum periculo capitis, ob eam causam ne tu ex reis eximerere si ego ad diem non adfuissem. quod igitur tibi erat in tuo iudicio optatissimum, me cum citatus essem non adesse, cur Sthenio non putasti prodesse oportere, cum eius accusator non adfuisset? itaque fecit ut exitus principio simillimus reperiretur: quem absentem reum fecerat, eum absente accusatore condemnat.
Word was being brought to him in those first days — as his father too had written him in many words — that the matter had been agitated in the senate; that even in a public meeting Marcus Palicanus, tribune of the plebs, had complained about Sthenius’s case; finally, that I myself, before this college of tribunes of the plebs — since by their joint edict no man condemned on a capital charge was permitted to be at Rome — had pleaded Sthenius’s case. And that, when I had so set out the matter as I have just now set it out before you, and had shown that this condemnation was not to be admitted, the ten tribunes of the plebs had ruled this, and it had been pronounced from the opinion of all of them: Sthenius is not to be held barred by the edict from being lawfully at Rome.
nuntiabatur illi primis illis temporibus, id quod pater quoque ad eum pluribus verbis scripserat, agitatam rem esse in senatu; etiam in contione tribunum plebis de causa Stheni, M. Palicanum, esse questum; postremo me ipsum apud hoc collegium tribunorum plebis, cum eorum omnium edicto non liceret Romae quemquam esse qui rei capitalis condemnatus esset, egisse causam Stheni, et, cum ita rem exposuissem quem ad modum nunc apud vos, docuissemque hanc damnationem duci non oportere, x tribunos plebis hoc statuisse, idque de omnium sententia pronuntiatum esse, NON VIDERI STHENIVM lMPEDIRI EDICTO QVO MINVS EI ROMAE LICERET ESSE.
When these things were brought to him, he took fright at last and was shaken. He turned his stylus on his own tablets — by which act he overturned his whole defence. For he left himself nothing that could in any way be defended. For if he had defended himself thus — "It is lawful to receive the name of an absent man; no law forbids this to be done in a province" — by an evil and dishonest defence, but at least by some defence, he might have seemed to use one; finally he might have used that most desperate refuge: that he had done it not knowing, that he had thought it was lawful. Although that is the most ruined defence of all, yet something would have seemed to be said. He removes from the tablets what was there, and makes it appear that the case was lodged with him in person.
cum haec ad istum adferrentur, pertimuit aliquando et commotus est; vertit stilum in tabulis suis, quo facto causam omnem evertit suam; nihil enim sibi reliqui fecit quod defendi aliqua ratione posset. nam si ita defenderet, ’ recipi nomen absentis licet; hoc fieri in provincia nulla lex vetat,’ mala et improba defensione, verum aliqua tamen uti videretur; postremo illo desperatissimo perfugio uti posset, se imprudentem fecisse, existimasse id licere. quamquam haec perditissima defensio est, tamen aliquid dici videretur. tollit ex tabulis id quod erat, et facit coram esse delatum.
Here see in how many snares he has wound himself, from none of which, gentlemen, will he ever extricate himself. First, in Sicily he had himself often and openly said from his bench, and in conversation pointed out to many, that it was lawful to receive the name of an absent man; that he was acting on precedent. That he had repeated this in the previous hearing was said both by Sextus Pompeius Chlorus, of whose virtue I have spoken before, and by Gnaeus Pompeius Theodorus — a man most approved by the judgement of Gnaeus Pompeius (a most distinguished man) in many and the greatest matters, and most adorned by everyone’s esteem — and by Posides Macro of Solus, a man most adorned in the highest nobility, esteem, and virtue. And in this hearing as many as you wish will say it: men who heard it from this very man, leading men of our order, and others who were present when the name of an absent man was being received. Furthermore at Rome, when this matter was treated in the senate, all this man’s friends — and among them his father — defended this: that it was lawful for it to be done; that it had often been done; that what this man had done, he had done by the precedent and practice of others.
hic videte in quot se laqueos induerit, quorum ex nullo se, iudices, umquam expediet. primum ipse in Sicilia saepe et palam de loco superiore dixerat et in sermone multis demonstrarat licere nomen recipere absentis; se exemplo fecisse quod fecisset. haec eum dictitasse priore actione et Sex. Pompeius Chlorus dixit, de cuius virtute antea commemoravi, et Cn. Pompeius Theodorus, homo et Cn. Pompei, clarissimi viri, iudicio plurimis maximisque in rebus probatissimus et omnium existimatione ornatissimus, et Posides Macro Soluntinus, homo summa nobilitate existimatione virtute ornatissimus, et hac actione quam voletis multi dicent, et qui ex isto ipso audierunt viri primarii nostri ordinis, et alii qui interfuerunt cum absentis nomen reciperetur. deinde Romae, cum haec acta res esset in senatu, omnes istius amici, in his etiam pater eius hoc defendebat, licere fieri; saepe esse factum; iste quod fecisset aliorum exemplo institutoque fecisse.
Furthermore all Sicily gives testimony, which in the joint petitions of all the cities to the consuls asks and prays the conscript fathers to establish that the names of absent men should not be received. About which matter you have heard Gnaeus Lentulus, the patron of Sicily, that most distinguished young man, say that the Sicilians, when they were instructing him in the case which had to be pleaded for them in the senate, complained of Sthenius’s calamity, and on account of this very wrong done to Sthenius had decided that the request which I am speaking of should be lodged.
dicit praeterea testimonium tota Sicilia, quae in communibus postulatis civitatum omnium consulibus edidit, rogare atque orare patres conscriptos ut statuerent ne absentium nomina reciperentur. qua de re Cn. Lentulum, patronum Siciliae, clarissimum adulescentem, dicere audistis, Siculos, cum se causam quae sibi in senatu pro his agenda esset docerent, de Stheni calamitate questos esse, propterque hanc iniuriam quae Sthenio facta esset eos statuisse ut hoc quod dico postularetur.
When these things stood so, were you possessed of such madness and audacity that, in a matter so plain, so witnessed-to, so spread abroad by yourself, you dared corrupt the public records? But how did you corrupt them? Was it not so that, even were all of us silent, your own tablets could condemn you? Pass the codex to me, please; pass it round; show it. Do you see that this entire entry, where it makes the case lodged in person, is on a place of erasure? What was written there before? What error did that erasure correct? What proofs of this charge, gentlemen, do you await from me? I say nothing. The tablets are in the open, which cry out that they have been corrupted and erased.
quae cum ita essent, tantane amentia praeditus atque audacia fuisti ut in re tam clara, tam testata, tam abs te ipso pervulgata tabulas publicas corrumpere auderes? at quem ad modum corrupisti? nonne ita ut omnibus nobis tacentibus ipsae tuae te tabulae condemnare possent? cedo, quaeso, codicem, circumfer, ostende. videtisne totum hoc nomen, coram ubi facit delatum, esse in litura? quid fuit istic antea scriptum? quod mendum ista litura correxit? quid a nobis, iudices, exspectatis argumenta huius criminis? nihil dicimus; tabulae sunt in medio, quae se corruptas atque interlitas esse clamant.
Out of these matters too do you trust that you can escape, when we pursue you not by uncertain conjecture but on your own footprints, which you have left expressed and fresh in the public records? Did this man also pass judgement on Sthenius for corrupting public records, the case unheard — this man who will not be able to defend himself from having corrupted the public records on Sthenius’s very entry?
ex istis etiam tu rebus effugere te posse confidis, cum te nos non opinione dubia, sed tuis vestigiis persequamur, quae tu in tabulis publicis expressa ac recentia reliquisti? is mihi etiam Sthenium litteras publicas corrupisse causa incognita iudicavit, qui defendere non poterit se non in ipsius Stheni nomine litteras publicas corrupisse?
See now another madness; see how, while he wishes to extricate himself, he wraps himself in. He registers a representative for Sthenius — whom? Some kinsman or near relation? No. Some honourable and noble man of Thermae? Not even that. But some Sicilian in whom there was some splendour and dignity? No one. What then? A Roman citizen. To whom can this be made probable? When Sthenius was the most noble of his city, of the widest kinship and the most friendships, and besides could do much through all Sicily by his authority and favour — could he find no Sicilian who would act as his representative? Will you make this credible? Or did he himself prefer a Roman citizen? Tell me of any Sicilian, when he was made defendant, for whom a Roman citizen was ever made representative. Bring out and unfold the records of all the praetors who were before you. If you find one such, I will grant that the thing was done as you have it written in your tablets.
videte porro aliam amentiam; videte ut, dum expedire sese vult, induat. cognitorem adscribit Sthenio—quem? cognatum aliquem aut propinquum? non. Thermitanum aliquem, honestum hominem ac nobilem? ne id quidem. at Siculum, in quo aliquis splendor dignitasque esset? neminem. quid igitur? civem Romanum. cui hoc probari potest? cum esset Sthenius civitatis suae nobilissimus, amplissima cognatione, plurimis amicitiis, cum praeterea tota Sicilia multum auctoritate et gratia posset, invenire neminem Siculum potuit qui pro se cognitor fieret? hoc probabis? an ipse civem Romanum maluit? cedo cui Siculo, cum is reus fieret, civis Romanus cognitor factus umquam sit. omnium praetorum litteras qui ante te fuerunt profer, explica; si unum inveneris, ego hoc tibi, quem ad modum in tabulis scriptum habes, ita gestum esse concedam.
But, I suppose, Sthenius thought it splendid for himself to choose, out of the number of Roman citizens, out of the abundance of his friends and guest-friends, the man whom he would give as representative. Whom did he pick? Whose name is written in the tablets? Gaius Claudius, son of Gaius, of the Palatine tribe. I do not ask who this Claudius is; how splendid, how honourable, how fitted, that on account of his authority and dignity Sthenius should depart from the practice of all Sicilians and give a Roman citizen as representative. None of these things I ask; for perhaps Sthenius followed not the man’s splendour but their familiarity. What then? If of all mortals no one was more an enemy to Sthenius than this Gaius Claudius, both always and especially in these very matters and at these times — if he came against him on the charge of corrupted records, if he fought against him in every way — shall we believe rather that an enemy was made representative on Sthenius’s behalf, or that you abused the name of his enemy to bring Sthenius into peril?
at, credo, Sthenius hoc sibi amplum putavit, eligere ex civium Romanorum numero, ex amicorum atque hospitum suorum copia, quem cognitorem daret. quem delegit? quis in tabulis scriptus est? C. Claudius C. F. Palatina. non quaero quis hic sit Claudius, quam splendidus, quam honestus, quam idoneus propter cuius auctoritatem et dignitatem Sthenius ab omnium Siculorum consuetudine discederet et civem Romanum cognitorem daret. nihil horum quaero; fortasse enim Sthenius non splendorem hominis, sed familiaritatem secutus est. quid? si omnium mortalium Sthenio nemo inimicior quam hic C. Claudius cum semper tum in his ipsis rebus et temporibus fuit, si de litteris corruptis contra venit, si contra omni ratione pugnavit, utrum potius pro Sthenio inimicum cognitorem esse factum an te ad Stheni periculum inimici eius nomine abusum esse credemus?
And lest anyone perhaps doubt of what kind this whole business is — though I trust this man’s wickedness has long been clear to all — yet attend a little further. You see that man with the curly hair, dark, who looks at us with a face such that he seems to himself most sharp-witted, who holds the tablets, who writes, who prompts, who is closest to him. That is Claudius — the man who in Sicily was reckoned this man’s go-between, his interpreter, his finisher of business, almost a colleague of Timarchides. Now he holds such a place that he scarcely seems to yield to that famous Apronius in familiarity — to him who used to say himself that he was the colleague and partner not of Timarchides but of Verres himself.
ac ne qui forte dubitet cuius modi hoc totum sit negotium, tametsi iam dudum omnibus istius improbitatem perspicuam esse confido, tamen paulum etiam attendite. videtis illum subcrispo capillo, nigrum, qui eo vultu nos intuetur ut sibi ipse peracutus esse videatur, qui tabulas tenet, qui scribit, qui monet, qui proximus est. is est Claudius, qui in Sicilia sequester istius, interpres, confector negotiorum, prope conlega Timarchidi numerabatur, nunc obtinet eum locum ut vix Apronio illi de familiaritate concedere videatur, ei qui se non Timarchidi sed ipsius Verris conlegam et socium esse dicebat.
Doubt still, if you can, that this man chose him out of all, in particular, on whom to fasten this dishonest part of false representative — the man he reckoned both most hostile to Sthenius and most friendly to himself. Will you hesitate, gentlemen, to avenge such audacity, such cruelty, such wrong as this? Will you hesitate to follow the precedent of those judges who, when Gnaeus Dolabella had been condemned, rescinded the condemnation of Philodamus of Opus, not because he had been made defendant in his absence (which is the most iniquitous and bitterest of things), but because, at the time, an embassy to Rome had already been given him by his fellow citizens? What those judges decided in a much lighter case, following equity, will you hesitate to decide in the gravest case — and one already confirmed by the authority of others?
dubitate etiam, si potestis, quin eum iste potissimum ex omni numero delegerit cui hanc cognitoris falsi improbam personam imponeret, quem et huic inimicissimum et sibi amicissimum esse arbitraretur! hic vos dubitabitis, iudices, tantam istius audaciam, tantam crudelitatem, tantam iniuriam vindicare? dubitabitis exemplum illorum iudicum sequi qui damnato Cn. Dolabella damnationem Philodami Opuntii resciderunt, quod is non absens reus factus esset, quae res iniquissima atque acerbissima est, sed cum ei legatio iam Romam a suis civibus esset data? quod illi iudices multo in leviore causa statuerunt aequitatem secuti, vos id statuere in gravissima causa, praesertim aliorum auctoritate iam confirmatum, dubitabitis?
But what man, Gaius Verres, have you afflicted with so great and so notable a wrong? What man have you, in his absence, condemned for corrupting the records, the case unheard? Whose name in his absence have you received? What man in his absence have you condemned not only without crime and without witness, but even without prosecutor? What man? Immortal gods! I do not say your friend, which is among men a most distinguished thing; I do not say your guest-friend, which is the most sacred. For there is nothing I less willingly bring up about Sthenius; I find in him no other thing that could be reproached, except that this most frugal and most upright man invited you, a man full of debauchery and disgrace and crime, into his house — except that, having been and being the guest-friend of Gaius Marius, Gnaeus Pompeius, Gaius Marcellus, Lucius Sisenna (your defender), and the rest of the bravest men, he added your name too to that number of most distinguished men.
at quem hominem, C. Verres, tanta tam insigni iniuria adfecisti? quem hominem absentem de litteris corruptis causa incognita condemnasti? cuius absentis nomen recepisti? quem absentem non modo sine crimine et sine teste, verum etiam sine accusatore damnasti? quem hominem? di immortales! non dicam amicum tuum, quod apud homines clarissimum est, non hospitem, quod sanctissimum est; nihil enim minus libenter de Sthenio commemoro, nihil aliud in eo quod reprehendi possit invenio nisi quod homo frugalissimus atque integerrimus te, hominem plenum stupri flagiti sceleris, domum suam invitavit, nisi quod, qui C. Mari, Cn. Pompei, C. Marcelli, L. Sisennae, tui defensoris, ceterorum virorum fortissimorum hospes fuisset atque esset, ad eum numerum clarissimorum hominum tuum quoque nomen adscripsit.
Therefore of the violation of guest-friendship and of that unspeakable crime of yours I make no complaint. I say this not to those who know Sthenius — that is, to none of those who have been in Sicily, for no one is ignorant in what splendour he stands in his own city, and in what dignity and esteem among all the Sicilians — but that even those who have not been in that province may understand on what kind of man you have set so great a precedent: a thing which, both for the iniquity of the matter and the dignity of the man, has seemed bitter to all and not to be borne.
quare de hospitio violato et de tuo isto scelere nefario nil queror; hoc dico non iis qui Sthenium norunt, hoc est nemini eorum qui in Sicilia fuerunt,—nemo enim ignorat quo hic in civitate sua splendore, qua apud omnis Siculos dignitate atque existimatione sit; sed ut illi quoque qui in ea provincia non fuerunt intellegere possint in quo homine tu statueris exemplum eius modi, quod cum propter iniquitatem rei tum etiam propter hominis dignitatem acerbum omnibus atque intolerandum videretur.
Is not Sthenius the man who, having most easily attained all offices in his own town, discharged them most amply and most magnificently? Who adorned a town not the largest with the largest public spaces and monuments out of his own money? Of whose services to the commonwealth of the Thermitans and to all the Sicilians a bronze tablet was fixed at Thermae in the senate-house, on which his benefits were inscribed and engraved on behalf of the city — a tablet which was then torn down by your command, but which I have now brought away, that all may know in what honour and amplitude he stood among his own?
estne Sthenius is qui, omnis honores domi suae facillime cum adeptus esset, amplissime ac magnificentissime gessit, qui oppidum non maximum maximis ex pecunia sua locis communibus monumentisque decoravit, cuius de meritis in rem publicam Thermitanorum Siculosque universos fuit aenea tabula fixa Thermis in curia, in qua publice erat de huius beneficiis scriptum et incisum? quae tabula tum imperio tuo revulsa, nunc a me tamen deportata est, ut omnes huius honores inter suos et amplitudinem possent cognoscere.
Is not he who, before Gnaeus Pompeius (a most distinguished man), when he was accused (his enemies and prosecutors saying that on account of his familiarity and guest-friendship with Gaius Marius he had taken thought against the commonwealth), and when he was hauled in on a charge more invidious than true, was so acquitted by Gnaeus Pompeius that in that very trial Pompeius judged him most worthy of his own guest-friendship? Praised, moreover, and defended by all the Sicilians, so that the same Pompeius reckoned that he was earning gratitude not only from one man but from a whole province by his acquittal? In short, is not he the man whose mind was such towards the commonwealth, and who could do so much by his authority among his fellow citizens, that he alone in Sicily, with you as praetor, accomplished what no Sicilian — no, not all Sicily — could have accomplished: that from the town of Thermae you should touch no statue, no ornament, nothing from sacred things, nothing from public ones — and this when there were many splendid things and you had coveted them all?
estne hic qui apud Cn. Pompeium, clarissimum virum, cum accusatus esset, quod propter C. Mari familiaritatem et hospitium contra rem publicam sensisse eum inimici et accusatores eius dicerent, cumque magis invidioso crimine quam vero arcesseretur, ita a Cn. Pompeio absolutus est ut in eo ipso iudicio Pompeius hunc hospitio suo dignissimum statueret? ita porro laudatus defensusque ab omnibus Siculis ut idem Pompeius non ab homine solum, sed etiam a provincia tota se huius absolutione inire gratiam arbitraretur? postremo estne hic qui et animum in rem publicam habuit eius modi et tantum auctoritate apud suos civis potuit ut perficeret in Sicilia solus te praetore, quod non modo Siculus nemo sed ne Sicilia quidem tota potuisset, ut ex oppido Thermis nullum signum, nullum ornamentum, nihil ex sacro, nihil de publico attingeres, cum praesertim et essent multa praeclara et tu omnia concupisses?
Then now look at what stands between you — in whose name festal days are celebrated among the Sicilians and the famous Verria are held, to whom gilded statues stand at Rome, given (as we see written on them) by Sicily in common — look, I say, at what stands between you and this Sicilian, who has been condemned by you, the patron of Sicily. Very many cities in Sicily praise this man publicly by their testimony and by embassies sent for the purpose. You, the patron of all the Sicilians, the one Mamertine city — ally of your thefts and disgraces — praises publicly: yet in such a new fashion that the envoys wound while the embassy praises. The other cities all publicly, by letters, embassies, testimonies, accuse, complain, indict. If you should be acquitted, they think themselves utterly overthrown.
denique nunc vide quid inter te, cuius nomine apud Siculos dies festi aguntur et praeclara illa Verria celebrantur, cui statuae Romae stant inauratae a communi Siciliae, quem ad modum inscriptum videmus, datae—vide, inquam, quid inter te et hunc Siculum, qui abs te est, patrono Siciliae, condemnatus, intersit. hunc civitates ex Sicilia permultae testimonio suo legationibusque ad eam rem missis publice laudant: te, omnium Siculorum patronum, una Mamertina civitas, socia furtorum ac flagitiorum tuorum, publice laudat—ita tamen novo more ut legati laedant, legatio laudet—ceterae quidem civitates publice litteris legationibus testimoniis accusant, queruntur, arguunt: si tu absolutus sis, se funditus eversas esse arbitrantur.
About this man and out of his property, even on Mount Eryx, you set up a monument of your thefts, your disgraces, your cruelty, on which the name of Sthenius of Thermae was inscribed. I have seen the silver Cupid with the lamp. What proof or reason was there in the thing, that on that of all places the prize taken from Sthenius should be set? Did you wish this to be a sign of your greed, or a trophy of intimacy and guest-friendship, or a mark of love? This is what such men do — those whom in the height of their wickedness not only lust and pleasure delight, but even the very fame of the wickedness itself: that they wish in many places marks and traces of their disgraces to be left.
hoc de homine ac de huius bonis etiam in Eryco monte monumentum tuorum furtorum, flagitiorum crudelitatisque posuisti, in quo Stheni Thermitani nomen adscriptum est. vidi argenteum Cupidinem cum lampade. quid tandem habuit argumenti aut rationis res quam ob rem in eo potissimum Sthenianum praemium poneretur? utrum hoc signum cupiditatis tuae an tropaeum necessitudinis atque hospiti an amoris indicium esse voluisti? faciunt hoc homines quos in summa nequitia non solum libido et voluptas, verum etiam ipsius nequitiae fama delectet, ut multis in locis notas ac vestigia suorum flagitiorum relinqui velint.
He was burning with love for that hostess on whose account he had violated the rights of guest-friendship. This he wished not only to be known then, but always to be remembered. So out of that very business which he had carried through with Agathinus prosecuting, he resolved that the prize should be owed to Venus above all — the goddess who had set ablaze that whole prosecution and trial. I should have thought you grateful to the gods, had you given this gift to Venus not from Sthenius’s goods but from your own, which you ought to have done, especially as in that very year an inheritance had come to you from Chelidon.
ardebat amore illius hospitae propter quam hospiti iura violarat; hoc non solum sciri tum, verum etiam commemorari semper volebat; itaque ex illa ipsa re quam accusante Agathino gesserat Veneri potissimum deberi praemium statuit, quae illam totam accusationem iudiciumque conflarat. putarem te gratum in deos si hoc donum Veneri non de Stheni bonis dedisses, sed de tuis; quod facere debuisti, praesertim cum tibi illo ipso anno a Chelidone venisset hereditas.
Here, gentlemen, had I not taken up this case at the request of all the Sicilians; had not the whole province demanded this gift of me; had not my mind and love for the commonwealth and the offence given to the standing of our order and of the courts compelled me to do it; and had this been the one cause — that you had treated my friend and guest-friend Sthenius (whom in my quaestorship I had loved singularly, of whom I had thought best, whom in the province I had known to be most zealous and most desirous of my own standing) so cruelly, so wickedly, so unspeakably — yet the cause would have seemed worthy enough that I should take up the enmities of the most dishonest of men, to defend the safety and fortunes of a guest-friend.
hic ego, si hanc causam non omnium Siculorum rogatu recepissem, si hoc a me muneris non universa provincia poposcisset, si me animus atque amor in rem publicam existimatioque offensa nostri ordinis ac iudiciorum non hoc facere coegisset, atque haec una causa fuisset quod amicum atque hospitem meum Sthenium, quem ego in quaestura mea singulariter dilexissem, de quo optime existimassem, quem in provincia existimationis meae studiosissimum cupidissimumque cognossem, tam crudeliter scelerate nefarieque tractasses, tamen digna causa videretur cur inimicitias hominis improbissimi susciperem, ut hospitis salutem fortunasque defenderem.
Many among our ancestors did this; and lately Gnaeus Domitius, a most distinguished man, did it, who accused Marcus Silanus (a man of consular rank) on account of the wrongs done to his guest-friend Aegritomarus, a Transalpine. I should have thought myself a fit man to follow such an example of humanity and duty, and to set out a hope for my own guest-friends and connections, by which they should reckon themselves to live the safer for my protection. But when in the common wrongs of the whole province Sthenius’s case too is contained, and when many of my guest-friends and friends are at one time defended by me both publicly and privately, surely I ought not to fear that anyone will judge what I am doing as undertaken from any motive but compulsion by the highest sense of duty. And, that we may at last leave off speaking of the matters Verres heard and judged, and of the trials he conducted; and since this man’s deeds in these kinds are without limit, that we may make some measure and end of our speech and our charges, we shall take a few from other kinds.
fecerunt hoc multi apud maiores nostros, fecit etiam nuper homo clarissimus, Cn. Domitius, qui M. Silanum, consularem hominem, accusavit propter Aegritomari Transalpini hospitis iniurias. putarem me idoneum qui exemplum sequerer humanitatis atque offici, proponeremque spem meis hospitibus ac necessariis quo tutiorem sese vitam meo praesidio victuros esse arbitrarentur; cum vero in communibus iniuriis totius provinciae Stheni quoque causa contineatur, multique uno tempore a me hospites atque amici publice privatimque defendantur, profecto vereri non debeo ne quis hoc quod facio non existimet me summi offici ratione impulsum coactumque suscepisse. atque ut aliquando de rebus ab isto cognitis iudicatisque et de iudiciis datis dicere desistamus, et, quoniam facta istius in his generibus infinita sunt, nos modum aliquem et finem orationi nostrae criminibusque faciamus, pauca ex aliis generibus sumemus.
You have heard Quintus Varius say that for the administration of justice his agents gave this man 130,000 sesterces. You remember Quintus Varius’s testimony, and that this whole matter is confirmed by the testimony of Gaius Sacerdos, a most distinguished man. You know that Gnaeus Sertius and Marcus Modius, Roman knights, and besides six hundred Roman citizens and many Sicilians, said that they gave this man money for the administration of justice. Why should I dispute about this charge, when the whole matter rests on witnesses? Why should I argue further, when no one can be in doubt about it? Or will any of all of you doubt that the man who at Rome had sold his whole edict and all his decrees had also kept the administration of justice for sale in Sicily? And that he took money from the Sicilians for handing down his decrees, who demanded money from Marcus Octavius Ligus for the administration of justice?
Audistis ob ius dicendum Q. Varium dicere procuratores suos isti centum triginta milia nummum dedisse, meministis Q. Vari testimonium, remque hanc totam C. Sacerdotis, hominis ornatissimi, testimonio comprobari, scitis Cn. Sertium, M. Modium, equites Romanos, sescentos praeterea civis Romanos multosque Siculos dixisse se isti pecuniam ob ius dicendum dedisse. de quo crimine quid ego disputem, cum id totum positum sit in testibus? quid porro argumenter, qua de re dubitare nemo possit? an hoc dubitabit quisquam omnium, quin is venalem in Sicilia iuris dictionem habuerit qui Romae totum edictum atque omnia decreta vendiderit? et quin is ab Siculis ob decreta interponenda pecunias ceperit, qui M. Octavium Ligurem pecuniam ob ius dicendum poposcerit?
What kind of money-getting, then, has this man passed by? What that has been passed by by all others has he not devised? Is there any thing sought after among the Sicilian cities — in which there is any honour, any office, any administration — that you have not turned to your own gain and the auctioning off of men? Testimonies were given in the previous hearing both privately and publicly. Envoys of Centuripa, Halaesa, Catina, and Panhormus spoke; of many cities besides; and now privately, very many. From whose testimonies you could learn that throughout all Sicily for three years no man in any city was made senator gratis, none — according to their laws — by votes, none except by this man’s command or letter; and that in the appointment of all these senators not only were no votes taken, but not even were the categories regarded out of which it was lawful to be co-opted into that order: neither census, nor age, nor the rest of the Sicilians’ rights had any force.
quod enim iste praeterea genus pecuniae cogendae praeteriit? quod non ab omnibus aliis praeteritum excogitavit? ecqua res apud civitates Siculas expetitur, in qua aut honos aliquis sit aut potestas aut procuratio, quin eam rem tu ad tuum quaestum nundinationemque hominum traduxeris? Dicta sunt priore actione et privatim et publice testimonia; legati Centuripini, Halaesini, Catinenses, Panhormitanique dixerunt, multarum praeterea civitatum, iam vero privatim plurimi. quorum ex testimoniis cognoscere potuistis tota Sicilia per triennium neminem ulla in civitate senatorem factum esse gratiis, neminem, ut leges eorum sunt, suffragiis, neminem nisi istius imperio aut litteris; atque in his omnibus senatoribus cooptandis non modo suffragia nulla fuisse, sed ne genera quidem spectata esse ex quibus in eum ordinem cooptari liceret, neque census neque aetates neque cetera Siculorum iura valuisse;
Whoever wished to be made senator — however boyish, however unworthy, from however unlawful a place — if he won as good enough at this man’s price, was at once made one. Not only had the laws of the Sicilians no force in this matter, but not even those given by the senate and Roman people. For the laws which a man holding command from the Roman people, and authority for giving laws from the senate, gives to allies and friends — these ought to be reckoned the laws of the Roman people and of the senate.
quicumque senator voluerit fieri, quamvis puer, quamvis indignus, quamvis ex eo loco ex quo non liceret, si is pretio apud istum idoneus vinceret, factum esse semper; non modo Siculorum nihil in hac re valuisse leges, sed ne ab senatu quidem populoque Romano datas. quas enim leges sociis amicisque dat is qui habet imperium a populo Romano, auctoritatem legum dandarum ab senatu, eae debent et populi Romani et senatus existimari.
The Halaesians, in their own right, on account of their many great services and benefits to our commonwealth (their own and their ancestors’), recently — in the consulship of Lucius Licinius and Quintus Mucius — when they had disputes among themselves over the co-optation of the senate, sought laws from our senate. The senate by an honourable senatorial decree decreed that Gaius Claudius Pulcher, son of Appius, the praetor, should write up laws for them on the co-optation of the senate. Gaius Claudius, having called in all the Marcelli who were then living, by their advice gave the Halaesians laws, in which he laid down many things about the age of men, that no one under thirty years of age; about livelihood, that no one who had practised one should be chosen; about the census; about the rest. All of which, before this man as praetor, both by the authority of our magistrates and by the strongest will of the Halaesians, held good. Under this man, both the auctioneer (whoever wished) bought that order at a price, and boys of sixteen and seventeen years had the senatorial title sold to them by retail. And what the Halaesians, most ancient and most faithful allies and friends, had obtained at Rome — that not even by votes should it be lawful to be made senator among them — this man brought it about that for a price it could be done.
Halaesini pro multis ac magnis suis maiorumque suorum in rem publicam nostram meritis atque beneficiis suo iure nuper, L. Licinio Q. Mucio consulibus, cum haberent inter se controversias de senatu cooptando, leges ab senatu nostro petiverunt. decrevit senatus honorifico senatus consulto ut iis C. Claudius Appi filius pulcher praetor de senatu cooptando leges conscriberet. C. Claudius, adhibitis omnibus Marcellis qui tum erant, de eorum sententia leges Halaesinis dedit, in quibus multa sanxit de aetate hominum, ne qui minor xxx annis natus, de quaestu, quem qui fecisset ne legeretur, de censu, de ceteris rebus: quae omnia ante istum praetorem et nostrorum magistratuum auctoritate et Halaesinorum summa voluntate valuerunt. ab isto et praeco, qui voluit, illum ordinem pretio mercatus est, et pueri annorum senum septenumque denum senatorium nomen nundinati sunt; et quod Halaesini, antiquissimi et fidelissimi socii atque amici, Romae impetrarant, ut apud se ne suffragiis quidem fieri liceret, id pretio ut fieri posset effecit.
The Agrigentines have for the co-optation of the senate the ancient laws of Scipio, in which the same things are laid down, and this besides: since there are two stocks of Agrigentines, one of the old, the other of the colonists whom the praetor Titus Manlius led to Agrigentum out of the towns of the Sicilians by senatorial decree, it is provided in Scipio’s laws that there should not be more in the senate from the colonists’ number than from the old Agrigentines. This man, who had levelled all rights at a price and removed every choice and distinction in things by money, not only mixed up those rules which had to do with age, with rank, with livelihood, but even threw into confusion these two classes of citizens, the new and the old.
Agrigentini de senatu cooptando Scipionis leges antiquas habent, in quibus et illa eadem sancta sunt et hoc amplius: cum Agrigentinorum duo genera sint, unum veterum, alterum colonorum quos T. Manlius praetor ex senatus consulto de oppidis Siculorum deduxit Agrigentum, cautum est in Scipionis legibus ne plures essent in senatu ex colonorum numero quam ex vetere Agrigentinorum. iste, qui omnia iura pretio exaequasset omniumque rerum dilectum atque discrimen pecunia sustulisset, non modo illa quae erant aetatis ordinis quaestusque permiscuit, sed etiam in his duobus generibus civium novorum veterumque turbavit.
For when a senator from the old number had died, and an equal number remained from each class, by the laws an old one had to be co-opted, that this number should be the larger. Yet, when the matter stood thus, men came nevertheless to buy that senatorial place from him — not only the old, but the new too. It happens that a new man wins by his price, and brings letters from the praetor to Agrigentum. The Agrigentines send envoys to him to instruct him in the laws and to set out the custom of all the years, that this man might understand he had sold a place to one who ought not even to have been allowed to bid for it. By their speech, since he had now received his price, this man was not moved a fraction.
nam cum esset ex vetere numero quidam senator demortuus, et cum ex utroque genere par numerus reliquus esset, veterem cooptari necesse erat legibus, ut is amplior numerus esset. quae cum ita se res haberet, tamen ad istum emptum venerunt illum locum senatorium non solum veteres, verum etiam novi. fit ut pretio novus vincat litterasque a praetore adferat Agrigentum. Agrigentini ad istum legatos mittunt qui eum leges doceant consuetudinemque omnium annorum demonstrent, ut iste intellegeret ei se illum locum vendidisse cui ne commercium quidem esse oporteret; quorum oratione iste, cum pretium iam accepisset, ne tantulum quidem commotus est.
The same he did at Heraclea. For there too Publius Rupilius led colonists, and gave like laws on the co-opting of the senate and on the number of old and new. There not only did this man, as among the rest, accept money, but he also threw into confusion the classes of old and new and their numbers. Do not wait for me to go through all the cities in my speech: with this one thing I take in all — under this man as praetor, no one could be made senator who had not given this man money.
idem fecit Heracleae. nam eo quoque colonos P. Rupilius deduxit, legesque similis de cooptando senatu et de numero veterum ac novorum dedit. ibi non solum iste ut apud ceteros pecuniam accepit, sed etiam genera veterum ac novorum numerumque permiscuit. nolite exspectare dum omnis obeam oratione mea civitates: hoc uno complector omnia, neminem isto praetore senatorem fieri potuisse nisi qui isti pecuniam dedisset.
The same I transfer to magistracies, public charges, and priesthoods. In which matters he repudiated not only the rights of men but all the religious observances of the immortal gods. At Syracuse there is a law on religion which orders the priest of Jupiter to be taken yearly by lot — which among them is reckoned the most ample priesthood:
hoc idem transfero in magistratus, curationes, sacerdotia; quibus in rebus non solum hominum iura, sed etiam deorum immortalium religiones omnis repudiavit. Syracusis lex est de religione, quae in annos singulos Iovis sacerdotem sortito capi iubeat, quod apud illos amplissimum sacerdotium putatur:
when by votes three men have been chosen out of three classes, the matter is referred to the lot. This man had brought it about by his command that, in lieu of the vote, Theomnastus, his familiar, should be returned in those three. As to the lot, which he had not been able to command, men were waiting to see what he would do. The man — which was easiest — first forbids them to draw lots; orders Theomnastus to be returned outside the lot. The Syracusans say that this can in no way be done, by reason of the religious laws of the rites; in short, they say it is not divine right to do so. He orders the law to be read out to him. It is read; in which it was written that, however many had been returned, that many lots should be cast into the urn; whose name had come out, that man should hold the priesthood. This ingenious and most acute man says, "Excellent! It is so written, is it not, however many shall be returned? How many, then," he says, "have been returned?" They answer, "Three." "Need then any but three lots be cast in, and one drawn?" "None." He orders three to be cast in, on all of which was inscribed the name of Theomnastus. There is the loudest outcry, since to all this seemed unworthy and unspeakable. So that most ample priesthood of Jupiter is given to Theomnastus by this device.
cum suffragiis tres ex tribus generibus creati sunt, res revocatur ad sortem. perfecerat iste imperio ut pro suffragio Theomnastus, familiaris suus, in tribus illis renuntiaretur: in sorte, cui imperare non potuerat, exspectabant homines quidnam acturus esset. homo, id quod erat facillimum, primo vetat sortiri: iubet extra sortem Theomnastum renuntiari. negant id Syracusani per religiones sacrorum ullo modo fieri posse, fas denique negant esse. iubet iste sibi legem recitari. recitatur; in qua scriptum erat ut, quot essent renuntiati, tot in hydriam sortes conicerentur; cuium nomen exisset, ut is haberet id sacerdotium. iste homo ingeniosus et peracutus, ’ optime,’ inquit, ’nempe scriptum ita est, QVOT RENVNTIATI ERVNT. quot ergo, inquit, sunt renuntiati?’ respondent, ’ tres.’ ’ numquid igitur oportet nisi tres sortis conici, unam educi?’ ’ nihil.’ conici iubet tres, in quibus omnibus esset inscriptum nomen Theomnasti. fit clamor maximus, cum id universis indignum ac nefarium videretur. ita Iovis illud sacerdotium amplissimum per hanc rationem Theomnasto datur.
At Cephaloedium there is a fixed month in which the chief priest must be appointed. There was a certain Artemo, surnamed Climachias, eager for that honour, a man certainly well-off and noble at home. But he could in no way be made priest if a certain Herodotus were present: that place and honour was thought so owed to him for that year that not even Climachias spoke against it. The matter is brought to this man and is settled in his usual way: certain well-known and precious embossed silver pieces are carried off. Herodotus was at Rome; he reckoned that he would come in good time to the elections if he came the day before. This man — so that the elections should not either be held in another month than divine right allowed, or, with Herodotus present, the honour be taken from him (which this man did not care about, but Climachias least of all wanted) — contrives, as I said long ago, no man is or has been more acute, contrives, I say, by what means the elections might be held in that lawful month and yet Herodotus might not be able to be present.
Cephaloedi mensis est certus, quo mense sacerdotem maximum creari oporteat. erat eius honoris cupidus Artemo quidam, Climachias cognomine, homo sane locuples et domi nobilis. sed is fieri nullo modo poterat si Herodotus quidam adesset: ei locus ille atque honos in illum annum ita deberi putabatur ut ne Climachias quidem contra diceret. res ad istum defertur et istius more deciditur: toreumata sane nota et pretiosa auferuntur. Herodotus Romae erat; satis putabat se ad comitia tempore venturum si pridie venisset. iste, ne aut alio mense ac fas erat comitia haberentur, aut Herodoto praesenti honos adimeretur, (id quod iste non laborabat, Climachias minime volebat), excogitat—dixi iam dudum, non est homo acutior quisquam nec fuit—excogitat, inquam, quem ad modum mense illo legitimo comitia haberentur nec tamen Herodotus adesse posset.
It is the custom of the Sicilians and the rest of the Greeks, because they wish their days and months to agree with the reckoning of the sun and moon, sometimes, if anything is out, to take out one day, or at most two, from a month, which they call exairesimoi days; in the same way sometimes they make a month a day or two longer. When this man, the new astrologer — who reckoned not so much the system of the heavens as of embossed silver — had learned of this, he orders to be taken out, not a day from a month, but from the year one whole-and-a-half month, on this principle: that on the day on which (let us say) the Ides of January ought to have fallen, on that very day he ordered the Kalends of March to be proclaimed. So it is done, with all refusing and weeping. That day was the lawful one for holding the elections. In this way Climachias was returned as priest.
est consuetudo Siculorum ceterorumque Graecorum, quod suos dies mensisque congruere volunt cum solis lunaeque ratione, ut non numquam, si quid discrepet, eximant unum aliquem diem aut summum biduum ex mense, quos illi exaeresimos dies nominant; item non numquam uno die longiorem mensem faciunt aut biduo. quae cum iste cognosset novus astrologus, qui non tam caeli rationem quam caelati argenti duceret, eximi iubet non diem ex mense, sed ex anno unum dimidiatumque mensem hoc modo ut, quo die verbi causa esse oporteret Idus Ianuarias, is eo die Kalendas Martias proscribi iuberet: itaque fit omnibus recusantibus et plorantibus. dies is erat legitimus comitiis habendis. eo modo sacerdos Climachias renuntiatus est.
When Herodotus was returning from Rome — as he himself reckoned, fifteen days before the elections — he meets the month that follows the election month, the elections having now been held thirty days back. Then the Cephaloedians made an intercalary forty-five days long, that the rest of the months should return to their proper reckoning. If this could be done at Rome, surely this man would by some means have contrived to remove the forty-five days between the two sets of games — which were the only days on which the trial could be held.
Herodotus cum Roma revertitur, diebus, ut ipse putabat, xv ante comitia, offendit eum mensem qui consequitur mensem comitialem, comitiis iam abhinc xxx diebus factis. tunc Cephaloeditani fecerunt intercalarium xxxxv dies longum, ut reliqui menses in suam rationem reverterentur. hoc si Romae fieri posset, certe aliqua ratione expugnasset iste ut dies xxxxv inter binos ludos tollerentur, per quos solos iudicium fieri posset.
Now further it is worth knowing in what manner the censors were appointed in Sicily under this man as praetor. For that magistracy among the Sicilians is one entrusted with the greatest care by the people, on this account: that all the Sicilians yearly contribute their tribute by their census, and in the holding of the census full power of estimating and of fixing the total is left to the censor. So the people choose with the greatest care the man to whom they entrust the greatest faith in their affairs; and on account of the greatness of the power, this magistracy is sought from the people with the highest canvassing.
iam vero censores quem ad modum isto praetore in Sicilia creati sint, operae pretium est cognoscere. ille enim est magistratus apud Siculos qui diligentissime mandatur a populo propter hanc causam, quod omnes Siculi ex censu quotannis tributa conferunt, in censu habendo potestas omnis aestimationis habendae summaeque faciendae censori permittitur. itaque et populus cui maximam fidem suarum rerum habeat maxima cura deligit, et propter magnitudinem potestatis hic magistratus a populo summa ambitione contenditur.
In this matter our man wished to do nothing in concealment, neither to cheat in the lottery nor to take days out of the calendar. He attempted nothing crafty or malicious. But, that he might remove zealous canvassings and ambitions for office out of all the cities — those things which are wont to be the overthrow of a commonwealth — he showed that he himself would make the censors in all the cities.
in ea re iste nihil obscure facere voluit, non in sortitione fallere neque dies de fastis eximere. nihil sane vafre nec malitiose facere conatus est; sed ut studia cupiditatesque honorum atque ambitiones ex omnibus civitatibus tolleret, quae res evertendae rei publicae solent esse, ostendit sese in omnibus civitatibus censores esse facturum.
With this great market of the praetor proclaimed, men gather to him at Syracuse from every side. The whole praetorian house was ablaze with the eagerness and greed of men. No wonder, when so many cities’ elections had been called back into one house, and the canvassing of the whole province had been shut up in one bedroom. With prices and biddings made openly, Timarchides was assigning two censors to each city. By his labour and his accessions to this business and toil he brought it about that to our man the sum of money was reported back without any worry on his part. How much money this Timarchides made even now you have not been able to learn fully; yet in the previous hearing, by the testimony of many, you learned how variously, how shamelessly he had plundered.
tanto mercatu praetoris indicto concurritur undique ad istum Syracusas; flagrabat domus tota praetoria studio hominum et cupiditate; nec mirum omnibus comitiis tot civitatum unam in domum revocatis, tantaque ambitione provinciae totius in uno cubiculo inclusa. exquisitis palam pretiis et licitationibus factis, discribebat censores binos in singulas civitates Timarchides. is suo labore suisque accessionibus huius negoti atque operis molestia consequebatur ut ad istum sine ulla sollicitudine summa pecuniae referretur. iam hic Timarchides quantam pecuniam fecerit plane adhuc cognoscere non potuistis; verum tamen priore actione quam varie, quam improbe praedatus esset, multorum testimoniis cognovistis.
But that you may not wonder by what means this freedman could do so much with this man, I will set out for you briefly what kind of fellow he is, that you may learn both the wickedness of one who kept him with him — and in such a number, in such a place — and the calamity of the province. In the seducing of women and in every kind of luxury and wickedness of that sort, I used to find this Timarchides marvellously born and fit for this man’s disgraceful lusts and singular wickedness: investigating, approaching, soliciting, suborning, doing anything in such matters however cunningly, however boldly, however shamelessly. And he — this same man — to devise certain wonderful kinds of theft. For Verres himself was always such, with greed always gaping and pressing, of no wit and no thought, that whatever he did of his own accord he did, just as you saw at Rome, in such a way that he seemed rather to snatch than to deceive.
sed ne miremini qua ratione hic tantum apud istum libertus potuerit, exponam vobis breviter quid hominis sit, ut et istius nequitiam qui illum secum habuerit, eo praesertim numero ac loco, et calamitatem provinciae cognoscatis. in mulierum corruptelis et in omni eius modi luxuria atque nequitia mirandum in modum reperiebam hunc Timarchidem ad istius flagitiosas libidines singularemque nequitiam natum atque aptum fuisse; investigare, adire, appellare, corrumpere, quidvis facere in eius modi rebus quamvis callide, quamvis audacter, quamvis impudenter; eundem mira quaedam excogitare genera furandi; nam ipsum Verrem tantum avaritia semper hiante atque imminente fuisse, ingenio et cogitatione nulla, ut quicquid sua sponte faciebat, item ut vos Romae cognovistis, eripere potius quam fallere videretur.
But this was the marvellous craft and malice of this man: that throughout the whole province most carefully he was wont to track and scent out what had befallen each, what each had need of; to learn diligently, to talk to, to test the adversaries of each, the enemies of each; to see through, on each side, the cases, the wishes, the resources and means; to those who needed it, to offer fear; to those who sought it, to set out hope. Whatever there was of prosecutors and informers, he had in his power. Whatever business he wished to stir up against any man, he managed without any toil. All this man’s decrees, commands, letters he sold most knowingly and most cunningly.
haec vero huius erat ars et malitia miranda, quod accuratissime tota provincia quid cuique accidisset, quid cuique opus esset, indagare et odorari solebat; omnium adversarios, omnium inimicos diligenter cognoscere, conloqui, attemptare; ex utraque parte causas voluntates perspicere, facultates et copias; quibus opus esset metum offerre, quibus expediret spem ostendere; accusatorum et quadruplatorum quicquid erat, habebat in potestate; quod cuique negoti conflare volebat, nullo labore faciebat; istius omnia decreta imperia litteras peritissime et callidissime venditabat.
And he was not only the minister of this man’s lusts, but he himself remembered himself: nor was he wont only to pick up the coins, if any had fallen out of this man’s hands (out of which he made the greatest sum of money), but he also gathered up for himself the leavings of this man’s pleasures and disgraces. So know that in Sicily not Athenion, who took no town, but Timarchides the runaway slave reigned for three years over all the towns; that in Timarchides’s power were the children, the matrons, the goods and all the fortunes of the most ancient and most friendly allies of the Roman people. He, then, as I say — this Timarchides — the price received, sent the censors out into all the cities. Under this man as praetor there was not even a pretence of an election of censors.
ac non solum erat administer istius cupiditatum, verum etiam ipse sui meminerat, neque solum nummos, si qui isti exciderant, tollere solebat, ex quibus pecuniam maximam fecit, sed etiam voluptatum flagitiorumque istius ipse reliquias colligebat. itaque in Sicilia non Athenionem, qui nullum oppidum cepit, sed Timarchidem fugitivum omnibus oppidis per triennium scitote regnasse; in Timarchidi potestate sociorum populi Romani antiquissimorum atque amicissimorum liberos, matres familias, bona fortunasque omnis fuisse. is igitur, ut dico, Timarchides in omnis civitates accepto pretio censores dimisit: comitia isto praetore censorum ne simulandi quidem causa fuerunt.
And now this most shamelessly: openly — for it was lawful, of course, by the laws — three hundred denarii were levied on each censor for the praetor’s statue. One hundred and thirty censors were made; that money for the censorship, against the laws, they gave secretly; this thirty-nine thousand denarii, openly and without breaking the laws, they contributed for a statue. First, why so great a sum? Next, on what ground were the censors contributing for your statue? Is there an order of censors, a college, some class of men? For either cities give those honours publicly, or, if men, by class — as the farmers, as the merchants, as the shippers. As for censors, why more than aediles? For a benefit? Then you will confess this: that these things were sought from you (for "bought" you will not dare to say); that you allowed those magistracies for the sake of doing favours to men, not for the sake of the commonwealth. When you confess this yourself, will any man doubt that you brought on yourself that hatred and offence among the peoples of the whole province not for the sake of canvassing or of placing favours, but for the sake of getting money?
iam hoc impudentissime: palam—licebat enim videlicet legibus—singulis censoribus denarii treceni ad statuam praetoris imperati sunt. censores cxxx facti sunt; pecuniam illam ob censuram contra leges clam dederunt; haec denarium XXXVIIII milia palam salvis legibus contulerunt in statuam. primum quo tantam pecuniam? deinde quam ob rem censores ad statuam tibi conferebant? ordo aliqui censorum est, conlegium, genus aliquod hominum? nam aut publice civitates istos honores habent aut, si homines, generatim, ut aratores, ut mercatores, ut navicularii; censores quidem qui magis quam aediles? ob beneficium? ergo hoc fatebere, abs te haec petita esse—nam empta non audebis dicere; te eos magistratus hominibus benefici, non rei publicae causa permisisse? hoc cum tute fateare, quisquam dubitabit quin tu istam apud populos provinciae totius invidiam atque offensionem non ambitionis neque beneficiorum conlocandorum, sed pecuniae conciliandae causa susceperis?
So those censors did the same thing that men in our own commonwealth, who have got their offices by largesse, are wont to do: they took care to use their power so as to fill that hole in their estate. So the census was held under you as praetor in such a way that by that census the affairs of no city could be administered. For the wealth of the wealthiest each had been thinned down, that of the meanest had been swelled. So in the levying of tributes so much burden was laid on the common people that, even were men silent, the matter itself rejected that census — a thing which can most easily be understood from the matter itself. For Lucius Metellus, who, after I had come into Sicily for the inquiry, suddenly upon Lucius Laetilius’s arrival became not only this man’s friend but even his kinsman — since he saw that this man’s census could in no way stand, ordered that the census which had been held under that bravest and most innocent man, Sextus Peducaeus, as praetor, be observed. For then there were censors lawfully made and chosen by their own cities, for whom, if they had erred in anything, penalties had been established by the laws.
itaque illi censores fecerunt idem quod in nostra re publica solent ii qui per largitionem magistratus adepti sunt: dederunt operam ut ita potestatem gererent ut illam lacunam rei familiaris explerent. sic census habitus est te praetore ut eo censu nullius civitatis res publica posset administrari; nam locupletissimi cuiusque censum extenuarant, tenuissimi auxerant. itaque in tributis imperandis tantum oneris plebi imponebatur ut, etiamsi homines tacerent, res ipsa illum censum repudiaret, id quod intellegi facillime re ipsa potest. nam L. Metellus, qui, posteaquam ego inquirendi causa in Siciliam veni, repente L. Laetili adventu istius non modo amicus, verum etiam cognatus factus est,—is, quod videbat istius censu stari nullo modo posse, eum censum observari iussit qui viro fortissimo atque innocentissimo, Sex. Peducaeo, praetore habitus esset. erant enim tum censores legibus facti delecti a suis civitatibus, quibus, si quid commisissent, poenae legibus erant constitutae.
But under you as praetor what censor would fear either the law by which he was not held (since he was not made censor by law), or your animadversion, when he had sold what he had bought from you? Let Metellus now, by all means, hold my witnesses; let him compel others to praise, as in many he has tried; only let him do those things which he is doing. For who has ever been afflicted with such great insult by anyone, who with such great ignominy? Every fifth year all Sicily is censed. It had been censed under Peducaeus as praetor; the fifth year, when it had fallen to you as praetor, it was censed again. The next year Lucius Metellus forbids any mention to be made of your census. He says it pleases him that censors be appointed afresh. Meanwhile he orders the Peducaean census to be observed. Had your enemy done this, even then, if the province had borne it with calm mind, an enemy’s judgement would seem grave. A new friend has done it, a kinsman by his own choice; for otherwise, if he wished to keep the province, if he wished to be safe himself in the province, he could not have done it. Do you wait still for what these men shall judge?
te autem praetore quis censor aut legem metueret qua non tenebatur, quoniam creatus lege non erat, aut animadversionem tuam, cum id quod abs te emerat vendidisset? teneat iam sane meos testis Metellus, cogat alios laudare, sicut in multis conatus est; modo haec faciat quae facit. quis enim umquam tanta a quoquam contumelia, quis tanta ignominia adfectus est? Quinto quoque anno Sicilia tota censetur. erat censa praetore Peducaeo; quintus annus cum in te praetorem incidisset, censa denuo est. postero anno L. Metellus mentionem tui census fieri vetat; censores dicit de integro sibi creari placere; interea Peducaeanum censum observari iubet. hoc si tuus inimicus fecisset, tamen, si animo aequo provincia tulisset, inimici iudicium grave videretur. fecit amicus recens et cognatus voluntarius; aliter enim, si provinciam retinere, si salvus ipse in provincia vellet esse, facere non potuit. exspectas etiam quid hi iudicent?
If he had stripped you of your magistracy, he would have afflicted you with less ignominy than when he removed those things which you had carried out in office and ordered them to be void. And not in this matter alone was he such, but, before I came into Sicily, in the greatest matters and the most: for he ordered the Syracusan trainers, those famous favourites of yours, to restore his goods to Heraclius, and the Bidins to Epicrates, and Aulus Claudius to the orphan of Drepanum, and, had not Laetilius come early into Sicily with letters, in less than thirty days Metellus would have rescinded the whole three years of your praetorship.
si tibi magistratum abrogasset, minore ignominia te adfecisset quam cum ea quae in magistratu gessisti sustulit atque inrita iussit esse. neque in hac re sola fuit eius modi, sed, antequam ego in Siciliam veni, in maximis rebus ac plurimis; nam et Heraclio Syracusanos tuos illos palaestritas bona restituere iussit, et Epicrati Bidinos, et pupillo Drepanitano A. Claudium, et, nisi mature Laetilius in Siciliam cum litteris venisset, minus xxx diebus Metellus totam trienni praeturam tuam rescidisset.
And since I have spoken about the money which the censors gave you for your statue, I do not think I should pass over that other kind of money you got together — which you compelled from the cities under the name of statues. For I see that the sum of that money is very great — as much as two million sesterces. So much will be made out by the testimonies and letters of the cities. And this man grants it; he cannot speak otherwise. So what kind of thing must we think those things he denies, when these are so dishonest which he confesses? For what do you wish to be established? That all that money was spent on statues? Suppose it were so. Yet this is by no means to be borne: that so much money should be carried off from allies in order that in every alley a statue of the most dishonest brigand should be set up — through which it would scarcely seem possible to pass safely.
et quoniam de ea pecunia quam tibi ad statuam censores contulerunt dixi, non mihi praetermittendum videtur ne illud quidem genus pecuniae conciliatae quam tu a civitatibus statuarum nomine coegisti. video enim eius pecuniae summam esse pergrandem, ad HS viciens: tantum conficietur ex testimoniis et litteris civitatum. et iste hoc concedit nec potest aliter dicere. quare cuius modi putamus esse illa quae negat, cum haec tam improba sint quae fatetur? quid enim vis constitui? consumptam esse istam omnem pecuniam in statuis? fac ita esse; tamen hoc ferendum nullo modo est, tantam a sociis pecuniam auferri ut omnibus in angiportis praedonis improbissimi statua ponatur, qua vix tuto transiri posse videatur.
But where, after all, or in what statues, was so much money spent? "It will be spent," you will say. We are to wait, of course, for that lawful five-year period; if in this interval he has not spent it, then at last we shall lodge a charge against him for extortion under the name of statues. He stands a defendant called into court on the greatest and most numerous charges: we see two million sesterces taken under this one head. If you are condemned, you will not, I suppose, see to it that this money is spent on statues within the five years. But if you are acquitted, who will be so mad as to charge you, after slipping out of so many and such great accusations, after a five-year period under the name of statues? So if neither has this money yet been spent, and it is plain that it will not be spent, we may now understand that a way has been found by which both this man has gathered and seized two million sesterces under this one head, and the rest — if this be approved by you — can take whatever sums of money they please under this name. So that we now seem not to deter men from taking money, but, by approving certain kinds of taking money, to put honourable names upon the most shameful things.
verum ubi tandem aut in quibus statuis ista tanta pecunia consumpta est? ’ consumetur,’ inquies. scilicet exspectemus legitimum illud quinquennium; si hoc intervallo non consumpserit, tum denique nomen eius de pecuniis repetundis statuarum nomine deferemus. reus est maximis plurimisque criminibus in iudicium vocatus: HS viciens ex hoc uno genere captum videmus. si condemnatus eris, non, opinor, id ages ut ista pecunia in quinquennio consumatur in statuis; sin absolutus eris, quis erit tam amens qui te ex tot tantisque criminibus elapsum post quinquennium statuarum nomine arcessat? ita si neque adhuc consumpta est ista pecunia et est perspicuum non consumptum iri, licet iam intellegamus inventam esse rationem quare et iste HS viciens ex hoc uno genere conciliarit et ceperit, et ceteri— si hoc a vobis erit comprobatum—quam volent magnas hoc nomine pecunias capere possint; ut iam videamur non a pecuniis capiendis homines absterrere, sed, cum genera quaedam pecuniarum capiendarum comprobarimus, honesta nomina turpissimis rebus imponere.
For if Gaius Verres had demanded, say, a hundred thousand sesterces of the people of Centuripa, and had carried that money off from them, there would, I suppose, be no doubt that, when this was made plain, he must be condemned. What? If he demanded of the same people two hundred thousand sesterces, and compelled and carried them off, will he therefore be acquitted because it has been written down that this money was given for statues? Not, I suppose; unless we are bringing it about that we seem not to bring delay to our magistrates in taking, but to give a cause of giving to allies. But if anyone takes great delight in statues, and if anyone is led on by their honour or glory, he must none the less establish these things: first, that money is not to be diverted home; next, that there ought to be some measure of the statues themselves; and finally that they certainly ought not to be exacted from unwilling men.
etenim, si C. Verres HS c milia populum verbi gratia Centuripinum poposcisset eamque ab iis pecuniam abstulisset, non, opinor, esset dubium quin eum, cum id planum fieret, condemnari necesse esset. quid? si eundem populum HS cc milia poposcit eaque coegit atque abstulit, num idcirco absolvetur quod adscriptum est eam pecuniam datam statuarum nomine? non, opinor; nisi forte id agimus, non ut magistratibus nostris moram accipiendi, sed ut sociis causam dandi adferre videamur. quodsi quem statuae magno opere delectant, et si quis earum honore aut gloria ducitur, is haec tamen constituat necesse est, primum averti pecuniam domum non placere, deinde ipsarum statuarum modum quendam esse oportere, deinde illud, certe ab invitis exigi non oportere.
As for the diverting of money, I ask you whether the cities themselves were wont to put out the statues to be made for you to the man who could put them out at the best terms; or to set some agent in charge who would oversee the making of the statues; or to count out the money to you, or to any whom you commanded. For if statues were being made through those by whom this honour was paid you, well and good. But if money was being counted out to Timarchides, cease, please, when you are caught in the most manifest theft, to pretend that you were a zealous man for glory and monuments. What further? Is it agreed that no measure is to be kept of the statues? Yet kept it must be.
ac de avertenda pecunia quaero abs te utrum ipsae civitates solitae sint statuas tibi faciundas locare ei cui possent optima condicione locare, an aliquem procuratorem praeficere qui statuis faciundis praeesset, an tibi, an cui tu imperasses, adnumerare pecuniam? nam si per eos statuae fiebant a quibus tibi iste honos habebatur, audio; sin Timarchidi pecunia numerabatur, desine, quaeso, simulare te, cum in manifestissimo furto teneare, gloriae studiosum ac monumentorum fuisse. quid vero? modum statuarum haberi nullum placet? atqui habeatur necesse est.
Consider it thus. The Syracusan city — to name it above all — gave a statue to him — that is an honour — and to his father — that is a fine and profitable show of piety — and to his son — this can be borne, for they did not hate this boy. But how often, and under how many heads, will you carry off statues from the Syracusans? That they should set them up in the forum, you carried it off; that in the senate-house, you compelled it; that they contribute money for those statues which were to be set up at Rome, you commanded it; that the same men should give in the name of farmers — they gave it; that the same men should contribute their share to the common stock of Sicily — they contributed that too. When one city has contributed money under so many heads, and the other cities have done the same, does not the matter itself warn you that you should think some measure ought to be set to this greed? What? If of her own will no city has done this, if all have been brought by command, fear, force, and trouble to contribute money to you under the name of statues, by the immortal gods! could anyone doubt that, even if he held it lawful to receive money for statues, he would yet hold that surely it is not lawful to extort it?
etenim sic considerate. Syracusana civitas, ut eam potissimum nominem, dedit ipsi statuam—est honos—et patri—bella haec pietatis et quaestuosa simulatio—et filio—ferri hoc potest, hunc enim puerum non oderant; verum quotiens et quot nominibus a Syracusanis statuas auferes? Vt in foro statuerent, abstulisti, ut in curia, coegisti, ut pecuniam conferrent in eas statuas quae Romae ponerentur imperasti; ut idem darent homines aratorum nomine, dederunt; ut idem pro parte in commune Siciliae conferrent, etiam id contulerunt. Vna civitas cum tot nominibus pecuniam contulerit idemque hoc civitates ceterae fecerint, nonne res ipsa vos admonet ut putetis modum aliquem huic cupiditati constitui oportere? quid? si hoc voluntate sua nulla civitas fecit, si omnes imperio, metu, vi, malo adductae tibi pecuniam statuarum nomine contulerunt, per deos immortalis, num cui dubium esse poterit quin, etiamsi statuerit accipere ad statuas licere, idem tamen statuat eripere certe non licere?
First, then, I shall summon all Sicily as witness in this matter, who with one voice declares to me that great sums of money have been compelled by force under the name of statues. For the embassies of all the cities, in their joint petitions (which were almost all born of your wrongs), have set out this also: that they should not promise statues to anyone unless he had departed from the province. So many praetors had been in Sicily; so often before our ancestors had the Sicilians approached the senate; so often within this memory: yet your praetorship has brought in this new kind and beginning of petition.
primum igitur in hanc rem testem totam Siciliam citabo, quae mihi una voce statuarum nomine magnam pecuniam per vim coactam esse demonstrat. nam legationes omnium civitatum in postulatis communibus, quae fere omnia ex tuis iniuriis nata sunt, etiam hoc ediderunt, VT STATVAS NE CVI, NISI CVM IS DE PROVINCIA DECESSISSET, POLLICERENTVR. tot praetores in Sicilia fuerunt, totiens apud maiores nostros Siculi senatum adierunt, totiens hac memoria: tamen huiusce novi postulati genus atque principium tua praetura attulit.
For what is so new not only in matter but in the very kind of petition? For the rest of the things in those same petitions about your wrongs are new, but they are not asked for in a new way. The Sicilians ask and beg the conscript fathers that our magistrates hereafter should sell the tithes by the law of Hiero. You first sold them otherwise. So I hear. That what is set for the larder should not be over-valued. This too, on account of your three denarii, is now first asked, but the very kind of petition is not new. That an absent man’s name not be received. From Sthenius’s calamity and your wrong this is born. The rest I shall not gather. All the petitions of the Sicilians are such that the charges seem to be gathered into one defendant — you. Yet all of them have new wrongs, but the formulas of petition are familiar.
quid enim tam novum non solum re, sed genere ipso postulandi? nam cetera quae sunt in isdem postulatis de iniuriis tuis sunt nova, sed tamen non novo modo postulantur. rogant et orant Siculi patres conscriptos ut nostri magistratus posthac decumas lege Hieronica vendant. tu primus contra vendideras. audio. ne in cellam quod imperatur aestiment. hoc quoque propter tuos ternos denarios nunc primum postulatur, sed genus ipsum postulandi non est novum. ne absentis nomen recipiatur. ex Stheni calamitate et tua natum est iniuria. cetera non colligam. sunt omnia Siculorum postulata eius modi ut crimina collecta in unum reum te esse videantur, quae tamen omnia novas iniurias habent, sed postulationum formulas usitatas;
This petition about statues might seem ridiculous to one who does not see through the matter and the meaning. For they ask, not that they not be compelled to set them up. What then? That they themselves not be allowed. What is this? You ask of me — what is in your own power — that you not be allowed to do it; rather ask that no man compel you to promise or to do it against your will. "I shall do nothing," he says; "for all will deny that they compelled me. If you wish me to be safe, lay this force upon me, that I may not be allowed at all to promise." From your praetorship first this petition was born; in using it they signify, indeed openly show, that they contributed to your statues unwilling, compelled by fear and trouble.
hoc postulatum de statuis ridiculum esse videatur ei qui rem sententiamque non perspiciat. postulant enim, non uti ne cogantur statuere; quid igitur? ut ipsis ne liceat. quid est hoc? petis a me, quod in tua potestate est, ut id tibi facere ne liceat; pete potius ne quis te invitum polliceri aut facere cogat. ’ nihil egero,’ inquit; ’negabunt enim omnes se coegisse; si me salvum esse vis, mihi impone istam vim ut omnino mihi ne liceat polliceri.’ ex tua praetura primum haec est nata postulatio; qua cum utuntur, hoc significant atque adeo aperte ostendunt, sese ad statuas tuas pecuniam metu ac malo coactos invitissimos contulisse.
What? If they should not say it, would it not be necessary for you yourself to confess it? Look, look closely at what defence you mean to use: now you will see that you must confess this about the statues. For it is reported to me that your case is so framed by your patrons — ingenious men — and that they are so trained and instructed by you, that whenever any weightier and more honourable man from the province of Sicily delivers his testimony more vehemently (as many leading men have said many things), you straightway say to those defenders of yours, "He is hostile because he is a farmer." So in one stroke, I suppose, you have it in mind to bind round this whole class of farmers, in saying that they have come with hostile and inimical mind because this man was over-vehement in tithes. So all the farmers are enemies and adversaries: there is none of them that does not desire your destruction? You stand splendidly indeed, when that order and that class of men — which is the best and the most honourable, by which alone the highest commonwealth and that province is most upheld — is your bitterest enemy.
quid? si hoc non dicant, tibi non necesse sit ipsi id confiteri? vide et perspice qua defensione sis usurus: iam intelleges hoc tibi de statuis confitendum esse. mihi enim renuntiatur ita constitui a tuis patronis, hominibus ingeniosis, causam tuam, et ita eos abs te institui et doceri, ut quisque ex provincia Sicilia gravior homo atque honestior testimonium vehementius dixerit, sicuti multi primarii viri multa dixerunt, te statim hoc istis tuis defensoribus dicere, ’ inimicus est propterea quod arator est.’ itaque uno genere, opinor, circumscribere habetis in animo genus hoc aratorum, quod eos infenso animo atque inimico venisse dicatis quia fuerit in decumis iste vehementior. ergo aratores inimici omnes et adversarii sunt: nemo est eorum quin perisse te cupiat? omnino praeclare te habes cum is ordo atque id hominum genus, quod optimum atque honestissimum est, a quo uno et summa res publica et illa provincia maxime continetur, tibi est inimicissimum.
Very well; in another place I shall consider the disposition of the farmers and their wrongs. Now what is granted me by you I take: that they are bitterly hostile to you. You say so on account of the tithes. I grant it. I do not ask whether they are enemies justly or unjustly. What then? What do those gilded equestrian statues by the temple of Vulcan mean, which most offend the eyes and minds of the Roman people? For I see inscribed that one of these statues was given by the farmers. If they gave it for honour’s sake, they are not enemies; let us believe the witnesses; for then they were thinking of your honour, now of their own conscience. But if they gave it under compulsion of fear, you must confess that you compelled money in the province under the name of statues by force and fear. Choose which is convenient for you.
verum esto; alio loco de aratorum animo et iniuriis videro; nunc, quod mihi abs te datur, id accipio, eos tibi esse inimicissimos. nempe ita dicis: propter decumas. concedo: non quaero, iure an iniuria sint inimici. quid ergo? illae quid sibi statuae equestres inauratae volunt, quae populi Romani oculos animosque maxime offendunt, propter aedem Volcani? nam inscriptum esse video quandam ex his statuis aratores dedisse. si honoris causa statuam dederunt, inimici non sunt; credamus testibus; tum enim honori tuo, nunc iam religioni suae consulunt. sin autem metu coacti dederunt, confiteare necesse est te in provincia pecunias statuarum nomine per vim ac metum coegisse. Vtrum tibi commodum est elige.
For my part I willingly leave this charge about statues, on this condition: that you grant me what is most honourable for you, that the farmers contributed to your statue of their own will for the sake of your honour. Grant me this; you will already have cut yourself off from the greatest part of your defence. For you will not be able to say that the farmers are angry with you and your enemies. Singular cause! Wretched and ruined defence! That a defendant should not wish to receive this from his prosecutor, and a defendant who has been praetor in Sicily — that the farmers set up a statue to him of their own will, that the farmers think well of him, are his friends, wish him to be safe! He fears that you may think this; for he is overwhelmed by the testimonies of the farmers. I shall use what is given.
equidem libenter hoc iam crimen de statuis relinquam, ut mihi tu illud concedas, quod tibi honestissimum est, aratores tibi ad statuam honoris tui causa voluntate sua contulisse. da mihi hoc; iam tibi maximam partem defensionis praecideris; non enim poteris aratores tibi iratos esse atque inimicos dicere. O causam singularem! o defensionem miseram ac perditam! nolle hoc accipere reum ab accusatore, et eum reum qui praetor in Sicilia fuerit, aratores ei statuam sua voluntate statuisse, aratores de eo bene existimare, amicos esse, salvum cupere! metuit ne hoc vos existimetis; obruitur enim aratorum testimoniis. Vtar eo quod datur.
Surely you must judge it thus: that those who are most hostile to him — as he himself wishes them to be reckoned — did not contribute money to his honours and monuments of their own will. And that this whole matter may be most easily understood, ask any of those witnesses I shall bring forward (those witnesses who are out of Sicily, whether toga’d or Sicilian) — and ask the man who shall seem to you to be most an enemy to him, who shall say that he was stripped by him — whether he contributed anything in his own name to your statue. You will find none who deny it; for all gave.
certe hoc vobis ita iudicandum est, eos qui isti inimicissimi sunt, ut ipse existimari vult, ad istius honores atque monumenta pecunias voluntate sua non contulisse. atque ut hoc totum facillime intellegi possit, quem voles eorum testium quos produxero, qui ex Sicilia testes sunt, sive togatum sive Siculum, rogato, et eum qui tibi inimicissimus esse videbitur, qui se spoliatum abs te esse dicet, ecquid suo nomine in tuam statuam contulerit; neminem reperies qui neget; etenim omnes dederunt.
Will anyone, then, you think, doubt that he, who must be most an enemy to you, who has received from you the gravest wrongs, has given money under the name of statues being driven by force and command, not by duty and will? This money, gentlemen — which is very great and most shamelessly compelled from unwilling men — I have not reckoned, nor could I have reckoned: how much was compelled from the farmers, how much from the businessmen who do business at Syracuse, at Agrigentum, at Panhormus, at Lilybaeum: that, you now understand by this man’s own confession, was compelled from the most unwilling.
quemquam igitur putas dubitaturum quin is quem tibi inimicissimum esse oporteat, qui abs te gravissimas iniurias acceperit, pecuniam statuae nomine dederit vi atque imperio adductus, non officio ac voluntate? huius ego pecuniae, iudices, quae permagna est impudentissimeque coacta ab invitis, non habui rationem neque habere potui,—quantum ab aratoribus, quantum ab negotiatoribus qui Syracusis, qui Agrigenti, qui Panhormi, qui Lilybaei negotiantur esset coactum: eam iam intellegitis ipsius quoque confessione ab invitissimis coactam esse.
I come now to the cities of Sicily, about which a judgement of their will can most easily be made. Did the Sicilians too contribute unwillingly? It is not credible. For it is agreed that Gaius Verres so conducted his praetorship in Sicily that, when he could not satisfy both — both Sicilians and toga’d men — he reckoned the duty toward the allies rather than the canvassing among citizens. So I have seen him at Syracuse inscribed not only patron of that island, but soter. How great is this? So great that it cannot be expressed in Latin in one word. soter is, of course, "the man who has given salvation." In his name even feast days are kept, and those splendid Verria — not "as if for Marcellia," but in place of the Marcellia, which they abolished by his command. There is in the forum at Syracuse a triumphal arch of his, on which his son stands naked, and he himself looks down from horseback on the province he has stripped naked. His statues are in every place, that seem to show this — that he has set up almost no fewer statues at Syracuse than he carried off. We see his name even at Rome inscribed in the largest letters on the base of statues: given by Sicily in common.
venio nunc ad civitates Siciliae, de quibus facillime iudicium fieri voluntatis potest. an etiam Siculi inviti contulerunt? non est probabile. etenim sic C. Verrem praeturam in Sicilia gessisse constat ut, cum utrisque satis facere non posset, et Siculis et togatis, offici potius in socios quam ambitionis in civis rationem duxerit. itaque eum non solum PATRONVM illius insulae, sed etiam SOTERA inscriptum vidi Syracusis. hoc quantum est? ita magnum ut Latine uno verbo exprimi non possit. is est nimirum SOTER qui salutem dedit. huius nomine etiam dies festi agitantur, pulchra illa Verria, non quasi Marcellia, sed pro Marcelliis, quae illi istius iussu sustulerunt; huius fornix in foro Syracusis est, in quo nudus filius stat, ipse autem ex equo nudatam ab se provinciam prospicit; huius statuae locis omnibus, quae hoc demonstrare videantur, prope modum non minus multas statuas istum posuisse Syracusis quam abstulisse; huic etiam Romae videmus in basi statuarum maximis litteris incisum, A COMMVNI SICILIAE DATAS.
Wherefore how can you make it credible to anyone that such great honours were paid you by unwilling men? Here you must look and consider, much more than a little while ago in the case of the farmers, what you wish. It is a great matter whether you wish the Sicilians to be reckoned your friends or your enemies, publicly and privately. If enemies, what will become of you? Where will you flee? Where will you take your stand? Lately you have alienated from yourself the greatest number of farmers — most honourable and most well-off men, both Sicilians and Roman citizens. Now of the Sicilian cities what will you do? Will you say that the Sicilians are your friends? How can you? They — who have done what they had never done before in the case of any man, that they should give public testimony against him; especially since out of that province many have been condemned who have been praetor there, only two acquitted — they now come with letters, come with mandates, come with public testimonies. Who, if they were praising you publicly, would even then seem to do it more from their custom than from your merit. When they publicly complain about your deeds — do they not declare this: that the wrongs are so great that they have far rather chosen to depart from their custom than not to speak of your character?
quam ob rem qui hoc probare potes cuiquam, tantos honores habitos esse ab invitis? hic tibi etiam multo magis quam paulo ante in aratoribus videndum et considerandum est quid velis. Magna res est utrum tibi Siculos publice privatimque amicos an inimicos existimari velis. si inimicos, quid te futurum est? quo confugies? ubi nitere? modo aratorum, honestissimorum hominum ac locupletissimorum et Siculorum et civium Romanorum, maximum numerum abs te abalienasti: nunc de Siculis civitatibus quid ages? dices tibi Siculos esse amicos? qui poteris? qui, quod nullo in homine antea fecerant, ut in eum publice testimonium dicerent,—cum praesertim ex ea provincia condemnati sint complures qui ibi praetores fuerunt, duo soli absoluti,—hi nunc veniunt cum litteris, veniunt cum mandatis, veniunt cum testimoniis publicis; qui, si te publice laudarent, tamen id more potius suo quam merito tuo facere viderentur, hi cum de tuis factis publice conqueruntur, nonne hoc indicant, tantas esse iniurias ut multo maluerint de suo more decedere quam de tuis moribus non dicere?
You must therefore confess, of necessity, that the Sicilians are your enemies, who have indeed both lodged the gravest petitions against you with the consuls, and have implored me to take up this case and the defence of their salvation; who, when they were forbidden by the praetor, when they were hindered by four quaestors, reckoned the threats of all and all the dangers light beside their salvation. They who in the previous hearing so gravely and so vehemently delivered their testimonies that Quintus Hortensius said Artemo of Centuripa, the envoy and the public witness, was a prosecutor, not a witness. For he, on account of his virtue and faith — with Andro, a most honourable and most reliable man — and on account of his eloquence as well, was chosen as envoy by his fellow citizens, that he might be able to set out before you most openly and most plainly this man’s many and various wrongs. The Halaesians spoke, the Catinaeans, the Tyndaritans, the Hennenses, the Herbitenses, the Agyrinenses, the Netini, the Segestani: it is not necessary to enumerate them all. You know how many and how many things were spoken in the previous hearing: now both they and the rest will speak.
confitendum igitur est tibi necessario Siculos inimicos esse, qui quidem et in te gravissima postulata consulibus ediderint, et me ut hanc causam salutisque suae defensionem susciperem obsecrarint; qui cum a praetore prohiberentur, a quattuor quaestoribus impedirentur, omnium minas atque omnia pericula prae salute sua levia duxerint; qui priore actione ita testimonia graviter vehementerque dixerint ut Artemonem Centuripinum legatum et publice testem Q. Hortensius accusatorem, non testem esse diceret. etenim ille cum propter virtutem et fidem cum Androne, homine honestissimo et certissimo, tum etiam propter eloquentiam legatus a suis civibus electus est, ut posset multas istius et varias iniurias quam apertissime vobis planissimeque explicare. dixerunt Halaesini, Catinenses, Tyndaritani, Hennenses, Herbitenses, Agyrinenses, Netini, Segestani: enumerare omnis non est necesse. scitis quam multi et quam multa priore actione dixerint: nunc et illi et reliqui dicent.
All, in short, will understand in this case that the Sicilians are of such a mind that, if there is no animadversion against this man, they think their homes and seats must be left, and Sicily must be departed from — nay, fled from. Will you persuade these men that they have contributed the greatest sums of money for your honour and amplitude of their own will? I suppose those who would not have you safe in your own city were wishing to have monuments of your figure and name in their own cities. The matter will declare how they wished it. For now this long while I seem to myself to be gathering too thinly the proofs of the Sicilians’ will toward you — whether they wished to set up statues for you or were compelled.
omnes denique hoc in hac causa intellegent, hoc animo esse Siculos ut, si in istum animadversum non sit, sibi relinquendas domos ac sedes suas et ex Sicilia decedendum atque adeo fugiendum esse arbitrentur. hos homines tu persuadebis ad honorem atque amplitudinem tuam pecunias maximas voluntate sua contulisse? credo, qui te in tua civitate incolumem esse nollent, hi monumenta tuae formae ac nominis in suis civitatibus esse cupiebant. res declarabit ut cupierint. iam dudum enim mihi nimium tenuiter Siculorum erga te voluntatis argumenta colligere videor, utrum statuas voluerint tibi statuere an coacti sint.
Of what man has it ever been heard, what has befallen you: that his statues, set up in his province in public places, in part even in sacred temples, were thrown down by force and by the universal multitude? So many guilty men there have been in Asia, so many in Africa, so many in Spain, in Gaul, in Sardinia, so many in Sicily itself: of any of them have you ever heard this? It is new, gentlemen, among the Sicilians indeed and among all the Greeks, like a portent. I would not believe this about statues, had I not seen them lying down and torn from their bases — because among all the Greeks this is the custom: they reckon that an honour paid to men in monuments of that kind is consecrated by some not slight religious sanction of the gods.
de quo hoc homine auditum est umquam, quod tibi accidit, ut eius in provincia statuae in locis publicis positae, partim etiam in aedibus sacris, per vim et per universam multitudinem deicerentur? tot homines in Asia nocentes, tot in Africa, tot in Hispania, Gallia, Sardinia, tot in ipsa Sicilia fuerunt: ecquo de homine hoc umquam audivistis? novum est, iudices, in Siculis quidem et in omnibus Graecis monstri simile. non crederem hoc de statuis nisi iacentis revulsasque vidissem, propterea quod apud omnis Graecos hic mos est, ut honorem hominibus habitum in monumentis eius modi non nulla religione deorum consecrari arbitrentur.
So the Rhodians, who almost alone waged that earlier war with King Mithridates and received all his forces and his fiercest assault on their walls, on their shores, on their fleets, although they were beyond the rest enemies to that king, yet his statue (which was among them in a most frequented place of the city) they did not touch even then in the city’s very perils. And it might perhaps scarcely seem to fit, that they should wish to overthrow the man himself but preserve his image and likeness. Yet I saw, when I was among them, both that there was a certain religious feeling in these matters handed down from the elders, and that this was being maintained: that with the statue, they considered the time at which it had been set up; with the man, the time at which he was waging war and was their enemy. You see therefore the custom and the religion of the Greeks, which is wont in war itself to defend the monuments of enemies — this same custom in the highest peace was no protection to the statues of a praetor of the Roman people.
itaque Rhodii, qui prope soli bellum illud superius cum Mithridate rege gesserint, omnisque eius copias acerrimumque impetum moenibus litoribus classibusque suis exceperint, tamen, cum ei regi inimici praeter ceteros essent, statuam eius, quae erat apud ipsos in celeberrimo urbis loco, ne tum quidem in ipsis urbis periculis attigerunt. ac forsitan vix convenire videretur, quem ipsum hominem cuperent evertere, eius effigiem simulacrumque servare; sed tamen videbam, apud eos cum essem, et religionem esse quandam in his rebus a maioribus traditam, et hoc disputari, cum statua se eius habuisse temporis rationem quo posita esset, cum homine eius quo gereret bellum atque hostis esset. videtis igitur consuetudinem religionemque Graecorum, quae monumenta hostium in bello ipso soleat defendere, eam summa in pace praetoris populi Romani statuis praesidio non fuisse.
The Tauromenitans, whose city is in alliance — the most quiet of men, who, more than the rest, were wont to be removed from the wrongs of our magistrates by the protection of the treaty — these men yet did not hesitate to throw down this man’s statue. With it cast away, they wished the base nevertheless to remain in the forum, because they thought it would weigh more heavily against this man if men knew that his statue had been thrown down by the Tauromenitans, than if they reckoned none had ever been set up. The Tyndaritans threw it down in the forum and for the same reason left the empty horse. At Leontini, in a wretched and emptied city, this man’s statue was nevertheless thrown down in the gymnasium. For why should I speak of the Syracusans? It was not the act of the Syracusans alone, but theirs and at the same time of the joint assize and almost of the whole province. How great a multitude, what a force of men was said to have come together, when his statues were thrown down and overthrown! And in what place! In the most frequented and most religious, before the very Serapis, in the very entrance and vestibule of the temple. Had not Metellus pressed this so hard, and forbidden the matter by command and edict, no trace of this man’s statues would have been left in all Sicily.
Tauromenitani, quorum est civitas foederata, homines quietissimi, qui maxime ab iniuriis nostrorum magistratuum remoti consuerant esse praesidio foederis,—hi tamen istius evertere statuam non dubitarunt; qua abiecta basim tamen in foro manere voluerunt, quod gravius in istum fore putabant si scirent homines statuam eius a Tauromenitanis esse deiectam quam si nullam umquam positam esse arbitrarentur. Tyndaritani deiecerunt in foro et eadem de causa equum inanem reliquerunt. Leontinis, misera in civitate atque inani, tamen istius in gymnasio statua deiecta est. nam quid ego de Syracusanis loquar? quod non est proprium Syracusanorum, sed et illorum et commune conventus illius ac prope totius provinciae. quanta illuc multitudo, quanta vis hominum convenisse dicebatur tum cum statuae sunt illius deiectae et eversae! at quo loco! celeberrimo ac religiosissimo, ante ipsum Serapim, in primo aditu vestibuloque templi. quod nisi Metellus hoc tam graviter egisset atque illam rem imperio edictoque prohibuisset, vestigium statuarum istius in tota Sicilia nullum esset relictum.
And I do not fear that any of these things should seem to have been done not only at my prompting but at my mere coming. All those things were done not only before I touched Sicily, but even before this man touched Italy. While I was in Sicily, no statue was thrown down. After I had left, learn what was done. The senate of the Centuripines decreed and the people ordered that whatever statues there were of Verres himself, of his father, and of his son, the quaestors should put them out for demolishing, and that, while that demolition went forward, no fewer than thirty senators should be present. See the gravity and dignity of the city. They did not wish those statues to be in their city which they had given unwilling, by force and command; nor those of a man against whom they had themselves with the gravest public testimony — which they had never done before — sent mandates and embassies to Rome. And they thought it weightier if it was done by public counsel,
atque ego hoc non vereor, ne quid horum non modo impulsu verum omnino adventu meo factum esse videatur. omnia ista ante facta sunt non modo quam ego Siciliam, verum etiam quam iste Italiam attigit. dum ego in Sicilia sum, nulla statua deiecta est: posteaquam illinc decessi, quae sint gesta cognoscite. Centuripinorum senatus decrevit populusque iussit ut, quae statuae Verris ipsius et patris eius et filii essent, eas quaestores demoliendas locarent, dumque ea demolitio fieret, senatores ne minus triginta adessent. videte gravitatem civitatis ac dignitatem. neque eas in urbe sua statuas esse voluerunt quas inviti per vim atque imperium dedissent, neque eius hominis in quem ipsi cum gravissimo testimonio publice, quod numquam antea, Romam mandata legatosque misissent; et id gravius esse putarunt si publico consilio, quam si
than if it should seem to have been done by the force of a multitude. When the Centuripines had taken up the statues publicly with this counsel, Metellus hears of it; he takes it gravely; he summons to him the magistrates of the Centuripines and the chief ten; if they did not restore the statues, he threatens vehemently. They report back to the senate. The statues, which were no help to this man’s cause, are put back; the decrees of the Centuripines, which had been made about the statues, are not removed. Here I grant one thing to one, another to another: but Metellus, a wise man, I cannot at all forgive if he does anything stupidly. What? Did he think this was going to count against Verres as a charge — if his statues were thrown down, which is wont often to happen by wind or some accident? In that there was neither charge nor reproach. From what then is the charge and the accusation born? From the judgement and will of men.
per vim multitudinis factum esse videretur. cum hoc consilio statuas Centuripini publice sustulissent, audit Metellus; graviter fert; evocat ad se Centuripinorum magistratus et decem primos; nisi restituissent statuas, vehementer minatur. illi ad senatum renuntiant: statuae, quae istius causae nihil prodessent, reponuntur; decreta Centuripinorum, quae de statuis erant facta, non tolluntur. hic ego aliud alii concedo: Metello, homini sapienti, prorsus non possum ignoscere si quid stulte facit. quid? ille hoc putabat Verri criminosum fore, si statuae eius essent deiectae, quod saepe vento aut aliquo casu fieri solet? non erat in hoc neque crimen ullum neque reprehensio. ex quo igitur crimen atque accusatio nascitur? ex hominum iudicio et voluntate.
I, had Metellus not compelled the Centuripines to put back the statues, would have said this: see, gentlemen, what great and what bitter grief this man’s wrongs have burned into the souls of allies and friends, when the most friendly and most faithful city of the Centuripines, joined to the Roman people by such great offices that not only our commonwealth but in any private man even the very name "Roman" she has always loved — she has by public counsel and authority judged that statues of Gaius Verres ought not to be in her city. I would read out the decrees of the Centuripines; I would praise that city, as most truly I might; I would set forth that there are ten thousand Centuripine citizens, of the bravest and most faithful allies; that all these have decreed this: that there should be no monument of him in their city.
ego, si Metellus statuas Centuripinos reponere non coegisset, haec dicerem, videte, iudices, quantum et quam acerbum dolorem sociorum atque amicorum animis inusserint istius iniuriae, cum Centuripinorum amicissima ac fidelissima civitas, quae tantis officiis cum populo Romano coniuncta est ut non solum rem publicam nostram, sed etiam in quovis homine privato nomen ipsum Romanum semper dilexerit, ea publico consilio atque auctoritate iudicarit C. Verris statuas esse in urbe sua non oportere. recitarem decreta Centuripinorum; laudarem illam civitatem, id quod verissime possem; commemorarem decem milia civium esse Centuripinorum, fortissimorum fidelissimorumque sociorum; eos omnis hoc statuisse, monumentum istius in sua civitate nullum esse oportere.
These things I should have said then, had Metellus not put the statues back. I should like now to ask Metellus himself what part of this speech he has cut off from me by his force and authority. The same things, I think, are in agreement. For not even, had the statues been thrown down completely, could I show them to you lying. I would use this one thing: that so grave a city had judged that Gaius Verres’s statues should be torn down. This Metellus has not torn from me. He has even added these things, to make me complain, if it seemed good to me, that allies and friends should be commanded by so unjust a law that they should not be allowed even in their own benefits to use a free judgement. I would ask you to make a guess what kind of man you would think Lucius Metellus had been to me in these matters — where he could harm me — when in this matter he was so openly partial, in which he could not harm me. But I am not angry with Metellus, nor do I take from him his own immunity, which he uses with all men: that he may seem to have done nothing maliciously and nothing on purpose.
haec tum dicerem, si statuas Metellus non reposuisset: velim quaerere nunc ex ipso Metello, quidnam sua vi et auctoritate mihi ex hac oratione praeciderit. eadem opinor omnia convenire. neque enim, si maxime statuae deiectae essent ego eas vobis possem iacentis ostendere; hoc uno uterer, civitatem tam gravem iudicasse statuas C. Verris demoliendas. hoc mihi Metellus non eripuit; haec etiam addidit, ut quererer, si mihi videretur, tam iniquo iure sociis atque amicis imperari ut iis ne in suis quidem beneficiis libero iudicio uti liceret, vos rogarem ut coniecturam faceretis qualem in his rebus in me L. Metellum fuisse putaretis, in quibus rebus obesse mihi posset, cum in hac re tam aperta cupiditate fuerit, in qua nihil obfuit. sed ego Metello non irascor neque ei suam vacationem eripio, qua ille apud omnis utitur, ut nihil malitiose neque consulto fecisse videatur.
Now, then, it is so clear that you cannot deny it: that no statue was given you by the will of any man, no money under the name of statues except by what was wrung out and compelled by force. In which charge I do not wish only this to be understood: that you compelled two million sesterces for statues. But this much more: what was at the same time shown — how great is and was the hatred of the farmers against you, how great that of all the Sicilians. And in this what your defence will be, I cannot grasp by any conjecture.
iam igitur est ita perspicuum ut negare non possis nullam tibi statuam voluntate cuiusquam datam, nullam pecuniam statuarum nomine nisi vi expressam et coactam. quo quidem in crimine non illud solum intellegi volo, te ad statuas HS viciens coegisse, sed multo etiam illud magis, quod simul demonstratum est quantum odium in te aratorum, quantum omnium Siculorum sit et fuerit. in quo quae vestra defensio futura sit coniectura adsequi non queo.
"The Sicilians hate me; for I did many things for the sake of the toga’d men." Yet these latter are your bitterest enemies. "I have Roman citizens for enemies, because I defended the rights and advantages of the allies." Yet the allies complain that they were held by you in the number of enemies. "The farmers are my enemies on account of the tithes." What of those who plough lands free of tax and free? Why do they hate you? Why the Halaesians, why the Centuripines, why the Segestans, why the Halicyenses? What kind of men, what number, what order can I bring forward who do not hate you, whether of Roman citizens or of Sicilians? So that, even if I could not say the causes why they hate you, yet I should think this should be said: him whom all mortals hate, him you also ought to hate.
’ oderunt Siculi; togatorum enim causa multa feci.’ at hi quidem acerrimi inimici sunt. ’ inimicos habeo civis Romanos, quod sociorum commoda ac iura defendi.’ at socii in hostium numero sese abs te habitos queruntur. ’ aratores inimici sunt propter decumas.’ quid? qui agros immunis liberosque arant, cur oderunt? cur Halaesini, cur Centuripini, cur Segestani, cur Halicyenses? quod genus hominum, quem numerum, quem ordinem proferre possum qui te non oderit, sive civium Romanorum sive Siculorum? ut, etiamsi causas cur te oderint non possim dicere, tamen illud dicendum putem, quem omnes mortales oderint, eum vobis quoque odio esse oportere.
Or will you dare to say that whether the farmers, whether finally all the Sicilians, think well of you, or how they think, is not to the matter? Nor will you dare to say it; nor, even if you wish, will it be allowed. For those equestrian statues take from you that line of speech — that the Sicilians and the farmers are to be despised — the statues which you ordered to be set up and inscribed a little before you came to the city, that you might dull the spirits of all your enemies and prosecutors.
an hoc dicere audebis, utrum de te aratores, utrum denique Siculi universi bene existiment, aut quo modo existiment, ad rem id non pertinere? neque tu hoc dicere audebis, nec si cupias licebit; eripiunt enim tibi istam orationem contemnendorum Siculorum atque aratorum statuae illae equestres, quas tu paulo ante quam ad urbem venires poni inscribique iussisti, ut omnium inimicorum tuorum animos accusatorumque tardares.
For who would be troublesome to you, or who would dare to call you to account, when he saw statues set up by businessmen, by farmers, by Sicily in common? What other class of men is in that province? None. So by the whole province, and class by class by every part of it, you are not only loved but adorned. Who would dare to lay a hand on this man? Can you then say that the testimonies of the farmers, of the businessmen, of all the Sicilians ought to be no harm to you, when by their names set up against you in the inscriptions of statues you have hoped to put out all hatred and infamy of yours? Or, those by whose authority you have tried to honour your statues — by their dignity shall I not be able to confirm my prosecution?
quis enim tibi molestus esset aut quis appellare te auderet, cum videret statuas ab negotiatoribus, ab aratoribus, a communi Siciliae positas? quod est aliud in illa provincia genus hominum? nullum. ergo ab universa provincia, generatimque a singulis eius partibus, non solum diligitur, sed etiam ornatur. quis hunc attingere audeat? potes igitur dicere nihil tibi obesse oportere aratorum, negotiatorum, Siculorumque omnium testimonia, cum eorum nominibus in statuarum inscriptione oppositis omnem te speraris invidiam atque infamiam tuam posse exstingere? an, quorum tu auctoritate statuas cohonestare tuas conatus es, eorum ego dignitate accusationem meam comprobare non potero?
Unless perhaps in this — that you were liked among the publicans — some hope consoles you. That this favour should not be able to profit you, I have brought about by my diligence; that it ought even to harm you, you have brought about by your wisdom. For learn the whole matter briefly, gentlemen. As assistant manager in the scriptura of Sicily there is a certain Lucius Carpinatius, who, both for the sake of his own gain and perhaps because he reckoned it to be in the interest of his partners, gave himself wholly into close familiarity with this man. He, while he followed the praetor round all the assize-towns, and never left him, had now come into such familiarity and habit, in selling this man’s decrees and in transacting business, that he was reckoned almost a second Timarchides.
Nisi forte quod apud publicanos gratiosus fuisti, in ea re spes te aliqua consolatur. quae gratia ne quid tibi prodesse posset ego mea diligentia perfeci; ut etiam obesse deberet tu tua sapientia curasti. etenim rem totam, iudices, breviter cognoscite. in scriptura Siciliae pro magistro est quidam L. Carpinatius, qui et sui quaestus causa, et fortasse quod sociorum interesse arbitrabatur, bene penitus in istius familiaritatem sese dedit. is cum praetorem circum omnia fora sectaretur neque ab eo umquam discederet, in eam iam venerat familiaritatem consuetudinem que in vendendis istius decretis et iudiciis transigendisque negotiis, ut prope alter Timarchides numeraretur;
This was the more capital, that the same man also gave money at interest to those who were buying anything from this man. And that money-lending was of such a kind, gentlemen, that even this gain came to him. For the sums he was entering as outlay against those with whom he was contracting, he was entering as received either from this man’s clerks or from Timarchides or from this man himself. Besides, he was lending great sums of this man’s extraordinary money in his own name.
hoc erat etiam capitalior, quod idem pecunias iis qui ab isto aliquid mercabantur faenori dabat. ea autem faeneratio erat eius modi, iudices, ut etiam is quaestus huic cederet; nam quas pecunias ferebat iis expensas quibuscum contrahebat, eas aut scribae istius aut Timarchidi aut etiam isti ipsi referebat acceptas. idem praeterea pecunias istius extraordinarias grandis suo nomine faenerabatur.
Now in the first days, before Carpinatius had arrived at such great familiarity with this man, he had on several occasions sent letters to the partners about this man’s wrongs. And Canuleius, who was on duty at the harbour at Syracuse, had also written down for the partners by name very many of this man’s thefts — of those things that had been exported from Syracuse without harbour duty. And the same partnership held both the harbour and the scriptura. So it came about that there were very many things which we could quote and bring forward against this man out of the partnership’s letters.
hic primo Carpinatius, antequam in istius familiaritatem tantam pervenisset, aliquotiens ad socios litteras de istius iniuriis miserat; Canuleius vero, qui in portu Syracusis operas dabat, furta quoque istius permulta nominatim ad socios perscripserat, ea quae sine portorio Syracusis erant exportata; portum autem et scripturam eadem societas habebat. ita factum est ut essent permulta quae ex societatis litteris dicere in istum et proferre possemus.
But it happened that Carpinatius, who was now joined to this man by the highest familiarity and besides by money and accounts, sent later frequent letters to the partners about this man’s highest services and benefits to their common interest. For when this man would do and decree whatever Carpinatius asked, then the other wrote even more to the partners, in order, if he could, plainly to extinguish what he had written before. At last, when this man was now leaving, he sent letters to them of this kind: that they should come out in numbers to meet him, give thanks, and zealously promise that they would do whatever he commanded. So the partners, by the old custom of publicans, did so — not because they thought him worthy of any honour, but because they thought it was in their interest to be reckoned mindful and grateful. They gave him thanks, and said that Carpinatius had often sent letters to them about his services.
verum accidit ut Carpinatius, qui iam cum isto summa consuetudine, praeterea re ac ratione coniunctus esset, crebras postea litteras ad socios de istius summis officiis in rem communem beneficiisque mitteret. etenim cum iste omnia quaecumque Carpinatius postulabat facere ac decernere solebat, tum ille etiam plura scribebat ad socios, ut, si posset, quae antea scripserat, ea plane exstingueret. ad extremum vero, cum iste iam decedebat, eius modi litteras ad eos misit: ut huic frequentes obviam prodirent, gratias agerent, facturos se si quid imperasset studiose pollicerentur. itaque socii fecerunt vetere instituto publicanorum, non quo istum ullo honore dignum arbitrarentur, sed quod sua interesse putabant se memores gratosque existimari: gratias isti egerunt, Carpinatium saepe ad se de eius officiis litteras misisse dixerunt.
This man, when he had answered that he had done these things willingly and had greatly praised the services of Carpinatius, gives a certain friend of his (who was at that time master of that partnership) the business of seeing to it diligently and providing that there should be nothing in the partners’ letters which could weigh against his life or standing. So the master, removing the multitude of partners, calls together the tithe-collectors and lays the matter before them. They resolve and decree that those letters by which the standing of Gaius Verres might be hurt should be removed, and that care should be taken that this matter should not be able to do harm to Gaius Verres.
iste cum respondisset ea se libenter fecisse operasque Carpinati magno opere laudasset, dat amico suo cuidam negotium, qui tum magister erat eius societatis, ut diligenter caveret atque prospiceret ne quid esset in litteris sociorum quod contra caput suum aut existimationem valere posset. itaque ille multitudine sociorum remota decumanos convocat, rem defert. statuunt illi atque decernunt ut eae litterae quibus existimatio C. Verris laederetur removerentur, operaque daretur ne ea res C. Verri fraudi esse posset.
If I show that the tithe-collectors decreed this, if I make plain that by this decree the letters were removed, what more do you await? Can I bring a more clearly judged matter, can I bring into court a more clearly condemned defendant? And by whose judgement condemned! By those, surely, by whose judgement, in the opinion of those who long for stricter trials, the cases ought to be judged — by the judgement of the publicans. By those whom now the people demands as judges, about whom (that we may have them as judges) we see a law promulgated by a man not of our class, not from the equestrian rank,
si ostendo hoc decrevisse decumanos, si planum facio hoc decreto remotas esse litteras, quid exspectatis amplius? possumne magis rem iudicatam adferre, magis reum condemnatum in iudicium adducere? at quorum iudicio condemnatum! nempe eorum quos ii qui severiora iudicia desiderant arbitrantur res iudicare oportere publicanorum iudicio; quos videlicet nunc populus iudices poscit, de quibus, ut eos iudices habeamus, legem ab homine non nostri generis, non ex equestri loco profecto, sed nobilissimo
but from the most noble. The tithe-collectors — that is, the chiefs and as it were the senators of the publicans — thought the letters should be put out of the way. I have men from those who were present whom I shall produce, to whom I will entrust this — most honourable and most well-off men, those very chiefs of the equestrian order, on whose splendour the speech and case of the man who promulgated the law most rests. They will come forward, will say what they decided. Surely, if I know men aright, they will not lie. For they could put the partners’ common letters out of the way; their faith and their conscience they cannot put out of the way. So those Roman knights, who by their judgement condemned you, did not wish you to be condemned by the judgement of these men. Whether you should now follow the judgement of those men or their will, you, gentlemen, must consider.
promulgatam videmus; decumani, hoc est principes et quasi senatores publicanorum, removendas de medio litteras censuerunt. habeo ex iis qui adfuerunt quos producam, quibus hoc committam, homines honestissimos ac locupletissimos, istos ipsos principes equestris ordinis, quorum splendore vel maxime istius qui legem promulgavit oratio et causa nititur. venient in medium, dicent quid statuerint; profecto, si recte homines novi, non mentientur; litteras enim communis de medio removere potuerunt, fidem suam et religionem removere non possunt. ergo equites Romani, qui te suo iudicio condemnarunt, horum iudicio condemnari noluerunt: vos nunc utrum illorum iudicium an voluntatem sequi malitis, considerate.
But see what good your friends’ zeal, what your own counsel, what the will of the partners does you. I will speak a little more openly. For I now no longer fear that anyone may judge me to have said this rather as a prosecutor than as a free man. If the masters had not removed those letters by the tithe-collectors’ decree, I could speak against you only so much as I had found in the letters. Now, that decree being made and the letters removed, it is allowed me to say as much as I am able, and to the judge to suspect as much as he wishes. I say that you exported from Syracuse the greatest weight of gold, silver, ivory, and purple; very much Maltese cloth, very much bedclothes, much Delian furniture, very many Corinthian vessels, a great quantity of grain, the greatest quantity of honey. For these things, because no harbour duty was paid, Lucius Canuleius (who was on duty at the harbour) sent letters to the partners. Does this charge seem great enough?
at vide quid te amicorum tuorum studium, quid tuum consilium, quid sociorum voluntas adiuvet. dicam paulo promptius; neque enim iam vereor ne quis hoc me magis accusatorie quam libere dixisse arbitretur. si istas litteras non decreto decumanorum magistri removissent, tantum possem in te dicere quantum in litteris invenissem: nunc decreto isto facto litterisque remotis tantum mihi licet dicere quantum possum, tantum iudici suspicari quantum velit. dico te maximum pondus auri argenti eboris purpurae, plurimam vestem Melitensem, plurimam stragulam, multam Deliacam supellectilem, plurima vasa Corinthia, magnum numerum frumenti, vim mellis maximam Syracusis exportasse; his pro rebus quod portorium non esset datum, litteras ad socios misisse L. Canuleium, qui in portu operas daret. satisne magnum crimen hoc videtur?
None greater, I suppose. How will Hortensius defend? Will he demand that I produce Canuleius’s letters? Will he say a charge of this kind is empty unless confirmed by letters? I will cry out that the letters have been put out of the way, that by the decree of the partners the marks and monuments of this man’s thefts have been snatched from me. He must either contend that this was never done, or take up all the weapons. Do you deny it was done? That defence pleases me; I take it up. For an equal contest, an equal struggle is offered. I will produce witnesses, and produce more than one at the same time, since when the matter was being done they were together; let them now too be together. When they are questioned, let them be bound not only by the peril of oath and standing, but also by their common consciousness with one another.
nullum, opinor, maius. qui defendet Hortensius? postulabit ut litteras Canulei proferam? crimen eius modi nisi litteris confirmetur inane esse dicet? clamabo litteras remotas esse de medio, decreto sociorum erepta mihi esse istius indicia ac monumenta furtorum. aut hoc contendat numquam esse factum, aut omnia tela excipiat necesse est. negas esse factum? placet ista mihi defensio, descendo; aequa enim contentio, aequum certamen proponitur. producam testis, et producam pluris eodem tempore; quoniam tum cum actum est una fuerunt, nunc quoque una sint; cum interrogabuntur, obligentur non solum iuris iurandi atque existimationis periculo, sed etiam communi inter se conscientia.
If it is made plain that the matter was so done as I say, can you say, Hortensius, that there was nothing in those letters that hurt Verres? Not only will you not say it, but you will not even be allowed to say that there was not as much as I shall say. So by your counsel and favour you have brought it about that, as I said a little while ago, both the highest opportunity for prosecuting is given to me, and to the judge free power for believing.
si planum fit hoc ita quem ad modum dico esse factum, num poteris dicere, Hortensi, nihil in istis fuisse litteris quod Verrem laederet? non modo id non dices, sed ne illud quidem tibi dicere licebit, tantum quantum ego dicam non fuisse. ergo hoc vestro consilio et gratia perfecistis, ut, quem ad modum paulo ante dixi, et mihi summa facultas ad accusandum daretur, et iudici libera potestas ad credendum.
Yet though it is so, I shall feign nothing. I shall remember that I have not chosen whom I should accuse, but received those whom I should defend. That you ought to hear from me a case not put forward by me but laid upon me. That I shall satisfy the Sicilians if I diligently set out what I came to know in Sicily, what I received from them themselves; the Roman people, if I fear no man’s force, no man’s power; you, if by my faith and diligence I make it possible to judge truly and honourably; my own self, if I depart not even the least from that course of life which I have always set before me.
quod cum ita sit, nihil fingam tamen. meminero me non sumpsisse quem accusarem, sed recepisse quos defenderem; vos ex me causam non a me prolatam, sed ad me delatam audire oportere; me Siculis satis esse facturum si quae cognovi in Sicilia, quae accepi ab ipsis, diligenter exposuero, populo Romano si nullius vim, nullius potentiam pertimuero, vobis si facultatem vere atque honeste iudicandi fide et diligentia mea fecero, mihimet si ne minimum quidem de meo curriculo vitae, quod mihi semper propositum fuit, decessero.
Wherefore there is nothing for you to fear that I should feign anything against you: there is even something in which to rejoice. For many things which I know to have been committed by you, because they are either too foul or too little credible, I shall pass over. I shall deal only with this whole matter of the partnership. That you may now know, I shall ask whether anything was decreed. When I have found that, I shall ask whether the letters were removed. When that too is established, you will now understand this even with me silent: if those Roman knights who decreed this for this man’s sake were now themselves judges over him, they would condemn him without doubt — the man about whom they would know that letters which gave evidence of his thefts had been sent to them and removed by their own decree. He, then, who must necessarily be condemned by those Roman knights who desire all things for his sake, who have been most kindly treated by him — can he in any way or by any reasoning be acquitted by you, gentlemen?
quapropter nihil est quod metuas ne quid in te confingam: etiam quod laetere habes. multa enim quae scio a te esse commissa, quod aut nimium turpia aut parum credibilia sunt, praetermittam. tantum agam de hoc toto nomine societatis. Vt iam scire possis, quaeram decretumne sit. cum id invenero, quaeram remotaene sint litterae. cum id quoque constabit, vos iam hoc me tacito intellegetis: si illi qui hoc istius causa decreverunt equites Romani nunc idem in eum iudices essent, istum sine dubio condemnarent, de quo litteras eas quae istius furta indicarent et ad se missas et suo decreto remotas scirent esse. quem igitur ab iis equitibus Romanis, qui istius causa cupiunt omnia, qui ab eo benignissime tractati sunt, condemnari necesse esset, is a vobis, iudices, ulla via aut ratione absolvi potest?
And lest perchance those things which have been put out of the way and snatched from us should seem all to have been so stored away and hidden that this diligence (which I think most of all expected of me) has been able to track none of them, to attain to none — what could be found by any counsel or method has been found, gentlemen. You will see this man now caught in plain matters. For because in the cases of the publicans I have spent perhaps the greatest part of my age, and have observed that order vehemently, I seem to myself to have come to know their custom by use and handling.
ac ne forte ea, quae remota de medio atque erepta nobis sunt, omnia ita condita fuisse atque ita abdita latuisse videantur ut haec diligentia, quam ego a me exspectari maxime puto, nihil eorum investigare, nihil adsequi potuerit, —quae consilio aliquo aut ratione inveniri potuerunt inventa sunt, iudices: manifestis in rebus hominem iam teneri videbitis. nam quod in publicanorum causis vel plurimum aetatis meae versor vehementerque illum ordinem observo, satis commode mihi videor eorum consuetudinem usu tractandoque cognosse.
So when I had learned this — that the letters of the partnership had been removed — I had a list of those years through which this man had been in Sicily; then I asked, what was easiest to find out, who through those years had been masters of that partnership, with whom the books had been. For I knew this to be the custom of the masters who hold the books: that, when they hand the books to a new master, they themselves are not unwilling to keep copies of the letters. So I came first to Lucius Vibius, a Roman knight and a leading man, whom I found to have been master in the very year I most needed to inquire about. I came on him surely beyond his expectation, unannounced. I searched what I could, I asked everything: I found only two booklets sent by Lucius Canuleius to the partners from the harbour at Syracuse, in which was written the account of several months of things exported in this man’s name without harbour duty. So I sealed them at once.
itaque ut hoc comperi, remotas esse litteras societatis, habui rationem eorum annorum per quos iste in Sicilia fuisset; dein quaesivi, quod erat inventu facillimum, qui per eos annos magistri illius societatis fuissent, apud quos tabulae fuissent. sciebam enim hanc magistrorum qui tabulas haberent consuetudinem esse, ut, cum tabulas novo magistro traderent, exempla litterarum ipsi habere non nollent. itaque ad L. Vibium, equitem Romanum, virum primarium, quem reperiebam magistrum fuisse eo ipso anno qui mihi maxime quaerendus erat, primum veni. sane homini praeter opinionem improviso incidi. scrutatus sum quae potui et quaesivi omnia: inveni duos solos libellos a L. Canuleio missos sociis ex portu Syracusis, in quibus erat scripta ratio mensuum complurium rerum exportatarum istius nomine sine portorio: itaque obsignavi statim.
This was not of the same kind which I most desired to find from the partners’ letters; but I found this much, gentlemen, that I could bring before you as it were as an example. Yet whatever there shall be in these booklets, however small it may seem, this at least will be plain: from this you ought to make a guess about the rest. Read me, please, this first booklet, then the other. The Canuleian booklets. I do not ask whence you had four hundred amphorae of honey, whence so much Maltese cloth, whence fifty triclinium-couches, whence so many candelabra. I do not, I say, now ask whence you had these things, but for what use you had so much — that I ask. I leave aside the honey. But so much Maltese cloth, as if even your friends’ wives, so many couches, as if you were going to furnish all those men’s villas?
non erat haec ex eodem genere quod ego maxime genus ex sociorum litteris reperire cupiebam; verum tantum inveni, iudices, quod apud vos quasi exempli causa proferre possem. sed tamen quicquid erit in his libellis, quantulumcumque videbitur esse, hoc quidem certe manifestum erit: de ceteris ex hoc coniecturam facere debebitis. recita mihi, quaeso, hunc primum libellum, deinde illum alterum. LIBELLI CANVELIANI. non quaero unde cccc amphoras mellis habueris, unde tantum Melitensium, unde L tricliniorum lectos, unde tot candelabra; non, inquam, iam quaero unde haec habueris, sed quo tantum tibi opus fuerit, id quaero. omitto de melle, sed tantumne Melitensium, quasi etiam amicorum uxores, tantum lectorum, quasi omnium istorum villas ornaturus esses?
And since the account in these booklets is of a few months, see to it that the whole three years come into your minds. So I contend: out of these small booklets found at one master of the partnership, you can already by conjecture grasp what kind of brigand this man has been in that province; how many lusts, how various, how unlimited he has had; how great a sum of money not only counted out, but laid up in things of this kind, he has put together. These things will be set out for you more plainly in another place.
et cum haec paucorum mensuum ratio in his libellis sit, facite ut vobis trienni totius veniat in mentem. sic contendo, ex his parvis libellis apud unum magistrum societatis repertis vos iam coniectura adsequi posse cuius modi praedo iste in illa provincia fuerit, quam multas cupiditates, quam varias, quam infinitas habuerit, quantam pecuniam non solum numeratam, verum etiam in huiusce modi rebus positam confecerit; quae vobis alio loco planius explicabuntur.
Now attend to this. He writes that by the exports which have been read out the partners have lost 110,000 sesterces from the twentieth on the harbour at Syracuse. So in a very few months — as these tiny and contemptible booklets show — the praetor’s thefts amounted to two million two hundred thousand sesterces, and they were exported from one town alone. Now think — since that is Sicily, that is, an island which has outlets to the sea on every side — what you must suppose was exported from the rest of the places: from Agrigentum, from Lilybaeum, from Panhormus, from Thermae, from Halaesa, from Catina, from the rest of the towns; and from Messana most of all, which this man reckoned the safest place for himself, where he was always with mind freed and at ease, because he had chosen the Mamertines for himself as those to whom he should bring everything that had to be either kept more carefully or exported more secretly. With these booklets found, the others were removed and hidden away more diligently. We, however — that all may understand we do this without greed — are content with these very booklets.
nunc hoc attendite. his exportationibus quae recitatae sunt scribit HS cx socios perdidisse ex vicensima portori Syracusis. pauculis igitur mensibus, ut hi pusilli et contempti libelli indicant, furta praetoris, quae essent HS ZZZcc, ex uno oppido solo exportata sunt. cogitate nunc,—cum illa Sicilia sit, hoc est insula quae undique exitus maritimos habeat,—quid ex ceteris locis exportatum putetis, quid Agrigento, quid Lilybaeo, quid Panhormo, quid Thermis, quid Halaesa, quid Catina, quid ex ceteris oppidis, quid vero Messana, quem iste sibi locum maxime tutum esse arbitrabatur, ubi animo semper soluto liberoque erat, quod sibi iste Mamertinos delegerat ad quos omnia quae aut diligentius servanda aut occultius exportanda erant deportaret. his inventis libellis ceteri remoti et diligentius sunt reconditi; nos tamen, ut omnes intellegant hoc nos sine cupiditate agere, his ipsis libellis contenti sumus.
Now I shall return to the partners’ books of receipts and outlays, which they could in no honourable way remove, and to your friend Carpinatius. We were inspecting at Syracuse the books of the partnership made up by Carpinatius, which signified that under many heads those men had taken loans from Carpinatius who had given money to Verres. This will be brighter than light to you, gentlemen, when I produce those very men who gave it. For you will understand that those very times in which, when they were in danger, they bought themselves off with money, agree with the partnership’s books not only by the consuls but even by the months.
nunc ad sociorum tabulas accepti et expensi, quas removere honeste nullo modo potuerunt, et ad amicum tuum Carpinatium revertemur. inspiciebamus Syracusis a Carpinatio confectas tabulas societatis, quae significabant multis nominibus eos homines versuram a Carpinatio fecisse qui pecunias Verri dedissent; quod erit vobis luce clarius, iudices, tum cum eos ipsos produxero qui dederunt; intellegetis enim illa tempora per quae, cum essent in periculo, pretio sese redemerunt cum societatis tabulis non solum consulibus verum etiam mensibus convenire.
While we were learning these things and held the books in our hands, suddenly we see erasures of such a kind as if they were certain fresh wounds in the books. Hit at once by suspicion, we turned our eyes and minds to those very entries. There were sums of money received by Gaius Verrucius, son of Gaius — but in such a way that up to the second R the letters stood whole, all the rest were on an erasure. A second, a third, a fourth, very many entries of the same kind there were. When the disgraceful business was being caught manifestly by the erasure of the books, and the conspicuous shame, we begin to ask Carpinatius who that Verrucius was with whom he had so great an account. The man hangs about, fidgets, blushes. Because by the law the books of publicans are exempted from being carried to Rome, that the matter might be as plain and as well attested as possible, I summon Carpinatius before Metellus and bring the partnership’s books down into the forum. The greatest gathering of men is made; and because Carpinatius’s notorious partnership and money-lending with this praetor was known, all were waiting most eagerly for what was contained in the books.
cum haec maxime cognosceremus et in manibus tabulas haberemus, repente aspicimus lituras eius modi quasi quaedam vulnera tabularum recentia. statim suspicione offensi ad ea ipsa nomina oculos animumque transtulimus. erant acceptae pecuniae C. VERRVCIO C. F., sic tamen ut usque ad alterum R litterae constarent integrae, reliquae omnes essent in litura; alterum, tertium, quartum, permulta erant eiusdem modi nomina. cum manifesto res flagitiosa litura tabularum atque insignis turpitudo teneretur, quaerere incipimus de Carpinatio quisnam is esset Verrucius quicum tantae pecuniae rationem haberet. haerere homo, versari, rubere. quod lege excipiuntur tabulae publicanorum quo minus Romam deportentur, ut res quam maxime clara et testata esse posset, in ius ad Metellum Carpinatium voco tabulasque societatis in forum defero. fit maximus concursus hominum, et, quod erat Carpinati nota cum isto praetore societas ac faeneratio, summe exspectabant omnes quidnam in tabulis teneretur.
I lay the matter before Metellus: that I have inspected the partners’ books; in these books a great account of Gaius Verrucius stands under very many entries; that I see this from the reckoning of consuls and months: that this Verrucius neither before the coming of Gaius Verres nor after his departure had any account whatever with Carpinatius. I demand that he answer me: who is this Verrucius? A merchant or a businessman or a farmer or a cattle-man? Is he in Sicily, or has he now departed? All from the assize cry out that there was never anyone in Sicily named Verrucius. I press to have him answer me who he is, where he is, whence he is; why the slave of the partnership who made up the books was always at one fixed place defective in the name of Verrucius.
rem ad Metellum defero, me tabulas perspexisse sociorum; in his tabulis magnam rationem C. Verruci permultis nominibus esse, meque hoc perspicere ex consulum mensuumque ratione, hunc Verrucium neque ante adventum C. Verris neque post decessionem quicquam cum Carpinatio rationis habuisse; postulo ut mihi respondeat qui sit is Verrucius, mercator an negotiator an arator an pecuarius, in Sicilia sit an iam decesserit. clamare omnes ex conventu neminem umquam in Sicilia fuisse Verrucium. ego instare ut mihi responderet quis esset, ubi esset, unde esset; cur servus societatis qui tabulas conficeret semper in Verruci nomine certo ex loco mendosus esset.
And I demanded these things, not because I thought he should be compelled to answer me unwilling, but that to all this man’s thefts, the other’s disgrace, and the audacity of both might be plain. So I leave him in court, mute and lifeless and scarcely alive from fear and from his guilty conscience. The books I copy out in the forum amid the greatest crowd of men. Leading men of the assize are called in for the writing; the letters and erasures are all reproduced and impressed from the books and transferred onto sheets.
atque haec postulabam, non quo illum cogi putarem oportere ut ad ea mihi responderet invitus, sed ut omnibus istius furta, illius flagitium, utriusque audacia perspicua esse posset. itaque illum in iure metu conscientiaque peccati mutum atque exanimatum ac vix vivum relinquo, tabulas in foro summa hominum frequentia exscribo; adhibentur in scribendo ex conventu viri primarii, litterae lituraeque omnes adsimulatae et expressae de tabulis in libros transferuntur.
All these things have been examined, collated, and sealed with the highest care and diligence by the most honourable men. If Carpinatius would not then answer me, do you answer me now, Verres: who do you think this Verrucius — almost of your kin — is? It cannot be that the man whom I see was in Sicily when you were praetor, and whom from the very account I understand to have been wealthy — this man you in your province should not have known. And, that this may not be either too long or too obscure, come forward and unfold the description and image of the books, that all mortals may be able to see not the traces but the very lairs of this man’s greed. Let the book be unfolded.
haec omnia summa cura et diligentia recognita et collata et ab hominibus honestissimis obsignata sunt. si Carpinatius mihi tum respondere noluit, responde tu mihi nunc, Verres, quem esse hunc tuum paene gentilem Verrucium putes. fieri non potest ut, quem video te praetore in Sicilia fuisse et quem ex ipsa ratione intellego locupletem fuisse, eum tu in tua provincia non cognoveris. atque adeo, ne hoc aut longius aut obscurius esse possit, procedite in medium atque explicate descriptionem imaginemque tabularum, ut omnes mortales istius avaritiae non iam vestigia sed ipsa cubilia videre possint. Liber explicetur.
Do you see Verrucius? Do you see the first letters whole? Do you see the last part of the name — that Verrine tail, as if dipped in mud, sunk into an erasure? So the books stand, gentlemen, as you see. What do you await? What more do you ask? You yourself, Verres — why do you sit there, why do you delay? For either you must produce Verrucius for us, or confess that you yourself are Verrucius. The old orators are praised — those famous Crassi and Antonii — because they were wont to dispel charges with clarity, and to defend the cases of defendants with abundance. No wonder: those men outdid these advocates not only by talent, but also by fortune. For no man then sinned in such a way as to leave no place for defence; no man so lived that no part of his life was free of the highest disgrace; no man was caught in so manifest a sin that, if he had been shameless in the deed, he would seem more shameless if he denied it.
videtis Verrucium? videtis primas litteras integras? videtis extremam partem nominis, codam illam Verrinam tamquam in luto demersam esse in litura? sic habent se tabulae, iudices, ut videtis. quid exspectatis, quid quaeritis amplius? tu ipse, Verres, quid sedes, quid moraris? nam aut exhibeas nobis Verrucium necesse est aut te Verrucium esse fateare. laudantur oratores veteres, Crassi illi et Antonii, quod crimina diluere dilucide, quod copiose reorum causas defendere solerent: nimirum illi non ingenio solum his patronis, sed fortuna etiam praestiterunt. nemo enim tum ita peccabat ut defensioni locum non relinqueret; nemo ita vivebat ut nulla eius vitae pars summae turpitudinis esset expers; nemo ita in manifesto peccato tenebatur ut, cum impudens fuisset in facto, tum impudentior videretur si negaret.
Now what is Hortensius to do? Is he to head off charges of greed by praises of frugality? But the man he defends is the most disgraceful, the most lustful, the most wicked. Or is he to lead your minds away from this man’s infamy and wickedness to another part — the recollection of his fortitude? But no man more inert, more cowardly, more a man among women, more a foul little woman among men, can be brought forward. But "his ways are pleasant"? Who more contumacious, who more inhuman, who more arrogant? But "these things without harm to anyone"? Who more bitter, who more treacherous, who more cruel was ever? In such a man, and in such a case, what would all the Crassi and Antonii do? Just this, I suppose, Hortensius: they would not approach the case, nor in another’s shamelessness lose the standing of their own modesty. For they came to cases free and unbound, and did not bring it about that, if they had not been willing to be shameless in defending, they should be reckoned ungrateful in deserting.
nunc vero quid faciat Hortensius? avaritiaene crimina frugalitatis laudibus deprecetur? at hominem flagitiosissimum libidinosissimum nequissimumque defendit. an ab hac eius infamia nequitia vestros animos in aliam partem fortitudinis commemoratione traducat? at homo inertior, ignavior, magis vir inter mulieres, impura inter viros muliercula proferri non potest. at mores commodi. quis contumacior, quis inhumanior, quis superbior? at haec sine cuiusquam malo. quis acerbior, quis insidiosior, quis crudelior umquam fuit? in hoc homine atque in eius modi causa quid facerent omnes Crassi et Antonii? tantum, opinor, Hortensi: ad causam non accederent neque in alterius impudentia sui pudoris existimationem amitterent. liberi enim ad causas solutique veniebant, neque committebant ut, si impudentes in defendendo esse noluissent, ingrati in deserendo existimarentur.